Bringing Up Babies

“So what happened?” Chas asked quietly.

“I waited for him while he went to college, forgave a couple of indiscretions, then suffered public humiliation when he left me at the altar a couple of weeks ago—white dress, bridesmaids, impatient minister and all.”

Chas and his libido tried to picture it and couldn’t. It didn’t make any sense that a normal, red-blooded man would leave this beautiful, charming, sweet, sincere woman at the altar. The man must have been an absolute fool.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

Chas didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud, but deduced he must have mumbled or she wouldn’t have needed a repeat. “I said that was absolutely cruel.”

“It was cruel,” Lily agreed softly. “And painful.”

“And that’s why you left Wisconsin,” Chas said, finishing her thought for her. It all made perfect sense to him now. A beautiful woman shows up on his doorstep with no purpose or direction in life, save that of wanting to help him with his kids. He should have known. She was rebounding from another relationship.

Even as Chas breathed a sigh of relief because he knew only a blockhead got involved with someone who had two weeks ago been publicly jilted, his libido didn’t seem to have any problem with her story at all.

Though he judged himself to be an honest, honorable man who would never take advantage of a struggling, vulnerable woman, he also knew he’d lost this battle, because his intellect and integrity weren’t the problem. His libido was.

Chapter Three

A beam of bright autumn sunshine woke Lily. Slowly, contentedly, she opened her eyes to the golden warmth.

As she stretched languidly, like a cat stirring from a nap on a sunny sidewalk, she recognized she was happy for the first time in weeks. She knew it was because she’d finally found a job. Then she suddenly realized that she should have been awakened in the middle of the night to help care for the triplets, and she should probably be feeding them breakfast right now.

Bouncing out of bed, she glanced at the clock and groaned. Nine-thirty! She was late. She couldn’t afford to be irresponsible. She needed this job too much. She had less than fifty dollars to her name, and not only did staying employed mean she had a source for a paycheck for an undetermined span of time, it also meant she was going to be fed and housed courtesy of Grant and Chas Brewster.

The very thought of Chas stopped Lily dead in her tracks. She remembered his lean, athletic body and the sensual grace with which he moved. She remembered his shrewd, assessing gray-green eyes. She remembered his thick, sandy brown hair.

Unfortunately she was directly in front of the mirror and saw that her own hair was going in every direction, she wasn’t wearing a stitch of makeup, and her one-piece flannel pajamas were covered with skiing bears.

Confused, she blinked twice, waiting for her mind to refocus. Surely she didn’t care what she looked like. Because if she did, it could only mean that she cared what Chas Brewster thought of her. And she didn’t care what he thought of her…did she?

No, she couldn’t. Could she?

No. Absolutely not, she decided, drawing in a long, life-sustaining breath of air. For Pete’s sake, falling too hard for a man was what had gotten her into this predicament in the first place. She couldn’t even look at another man until she got her life straightened out.

Nonetheless, she needed to hide the bears.

Grabbing a robe from the chair on her way to the door, Lily hurried out of her bedroom. She put the robe on while still standing in the alcove, then entered the kitchen, yanking the drawstring belt.

“I’m sorry,” she said before she even said good-morning.

“That’s quite all right,” Chas said politely, scooping a bit of oatmeal from Annie’s chin and rerouting it to her mouth.

Before she could stop herself, Lily noticed how relaxed and sexy he looked in his jeans and sweatshirt. She also noted that although his haircut was neat, certain strands tumbled boyishly over his forehead. Unfortunately she simultaneously realized that she was paying attention to how handsome he was—again! Why was it she couldn’t be in the same room with him without this awareness of him?

“Everybody’s first day with the triplets is hard,” he said, still not looking at her. “I thought I’d cut you a break and let you sleep in today.”

“Because I’m going to be the one getting up with the kids tonight?” Lily speculated, walking to the coffee-maker on the counter beside the sink, telling herself to ignore her attraction to him. She was a mere two weeks out of a six-year relationship. It was too soon to think she was finding another man attractive—even though he was. In fact, that was probably the point. Chas Brewster was a commanding, regal, masculine man. He probably attracted women the same way cheesecake attracted dieters.

She found a cup and poured coffee into it, forcing her mind off Chas and on to her surroundings. The entire kitchen was immaculately white, as was a good bit of the rest of the house. From that alone, Lily surmised the place had been decorated before the triplets were born. She didn’t have a clue how the father of three grown men could end up with three infants, but she figured that wasn’t her business. When the Brewsters were ready, they would tell her the story behind their father and stepmother. If they never told her, she would consider herself lucky to be able to avoid village gossip.

“No, you won’t be handling the kids tonight. I can do it myself,” Chas said agreeably. “Mostly they sleep through the night, anyway, and if they don’t, I know how to keep them occupied until I can get each one fed, diapered or rocked.”

“But you’re not supposed to care for the kids alone,” Lily protested, realizing that not only were Taylor and Cody happily chewing on play toys, but all three babies were dressed. He hadn’t sought her help with the kids in the night. He’d taken care of morning detail. Now he was planning to assume night duty again. “I want to help you.”

“And you will,” Chas said, still agreeable, still concentrating on Annie. “I have a meeting in town in about an hour and a half. Once I get through here, they’re all yours.”

“This isn’t what I was hired to do,” Lily argued, fearing for her job now that Grant was gone. She’d completely forgotten Chas hadn’t wanted to hire her; Grant had. But Grant wasn’t here and Chas was acting as though he didn’t need her. This time tomorrow she could be back on the street. “We’re supposed to be working together.”

“We don’t have to work together,” Chas said breezily, but he stopped the spoon on its way to Annie’s mouth as if he’d suddenly thought of something. “Unless you don’t think you can handle the kids by yourself,” he said, finally turning to look at her.

Lily felt as if time had come to a screeching halt. Looking confused and shocked, he peered at her hair, her face, and the bear-covered pajama leg that peeked out from beneath the hem of her pink chenille robe. A noise sounding like a groan or a laugh erupted from the back of his throat, but before Lily could be sure, he brought his hand to his mouth and pretended to cough.

“You can manage the kids alone, can’t you?” he asked slowly, his voice shaking as if he were desperately trying to control it.

She suspected he was laughing at her, and her chin lifted. “Why don’t you just go and get ready for your meeting…or change clothes or brief yourself on your notes. I’ll take care of the kids.”

“No,” he said, then coughed to clear his throat again. “That’s fine. I’m fine. Why don’t you go shower or whatever and I’ll finish up here?”

“Because we’re supposed to be working together,” Lily insisted, determined to make her point. She didn’t care if he didn’t like her hair, her lack of makeup or her pajamas. She wasn’t losing this job without a fight. “What do the kids usually do now?” she asked, walking to Taylor’s high chair. Seeing that Chas had dressed all three babies in little sweatpants, T-shirts and tiny tennis shoes, she said, “If they’re going outside, I can take them outside. If they usually watch ‘Sesame Street,’ I can take them to the family room. I’m perfectly qualified.”

“You’re also in your pajamas,” Chas said, sounding exasperated. “You can’t go outside.”

Lily glanced down at her robe. “I could still take them into the family room to watch TV,” she mumbled indignantly.

“Or you could take your shower and really be ready to care for them when I leave.”

Lily saw she was being foolish and combed her fingers through her unruly hair. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Chas said patiently. “Working with the triplets takes a while to get used to.”

“That’s not it,” Lily said, deciding she had to get this out in the open or she’d make herself crazy. It was hard enough to deal privately with her attraction to him. She couldn’t handle worrying about being fired, too. “I’m afraid you’re going to fire me, and I can’t afford to lose this job.”

Chas busied himself with Annie again. “I’m not going to fire you.”

Though it wasn’t a sweeping declaration of competency, Lily recognized that it had to be enough. She was justifiably insecure, because her ego had taken a real beating when Everett had left her at the altar. But more than that, she knew if she didn’t soon trust someone about something, she’d never reenter the real world. Chas might not be promising her a job forever, but he was backhandedly telling her he felt she was qualified to care for his three children, and that was a big, important deal. Knowing how much he and his brother Grant adored these kids, she understood they wouldn’t trust them to just anyone.

She nodded. “Okay. Then I’ll stop driving you nuts. I’ll shower and get dressed, and everything will go back to normal.”

Long after she was gone, Chas continued to stare at the alcove. He stared so long that it took two squeals from Annie before he came back to the present. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew that Lily would have some self-doubt from being left at the altar. Anybody would. But he still found her last statement incomprehensible. How could anyone as absolutely stunning as she was—a woman who brought him to groaning despair even without makeup, with sleep-tousled hair, and wearing pajamas covered with bears—ever think any house in which she lived would be normal?

Chas left the house about two hours later but not without making a big production about saying goodbye, leaving telephone numbers and giving Lily so many instructions she knew there was no way she could remember them all.

Particularly when she was having such a hard time concentrating on what he was saying.

It hadn’t occurred to her that he would have to dress for a business meeting, and when he walked down the spiral staircase, looking like someone off the cover of GQ she almost fainted. But it was the way he kissed each child goodbye, giving them individualized words of affection to make each one feel special, that really snagged her heart.

Before it was all over she could have hugged him for being so charmingly sweet to those babies. But thinking about hugging him tumbled into thinking about kissing him, and the mere thought of his lips touching hers sent a bubble of excitement through her, and she couldn’t get him out of the house fast enough.