Maybe, Baby

“God.” He rolled to his back and tugged a sloppy tangle of quilts around his chin, staring blindly at a wood plank ceiling he knew was festooned with solidified drips of resinous matter and ghostly tatters of cobwebs. The country style had so much natural charm to offer, if one knew where to look.

The baby wailed again, from the direction of the open room that served as entry, parlor, dining area and kitchen. One more minute, and he’d go out there, to see if Nora needed any help.

And what kind of assistance would he offer her? Feed the baby? Change its nappy? Ship it to a boarding school?

He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, grimacing at the freeze-dried nubbin that was his nose. Ashley. The baby’s name was Ashley. He didn’t wish to be on more familiar terms with the child than necessary, but Nora seemed to require his active admiration and involvement.

Part of any producer’s job, after all: making nice with the talent. And he valued his friendship with the actress enough to make more of an effort.

There. Silence.

Perhaps they’d both frozen to death.

He borrowed a few of Greenberg’s nastiest swearwords as he tossed off the covers and reached for his glasses, and then swung his bare feet to the scratchy wool rug covering a portion of the wood floor. Tugging a sweater over his head, he made his way down the short hall to the front room, where a tropical wave of stove-heated air washed away his goose bumps.

Nora, swathed in her high-necked gown and a shawl-like wrap, rocked in the tall chair beside the stove and crooned an off-key tune in a slightly hoarse voice. She made a gorgeous Madonna, a Renaissance vision of ripe curves beneath the flowing folds of the soft fabric, of perfect features against pale skin. Her dreamy, ethereal expression as she stared at the child in her arms was as peaceful, as compelling as a timeless work of art. Her black hair tumbled and waved about her shoulders, thick and lustrous and practically begging a man to bury his fingers in its silky strands.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. Where had that last terrifying thought come from? He knew he wasn’t sleepwalking through a nightmare—he was all too aware of the needlelike tingling in his toes as the blood began to circulate through them.

“Burke.” She whispered his name with a finger against her lips. “I just got her to sleep.”

“Congratulations.”

He stood in the center of the room, uncertain of his next move. She sighed and leaned her head against the chair, and he noticed the dark smudges beneath her eyes.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked.

She smiled and shook her head. “No, thank you. I’m just going to sit here a while longer and enjoy the quiet.” She shifted the baby slightly. “I’m sorry we woke you.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“I don’t?” One of her feathery brows arched up in amusement. “Don’t you start getting sarcastic with me, buster. I’m the mom here. I’ll send you to your room.”

“You’re not my mother.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“You’re a good one. A good mother.”

The rocker stilled. “Do you really think so?”

Yes, he did, but why had he blurted it out like that? Another renegade thought coming at him from an unknown source. He obviously wasn’t himself tonight, speaking without thinking things through. “You’re much more patient than I thought you’d be.”

“Patient?”

“With the—” he waved his hand in a circle “—with the spitting up. And the crying. And—and everything.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “Thank you.”

“I meant it as a compliment.”

“I’m sure you did,” she said, although she didn’t seem all that convinced of the fact.

“Is it normal for a baby to be…to be so—”

“Annoying?”

“I’m sure she’s not doing it on purpose.”

Nora stared at him for a long moment. “Come here,” she said at last. “You haven’t had a chance to get a good look at her.”

He was tempted to disagree, but he tiptoed across the room and moved to Nora’s side to peer at the infant in her arms.

Asleep, Ashley was a different baby entirely. Pink and delicate, and…amazing, now that he had this chance to study her without any anxiety about holding her correctly or bracing for something unpleasant. Every feature that should be present was correctly in place—and each of them was an incredible, perfect miniature. He had never seen human hair so fine, curving in such interesting waves, or such a little nose turning up in such a wonderfully sculpted shape. The tiny spikes of her eyelashes spread in a soft crescent along cheeks that already showed the promise of her mother’s lush curves, and her pink lips bowed with the hint of a killer pout. As he watched, her mouth moved in a silent rhythm.

“What is she doing?” he whispered. “Is she dreaming?”

“Maybe.” Nora wrapped a fuzzy yellow blanket more securely over the baby’s shoulder. “I wonder what she dreams about. What she thinks.”

“Why does she cry so much?” He shifted from behind Nora’s chair so he could stare from a different angle. “Is she in pain?”

“A lot of the time, poor thing. She’s colicky, always has been. She’ll grow out of it eventually.”

“Poor Ashley.”

Nora looked up with a smile and reached for his hand, and he took hers and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Neither of them let go for a moment, and in the next moment it was too late—he was too aware of the feel of her hand in his to release it and return to the old ease between them. Her awkward tug as she pulled away told him she’d felt the same.

He rubbed one foot over the other, wondering how to make her smile again, how to undo this puzzling tension between them. He told himself they’d get things sorted out in the morning, when they’d both had a bit more sleep, but he couldn’t think of an appropriate exit line.

“You can go back to bed now,” she said. “We won’t be making any more noise for a while, and you should grab some sleep while you have the chance.”

“Is that what you do now? Grab sleep in snatches?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

She stared at her sleeping child with an achingly tender smile and set the chair in motion again. “For as long as it takes.”

He’d seen the smile he’d waited for, and now he was strangely sorry it was time to go. The expression on her face seemed to pierce right through him, reaching deep into a spot he hadn’t known existed until it twinged with a bittersweet pain.

“Good night, then,” he said.

“Good night, Burke.”

Her low, throaty tune followed him down the cold, dim hallway.