Jingle Bell Baby. Kate Little

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СКАЧАТЬ then picked her up and held her close and did a few laps around the butcher-block table, but to no avail.

      “Your order is coming right up, ma’am. One bottle, room temperature. Sorry for the delay. Just happens to be the cook’s night off and the kitchen is a bit backed up,” she chattered to the baby in a bright, waitressy voice.

      The baby stared at her. Her crying lessened to a soft whimper.

      “We make a wonderful bottle of warm milk here, if I might say so myself,” Jessie continued. “Babies come from miles around for our bottles and I think you will truly enjoy it, ma’am.”

      Finally the bottle seemed warm enough. Jessie placed Daisy back in her basket, then took bottle and baby back out to the dining room where she could sit down comfortably.

      With Daisy settled in the crook of her arm, Jessica offered her the bottle. The baby clamped on and sucked with astounding force.

      “This one is on the house, honey. And do let me know if there’s anything else I can bring you—”

      Daisy’s face soon glazed over with a look of utter contentment. With her eyes half-closed, she reached up and held onto the bottle. Her little fingers rested trustingly on Jessie’s and Jessie gazed down at the tiny hand, feeling a strange and wonderful thrill. A little milk dribbled down Daisy’s chin and Jessie quickly wiped it away with a paper napkin.

      She was just so darn cute, Jessie thought. How in the world had anyone had the heart to leave her?

      While Daisy sucked away, Jessie guessed that calling the police and reporting she’d found a baby should be the next order of business. But then they would come and take Daisy away—wouldn’t they?

      The bells on the door jingled again and Jessie quickly looked up. Drat, she’d forgotten to lock the door and turn the sign. Well, she’d just have to tell whoever it was that she was closed.

      A man entered. A huge, snow-covered man who stood with his head bowed, cursing softly to himself as he shook the white powder from his thick dark hair and stomped his heavy boots. The gesture and the sheer size of him distracted Jessica from the baby for a moment.

      “Sorry, but we’re closed,” Jessica shouted in his direction. “You can have a cup of coffee to go, but I have to warn you, it’s been sitting there all night and must taste like mud,” she added, looking up at him again.

      He had finally picked up his head and stared at her with brilliant blue eyes, eyes the color of a cloudless summer sky. The expression on his face, however, was anything but cloudless—it could only be described as a dark scowl. His dark brown hair, wet and slicked back from his forehead, accentuated his bold features—a wide brow, high cheekbones and square jaw. He was in need of a shave, she noticed, and looked as if he’d had a hard night that wasn’t going to end anytime soon. But he was definitely one hell of a good-looking man. If you liked them tall, dark and difficult, that was. Which she certainly did not.

      “Luckily I’m not here for the coffee,” he curtly informed her.

      “Well, the rest room is back and to the right,” Jessie said, her attention still fixed on the baby. “Normally, it’s for paying customers only, but I suppose on a night like this it can’t be helped.”

      “And I didn’t stop in to use the damn john,” he said, sounding more than a bit insulted, she thought, at her assumption. “I came in to tell you to close up. There’s a fullblown blizzard out there, lady, or haven’t you noticed?”

      “I guess I didn’t,” Jessie replied truthfully. She glanced out the window. Yes, it was snowing buckets, but as a native New Englander, the sight of a little—well, a respectable amount of—snow didn’t throw her into a panic.

      “Even if you’re not concerned for yourself,” he added in a disapproving tone, “you certainly ought to give a thought to your baby.”

      “Listen, you—whoever you are—” Jessica began, ready to set the stranger straight.

      The baby had sucked the bottle down to the very last drop and now made a loud sucking sound on the nipple. Jessica turned her attention back to Daisy and gently pulled the nipple from her mouth.

      “Now, wasn’t that nice?” Jessie said to Daisy. “You were hungry, weren’t you?”

      Totally satiated, the baby stretched across Jessie’s lap as floppy as a rag doll. Jessie wondered if she should just let her go to sleep. Wasn’t there something else you were supposed to do?

      Jessica rocked Daisy in her arms, trying to remember what it was you were supposed to do after babies ate.

      “Aren’t you going to burp her?” an annoying masculine voice asked. “She’ll just wake up screaming with a gas bubble later.”

      That was it! They needed to be burped. Though grateful for the information, Jessie didn’t thank him.

      “Of course I’m going to burp her,” Jessie said indignantly. She lifted Daisy up to her shoulder and began patting the baby’s back, as she had seen it done.

      Why did people make such a big deal out of taking care of a baby? There didn’t seem to be all that much to it.

      As she gave Daisy’s back gentle pats, she turned back to the object of her ire, who had now come closer and was standing right over her. At close range he was even bigger, more imposing…and even better looking.

      “Who the hell are you, anyway? Barging into my place, sticking your two cents where it definitely doesn’t belong—”

      “This is your place?”

      “That’s right. Jessica Malone, owner, manager, tonight’s star waitress.” She introduced herself, her tone edged with sarcasm.

      He did not look the least bit mollified.

      “Sorry, I’m new in town. I haven’t gotten around to meeting all the local—” She could have sworn he was about to say “characters” but he caught himself just in time. “Business owners.”

      He smiled at her, not exactly a warm smile. Still, it did something wonderful to his face, Jessie couldn’t help but notice, crinkling his eyes most attractively around the corners and causing an astoundingly deep dimple to crease one cheek. She would bet dollars to doughnuts—baked on the premises, of course—that this man didn’t smile often. Not from the heart, anyway.

      “Apology accepted,” she said. “And you are—?”

      “Clint Bradshaw, town’s new sheriff.” He flipped open one side of his jacket to show her his badge, pinned on a black crew-neck sweater that stretched across his muscular chest.

      “Congratulations,” Jessica said dryly. She felt her gaze fix on the man’s rather impressi e physique. He caught her looking and smiled again, just the hint of a grin at the edge of his well-formed lips that said, “Gotcha!”

      She turned away, feeling the color rise hotly in her cheeks.

      It was a classic, nonverbal, male-female exchange, one of the “taking inventory” variety. Not that Jessie had been taking inventory of all that many men lately. But at twenty-nine years old, with one broken engagement under her belt and a few more “definite СКАЧАТЬ