Santa's Seven-Day Baby Tutorial. Meg Maxwell
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Santa's Seven-Day Baby Tutorial - Meg Maxwell страница 7
Название: Santa's Seven-Day Baby Tutorial
Автор: Meg Maxwell
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Mills & Boon Cherish
isbn: 9781474060462
isbn:
“And how do I know what cry means what?” Colt asked, eyeing the baby in his arms. Noah was now examining Colt’s ear, giving the lobe little tugs.
“Trial and error. In a few hours, you’ll just know. Oooh, Colt, we’re at the ship! ’Bye now!”
Noah’s fascination with his uncle’s ear stopped suddenly. He began fussing and wiggling. His face crumpled. Then the wailing started. Man, that was a loud sound from such a tiny child. A sniff in the direction of the baby’s padded bottom told Colt he didn’t need changing. His sister had said they were fed right before they’d left home. He tried bouncing him a little, but that made the little guy fuss harder. He was stretching out his little arms. Should he set him down to crawl? On the hardwood floor?
Suddenly, an earsplitting shriek came from the stroller. Nathaniel was holding up his arms, his little face angry.
Well, he couldn’t pick up Nathaniel with Noah in his arms. He put Noah back in the stroller and reclined the seat, then handed Noah a pacifier. The baby immediately settled down, his big blue eyes getting droopy. Success! Except that his brother’s cries were going to keep him from his nap. Colt quickly took Nathaniel out of the stroller, bounced him against his chest for a few minutes until the baby quieted, then settled him back in the stroller, reclined the seat, popped a pacifier in his mouth and his eyes began drifting shut, too. He remembered from a visit to his sister’s house that the boys liked falling asleep to their lullaby player, so he poked around the tote until he found it and hung it on the stroller, Brahms’s Lullaby playing softy.
The knots were back in Colt’s shoulders. He’d handled this okay, but what about when they woke up and both needed changing. Feeding. Burping. And all that other baby stuff. How would he know what to do and when? He could hire a nanny, a baby nurse, to help out for the week. He sat down at his desk in front of his laptop and typed “nanny services” into the search engine and a bunch popped up. After calling several he learned that no one had anyone available on such short notice and especially so close to Christmas. One service had a trainee available with no experience, but that was Colt himself, so little good that would do.
He was going to need help. Suddenly, the Amish woman’s pretty face popped into his mind again. Hadn’t she said she loved babies? Hadn’t she been helping to take care of infant triplets for the past two months? Add to that the way she’d been so kind to her little cousin when that could have turned out very differently for the girl. And the way Anna had listened to him talk about his life, as though it was the most exciting thing she’d ever heard, though it probably was.
The way she dreamed of experiencing life outside her village. Perhaps being his nanny could be her...what had she called it? Rumspringa. She’d get to live as an “Englisher.” He’d get a homespun nanny.
He grabbed his phone and then realized he didn’t have a telephone number for her, and he was pretty sure the Amish didn’t have telephones in their homes. Which meant a drive back to the Amish village.
Now he just had to manage to get Noah and Nathaniel in their car seats without waking them up. The odds were not in his favor.
Just over two hours after her conversation with Colt Asher, Anna still could not stop thinking about him—his handsome face, the thick, silky dark hair, his green eyes, the slight cleft in his chin and how tall and fit he was. She and her aenti, onkel and young cousin were in the barn, Kate and Sadie wrapping the painted furniture that Anna and Eli were loading into the pony wagon parked outside. Thinking of the FBI agent in his condo in the sky made the chore of lugging furniture much more enjoyable.
As Anna and her onkel carried the bureau, a black SUV came down the long dirt drive into their village.
Colt was back. Goose bumps rose on every bit of her body at the idea of seeing him again.
But why was he here? Was there a problem with the guinea pig? Had he changed his mind about Sadie’s lack of punishment? A flash of fear crawled inside her.
“Is he the same Englisher who was here earlier?” her onkel asked as they finished loading the bureau into the wagon.
“Ja,” she said, spotting his unforgettable face through the windshield. “I wonder what he wants.”
As the FBI agent parked, her aenti and cousin emerged from the barn, Sadie wide-eyed.
Colt got out of his car, the engine still running, the windows lowered halfway. “Anna, I was hoping to speak to you.”
“About?” her onkel asked, stepping forward. “I’m Eli Miller, Anna’s uncle.”
To the Amish, men were heads of the household, but this was Anna’s house and she ran her own life. Something her onkel didn’t forget but ignored. Still, she wouldn’t show disrespect to Eli in front of a stranger. But later, she would let him know she would speak for and answer for herself.
“A job offer,” Colt said, his gaze on Anna.
While Anna stared at him, she could see out of the corner of her eye that her cousin and aenti were looking at each other with wide eyes.
“A job offer? What do you mean?” Anna asked, stepping forward next to her onkel.
“If you come over to my car, you’ll see,” Colt said, gesturing all of them over to the black SUV.
They all looked at one another, then followed him to the car.
Anna peered in. The front seats were empty. In the back were two car seats, rear-facing. She moved to the back of the car so she could look at the babies. They were about six months old, she’d say, and not identical but did look a lot alike. Both had wispy dark hair and big cheeks. Both were also fast asleep, with little stuffed animals on their laps. One baby had his toy clutched in his tiny fist.
Colt was married? A father? Had she been fantasizing about a married man? He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t married. Disappointment and shame hit her hard in the stomach.
“Your children are beautiful,” Anna said, forcing herself not to sound disappointed.
He smiled and shook his head. “They’re not mine. Noah and Nathaniel are my nephews. My sister and her husband were scheduled to leave for a cruise today but their nanny had the dates wrong and couldn’t watch the twins. That leaves me as the babysitter.”
All four Millers gawked at him. “You’re the babysitter?” Sadie said with a grin.
“I am. But I could use some help. I would like to hire you, Anna, to be the twins’ nanny for the seven days.”
Anna was so gobsmacked she could hardly think, let alone speak.
“Not in your home,” Onkel Eli said to Colt, lifting his chin.
Her aenti nodded. “That would not be proper.”
“Not in my home,” Colt said. “Now that I’m on baby duty, my plan is to visit my twin brother and his wife, who have a newborn. They live in Blue Gulch, a few hours’ drive from here. I would book СКАЧАТЬ