The Baby Magnet

In the rear seat, Jason apologetically cleared his throat. “Ahem. Marie’s a little high-strung. You have to learn to just kind of ignore her like I do.”

Marie didn’t open her eyes, but she snorted her opinion of that.

Luke wove his way through a knot of cars. “Maybe you ought to listen a little harder, at least when she’s giving driving instructions.”

Amen to that, thought Marie and crossed her arms the other way.

Luke glanced at the boy in the rearview mirror. “And as for my learning to tune her out, we don’t see enough of each other to make it worth worrying over.”

Amen to that, too. And let it stay that way.

Marie actually fell asleep. When she startled awake, the car was parked on a shady street with the windows all left open a few inches for air circulation. She rubbed her eyes, sat up and looked around. Where was she?

Turning around to glance down the block, she found Jason in the back seat with earphones plastered on his head and his portable CD player making him deaf. He wiggled his fingers at her in a gesture of recognition as his head bobbed rhythmically. “Where’s Luke?” she mouthed and Jason pointed to the building across the street.

Marie briefly studied the building, but it wasn’t giving away any secrets so she turned her attention back to Jason. “You’re going to lose your hearing, you know,” she said.

Jason pointed to his ears and shrugged, indicating he couldn’t hear her over the noise being pumped in.

Marie sighed and turned around. At least he wasn’t sharing his musical choice with her. She should be grateful for small favors.

Marie tipped her head one way and then the other. She glanced at her watch. Good grief. She’d been asleep for almost forty-five minutes. No wonder she had a crick in her neck. To tell the truth, she was a little worried with the way she fell asleep at the drop of a hat lately. Her periods were off, too. It had to be the stress. Please, God, let it be stress.

Unfastening her belt, she opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. She needed to stretch out. At the end of the block she turned around and marched back up the street. By her fourth passby she’d developed a ‘glow’—her mother had always insisted ladies didn’t sweat—and all the kinks were well worked out of her legs. She strode quickly by Jason’s lanky reclining-yet-still-rhythmically-twitching form when suddenly her quiet humming was drowned out by ungodly screeching.

Startled, she swiveled about. Half a legion—at least—of women were being raped or abducted somewhere, but where?

She searched the area, and what to her wondering eyes should appear but Luke, coming down the steps of the building Jason had pointed out earlier. He held a toddler in his arms, but rather than cradling her up against his body, he held the little one out and away from himself, as though he wanted to distance himself from his own daughter, the source of all that noise. And he had an exceedingly pained expression on his face.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Marie murmured and crossed the street to him.

“Hey, hey,” she said and rubbed the child’s back soothingly. At the same time she pushed the child up and against Luke’s chest. The pained look on his face became even more pronounced.

“It’s all right, sweetheart,” Marie crooned. “Daddy’s got you. Everything’s okay. Daddy will fix everything, won’t you, Daddy?” When Luke didn’t speak up quickly enough to suit her, Marie poked Luke in the ribs as a prompt to answer. It was her feeling Daddy shouldn’t have to think quite so hard before responding.

“Ouch! What’d you do that for?” He glared at her. Damned woman had been a pain since the moment he’d run—scratch that—she’d run into him.

Marie glared right back and gestured to the sobbing toddler. The noise level had dropped but people were still staring and they were still only a few decibels below eardrum shattering.

“Oh, right.” Luke cleared his throat. “Marie’s right, Carolyn. Dad’s got the situation under control.” He wished. “You can stop screaming. It’s not going to change anything, after all and if you’ll just stop and think for a minute I’m sure you’ll realize—”

Marie reached up and snatched the baby right out of his arms and hugged her to her breast. “Oh, for God’s sake. Come here, sweetie. Let Auntie Marie hold you.” Marie wrapped her arms snuggly around the baby so she’d feel secure, rested her cheek on the top of little one’s head and began to rock in place. “Shh, shh, Auntie Marie’s got you now and she won’t let anything happen to you.”

Luke rolled his eyes and muttered, “Oh, brother.”

Marie sent him an evil look and mouthed, “Go get the blanket you bought.”

“What? I can’t hear you. Carolyn, you’ve simply got to pipe down before you permanently damage our hearing. Now, what did you say?”

Marie refrained from kicking him in the shins. Barely. Very softly she instructed, “Go and get the baby blanket you bought.”

“You’re still mumbling,” Luke complained. “Did you say you wanted the pink blanket? What for? Marie, look at her. She’s all red and overheated. The last thing she needs is a blanket. She must be getting heavy. Let me take her back.”

She finally blew up. “So you can make her cry again? The blanket’s a comfort thing, you dolt! You probably had one yourself at her age. Or maybe you didn’t and that’s what’s wrong with you. Now would you just quit arguing and go get it?”

Luke backed away and made a calming gesture. “All right, okay, I’m going, see? But I’d just like to point out I’m not the one who made her cry again. If you were all that good with kids you’d know not to yell like that. It upsets them.”

Marie ground her teeth. For two cents she’d hand the child off to him and sit back to watch the show. Unfortunately they’d all be sharing the same car for the next hour and the screaming was already grating on her nerves. “There, there, sweetheart, I’m sorry. It’s just that men are such morons, sometimes your only option is to cut loose.” Marie continued to rub Carolyn’s back while she vilified all men in a soft croon. “You’ll see. Someday you’ll come to me and say, ‘Auntie Marie, I remember back when I was no more than two and you told me all about men. You were right, Auntie Marie. They are dolts.’ Now let’s go down to the car, all right, honey? I’ll introduce you to another of the species. Homo Sapiens Adolescenti, an absolutely pitiable group. The worst of the worst. You remember that when you’re sixteen and don’t have anything to do with them, okay, sweetheart? Save yourself all kinds of grief.”

By then they’d reached the car. Luke had finished unwrapping the blanket. He held it out to her.

“Just drape it over her,” Marie directed. “Make sure the satin touches her cheek.”

“Right. But I still say she’s going to suffocate.” Luke carefully covered his daughter, arranging the folds just so. “How’s that?”

Carolyn snuffled twice then turned off the spigot altogether.

Marie sighed. “Wonderful. In another hour or two the birds may even feel safe enough to begin chirping again.”

Luke reluctantly grinned. “Yeah. It was pretty scary, wasn’t it? I’ve got to run back in and get her car seat. I’ll be right back.”

“Coward,” Marie said, but she smiled and snuggled Carolyn while they waited.

Carolyn had so exhausted herself with all the carrying on, that she conked right out within minutes of the car being in motion. Blessedly, she slept the entire trip through.

“Well, that’s done,” Luke said as he pulled into his own driveway. “I think I’ve got enough time to make arrangements to get my car towed in and get a loaner. Tomorrow you can take me over to pick up a rental.”

Marie sighed. She supposed it would be mean-spirited to say no. The accident had been their fault, after all. “Sure. I guess.”

“Call your insurance agent when you get home. We’ll exchange insurance information and stop by the police station when I see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Right.” Man, she really didn’t want to do this. Besides having the personality of a prickly pear, Luke was a reminder of a painful period in her life. “Twelve o’clock?”

“Sounds good. See you then.”

“Right.” Marie put the car into Drive while she waited for Jason to get back to the car after helping Luke in with Carolyn’s stuff. She wanted out of there just as quickly as possible. She had a feeling that the longer she stuck around Luke Deforest, the worse off she’d be. And the effect he seemed to have on her was only the half of it. Luke Deforest was trouble with a capital T.

Chapter Two

Instead of sliding into the passenger side, Jason came around to the driver’s side. Marie sighed. She should have known.

“Scoot over, Marie. I’ll drive now.”

Only over her dead body. “Sorry, Jason, but I’m driving. One accident per day is about all I can handle.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. You can’t be serious.”

But Marie stood firm. She’d reached her quota of adolescent-style thrills and chills for the moment. It was either stand firm or flip out. Marie knew which one she preferred. “No. I’m afraid there’s no negotiating this one.” Ha, there was a misnomer if ever there was one. More like gross intimidation wouldn’t get the adolescent his way this time. Unfortunately for Jason she was too numb to be properly cowed by the prospect of one of his scenes. “I’m driving,” she assured him firmly. “Jump in and let’s go before Luke comes out to see what’s wrong.”

That threat worked. Luke was twice his size and not happy with the accident. Jason knew he’d gotten off easily. He still had all his appendages, was still breathing, wasn’t he? He moved. Not particularly graciously, but he moved.

He also scowled. He stomped around the front of the car, slapping the hood with his fist as he circled in front of it. He slammed the door when he got in and immediately began complaining. “Man, one little mistake and everybody’s all over you. Like I already told you, this wasn’t my fault. If Dad would just buy me a decent car none of this would have happened. He can keep this boat for all I care, but you could talk him into getting me something cool. I know you could.”

Marie rolled her eyes in resignation. Jason was on a roll. She was in for a good half-hour sermon on why Jason needed a new car, preferably a sports model with a trunk big enough for a mega stereo system complete with something called a subwoofer. Marie had asked around. It seemed that this subwoofer thing was for the hormonally impaired. It magnified bass sounds. It was what made your car shake when you were stuck at a red light next to some testosterone-challenged adolescent whose entire vehicle shuddered on oversize tires while emitting low boom boom de boom sounds. Allowing that thing into her house or car would be tantamount to dying and going to hell. She’d be permanently stuck at a red light that would never turn green, at least not for her.

No way. Not a chance.

Marie had never had an inclination to indulge in alcohol before but she was seriously thinking about taking up drinking. If she was declared unfit wouldn’t somebody else have to take over the job of seeing Jason through until her grandfather was back on his feet? Didn’t the Red Cross deal with disasters? Surely Jason qualified. There had to be somebody. Anybody.

When Jason showed no signs of letting up, Marie decided to break into his diatribe. “Even though the accident was clearly Luke’s fault for having the poor judgment to be behind you when you decided to back up, it’s your insurance premiums that will go up,” she informed him grimly as she gently eased the car into traffic. “You’re going to have to study a bit harder next semester. A 3.0 gpa will get you a good student rate and help counteract what just happened.”

Jason only shrugged. “The light’s changing. Better slow down.”

The attitude and running commentary on her driving put her back up. She’d rather deal with Luke Deforest—Why did her thoughts keep coming back to Luke? He wasn’t as blatantly handsome as Wade had been. No, his attraction was more insidious. It sneaked up and got you on a subconscious level. Rotten male. Marie tapped the brakes. “I know what color the light is and I’m serious here. For your information, teenage boys and girls in their early twenties have the highest rates. You can’t afford to make it any worse by messing around with your grades.”

“No skin off my nose,” Jason informed her. “Dad’s going to have to pay whatever it costs anyway. I sure don’t have the dough. That pittance of an allowance you talked him into doling out doesn’t cover more than a pack of chewing gum. You really fell down on the job there, Marie.”

Marie snorted as the light she’d stopped for changed and she again accelerated. “You buy mighty expensive chewing gum is all I can say. Like twenty dollars a pack. And maybe I could have talked him into more but I didn’t and I won’t. Twenty dollars is plenty for somebody your age.” She almost had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from telling him about how little she’d gotten when she’d been his age. It would make her sound too old. Too much like the parents who lectured their ungrateful kid about how they’d walked four miles each way barefoot through the snow to get to school, uphill both directions and furthermore, they’d liked it. Marie refused to permit herself to fall onto the wrong side of that generation line. She’d much rather be on the eye-rolling side even though the temptation was severe and she faithfully checked her hair every morning ever since her grandfather had shattered his hip to make sure none of the strands had grayed overnight.

But Jason wasn’t done yet. “You just don’t get it. I mean, were you ever young? It’s like totally demeaning to have to ask my niece for money, you know. None of the other guys have to do anything so lame. Their parents don’t give them stupid curfews of eleven o’clock on the weekend. They can stay out as late as they want and they all get however much money they want.”

“Yeah, right. Sure they do.” Marie turned a corner. She felt oddly bereft as she lost sight of the street Luke lived on. “Give it up,” she advised. “It’s not going to happen. The plan is, I’m going to discuss this with Grandpa and I’ll advise him to pay the equivalent of the cheapest insurance rates. I think he’ll listen, too. That means you’ll have to fork over the difference between that and whatever the actual charge is.”

“I don’t have any money,” Jason repeated slowly as though Marie were mentally slow and couldn’t grasp simple concepts. “No moola, get it? Zero dinero. Zip.”

Marie turned off onto another side street. They were almost home. Thank God. Maybe she could escape up to her room for an hour or two. “Guess you’ll have to get a job, huh, Jase?”

“I’m not sixteen yet,” Jason informed her smugly. “No one will hire me.”

Marie patted his arm bracingly. “Sure they will, kid. Ever hear of a work permit? If twenty dollars a week really isn’t enough to keep you in the style you’re accustomed to or you need extra cash ’cause you don’t qualify for the good student discount, why, I’ll be happy to get Grandpa to sign for one. No problem.”

“Think you’re so smart,” Jason muttered under his breath and braced himself. “Watch the kid on the bike.”

“I see him, I see him.”

“The speed limit’s twenty-five. You’re doing almost thirty. How come your hands are on ten and two? My driving instructor says they should be on nine and three so the airbag doesn’t break them if it goes off. Of course he’s only a total loser. His airbag probably goes off every day of the week and twice on Sundays.”

“Jason, I’ve been driving for eight years now. I think I can handle it.”

“Couldn’t prove it by me,” her uncle said under his breath. “There’s a car coming. Watch him.”

“I’m watching him, Jason, I’m watching.” Marie wondered how parents ever put up with getting their kids through to their licenses. Especially if they had more than one. If Jason corrected her driving one more time, she’d be forced to murder him. There wasn’t a judge in the country that would convict her, either. Not if they’d had any kids with learner’s permits of their own.

Marie knew better than to get drawn in. She absolutely did. She should just ignore him. That would be best. Ignoring Jason, however, was a bit like trying to ignore a nest of disturbed wasps. It was damned hard not to notice all the little pricks and harder still to keep from swatting back.

“Stop sign at the end of the block.”

Marie’s knuckles were white against the steering wheel when she blew. “Shut up, Jase,” she directed. “Just…shut the heck up.”

The car safely garaged once more, Marie called her insurance company, then retreated upstairs. She pulled the shades down and hid in her bedroom for an hour. Teaching Jason how to drive was going to make an old woman out of her in next to no time. She had to fight the urge to get up and go check her hair in the mirror.

Luke Deforest probably found gray hair a turn off.

What? How stupid. She didn’t—shouldn’t—care what Luke Deforest thought about her hair or any other of her body parts. Yes, she did. Well, she’d get over it. She’d see to it.

Marie took a deep breath and held it, then slowly exhaled. This was all Jason’s fault. He was making her lose her mind. After all, what did she know about dealing with an adolescent? Heck, she’d been one herself not that long ago. Finding herself so quickly and abruptly on the receiving end of all that adolescent garbage was throwing her psyche into shock, that was all.

Marie took another deep breath, slowly exhaled and dug out an old Paul Simon CD, curled up in her favorite reading chair over in the corner and vegged out while Paul crooned softly in the background. Of course she was damn lucky to hear him at all over the boom de booms emanating from just down the hall. Still, it was soothing. When Marie finally emerged, she went down to the kitchen confident she was once more in complete control. For sure she wasn’t going to give Luke Deforest another thought. Maybe she should bake some cookies and take them with her to their meeting tomorrow. See if she couldn’t soothe the savage beast. She could always say they were for Carolyn so he wouldn’t suspect anything.

Marie produced a small meat loaf for dinner which precipitated a lot of gagging sounds and threats to hurl up the meal, but honest to God, you couldn’t serve pizza every night, could you? Pepperoni was not exactly the best example of the protein group you could find. The salad was put away untouched except for the small portion Marie herself had taken.

Marie was pathetically grateful when, after downing half a container of double fudge brownie ice cream, Jason cleared out of the kitchen without offering to help or doing so much as clearing a dish. Frankly, she’d rather do it herself than have to put up with her uncle for ten more seconds. The sound of his bedroom door shutting—loudly—came as a blessed relief. And then the house began to shake. Boom boom de boom.

No way was she getting that subwoofer thing for him. Absolutely not. Why would any sane person pay money to make a bad situation degenerate to worse? She turned an oldies station on the radio all the way up to camouflage Jason’s exaggerated bass and sang along with Aretha Franklin, shaking her hips while she finished cleaning the kitchen. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Oh yeah, her and Aretha, they were both craving it, needing it.

Lord, she was obviously overtired. She was going to bed.

Shortly before noon the next day, Marie rang Luke’s doorbell. She’d spent time choosing her outfit, applying her makeup and had actually plugged in the curling iron and worked on her hair. She waited for Luke to answer, pleased that she could still pull herself together into a decent package. It had been months since she’d bothered to try. She’d settled for clean ever since assuming responsibility for Jason. Who was there to impress? One of his acne-riddled, fifteen-year-old buddies? No, thank you.

Luke, on the other hand, was fair game. He’d intimidated her the day before, looking better than any man had a right to, almost like some kind of male model for crying out loud. Except there’d been absolutely no sign of mousse in his hair nor had he stunk to high heaven of any kind of men’s cologne. No, Luke just naturally exuded everything that was masculine.

And all that was feminine in her cried out in response, which was really stupid. Did she have no self-protective instincts at all? Had she learned nothing from her marriage?

While she waited she thought about Carolyn. As far as she knew, Luke was a bachelor. Wade had never spoken about his brother having been married or having any kind of previous entanglement of the female kind—which Luke obviously had had since Carolyn existed—but then again, Wade hadn’t been one to speak much. Flex his biceps, yes. Talk, no. There’d been a time in her life when a guy’s pecs were recommendation enough to pursue a relationship. She’d naively assumed a well-built body wouldn’t embarrass itself by anything less than a sterling interior. Thank God she’d grown past all that.

Luke opened the door just as Marie was beginning to wonder if he’d remembered their appointment.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Marie responded as she studied him curiously. He’d been impeccably dressed yesterday when Jason had whacked him. Now here it was, Sunday, almost noon and the man looked, well, disheveled, to be kind.

It was annoying that her heart rhythm picked up anyway. For the life of her, she couldn’t come up with an adequate reason why. His jeans were old, frayed, with his knees showing through the few remaining horizontal threads still there. He wore a collared white broadcloth shirt, but it was unbuttoned, untucked and wrinkled. The shirt was short-sleeved and his arms emerged from them thick, heavily muscled and furred. Dark hair curled out from the top of his undershirt, letting Marie know his chest was also furred. If she hadn’t seen his hair yesterday, she’d think he hadn’t combed it in a month of Sundays, so unkempt did it appear now. And Luke’s feet were bare. Bare. Marie shook her head. It was discouraging and ridiculous in equal parts that her heart still lurched at the sight of him. The vision of him now just didn’t fit with yesterday’s image. Nothing about him did.

Would the real Luke Deforest please stand up?

“Come in,” he invited, rather formally Marie thought, considering his attire.

Today’s Luke Deforest was living proof of the old adage that clothes did not make the man. Messed and mussed, this was still one fine-looking specimen of the male variety. Marie became determined not to show any signs of her discomfiture. “Thank you,” she replied, nodding acceptance of his invitation and stepping regally, she hoped, into Luke’s foyer. She had to thread her way around several shopping bags from stores whose names were familiar to her from her own trips to the mall. She recognized some of the bags from yesterday.

Calypso music drifted in from the back of the house.

Her eyes adjusted to the dimmer interior lighting.

The exterior of the house had been impressive. A warm-colored brick, the large two-story house sat on a wide, deep lot. The landscaping was minimal, a sign of both the newness of the home and its current owner’s disinterest in gardening, Marie suspected.

The inside appeared spacious and expensively if unimaginatively finished, with lots of moldings and wide, thick, intricate woodwork throughout. From what Marie could see, all of it seemed to be painted a basic, unimaginative white.

Luke led her through a very masculine-looking living room with white walls and tan carpeting accented by a supple black leather L-shaped sectional. The pink satin-bound blanket from yesterday and a stuffed green bunny about a foot and a half tall lay obtrusively on the couch and Dr. Seuss books lay on the brass-and-glass coffee table before it. Matching brass-and-glass end tables supported black lamps with black shades. They passed through the room, which had little by way of actual decoration, into—she wouldn’t have thought it was possible—an even more masculine study.