Baby Business: Baby Steps. Karen Templeton

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СКАЧАТЬ screen, but eyes will do what eyes will do, and before he knew it, he’d scrolled through five or six pages of some of the driest, funniest stuff he’d read in ages—

      “Ohmigod … no!” He turned to see Dana striding across the carpet, a diapered Ethan clinging to her hip. “Nobody’s supposed to see that,” she said, slapping closed the computer, her cheeks flushed.

      “You wrote this?” he asked.

      “Yes, but—”

      “But, nothing. It’s good, Dana. No, I’m serious,” he said when she snorted. “The old Southern lady going on and on about her ailments …” He chuckled. “Priceless. You should be published.”

      Her blush deepened. “Yeah, well, it’s not that easy.”

      C.J. took the baby from her, a little surprised to see how quickly he’d grown used to the squirmy, solid weight in his arms. How quickly, and completely, the instinct to protect this tiny person had swamped the initial shock and panic and anger. “Have you even tried?” he said, laying the baby on the bed, then holding out his hand, indicating to Dana she needed to give him something to put on the kid.

      “Um … well, no. I mean, I can’t, it’s not finished yet.”

      “Then finish it,” he said, taking the little blue sailor outfit from her and popping it over the baby’s head. Getting arms and legs into corresponding openings was a bit trickier, however, so it took a while for him to realize Dana had gone silent behind him. When he turned, her eyes were shiny. And, yes, wide.

      “You really think it’s good?” she asked.

      “I really do. And for what it’s worth, I’m not a total philistine. I minored in contemporary American lit in college. So I know my stuff.”

      “Oh. Wow. I’m …”

      “… extremely talented. Really.”

      She blinked at him for another few seconds, then said, “So. Are you ready to storm Smith’s?”

      Ah. He’d embarrassed her. She’d get over it. What he wouldn’t get over, he realized as they all trooped out to his car, in which he’d installed the Cadillac of baby seats in the back, was that he’d never championed anyone before. Had never met anyone he’d wanted to champion.

      What a rush. A breath-stealing, heart-stopping, panic-inducing rush.

      Once in the store, he gave her free rein, offering little comment as she filled the cart with vegetables and fruits and roasts and fish and whole grain breads, with things he had no idea what to do with, other than to consume them once they’d been cooked. A perk he hadn’t even thought about, when he’d asked her to move in. And one he couldn’t help feeling a pang of guilt about now. Not a huge pang—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had roast pork—but a twinge nonetheless.

      “Your cooking for me wasn’t part of the arrangement.”

      After a smile for the baby when he grabbed for C.J.’s hand with the obvious intention of gnawing on his onyx ring, she said, “I’m not cooking for you. I’m cooking for myself.” She snagged several boxes of Jell-O off the shelf, tossing them into the cart. “May as well toss in a little extra while I’m at it.”

      “So I take it you know your way around a kitchen?”

      “People who love to eat generally love to cook.” She held up a small jar. “How do you feel about capers?”

      “Just don’t put them in the Jell-O.”

      “Deal.”

      And so it went, their conversation. Careful. Circumspect. He talked about work, she intermittently grilled him about his food preferences. He’d have had to be blind to not notice that she didn’t look his way unless she absolutely had to, that her smiles were fleeting, rationed. Strike what he’d thought before about her not having any walls, because there was definitely one up between them now, transparent and flimsy though it may have been. Not that she was a whiner. In fact, it was the way she seemed to curl around her obvious bad mood, swallowing her true feelings, that annoyed him so much. He didn’t like this Dana, he wanted the other Dana back, the one who’d tease and flash that dimpled smile for him.

      Periodically piercing the annoyance, however, was the swell of pride whenever someone stopped to admire Ethan. Which happened approximately every twenty feet. And Ethan took to his role as the charmer with equanimity, bequeathing wrinkle-nosed, two-toothed grins on everyone who spoke to him. After one gushing elderly couple continued on their way, C.J. looked at the baby and said, “How could anyone walk away from such a perfect kid?”

      That was enough to earn him a sideways glance, at least. And a smirk. “Says the man who’s lived with the child for one night. Believe me, he has his moments—”

      “Ohmigosh, aren’t you just the cutest little thing?” yet another admirer said, cooing at the baby as though she’d never seen one. “Oh, would you look at those two little teeth! How old?” she asked Dana.

      “Six and a half months.”

      “Aw, that’s such a wonderful age. Enjoy it, honey—it goes so fast. I had four, they’re all parents of teenagers themselves now, but it still seems like yesterday. And look at you, expecting again already, bless your heart! Well, bye-bye, sweetie,” she said to Ethan with a fluttery wave, then trotted off.

      The whooshing in C.J.’s ears nearly obliterated the piped-in seventies oldie bouncing off the freezer cases. At last he turned to Dana, his heart cracking at the stoic expression on her face.

      “You want me to go beat her up?”

      “That’s very sweet,” she said with a fleeting smile, “but I think I’ll pass. And anyway, better she think I’m pregnant than I’m nothing but a lazy slob without the willpower to starve myself down to a size eight.”

      “One isn’t better than the other, Dana.”

      “Maybe not. But I’m used to it. Come on,” she said quietly, nudging the cart toward the checkout. “It’s getting close to Ethan’s bedtime.”

      If she’d been subdued before, she was downright uncommunicative on the ride back to the house, his every attempt to draw her out meeting with little more than a monosyllabic reply.

      Oh, man, not since he was a kid had he felt this … this extraneous. Not that he hadn’t been well aware of his inability to connect with another human being except on the most basic of levels, but if this didn’t drive it home, boy, he didn’t know what did. Because, whether he understood it or not, whether he liked it or not, he did genuinely care about this woman, about what she was feeling. He hated seeing her hurt. But even more, he hated not knowing what to do to make it better.

      When they got back to the house, he offered to get Ethan ready for bed while Dana started their dinner. He wondered, as he carted his sleepy son down the hall, how he thought some biological connection was going to make him any more able to fix the inevitable hurts for his child than for Dana. With that, the resentment demons roared back out onto the field from where he’d tried desperately to keep them benched, fangs and claws glinting in the harsh light of C.J.’s own fear.

      Ethan lay quietly on the changing table during the СКАЧАТЬ