Prince Charming in Dress Blues (5 page)

He smiled at her, and her heart did that strange little blip again. All right, last night she’d put her reaction to him down to the emotion of the moment, her daughter’s birth, the unusual closeness she’d experienced with this man. But now—she couldn’t afford to start having warm, fuzzy feelings for a man who would, no doubt, disappear from her life the minute the storm ended. So she’d better just concentrate on the task at hand and forget about that half dimple in his right cheek.

“Sure,” he said, splintering her thoughts, for which she was more grateful than he would ever know. John took the halved dish towel, folded it and bent to lift Jordan’s legs. He slid the fabric under the baby’s fanny, then brought the rest of the material through her little legs and around her waist. “See, it’s all in the positioning. Get it square under her little butt, and then keep it taut around her belly when you pin the edges together.”

“Pins,” Annie muttered, wondering if Lisa had some duct tape somewhere in this cabin. “What if I stick her?”

He turned his head and looked at her. “You won’t. Just keep your fingers between the diaper and her skin. If you stick anybody, it’ll be yourself.”

She nodded, watching his big hands move gently, deftly over the baby’s tiny body. When he was finished, he slid those wide palms beneath Jordan, lifted her off the bed and settled her into the crook of Annie’s arm.

“There,” he said. “All dry. For now,” he added wryly.

“She is going through a lot of Lisa’s towels,” Annie mused, looking from her daughter’s wide yawn up to John’s blue eyes.

“At least we’ve got plenty,” he said with a quick glance at the window, where snow was piling up along the edge of the sill. “Looks like we’re going to be here for a couple more days at least.”

“Won’t you get in trouble?” Annie asked. “You said you’re a Marine. Don’t you have to report in or something?”

“I’m on leave,” he said, turning back to look at her. “Two more weeks all to myself.”

“You’re not getting much of a vacation,” Annie said
and silently decided that his eyes weren’t ice blue at all, but the soft blue of a cloudless summer sky.

“Depends on your point of view,” he said. “From where I’m sitting, it’s not so bad.”

Yeah, well, from where she was standing, it looked pretty good, too.

Too good.

T
hree days later the storm had stopped and the sun was shining. John had managed to clear at least part of the driveway, giving him enough room to maneuver his four-wheel-drive monster of a car around from the side of the house. Then he’d headed into the tiny town of Big Bear, where he’d, thank heaven, Annie thought, purchased a supply of disposable diapers and a few other essentials.

He’d also brought a doctor to examine her and the baby. Once they were both pronounced “fit as a fiddle,” John had taken the man home.

Now, as she sat across the kitchen table from him, watching him give Jordan a bottle of water, she planted her elbows on the table, propped her chin in her hands and said, “I’ve got to ask.”

One black eyebrow lifted and he glanced at her. “Ask what?”

How did he do that, she wondered. How did he manage to look both sexy and tender at the same time? And when were those stray thoughts going to stop shooting across her mind?

Swallowing hard, she focused on the conversation at hand and said, “How did you get to know so much about babies?”

He continually amazed her. She’d been reading parenting books for eight months, and he just slid into baby mode as if he’d been born for it. Annie’d never really imagined a Marine—a professional
soldier
for pity’s sake—as being quite so…domestic.

“Hey,” he said, as if it explained everything, “I’m Italian.”

“So?” she countered. “I’m Scotch-Irish, and that information along with three bucks will get me a latte. It doesn’t qualify me as mother of the year.”

His lips curved into that smile she’d come to know and look forward to. Her heart did a curious two step again as she took a moment to just enjoy the view. Honestly, that one dimple of his was just too much for any one female to have to deal with.

“I come from a big family,” he said.

“Three sons isn’t that big.”

“Yeah, but I’m counting cousins, too.” He took the bottle from the baby’s mouth, and Jordan lay limply in his grasp, her tiny mouth still working furiously. Setting the bottle down, he lifted the baby to his shoulder and gently patted her back. “My dad has four brothers and a sister, and my mom’s from a family of seven kids.”

Annie quickly did the math and felt her eyebrows arch high on her forehead. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” he said, “tell me about it. You should have seen us all at Thanksgiving. And Christmas Eve.”

“You all got together?” she said, trying to imagine the hubbub created by such a huge gathering of family members. But being the only child of older parents, she really had no basis for comparison. Her holidays were always quiet, dignified celebrations. She and her parents would exchange thoughtful, suitable gifts and then share a meal at whatever restaurant they’d chosen for that year’s festivities.

Not that she was complaining, she thought, with more than a twinge of guilt. Her parents had done their best. It was simply that they hadn’t counted on being parents. Annie’s birth had come as a complete surprise to both of them, since they were at an age when the children of their friends were graduating from high school and entering college. Her parents had looked at the arrival of a baby as they would have a guest showing up three hours after the party ended. She was welcome, but they weren’t really sure what to do with her.

So they’d gone on with their lives just as before, only dragging an infant along behind them. She’d grown up alone, really—aware even at a young age that her parents were more devoted to each other than they would ever be to her. The two of them were a world unto themselves, and she’d never been able to find a way into their inner circle—and once she was grown she’d stopped trying.

Now there was an occasional postcard for her from wherever they happened to be and infrequent phone calls made more from a sense of duty than any real need to stay in touch.

Annie hadn’t been raised with a sense of tradition, and maybe that was part of the reason she’d so longed for a family of her own. So she could build traditions. Make for her daughter the kind of childhood she herself had always wanted.

So listening to John talk about his extended family was a little like trying to imagine life on Mars.

“Oh, yeah,” he was saying, still patting Jordan’s narrow back gently, “there’s nothing the Parettis like more than a party. And the babies were passed around to whoever was handy. Including the kids.”

“Really?” She had a mental image of a roomful of adults standing around chatting while rows of children played hot potato with babies.

“Sure.” He grinned when Jordan burped for him, then lowered her to the crook of his arm again and once more offered her the bottle. “An Italian child doesn’t learn to walk until it’s two or three. Their feet never hit the floor long enough to get the hang of it.”

Annie laughed, only half-sure he was kidding.

“And what about that old phrase
woman’s work?
” she asked.

“Never heard it,” he said on a laugh. “At least, not in my house. My mom was a firm believer in her sons knowing how to cook and clean. She always said she didn’t want our future wives coming to her with complaints.”

Annie had the distinct impression she would really like John’s mom.

“What about you?” he asked, his gaze settling on her. “What’s your family like?”

“Small,” she said, and folded her arms on the tabletop. “I’m an only child.”

“Oh, man,” he said wistfully, “how many times did I wish I could say
that
growing up?”

“You don’t mean that,” she said. She’d heard too much love in his voice when he’d described his family to believe that.

“Nah, I guess not. But at the time…” John smiled for a moment at the memory. “When you’re the youngest of three brothers, you end up being the punching bag—or the one who gets blamed for everything—or the one who gets left behind. But once we got older, it was kind of nice having them around.” The baby fell asleep in his arms, and John took the bottle out of her mouth again and set it on the table.

He stared down at the tiny girl with an expression of such wonder that Annie’s heart tightened in response. Why hadn’t she found a man like him first? Why couldn’t Mike Sinclair have been even
half
the man John Paretti was? Why hadn’t she given her daughter a father worthy of her?

“What about your folks?” he asked, snatching her out of her woolgathering and drawing her back to the present. “What do they do?”

Safer ground, she told herself and gratefully snatched at the lifeline he’d inadvertently thrown her. “My father’s an archaeologist,” she said, “officially retired, but—you can take the archaeologist out of the dirt, but you can’t take the dirt out of the archaeologist.” She shrugged and smiled. “He’s always off exploring—looking for new digs or for a dig he thinks has been handled badly.”

He nodded, but didn’t smile, almost as if he was hearing beyond her words to the sigh she hadn’t uttered. “And your mom?”

“She’s his assistant. They’ve been all over the world
together. My father’s even mentioned in a few college textbooks.”

“And you went with them when you were a kid?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’d visited Egypt, Israel and Iraq before I was six years old. We’ve been all over Europe and the Middle East.”

“Sounds fascinating,” he said quietly, thoughtfully. “We traveled a lot, too, what with my dad being in the Corps.”

“Ah,” she said, lifting one hand, “but did you have nannies who couldn’t speak English?”

“No,” he said softly, “I didn’t. It sounds lonely.”

“It was,” she admitted, and realized that it was the first time she’d ever complained aloud about her unusual childhood. Sympathy and something else she didn’t want to identify shone in his eyes as he looked at her, and Annie suddenly wanted a change of subject. Desperately. “I would have given anything for some older brothers to torment me,” she said, a false note of humor coloring her voice.

Thankfully, he went along with her.

“That’s easy for you to say,” he told her, and gave her a smile that said he knew darn well what she was doing. “You weren’t the one tied to a clothesline pole for a game of cowboys and Indians.”

“They didn’t,” she said.

“Like hell they didn’t,” John said, laughing now. “And as soon as they had their ‘prisoner’ tied up, they took off to play somewhere else without me tagging along. It was an hour before Mom found me.”

“What happened to them?”

He grinned with obvious enjoyment. “Had their
backsides smacked and sent to bed without dinner.
I,
on the other hand, had
cake.
”

“Which you no doubt rubbed in their faces.”

“Naturally.”

“You know, I’m beginning to see how a little brother would be annoying.”

He lifted one hand in mock exasperation and let it fall to the table. “No one understands me!” he proclaimed in a highly insulted tone.

Annie laughed, and John was glad he’d been able to chase the shadows from her eyes. Annie Foster was getting to him in a way that no one else before her had. Listening to her talk about a childhood spent with parents who pretty much ignored her presence made him want to call his own mom just to say thanks.

It also made him want to look out for Annie. To see that she never spent another lonely day.

And admitting to that, even if only silently, gave him a hard jolt.

“Oh, my God!” Lisa Jackson’s voice came over the phone line so loudly that Annie jerked the receiver away from her ear. Unfortunately, not quickly enough. She winced as Lisa continued. “John delivered the baby? In a blizzard?”

“Actually,” Annie said wryly, “we were in the cabin. The blizzard was outside.”

“Cute, girlfriend. Real cute.”

Annie looked across the room at John where he sat on the couch, holding the baby and talking to her as if she really understood him. Something soft and warm wrapped itself around her heart, and a melting sensation pooled in her knees. So she sat down.

“Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine,” she told her best friend, smiling. “Jordan’s beautiful, and it finally stopped snowing. We may actually be able to drive down off the mountain by tomorrow or the next day.”

If, she thought, the snowplow people were as efficient as the telephone company. They’d had the lines repaired almost as soon as the snow had stopped. And the minute the phone was working again, Lisa had called. She’d probably been dialing nonstop for the past couple of days.

“How are you getting along with John?” Lisa asked, and Annie’s attention snapped back to the conversation.

Hmm…she had to answer that question carefully, since John could hear every word she said.

“Fine,” she said, and knew that wasn’t nearly what she wanted to say.

She’d like to tell Lisa that John Paretti was kind and tender and funny and sweet and strong. She wanted to say that he made her go weak in the knees. That her heartbeat staggered whenever he smiled at her. She wanted to tell her friend how Jordan responded to the man and how good he was with the baby.

But if she
did
say all of that out loud, it would make it real. So it was just as well, she thought, that she couldn’t say any of it.

“Oh, yeah,” Lisa said, “’fine’ sounds like a good time.”

John looked over at her and grinned. Annie’s heartbeat thundered in her chest.
Fine
with one man could be better than
terrific
with another one.

“Fine’s not bad,” she said.

“Oh, God,” Lisa muttered. “I can
hear
the sigh in your voice.”

“No, you can’t,” she argued, though even she noticed she wasn’t denying the fact that the sigh was there.

“Listen, honey, John’s a great guy, but—”

“But?”

“It’s just that you’re not his type.”

Well
that
stung. “Is that right?”

“Now, don’t go getting all offended on me.”

“Did I say I was?”

“No, but I heard it, anyway.”

“Is there a problem?” John asked from across the room.

“No problem,” Annie told him. “Lisa’s just having a psychic moment.”

“Great,” he said, “ask her what we’re having for dinner.”

“Oh, ha-ha,” Lisa said, obviously having heard John for herself. “Look, honey, you plus baby equals family. And that’s not something John Paretti’s looking for.”

Not that she was interested or anything but, “And you know this how?”

“Peter and John are good friends, and Peter’s always telling me about John’s way with women….” She paused for a long moment and chuckled as she said, “I think Peter’s living vicariously through John.”

“Swell,” Annie said, glancing at the man whose gorgeous face was highlighted by the flickering light and shadow cast by the dancing flames in the hearth.

A way with women, huh? Well, should she pause here to be surprised? Hardly. A man that good-looking, that…
male,
would hardly be living the life of a monk. Still, it hurt more than a little to think that his slow,
easy smile was probably just a well-practiced routine. Which told her that, despite her best intentions, she’d already formed a sort of attachment to John. Perfectly natural, she told herself, while Lisa kept talking. After all, women falling in love with their doctor—or the man who delivered their babies—was practically a cliché.

“Are you okay, honey?” Lisa asked, and this time her voice, filled with concern, reached past Annie’s preoccupation.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m great.” Okay, not great, but she really didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “And I’ll call you when I get home, okay?”

“Sure, Annie. And you know, I’m sorry if I burst your bubble or something.”

“You didn’t,” she said, determined to convince both herself and Lisa.

“If you’re sure…”

“I am.”

“Okay, then, I’ll see you when you get home.”

She said goodbye and hung up, letting her fingers trail along the back of the receiver.

“Bad news?” John asked.

Annie turned to look at him and couldn’t stop the nearly automatic tripping of her heart. Good Lord, she could be in some serious trouble here if she didn’t get a grip on reality.