A Baby In His In-Box

But he didn’t. “No matter what she said...no matter what you think...I’ve never been careless with a woman. Not once. Not ever. There are reasons why I’ve stayed unattached, reasons why I never wanted to be a father. I’m not saying I’ve been a saint, Molly, but I never knowingly risked a child. I’m asking you to believe me.”

Molly fussed with her pencils on the desk. “Actually she blurted out rather clearly that she’d skipped some birth control pills—”

“I heard what she said. I heard every damn word she said. But that has nothing to do with your believing me.”

“McGannon...” Molly felt all tangled up, unsure what was so important to him, what he wanted her to say. “Look, trying to talk right now is nuts. You need to scoot. I don’t have a clue how long a baby naps, but every minute is borrowed time. Get whatever business cleared away that you can.”

He seemed inclined to argue—but didn’t. Once he peeled out of that chair and left, Molly pressed two fingers to her temples, her gaze instinctively honing on the sleeping baby.

She’d seen Flynn thrown plenty of times. He ranted and raved as a life-style, but that was just because he was boisterously emotional by nature. At a gut level, he thrived on challenges. The more impossible the problem, the more it revved his personal engines.

But not this one. Any man would be shook up to have a baby suddenly thrown into his life, Molly realized, but Flynn...there was something more. His face had gone cold, his voice stone-harsh when he’d said there were reasons why he never wanted to be a father. Something painful had to be behind that She wished she knew what. The damn man could flirt all day and then some...but Flynn never revealed anything personal about himself, had never admitted anything painful to her before. For Flynn to express that kind of gut honesty was a vulnerable measure that he was seriously shook up.

But so was she. Shook up—from the inside out. Her pulse was still rattling. She’d been falling hard and deep for him—painfully hard, dangerously deeply. And she had no idea before that moment that Flynn was stone-set against being a father. How could she love a man who didn’t want children, didn’t love babies, couldn’t even look at that adorable homely face snoozing on the carpet?

She didn’t know him. The echo bleated in her soul. He’d bamboozled her hormones...and yes, she’d known he was wild and impulsive and full of the devil. The charm that made him downright irresistible as a lover never meant he was serious husband material. But she’d still never imagined that Flynn would pick up a strange woman for a one-night stand...that maybe he’d seduced dozens of women the same way he turned the charm on her. Making love to him would have been a land mine for Molly. For Flynn, sex could just be another three-letter word like fun.

And in the meantime, there seemed to be a snoozing baby on her carpet that no one seemed to love—or want. Molly could too easily see herself getting roped into caretaking the little one. She recognized that Flynn honestly needed some help—some immediate help—but he had to have family, she told herself. Friends. Someone. She couldn’t let this be her problem.

Her heart went out to the child.

But only for the baby’s sake. Not for Flynn’s.

Three

“Flynn, that diaper package says Newborn. I think you need a size for a much bigger baby.”

“You mean diapers come in different sizes? Oh. Oh, my God. You have to be kidding me. This is almost as intimidating as the aisle with the women’s stockings and trying to figure out what all those egg shapes mean.” However pitiful his joke, it earned him a roll of the eyes from Molly. They were making progress, Flynn thought. At least she was speaking to him again—even if the atmospheric temperature between them still hovered between freezing and subzero. “So, what’d you think? Toddler size?”

“That’d be my best guess.”

“Okeydoke.” He scooped up all the toddler-size diaper packages on the shelf and dumped them into the cart. Darned if that didn’t win him an outright chuckle.

“McGannon, you nut, you’ve cleaned out their entire supply! You really think the baby needs quite that many?”

“Listen. Mol, as far as I can tell, this kid’s a leaker. Put anything in one end, and thirty seconds later it comes out the other. I’m not risking running out in the middle of the night...what’s next on your list?”

“Food.” Predictably Molly had a systematic list in one hand, a sharpened pencil in the other. “I’m not sure what to buy. Milk and cereal-type things are pretty obvious, but I think he only has two teeth. Whatever we get, it needs to be food that he doesn’t have to chew.”

“Marshmallows,” Flynn suggested.

“I had in mind something more nutritious,” she said dryly.

“Well, yeah. But marshmallows are a staple of life. And how about hot chocolate? That’s a good kid thing, isn’t it?”

“I’ll tell you what. You find the baby food aisle and I’ll take care of making the choices. And Flynn, for Pete’s sake! Take your keys out of the baby’s mouth!”

“You can’t be serious. You heard him when we walked in here. Until I gave him the keys, I thought he was dying. I thought someone was stabbing him in the back with a knife. I thought we were gonna be arrested for noise pollution—”

“I believe he was trying to clearly communicate that he was slightly bored. I also believe it’s possible that Dylan inherited that bellow from his father’s side of the family... but we won’t go into that again. I don’t think your keys are a good play toy—they aren’t clean.”

“Not clean? On what planet is that supposed to be relevant? You’re talking about a kid who tries to pig out on paper and carpet lint.”

“You think he’s getting hungry? We’re not even halfway through this list, and darn it! I didn’t even think of a car seat.” She started scribbling again. “You have to have a car seat for a baby this size. It’s the law.”

“Mol?”

“Hmm?” She was almost too busy penciling stuff on her list to look up.

“Thanks,” he said quietly. “For coming with me. I know I’ve been making jokes, but I don’t want you to think I don’t seriously appreciate your helping me out.”

For a few seconds the ice chips seemed to melt in her eyes.

He caught a glimmer of a spring thaw...but it didn’t last. “You’d better wait until we’re done before you thank me. When you write out the check for this, you may have a stroke.”

Holy kamoly, she filled four carts before calling it quits.

Naturally Flynn had experienced the inside of a grocery store before, but never with a shopping pro. Molly zipped and zoomed down the aisles, checking things off her list, cooing to the baby and muttering about prices at the same time.

Flynn didn’t have a stroke about the amount of the check, but a full-fledged panic attack hit him when they reached the parking lot.

Night had fallen faster than a stone, temperatures dropping just as swiftly. His black Lotus had a thimble-size trunk space. There wasn’t a prayer of stuffing all the baby loot into his car. Her more sensible Taurus was parked next to his, gleaming white under the parking lot neon lights. Molly’s face looked pearl-soft in the evening shadows, but her stockinged legs and suit jacket were inadequate protection against that crisp, sharp air and she was starting to shiver.

She was also busy. As if she didn’t trust him, she took charge of Dylan, and was organizing the baby in the car seat as if she were a general attacking a strategic logistics problem. “I don’t think baby car seats are meant for sports cars, but I do believe he’s finally secure...”

Finally she lifted her head. Finally—for the first time since this whole blasted store outing began—her eyes met his, but her gaze shifted away faster than the spin of a dime. “Getting all this stuff to your place, though, is another problem entirely. Unless you’ve got another suggestion, I don’t see we have another choice... we’re just going to have to fill my trunk, and then I’ll follow you to your place.”

“I hate to ask you to do that,” Flynn said, which had to be the biggest lie he’d told in a year.

“There just is no other way. But you’d better give me your address in case I lose you in traffic.”

Like a kid scared when the lights were turned off, he didn’t want Molly to leave him. The feeling of dependence was totally alien. He’d grown up stubborn, sweating out his fears of the dark alone, working his way through school, never asking for anything from anyone. Given his background, he’d learned young to count on no one but himself, but that kind of pride and independence had dominated his whole life.

Not now. Not tonight. At the moment he had the pride of a wilted turnip. He watched Molly’s headlights in the rearview mirror, checking every few seconds to make sure he hadn’t lost her on the whole drive to his place. Once past the traffic on Westnedge, the cars thinned out. For the last half mile, suburban busyness disappeared altogether and the only lights on the road belonged to the two of them.

Flynn wasn’t anxiety-prone. He liked chaos. Hell, he’d practically built chaos into a fife-style—and was damn content with his choice. But his heart had been beating to panicked drums ever since Virginie blew into his office that afternoon.

He hadn’t stopped moving since then. He’d needed a couple of hours on the phone—to call his lawyer, to call his doctor about blood tests, and to start checking the pediatricians in town for credentials. But he barely got started on any of that before Molly showed up in his office doorway with the caterwauling minisize redhead.

His mind should have been on Dylan. And was. The problem of the baby loomed like a cyclone on his emotional horizon, but damnation, Molly was a cyclone-size problem, too. Even after intensively working together for the last six months, he couldn’t explain what she’d come to mean to him. He knew she was the marrying kind, that flirting too far with her was dangerous...he also knew that he’d been daring her, daring himself, daring the two of them toward a cliff edge of risk that wasn’t wise.

Flynn had never overvalued wisdom. He valued... life. Every day had the intrinsic capacity for adventure. There was an excitement in air, food, water—anything, everything—but only if a guy looked, only if he opened his life to risk and all the possibilities.

Maybe he and Molly were temperamentally chalk and cheese. But he’d had her regard before this. She’d liked him, he knew. She’d found something in him to respect. It went beyond hormones, beyond that nice, hot, sexual attraction firing between them with both barrels.

At least until Virginie blew into his office that afternoon.

Flynn pulled into his driveway. On cue, as he turned the key, the sidekick in the car seat next to him let out a pithy squawl. He whipped his head around. Yeah, Molly was still there, pulling up behind him. His heart could postpone that panic attack for a little while longer.

Molly popped her trunk, then stepped out of her car and took a quick, cool drink of the view. Humor flashed in her eyes as she hiked past him toward the baby. “Honestly, McGannon. I could have guessed this was your house even if I hadn’t seen the address.”

“How so?”

“It’s a castle.”

“A castle? Actually it’s pretty small—”

“Size has nothing to do with it. Only a creative-type dreamer would be drawn to this place.”

“You don’t like it?” Flynn had imagined bringing her here a dozen times.

“Oh, I like it—but I’m just chuckling because of how uniquely it suits you. And I hear our rock-star-in-training revving up the volume. I’ll get Dylan, if you just unlock the front door and start hauling things in.”

Flynn suspected she was subtly trying to suggest that he quit standing there like a dead stick. And while she unthreaded the baby from the car seat torture device, he swiftly fished into his pocket for the door key. Still, as he heaped his arms with bags to carry in, he glanced at his house.

The place was no castle. It was just old. And Molly’s dreamer label miffed him. Maybe he’d impulsively fallen in love and bought the property on sight, but it had taken months of elbow grease—not dreams—to make the old white elephant livable. The core structure was stone, with a tall, shake-shingle roof and old-fashioned mullioned windows that reflected silver in the moonlight. But a gabled roof and some skinny mullioned windows hardly made it look like some prissy girl castle.

Flynn opened the double front doors, elbowed in with his packages and quickly flicked on an overhead light Molly jogged in behind him with the baby. “Maybe you’ll like it more when you see the inside,” he said defensively. “I had to have some space. I’d get claustrophobic in a city-type apartment. There’s woods out the back, and a creek. And I do a lot of work at home, so I had to renovate some things on the inside—”

“I can see.” She was busy juggling The Squirmer, but not so busy that she didn’t shoot a look around inside. Again, her eyes danced with dry humor. “I wasn’t criticizing you, Flynn. It’s a romantic house. Ideal for an unconventional dreamer.”

“I’m not a romantic.”

“Oops. Did I touch a nerve? I’ll be careful not to use any dirty words like ‘romantic’ again...the baby’s fussing. I think you’d better bring in the diapers first.”

He brought in the diapers—and all the other confounded stuff, heaping it all in the stone foyer just inside the door. On those in-and-out treks, he either caught glimpses of Molly or heard her, talking to the baby, using her nice, warm, sexy-as-sin sensual voice—not like the one she’d been using with him all afternoon.

And somehow he’d counted on her liking his place. He did. Hell, everything was perfect—at least for a guy living alone. He’d put barn beams and a skylight in the great room, bought three giant forest green couches and elled them around the man-size stone fireplace. He wasn’t much on pictures and doodads, but the media entertainment center was prime. A thick, fat white alpaca rug made a great place to lay by a roaring fire on a blizzardy night.

As he peeled off his jacket, the goods all carried in, he thought Molly’d look damn near outstanding on that white alpaca rug. Naked. Well, maybe still wearing stockings... if he was going to fantasize, he might as well go whole hog.

The fantasy died a fast death when she stepped through the arched doorway of the kitchen, still holding the baby. “Are you done bringing everything in?”

Her voice was cool enough to chill champagne. “Yeah. Everything’s out of both cars...but after all your help and the trouble I’ve put you through, I’d like to treat you to dinner.”

“Thanks, but I’d better be going. That’s quite a kitchen you’ve got in there. Every labor-saving appliance known to man and woman both.”

“You didn’t like the kitchen, either?”

“McGannon, you seem to think I’m on your case. You have a fantastic house, ultracool. Every inch of it suits you.”

“You haven’t seen the upstairs. I could give you a quick tour.”

“Maybe another time. Here you go.” She lifted Dylan and plopped the wriggling chunk into his arms. “I changed his diaper, and I put out some toddler baby food on the counter. The directions said you could microwave it but you’ll need to be careful it’s not too hot.”

She was trotting for the front door faster than a filly in a sulky race. “You’re sure you won’t stay for dinner—?”

“Positive.” She opened the front door.

“Molly, wait.” Dylan whacked him on the ear with a baby fist. Flynn heard alarm bells of anxiety clanging in his ears—and not just because the baby had given him a boxer’s whack. “I appreciate your helping me out. I owe you a big thanks.”

“No sweat. You’re welcome.”

Flynn let the baby down, since there was no holding on to the contortionist anyway. Dylan immediately quit squawking, plunked down on all fours and took off again. Molly had her hand on the doorknob, looking as primed to take off and escape from him as the kid had been. He cleared his throat. “Look, I can see you’re uncomfortable with me. I don’t know what to say, how to make that right. But you and I never had a problem communicating before—”

“And we don’t now. There’s no reason business should be different than usual tomorrow.”

“Business,” he echoed. “There wasn’t business on your mind earlier this afternoon. Or on mine. Believe me, I understand that it was Virginie’s visit that changed that...and it’s not like I’m blaming you for judging me—”

“I’m not judging you,” she said swiftly. Too swiftly. He saw her swallow hard, and finally she turned to face him. She didn’t give up her hold on that doorknob, but her voice turned soft. Molly soft. “I’m judging me, Flynn. You’re right—we were becoming close. And that was never a good idea—not for me. Everything that happened this afternoon has underlined for me that I really don’t know you.”

“You’re upset because of the baby, which God knows, I understand. But I don’t know that Dylan is mine—”

“The baby’s not the problem. At least not exactly. I hope I’d never tar anybody with a judgmental feather for making that kind of mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. And that particular one, couples have been making since the beginning of time.” She hesitated. “But if a woman like that attracted you, Flynn, you and I honestly have nothing in common. We couldn’t possibly value any of the same things.”

“You’ve lost respect—”

“Yeah, I think that’s fair to say.” Her eyes mirrored the most uncomfortable kind of honesty. “You can be a real trial to work with, McGannon. You bellow and you’re stubborn and you tend to railroad everyone in your path. But you’ve got a huge heart and an incredibly creative mind—I’ve never seen you judge anyone or fail to listen to their point of view. From the first day on the job, I admired you. Respected you. Enormously.”

Mentally Flynn dismissed those minor details about his bellowing and stubbornness. Maybe it had taken Molly a couple of months to really believe his bark was worth peanuts—and that he really hated people kowtowing to him. But she hadn’t been intimidated by him in a blue moon.

Respect was a different issue entirely. Flynn hadn’t known she felt that “enormous respect.” But he could feel the loss of it now—hear it, in her velvet-soft voice—and it hurt like a knife stab in his gut.

Instinctively he stepped toward her, wanting to reach her, touch her. He told himself the impulse wasn’t sexual—and yet he knew it was. When he’d kissed her before, all the nuisance life differences between them disappeared. The connection had always been real, honest, and hotter than fire. Something about that chemistry created a strange, alien feeling of belonging—and maybe Flynn had never understood it, but he had a dread-sinking sensation that he’d never have that feeling again. Not with anyone. Not like with Molly. And if he just kissed her...

But the look in her eyes stopped him. She didn’t back away from him. She didn’t move at all in those seconds, yet she faced him with this sudden, soft, naked vulnerability in her eyes. It was a look that said I’m a strong, tough cookie with a weakness. A weakness for you. And yeah, she’d dive under—maybe—if he kissed her. But that wasn’t the same as her willingness.

It wasn’t the same as her wanting him.

His hand fell. Then both hands jammed into his pockets, buried out of sight as if he was trying to bury that impulse to touch her. “Molly, this whole story isn’t done. There hasn’t been time to talk to you—I haven’t even had a chance to try and explain—”

She shook her head quickly, firmly. “You don’t owe me any explanations, and I’m well aware you’ve just had your life turned upside down. But so has that baby. Love him, Flynn. And honestly, I need to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She latched the door closed on her way out. No slam. Not even the sound of a click. She was just gone. Faster than the light bulb switched off, and leaving him with an odd, scratchy feeling in his throat.

Abruptly, though, Flynn heard a crash. He pivoted on a heel and hightailed into the living room. The floor lamp by his leather reading chair was lying on the ground, the shade rolling and punctured. The accident could have happened by osmosis, but somehow he suspected another culprit. As a point of fact, if the baby were hurt, he was going to have to shoot himself. And how could such a tiny kid manage to topple a sturdy five-foot lamp?

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