Special Deliveries: Wanted: A Daddy. Amanda Berry

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СКАЧАТЬ with his happy smile and his efforts to talk.

      ‘This is Liam!’ Vanessa said. He was cute too, with a mop of dark curls and a good dose of ADD in the making. Jasmine stood smiling, watching as Vanessa took about ten minutes just to get two shoes on her lively toddler.

      ‘Thank goodness for work,’ Vanessa groaned. ‘It gives me a rest!’

      ‘Don’t look now,’ Vanessa said as they walked out of the crèche, ‘they’re getting something big in.’ Jed and Lisa were standing outside where police on motorbikes had gathered in the forecourt. Screens were being put up and for a moment Jasmine wondered if her first day was actually over or if they were going to be asked to put the little ones back into crèche.

      ‘Go.’ Lisa grinned as Vanessa checked what was happening. ‘The screens are for the press—we have ourselves a celebrity arriving.’

      ‘Who?’ Vanessa asked.

      ‘Watch the news.’ Lisa winked. ‘Go on, shoo …’

      ‘Oh,’ Jasmine grumbled, because she really wanted to know. She glanced at Jed, who looked totally bored with the proceedings, and there was really no chance of a sophisticated effort because Simon was bouncing up and down with excitement at the sight of police cars and Liam was making loud siren noises. ‘I guess I’ll have to tune in at six to find out.’

      And that was the stupid thing about Emergency, Jasmine remembered.

      You couldn’t wait for the shift to finish—even today, as much as she’d enjoyed her shift, as soon as lunchtime had ended, she had been counting the minutes, desperate to get to the crèche and pick up Simon.

      Except that the second she had finished her shift, she wanted to go back.

      ‘I’ve missed it,’ she told Vanessa as they walked to the car park. ‘I was looking at a job in MRI, but I really do like working in Emergency.’

      ‘I’m the same,’ Vanessa admitted. ‘I couldn’t work anywhere else.’

      ‘The late shifts are going to be the killer, though,’ Jasmine groaned, ‘and I don’t even want to think about nights.’

      ‘You’ll work it out.’ Vanessa said. ‘I’ve got a lovely babysitter: Ruby. She’s studying childcare, she goes to my church and she’s always looking for work. And if she can deal with Liam she can more than handle Simon. She’s got really strict parents so she loves spending evenings and sometimes nights at my place.’ She gave Jasmine a nudge. ‘Though I do believe her boyfriend might pop over at times. Just to study, of course …’

      They both laughed.

      It was nice to laugh, nice to be back at work and making friends.

      Nice to sit down for dinner on the sofa, with a for-once-exhausted Simon. ‘Come on,’ Jasmine coaxed, but he wasn’t interested in the chicken and potatoes she was feeding him and in the end Jasmine gave in and warmed up his favourite ready meal in the microwave. ‘I’m not buying any more,’ Jasmine warned as he happily tucked in, but Simon just grinned.

      And it was nice to turn on the news and to actually feel like you had a little finger on the pulse of the world.

      She listened to the solemn voice of the newsreader telling the viewers about a celebrity who was ‘resting’ at the Peninsula after being found unconscious. She got a glimpse of Jed walking by the stretcher as it was wheeled in, holding a sheet over the unfortunate patient’s face. Then Jasmine watched as Mr Dean spoke, saying the patient was being transferred to ICU and there would be no further comment from the hospital.

      It wasn’t exactly riveting, so why did she rewind the feature?

      Why did she freeze the screen?

      Not in the hope of a glimpse at the celebrity.

      And certainly not so she could listen again to Mr Dean.

      It was Jed’s face she paused on and then changed her mind.

      She was finished with anything remotely male, Jasmine reminded herself, and then turned as Simon, having finished his meal and bored with the news, started bobbing up and down in front of the television.

      ‘Except you, little man.’

       CHAPTER SIX

      JED DID CONCENTRATE on work.

      Absolutely.

      He did his best to ignore Jasmine, or at least to speak to her as little as possible at work, and he even just nodded to her when they occasionally crossed paths at the local shop, or he would simply run past her and Simon the odd evening they were on the beach.

      He was a funny little lad. He loved to toddle on the beach and build sandcastles, but Jed noticed that despite her best efforts, Jasmine could not get him into the water.

      Even if he tried not to notice, Jed saw a lot as he ran along the stretch of sand—Jasmine would hold the little boy on her hip and walk slowly into the water, but Simon would climb like a cat higher up her hip until Jasmine would give in to his sobs and take him back to the dry sand.

      ‘You get too tense.’ He gave in after a couple of weeks of seeing this ritual repeated. He could see what Jasmine was doing wrong and even if he ignored her at work, it seemed rude just to run past and not stop and talk now and then.

      ‘Sorry?’ She’d given up trying to take Simon into the water a few moments ago and now they were patting a sandcastle into shape. She looked up when Jed stood over her and Jasmine frowned at his comment, but in a curious way rather than a cross one.

      He concentrated on her frown, not because she was resting back on her heels to look up at him, not because she was wearing shorts and a bikini top, he just focused on her frown. ‘When you try to get him to go into the water. I’ve seen you.’ He grinned. ‘You get tense even before you pick him up to take him in there.’

      ‘Thanks for the tip.’ Jasmine looked not at Jed but at Simon. ‘I really want him to love the water. I was hoping by the end of summer he’d at least be paddling, but he starts screaming as soon as I even get close.’

      ‘He’ll soon get used to it just as soon as you relax.’ And then realising he was sounding like an authority when he didn’t have kids of his own, he clarified things a little. ‘I used to be a lifeguard, so I’ve watched a lot of parents trying to get reluctant toddlers into the water.’

      ‘A lifeguard!’ Jasmine grinned. ‘You’re making me blush.’

      She was funny. She wasn’t pushy or flirty, just funny.

      ‘That was a long time ago,’ Jed said.

      ‘A volunteer?’

      ‘Nope, professional. I was paid—it put me through medical school.’

      ‘So how should I be doing it?’

      ‘I’ll show you.’ He offered her his hand СКАЧАТЬ