Temporary Dad

“Please, Mrs. Norwood, lower your voice. We have critically ill patients here.”

“You’re damned right!” Patricia said shrilly. “My husband happens to be one of them. He’s hanging on by a thread, and you’re acting like he’s here for a bikini wax. Now, we’ve been through this already. My cell batteries are dead. My charger is back home two thousand miles away. My ankle’s swollen to the size of a football, making it kind of excruciating for me to get around. Please let me use this phone.”

The nurse cast Patricia a sticky-sweet smile. “Perhaps a family member of one of our other patients has a cell they’d allow you to use in the special cellular phone area on the sixth floor?”

JED SLAMMED his cordless phone on the kitchen counter.

What was the matter with those guys down at the police station? They were supposed to be his friends.

Hell, Jed had been the one who’d thrown Ferris his police academy graduation party. And now the guy was claiming there wasn’t a thing more he could do to find Patti?

He glanced at his niece and nephews, thankfully all still sleeping.

What would he have done without the help of his new neighbor? What was he going to do when all three babies woke at the same time, demanding bottles and burping and diaper changing?

Jed had earned many medals for bravery as a fireman. Yet those snoozing pink and blue bundles made him feel like a coward.

The phone rang and he lunged for it before the next ring. “Patti?”

“She’s still not back?” said Craig, one of his firehouse buddies.

“Nope.”

“What’re you gonna do? We need you down here, man. There’s a brushfire on a field by the country club, and we just got back from a house-fire call over on Hinton.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“Nah, but their kitchen’s toast.”

“Bummer.” Jed had been on hundreds of scenes like this. Witnessed lots of why me’s and crying. Crying. Occupational hazard.

Annie said the same about her job. How she hated hearing babies cry. Jed hated hearing anyone cry. It was great that he saved lives, but the emotional toll taken by fires was every bit as horrible as the physical destruction.

Fire didn’t just ruin lives and houses, it also stole memories.

Snapshots of Florida vacations.

Golf and baseball trophies.

Those goofy little clay ashtrays kids make in kindergarten.

Little brothers.

He sighed into the phone.

“Jed, the chief’s real sorry about your sister, but we need you down here. Want me to call Marcie and ask her to watch the triplets for you?”

Marcie was Craig’s wife.

And yeah, she could come sit with the babies, but that would be about the extent of it. Those two didn’t even own a dog or a guppy. What did she know about taking care of three newborns?

But Annie…

She’d know what to do.

The way she’d calmed his niece and nephews earlier that day—it’d been a bonafied miracle.

“Jed? Want me to tell Chief when you’ll be in?”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Will do,” Craig said. “Catch you later.”

Jed pressed the phone’s off button.

He hated asking for help.

After his parents had died, he’d looked after not only himself but his sister, who’d been ten. He was nineteen then, and he’d done a good job. Their folks’ life insurance hadn’t lasted long, and when it’d run dry, he’d finished college at the University of Tulsa, taking night classes. Worked his tail off during the day making sure Patti had everything a kid could want.

The bank took the house they’d lived in with their parents since after the fire, but he’d found them an apartment over the old town theater. The whole building had long since been condemned, but back then, they’d played dollar movies there on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

When Patti was still a sweet kid, he’d taken her to most of the shows. No R-rated ones, though—his mom wouldn’t have approved.

He’d come close a few times to having to sell the cabin in Colorado that’d been in their family for generations. Money had been crazy tight, but somehow, he’d made things work. That cabin was the only tangible reminder of their parents. A part of Jed felt that he owed it not just to Patti, but to his own future children to keep it in the family. No matter what the personal cost.

He’d single-handedly raised his sister. He’d gone over her homework, helped her study for tests. Gone looking for her when he suspected she was hanging with the wrong crowd. Grounded her when, sure enough, he’d caught her guzzling beer down by the river.

He’d even been there to rub her back when she’d thrown up those beers a few hours later in the apartment’s rust-stained toilet.

He’d covered college applications and tuition. Book and dorm costs.

Through all of that, he’d never asked for any help himself.

Never wanted it.

But now…

Somehow this was different.

Helping Patti study for a test? That he could do. Dragging her home from a party? Paying her student loans? He could do that, too. But figure out how to care for three babies while launching a full-fledged investigation into Patti’s whereabouts?

He groaned.

If this afternoon was any indication of the fun still ahead, his sister’s latest stunt just might do him in.

Jed sighed, resting his elbows on the kitchen counter. “Patti, where are you?”

Ten minutes later, propping his front door open with a bag of rock salt he’d found in the coat closet, Jed did the unthinkable—knocked on Annie Harnesberry’s door to ask for help.

“JED. HI.” Annie ran her fingers through the mess on her head. Ever since leaving her neighbor’s, she’d been hard at work on her guest bath, scraping the shoddily applied popcorn ceiling, making way for something grander. A nice, restful Scrabble game would’ve been more fun, but difficult with only one player. Hmm…Someday she’d have to see if her new neighbor liked to play.

“Looks like you’ve been busy.” He brushed a large chunk of ceiling from her hair.

Not sure whether to feel flustered or flattered by his unexpected touch, Annie fidgeted with the brass door-knob. “One of the reasons I chose this condo was its great bone structure. Redecorating is a hobby of mine.”

“Great. Maybe you could tackle my place when you’re finished. We could talk tile over pizza.”

“Maybe.” Though his tone had been teasing, something about the warmth in Jed’s eyes led Annie to wonder if he might be at least a little serious about wanting to see her again. Was that why he was there?

To ask her out?

Wow. She’d just made this big move designed to steer her clear of all men, yet here she was, faced with another one. Even worse, the old optimist in her, the one who so badly wanted to find that elusive pot of gold at the end of the dating rainbow, had almost said yes. After all, the guy was movie-star gorgeous.

Not that appearance mattered in the scheme of things. Look what had happened during her first go-around with a good-looking guy. Her ex-husband, Troy, had been gorgeous. He’d also turned out to be her worst nightmare.

“Do you like Scrabble?” she blurted, not sure why. Both Troy and Conner had hated the game that was her family’s passion.

“Love it,” Jed said. “Sometime, when my life calms down, we’ll have to play. I warn you, though, I’m pretty good.” He winked.

Her stomach fell three stories.

No. No matter how handsome her new neighbor happened to be, she wasn’t—couldn’t be—interested. Yes, she’d date again because she couldn’t bear the thought of ending up alone. But not yet. Her head and heart just weren’t ready.

“Well—” He shuffled his feet.

From across the breezeway, Annie noticed his propped-open front door, and beyond that, the corner of a blue bassinet. “Your sister’s still not back?”

“No. I’m really starting to freak out.”

“I don’t blame you,” she said, squelching the urge to comfort him with a hug. At work, she hugged parents and students and co-workers, but in this situation, a hug might imply a certain affection she shouldn’t want to share.

“The reason I’m here,” he said, shooting her a beautiful smile that did the funniest things to her breathing, “is that all hell’s breaking loose down at the station and they need me ASAP. So, anyway, I was wondering if you could hang out at my place for the next twenty-four hours? That’s the length of my shift—but I’m sure Patti’ll be back way before then.”

“You mean you want me to babysit?” Handsome Jed Hale wasn’t here to ask her on a date but to care for his sister’s triplets.

She should’ve been relieved, so why did Annie’s heart sink? Why didn’t men see her for her, but only for her knack with kids?

Worse yet, why did she care?

Hadn’t she just established the fact that she had no current interest in any man?

“Yeah. Babysit. Oh—and of course I’ll pay. What’s the going rate?”

Bam. Annie’s ego took another nosedive.

Now the guy was even bringing money into it?

Why couldn’t he just offer to take her out for a nice friendly steak dinner once his sister finally showed up?

“Annie? What do you say? Can you help me out?”

Noooo, she wanted to scream.

Hanging out with kids was her day job.

At night, she did grown-up things like scraping ceilings and glazing walls and sipping wine and playing Scrabble.

And if she was honest…

Dreaming of what her life might’ve been like had she met a guy who didn’t hit or take advantage of her ability to move an infant from screaming to sleeping in twenty seconds.

What were the odds of a woman being so cursed in love?

“I know it’s short notice and stuff,” he said, those intriguing brown-gold eyes of his eloquently pleading his case. “But I really could use your help.”

“Okay,” Annie finally said, hating herself for being so easily drawn in by Jed’s puppy-dog sadness. She had to remind herself she wasn’t doing this for him, but for the babies.

If she’d learned anything during her years with Conner, it was that guys with ready-made families were only after one thing. And it had way more to do with heating up formula than anything that went on in the bedroom. “What time do you want me over?”

He winced. “Would now be too soon?”

ANNIE LOOKED UP from her seat at the end of Jed’s black leather sofa and came uncomfortably close to keeling over in an old-fashioned swoon.

Wow.

He stood at the base of the stairs, dressed in plain uniform navy cotton pants and a bicep-hugging navy T-shirt with a yellow Pecan Fire Department logo on the chest pocket. His choppy, short dark hair was damp from the shower.

He’d shaved, and the scent of his citrus aftershave drifted the short distance to where she sat. The mere sight of him, let alone his smell, implied clean, simple, soul-deep goodness. He was a fireman, charged with keeping helpless grandmas and grandpas and babies and kittens safe from smoke and flames.

It probably would’ve sounded crazy had she tried to explain her sudden reaction to the man. But in that moment, she knew he would never hurt her—at least not physically, the way Troy had.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you doing this for me,” he said.

“Sure. It’s no big deal.”

“Yes, it is.” He walked the rest of the way down the stairs. “You hardly know me, yet you’re giving up your time to help me out. In my book, that makes you good people.”

His words returned the warm tingle to her belly. She stood, not sure what to do with her flighty hands or dry mouth. “I already told you,” she said. “It’s no biggie.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then peered down at his black uniform shoes. “To me, it’s a very big deal. Don’t discount the value of what you do.”

The urge to hug him came back. In those opulent eyes of his she’d caught a glimpse of sadness. Fear for his sister? Or something more?

Before she had time to ponder the question, he was hugging her, wrapping her in his all-masculine scent and strength.

And his touch wasn’t awkward or inappropriate, but comforting and warm. And then, just as unexpectedly as the sensations had come, they were gone, and Jed was waving and walking out the door. Thanking her again. Smiling again. Alerting Annie to the undeniable fact that she was very much in trouble with a man and his adorable children—all over again.

HOURS LATER, Annie woke to a ringing phone.

It took a few minutes of fumbling in the dark to realize she’d fallen asleep on Jed’s sofa instead of her own. Another few minutes to actually find the phone—or not.

Somewhere, an answering machine clicked on.

Hey—congratulations! You’ve reached Jed. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.

Annie grinned.

During the time they’d spent together, Jed hadn’t shown any signs of having a sense of humor. The notion that he did made him that much more appealing.

“Jed,” a woman’s voice said. “Good grief, it’s after midnight out there. Where are you? Are my babies okay?”

Patti.

Hoping she’d find a phone attached to the machine recording the woman’s voice, Annie hustled up the stairs.

“You wouldn’t believe the trouble I’ve had finding a phone. Anyway, I’m all right, but—”

By the time Annie got to the top of the stairs, dashed across the short hall and into a master bedroom that was the mirror image of hers, it sounded as if the woman had been cut off.

Annie found the phone on a nightstand beside a badly rumpled king-size bed.

She answered but was too late. The dial tone buzzed in her ear.

She turned on a lamp and checked the phone for caller ID, but the cordless model didn’t have an ID window. She tried *69, but got an error message.

Great.

If the woman on the phone had been Patti, it seemed that she either didn’t want to be found or was having technical difficulties.

Annie sat on the edge of the bed.

From talking to Jed, she got the impression that he thought his sister had suffered some kind of emotional breakdown, then taken off on a joyride. But the woman on the phone sounded weary—not at all like she was off having fun. Her voice was full of concern—quite the opposite of a woman who’d abandoned three newborns with her bachelor brother. A brother who obviously didn’t know the first thing about caring for infants.

Waaaaaaa huh waaaaaaa!

Maybe it was time to quit playing detective and start playing temporary mom.

She smoothed the down-filled pillow on the bed and breathed in the room’s heady male scent.

Oh, boy.

Annie had the feeling she’d entered a definite danger zone.

Bedrooms were highly personal places.

They told a lot about people.

But since she was wasn’t interested in dating just yet, Annie didn’t want to know how sumptuous Jed’s navy-blue sheets felt against her skin. Or how they smelled of fabric softener and just a touch of his aftershave that had already made her heart race.

She especially didn’t want to see the really great framed print over his bed. Gauguin’s And the Gold of Their Bodies.

She’d always loved that painting.

Interesting that Jed did, too.

The full-figured island women evoked paradise and pleasure.

Waaa huh!

On her way out of the room, Annie trailed her fingertips along the cool, dust-free surface of an ornate antique dresser.

She loved antiques.

The stories behind them.

Where had this piece come from? Was it a family heirloom? Or something Jed picked up at auction? Did he like auctions? Annie did. Maybe they could go together some time? Share a Frito-Lay chili pie during—

Waaaaaaaaahh!

Casting one last curious look around the room, Annie hustled downstairs.

She’d scooped Pia out of her carrier and was feeling her diaper for thickness when the phone rang.

If it was Patti, she wasn’t missing her.

Running up the steps, Annie cursed herself for not bringing the cordless phone downstairs.

“Hello?” she said, out of breath. By the glow of the lamp she’d forgotten to turn off, she stared into the blue eyes of a grinning, wide-awake baby.

“Hey, Annie. Good—you found the phone.” There went that curious flip-flopping in her stomach. Could it be because Jed sounded as hot over the phone as he did in person? No. And to prove it, she changed her focus to plucking Pia’s pink Velcro bow off her pajama sleeve where it was once again stuck to return it to her hair.

“Were you hiding it?” she asked.

“What?”

“The phone.”

“Nah, I keep forgetting to move it. Lightning fried the one downstairs.”

“Did you serve it with ketchup or tartar sauce?”

He groaned. “That stank.”

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

“You’re forgiven. So? Everything going okay?”

“Sure. Pia’s up, but the boys are still sleeping. Oh—and your sister called.”

“You didn’t get to talk to her?”

“It took me forever to find the phone, and by the time I did, she’d been cut off.”

A long sigh came over the line.

Annie asked, “Want me to play the message for you?”

“Sure.”

She pressed the red button beside a blinking light, then held the phone to the speaker. When the woman’s voice abruptly ended, she said, “Well? That tell you anything?”

“Yep. Tells me to call off the cops and move on to Plan B.”

“What’s that?”

“Going to get her.”

“But you don’t know where she is.”

“Oh, yes, I do.”

Annie shifted the cooing baby to her other arm. “Care to let me in on the secret?”

Chapter Three

In the specially designated cell phone waiting area, Patti held an ancient-model cell phone over her head, waving it back and forth in the hope of finding a signal. The man she’d borrowed it from, Clive Bentwiggins of Omaha, was visiting his mother. Clive was at least ninety-eight and on oxygen. The hissing from his portable tank sounded like wind shushing through the Grand Canyon.

“Get one yet?” Clive asked, cradling a cup of black coffee.

Edging toward the Coke machine, holding up her phone arm, Patricia shook her head. “I had one over by that fake ficus, but I—oh, here. Right here.” Yes. Between the Coke machine and a corral of IV poles, the light indicating a signal glowed an intense green.

“Dial fast,” Clive said. “Don’t want you getting cut off again.”

She cast her phone benefactor a smile and dialed Jed’s number. It rang three times before the answering machine picked up. After the beep, she said, “Jed? Jed, honey, are you there? Jed!” She heard static on the line. Crap. She inched closer to the IV poles, but the green light disappeared.

Wheeling his hissing tank behind him, Clive walked toward her. “Losing it again?”

Patti nodded, tears welling in her eyes.

Where could they be?

Something had to be wrong. It was too late for Jed not to answer his phone.

He didn’t have a woman over, did he?

She should’ve known better than to leave her babies with him.

The green light came back on, but all she could hear was the hissing from Clive’s tank.

Covering the phone’s mouthpiece, she said, “Would you mind scooting your tank just a little bit that way? I’m having a hard time—” Too late. The signal was gone.

Patricia sighed.

Clive patted her back. “I raised six kids and twenty-three grandbabies. Trust me, your flock is fine. It’s that busted-up husband of yours you need to worry about.”

“HELLO?” Annie said, hands on her hips. “Care to finally let me in on your big secret?”

Jed had been home from his twenty-four-hour shift for five minutes. In those five minutes, he’d replayed Patti’s latest message ten times. Now he definitely knew where his sister had gone.

He shot into action, barreling into the kitchen. He’d take everything Patti left with him. There were only a few cans of formula and three or four diapers, but that should at least get him over the Colorado state line. In Denver, he’d grab whatever else he needed.

“Jed?” Annie’s sweet voice jolted him from his todo list.

Arms laden with his few requisite supplies, Jed looked up on his way back to the living room. “Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

“Packing.”

Annie’s eyes narrowed as she kissed the top of Pia’s head. “Please tell me you’re not planning to load up these sweet, sleepy babies and trek them wherever you think your sister may be.”

“Hey,” he said from the living room, dumping the baby grub into the diaper bag, “I can see why you might think I’m crazy to go traipsing blindly across the country. But for your information, I happen to know exactly where Patti is.”

“Oh, you do?” She followed him into the living room and gently set Pia on a fuzzy pink blanket on the floor. “Mind telling me how you worked it out, Sherlock?”

“Love to, Watson.” He grinned. “You like those old movies, too?”

Frowning, she said, “I prefer the books.”

“La-di-da.”

She stuck out her tongue. “Just get to the part where you unravel the mystery.”

“Simple deduction.” He snatched the diaper wipes from the coffee table. “Remember all that hissing and shushing on the answering machine message?”

“Yeah…” she said, arms crossed, eyebrows raised. “Can’t wait to hear where this leads.”

“She’s at our family cabin just outside Fairplay, Colorado.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Patti hardly said two words on that message, and from that you’ve deduced she’s holed up in some cabin?”

Snatching a few teething toys—plastic key rings and a clear plastic thingamajig with fish floating around inside—Jed said, “You know babies, right? Well, I know my sister. Ever since having the triplets, she’s had a rough time of it.”

“Duh.”

He shot his smart-mouthed neighbor a look.

She shot him one back.

Try as he might to stay on topic, Jed couldn’t help thinking that he liked this feisty side of her. As soon as he got things settled, he just might tackle a whole new case—figuring out how to take Annie’s PG-13 rating to a wicked-fun R!

He shook his head to clear it of the sweet sin threatening to muck up the next task on his road-trip agenda.

“Well?” she asked. “You’re zero-and-one. Gonna go for zero-and-two?”

Jed glanced up as he stuffed a blue blanket into his now-bulging duffel bag. “Anyone ever tell you that for having such a fine package, you sure have a sassy mouth?”

Annie’s face reddened and she looked away.

Hmm…Apparently he’d just pulled off his first TKO. “For your information, Little Miss Sassy Pants, all that hissing on the answering machine wasn’t hissing, but wind. Wind whistling through the pines and firs outside our family cabin to be specific. Cell-phone service is touchy up there, which explains why she constantly gets cut off.”

As much as Annie hated to admit it, Jed’s warped logic made perfect sense.

“Patti loves the place. When our folks were alive, we spent every summer up there for as long as I can remember. After they died, Patti and I went there as often as we could. Here in town, she was all about keeping up appearances. I guess she felt she had to put on this cool act. But up at the cabin, she was herself. A sweet kid who allowed herself to have fun.”

“But Jed—” Annie crossed the small space cluttered with stuffed animals to touch his arm “—she’s not a kid anymore. She’s a grown woman with a family of her own. If your assumptions are true—that she ran off to figure out her life—maybe what she doesn’t need is her big brother charging in for a needless rescue. Maybe she needs time to get her head on straight. I mean, that’s essentially why I moved here. I miss my grandmother something fierce, but it was time for me to grow up. To face a few issues on my own. I’m betting Patti feels the same.”

Annie looked down to see that she was still touching him, and she marveled not only at his physical strength—tightly corded and radiating heat beneath her fingers—but at his sheer mental will.