Their Instant Baby

“Nonsense. He’s simply confused and missing his mommy.” Amy cuddled Dexter close and smoothed Dexter’s down hair with gentle, maternal strokes. “All he wanted was to be comforted.”

“I did comfort him!”

Amy merely lifted a brow. Nick could see she didn’t believe him.

“Honestly—” Nick lowered his voice with effort and put the overwhelming emotion he felt aside “—I did my best. And it wasn’t good enough.”

Nick looked at Amy sternly, knowing she was probably going to fight him on this, but knowing also there was no other choice, he laid down the law. “No more going our separate ways. You’re going to have to stay with me and Dexter from now on. At least until Dexter adjusts to his mother’s absence.”

Chapter Four

Amy would have thought Nick was just trying to wriggle out of the promise he had made to his sister to look after her son had she not seen the anguish on Nick’s face. He truly was out of his league here—or so he thought. And a man like Nick did not want to be in a situation where he could possibly fail.

“You’re being ridiculous,” she said in no uncertain terms.

“Look, Amy, I wish it were otherwise, but the bottom line is I don’t have the instinct for something like this. Never have had and never will.”

He wasn’t as bad at it as he thought. After all, she had seen Nick change Dexter’s diaper and hold him earlier without any problem. Initially Dexter had snuggled against Nick’s broad, sinewy chest every bit as readily as he had cuddled against the softness of her breasts. But apparently Nick had gained no confidence from that.

“So what are you saying?” Amy asked, doing her best not to let how handsome Nick looked in the fading afternoon light distract her. While she had been gone, he had changed into faded jeans and a dark-gray polo shirt that made the most of his tall, muscular frame. His hair was mussed, as if he’d run his hands through it, and the hint of evening beard gave him a mesmerizingly sexy I’m-in-charge-here look. Swallowing hard around the sudden tightness in her throat, she stepped back. “That you’re not willing to do your part in taking care of Dexter from here on out?”

“No.” Nick’s glance drifted over her in a decidedly sensual appraisal, lingering on the close fit of the sleeveless rose-colored blouse and matching tea-length skirt she had changed into before going over to her aunt’s, then returning to her face. His voice lowered to a hushed, seductive murmur that did nothing to disturb the drowsy baby in her arms. “I’m telling you that until Dexter adjusts to the two of us taking care of him, you should be close enough to comfort him if he needs it—just like you’re doing now.”

His plan sounded practical. Romantic even, if Amy contemplated the notion of being tucked away in decidedly intimate and cozy surroundings with a baby she was fast coming to adore and a handsome man. There was only one problem, she thought, aside from her very physical attraction to Nick and the fact that she wasn’t the type of woman who would ever have a fling.

“What about my work?” Amy said seriously. And although she didn’t want to let Dexter, Nick or Lola down, she had professional commitments. Her word was her bond. She couldn’t just walk away from that.

He regarded her seriously, suddenly looking as enamored of her as she was of him. “I respect that,” he said with a persuasive smile, “but I’m sure with some judicious planning, the two of us can both manage to get our jobs done and care for Dexter. Even if that means, in the short run, that Dexter and I go where you go.”

Amy contemplated that as a sizzle of awareness swept through her slender five-foot-seven frame. She wasn’t sure how much she could actually accomplish with Nick Everton underfoot—his sexy presence was a pretty potent distraction. On the other hand, she didn’t want Dexter to be crying inconsolably again just because he’d awoken from a nap and didn’t have either his mommy or a similarly female presence there to comfort him. Plus, she could see Nick was just trying to do what was best for his nephew, even if that meant he had to admit his inadequacy, something she figured the successful executive did not have an easy time doing. Nick was the kind of man who wanted to succeed at literally everything.

“All right,” Amy said after a moment, figuring this really was for the best. “I’ll make sure I’m with the two of you until we know Dexter has adjusted to us being here, instead of Lola.”

“Thanks,” Nick said with a relieved smile.

Aware of how easy it would be to get intimately involved here—with both Dexter and Nick—Amy looked down and saw that Dexter had gone to sleep again. Knowing she had to get the infant settled, Amy put Dexter down in his crib, covered him with a blanket and went back to the living room. “I promised my aunt I’d have a proposal ready for her by tomorrow morning, so I’ve got to get busy on it while Dexter is sleeping,” she said.

Nick nodded. “I’ll run to the grocery for us while you’re working. And pick up some dinner and anything else you’d like while I’m out.” He paused. “Do you need anything?”

“No,” Amy said, figuring the time apart would do them good, help her stop having these…thoughts. “Thanks.”

Amy waited until Nick had left, then sighed and went back out to her car. She brought in the card table, printer, digital camera, her laptop computer, a ream of paper and a corkboard and stand. She set up quickly and quietly, then kicked off her sandals and got down to work. To her relief, Dexter continued sleeping and was still sleeping when Nick returned, a little over an hour later. He came in carrying two bags of groceries in one arm and a big sack of Sticky Fingers carry-out in the other. Amy couldn’t suppress a delighted smile as she inhaled the delicious flavors of her favorite South Carolina barbecue. Maybe, she thought, sharing quarters with Nick and the baby wouldn’t be so difficult, after all.

Amy set the table while Nick put the milk, orange juice, eggs, bacon, bread, coffee and disposable diapers away. Together they opened up the barbecue sacks. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I got a little of everything,” he said.

He sure had, Amy noted happily. There were containers of hickory-smoked barbecued pork ribs, smoked turkey and rotisserie chicken. Barbecued baked beans, homemade coleslaw and potato salad, cinnamon baked apples, dirty rice, even some frogmore stew. His expression perplexed, Nick pointed to the container. “I wasn’t quite sure what this was,” he said, taking the lid off the spicy mixture. “But they assured me it had no frog in it. Just potatoes, peppers, onions, corn, sausage, shrimp and their special blend of spices.”

“It’s actually pretty good. Rich, though. Here, try a little.” Amy spooned up some and offered it to him. He regarded the concoction a tad suspiciously, but looking game nevertheless, closed his lips around the bite. He nodded agreeably as it melted on his tongue. “You’re right,” he said, his eyes sparkling with a mixture of pleasure and surprise. “It is good.”

Amy smiled with the pride of a Charleston native showing off her city, then asked as the two of them sat down at the small round breakfast table, “So how’d you know to go there?”

Nick’s knees bumped hers as he tried rather unsuccessfully to get his large frame settled comfortably at the cozy table. “I followed my nose. I figured anything that smelled that good had to taste pretty darn good, too.”

And it did, Amy thought as she dipped a piece of tender pork into her favorite Sticky’s condiment, the mustard-based barbecue sauce.

Nick added the “Hot” barbecue sauce to his. He inclined his head at the cardboard table and corkboard she’d set up in a corner of the living room. “What are you doing over there?” he asked.

Briefly, Amy explained to Nick about finding her long-lost great-aunt Eleanor and the nature of the job. “Anyway, when I was over at my aunt Winnifred’s this afternoon, I took pictures of the carriage house with my digital camera.”

“How long do you have to complete the job?” Nick asked.

Amy forked up some potato salad. “She wants it done as soon as possible—in two or three days.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“That’s a lot of pressure.”

Amy regarded Nick confidently. “I think it’ll be fine if I can get her to approve the overall design tomorrow morning.”

Nick took a long thirsty drink of his iced tea. “What are you going to do about furniture?”

That, Amy thought, as she took a bite of cinnamon apple, was a lot easier. She looked at Nick, noting he was as famished as she was. “The carriage house is filled with antiques. I took photos of those, too. And that’ll help me decide what pieces we’re going to use when we redecorate.”

“I’m surprised she doesn’t want to start from scratch and buy everything she needs, rather than recycle what she already has,” Nick said as he ladled more of everything onto his plate. At Amy’s look, he shrugged affably. “People of her stature usually do.”

“Actually she did want to do that,” Amy said, surprised and pleased by Nick’s intuitive understanding of her business. “I’m the one who vetoed it.”

“Why? Wouldn’t there be more commission for you if she did buy all new?” he asked casually as he finished the rest of his frogmore stew and dirty rice. “Assuming she’s paying you for the work and it’s not gratis because she’s family.”

Amy ate a bite of the tangy coleslaw. “Aunt Winnifred is paying me—although I tried to get her to accept it as a gift. But she would have none of it.”

“Good for her.” Nick’s eyes met and held Amy’s. “People shouldn’t take advantage of family.”

Amy agreed about that. Family was important, which was why she wanted one of her own so badly.

“So back to what you plan to do for the carriage house,” Nick prodded. Finished with their meal, they rose and carried their plates to the sink.

“Basically, what I do for everyone else,” Amy said as she rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher, while Nick put the leftover food in the refrigerator. “I go in, look at what they have, assess what they want and what they need to make that happen.”

Nick shut the refrigerator door and came back to stand beside her. “You make it sound easy.”

Amy wiped down the table, while he took the plastic bag out of the kitchen garbage container, tied it shut and replaced it with another. Amazed at how easily and effortlessly they were able to work together, Amy smiled at Nick as they walked onto the screened-in back porch and out into the yard. Almost wishing it had taken them longer to get their dinner mess cleaned up—she was enjoying Nick so much she didn’t want their time together to end, didn’t want to have to go back to work that evening at all—Amy said, “Redecorating is easy—for me, anyway.”

Nick tossed the day’s garbage into the pail and closed the lid, then followed her over to the clothesline. Wordlessly he began helping her collect the now dry linen from the clothesline. “What’s the most common problem you find when you begin a job?”

Amy tossed the clothespins into the wicker basket, one after another. “Usually people want to throw out too much. Sometimes literally everything.” She shook her head, marveling at the waste. “It’s almost never necessary.”