Gift-wrapped Baby
Autor:in
Renee Roszel
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Chapter 1
THE TELEPHONE RANG, jarring Hallie awake. Opening one eye, she squinted at the bedside clock. Six-thirty on Christmas morning?
When the phone’s high-pitched trill continued to trumpet through her brain, she scrambled to the edge of the bed and hefted the cordless receiver. “The building had better be on fire.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” chirped a familiar female voice.
Hallie yawned and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Bea?” She grimaced. “I thought we were friends.”
Laughter that sounded like rusty hinges made Hallie hold the phone away from her ear. “The kids were up at five, honeydew. For me it’s the middle of the day.”
“That’s fascinating. Goodbye.”
“Okay, okay, grumpy. I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and tell you that if you change your mind about Christmas dinner, it’ll be at two. That’s plenty of time for you to drive from Tulsa to Bartlesville.”
Hallie had to smile. Bea was a good friend, the only high school classmate she’d kept in touch with over the past eight years. “Thanks, but I need to catch up on some work.” That was a lie, but it was kinder than admitting that seeing her friend with her children and husband would only make Hallie feel more alone. “You’re great to call, though.”
That squeaky laugh rang out. “Yeah, I could tell you were thrilled.”
A sound caught Hallie’s attention. Jingling. She cocked her head toward the bedroom door.
“Hallie?” Bea said. “You there?”
Hallie heard the faint sound again and stood. “Shush,” she whispered, creeping to the door and peering out. From her vantage point she could see into the living room. Her Christmas tree came into view, its tinsel sparkling in the morning light. The sound jingled again. This time Hallie thought she detected movement beneath the tree.
Movement?
“Honeydew? Is everything okay?”
Hallie found herself crouching, then crawling one-handed. “I—Listen, Bea, I have to go—Merry Christmas...” She disconnected and dropped the phone, scrambling soundlessly across the hallway. She stopped at the entrance to the living room.
Lowering herself almost flat, she peered beneath the tree branches. Did she have a mouse in her apartment? And if she did, it was not supposed to be stirring! She swallowed, picturing a rodent running around all over her packages, knocking a jingling ornament with its long, disgusting tail. She made a face and felt crawly.
Jingle-jingle.
As she watched, transfixed, a tiny human hand—with five tiny human fingers—reached up to bat at the jingle bell ornament. Hallie gaped, too stunned to move or breathe. She could only stare wide-eyed, noting with disbelief that the little hand was connected to a chubby arm, protruding from a pink bundle among the gifts beneath her tree.
There hadn’t been any pink bundles under her tree last night. She knew sometimes she got preoccupied with work, but surely she would have remembered a pink bundle. She jerked up to her knees. This wasn’t a nasty, disgusting mouse—it was a tiny human person!
“A baby?” she breathed, experiencing a mixture of panic and awe. Somebody had left a human baby person under her Christmas tree?
Too unsteady to stand, she crawled across the living room, her gaze glued to the bundle. When she got to the tree, she stared. Why, it truly was a beautiful baby. The infant looked at her. The little face was so angelic, the blue eyes big and inquisitive. “Oh...” Hallie’s nose tingled with the warning that she was getting ready to cry. “Oh, sweetie...”
Her insidious maternal instincts overrode her need to remain detached. Hadn’t Hallie promised herself she would never fall in love with any other woman’s baby, ever again?
But even as her logical side berated her mothering side, she lifted the infant into her arms. Cuddled her. Hallie reasoned that, wrapped in pink, with a big gold foil bow tied across her middle, the baby was probably a girl.
Tucked farther back beneath the tree was a plastic tote bag. Hallie fished it out and opened it, all the while her tiny charge simply stared up at her with wide, trusting eyes. At least the child didn’t seem hungry. She couldn’t have been here long.
Poking around in the bag, Hallie came up with a folded sheet of paper. Smoothing it open, she read. Or at least she tried. The handwriting was practically illegible. One word looked vaguely like “Vanilla.” A word further down was completely distinct, however. “Hawksmoor.”
“Nathan Hawksmoor?” Hallie murmured, as it all began to come clear. She dropped the note in the bag and stroked the baby’s cheek. “I think whoever left you didn’t realize your daddy moved across the hall.”
She couldn’t help herself and kissed the pink cheek. She guessed the baby was about four months old. Her skin was warm and smelled of talcum. “I’d love to get to know you, little one, but I can’t. I only know your daddy because I sublet this apartment from him. So, before I start going soft and goo-gooey, I’d better give him the news.” She shook her head, but couldn’t keep from smiling at the innocent bundle. “Does your daddy even know about you?”
The baby reached up, patted Hallie’s chin and cooed, filling Hallie with a rush of maternal longing. She closed her eyes and got hold of herself. “No you don’t, sweetie.” Settling the child on the carpeting, she stood. “I can’t do this again. I’m getting you out of here.”
Mustering her resolve, she marched from her apartment. She didn’t allow herself an instant of hesitation before she banged on Nathan Hawksmoor’s door.
After an interminable minute when she heard no response, she banged again. “Mr. Hawksmoor?” she called. Luckily, this was only a six-apartment complex, with two apartments on each floor. All the other tenants were away for Christmas. At least her shouting wouldn’t cause a lot of unwelcome attention. “Mr. Hawksmoor? Please answer your door.” She banged again. “This is important!”
Nothing.
She knew he was home. She’d heard him come in late last night. Just as she raised her fist to bang a third time, the doorknob rattled. The man who opened the door looked groggy, his coffee-brown hair mussed. He seemed taller than she remembered. And more naked, wearing only sweatpants.
“Yes?” He gazed sleepily at her, his eyelids at half-mast.
“I have your baby, Mr. Hawksmoor.”
He stilled in the act of dragging a sweatshirt on over his head. He peered at her, looking cuddly and sexy and way too amused for the degree of emergency. “If you said you’re having my baby, sweetheart, you’ve got the wrong apartment. If you said you want to have my baby—” he paused, scanning her flannel nightgown “—don’t you think you should buy me dinner first?”
His perusal of her floral nightclothes reminded her she was woefully underdressed. But that was hardly the issue, and hardly important, considering the situation. Distressed by the stimulating view of his bare chest, she flipped the sweatshirt sleeve dangling off his shoulder. “Would you mind putting that on, or are you planning to wear it as a tie?”
With a careless shrug that elicited a show of rippling muscle, he obliged. His casual attitude made it obvious he was unmoved by her news. Surely the man didn’t have babies dropped off at his door—or what someone had thought was his door—on a daily basis, no matter how irresistible he looked in the morning. “Listen, Mr. Hawksmoor. I have your baby,” she repeated sternly. “Her name’s Vanilla and she’s under my tree.”
Once again he grinned crookedly and lounged against the doorjamb. “If Christmas morning riddles are a tradition in Denmark, or on Pluto, or wherever you’re from, could we do it later? I just got to bed.”
All that sexy grinning and seductive lazing around was getting on her nerves. She blurted, “I have no doubt that you have a far-ranging and lively sex life, Mr. Hawksmoor. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here now.” Irritated with herself that she found him even the slightest bit appealing, she grabbed his shirtfront. “Come get your baby!”
“Hey, this is kidnapping, sweetheart.”
He didn’t sound very unsettled. Evidently women dragging him into their apartments took up a huge chunk of his social schedule. “Try not to panic, Mr. Hawksmoor. I don’t have designs on you.”
Inside her apartment, she let him go and gave him a shove toward the tree. Pointing to the baby, she said, “Merry Christmas. Now please take her home with you.”
His amusement vanished and he flicked her a suspicious glance. “What the hell is this?”
It was her turn to feel amused. “I’m guessing it’s a baby.”
He frowned. “Why are you showing it to me?”
Hallie’s exhale had all the earmarks of a curse. She flung her arms up and marched over to the infant. Going down on her knees, she reached inside the tote bag to retrieve the letter. Jerking it out, she held it up. “Read this.”
He didn’t move, but when Hallie waved it, scowling, he slowly bent to pluck the note from her fingers. “What is it?”
“All I know is, it has your name on it, and that this was once your apartment.”
He unfolded the sheet of typing paper. Vanilla made a whimpering sound, and Hallie looked at the child, her heart constricting. She was probably hungry, or wet. She hesitated to get involved, didn’t want to have anything to do with caring for this irresistible heart magnet She’d already lost three little girls who’d wrapped her around their chubby fingers. Her heart couldn’t stand for it to happen again.
The whimpering grew louder. With great regret, Hallie watched herself remove the ribbon and undo pink bunting to check the baby’s diaper. “Wet,” she mumbled.
“But I can’t have a baby!” Nate wadded the note.
Hallie looked up as she pulled a fresh diaper from the bag. “And how many years have you been celibate, Mr. Hawksmoor?”
He scowled at her. “When my wife ran off, I didn’t know she was pregnant.”
“Ah.” Hallie slipped off the old diaper. “So the celibacy thing’s a bust, huh?”
“Okay, okay, so the possibility exists that it could be mine!”
“Why do you think she never told you?” Hallie asked. “And why didn’t she ask for child support?”
He shrugged. “Viv got a nice inheritance from her grandfather a few weeks before she ran off. That was fourteen months ago. In her contorted little mind, she probably thought I’d ask for support if she kept in touch.” Tossing the letter to the rug, he went on. “When she sent the divorce papers to my lawyer, I signed them. That was that.”
“So you never knew you were going to be a papa, and she never knew you’d moved?”
“I’m not so sure I’m a papa.” His jaw worked. “According to that note, she’s found herself a new guy who’s not crazy about raising another man’s kid. It could be an excuse not to take responsibility for his own handiwork.”
“Whichever—he sounds like a prince.” Hallie readied the new diaper. She saw something on Vanilla’s hip and stopped. Turning the baby slightly, she could see a red birthmark about the diameter of a nickel. “Look at this.” She waved Nate to come closer.
“What?” He sounded dubious, as though he feared she’d discovered a second baby.
“Birthmark. It looks like a fleur-de-lis.”
He knelt, frowning. “Damn.”
Hallie stared at him. “What’s the matter?”
He sat on the floor, looking a little pale. “Nothing.”
Hallie scanned the red mark again and had a revelation. She eyed him. “You have one, too.”
He peered at her but didn’t speak.
She couldn’t help but grin. “You have a fleur-de-lis on your butt, too? How cute.”
He was grinding his teeth; she could tell by the way his jaws worked.
“That probably generates a lot of laughs in the locker room, huh—Daddy?” Why she enjoyed this, she had no idea. Maybe because not many minutes ago this handsome stud had managed to embarrass her with only a casual grin. And now, because of the telltale birthmark, he could hardly deny his fatherhood. All of a sudden he had a baby daughter he was expected to raise, and it was going to screw up his social life royally.
The baby whimpered, and Hallie remembered what she was supposed to be doing. “Okay, Vanilla, honey. I’m sorry.”
“Her name is not Vanilla,” he huffed. “Viv might be a latter-day flower child but she wouldn’t have named a child ‘Vanilla.’”
“Well, what did she name her? You figure it out.”
The baby’s whimpering grew stronger. Hallie put on the new diaper, folded the pink blanket around her and handed her to her father. “Here you go. Have a nice life.” She grabbed the tote bag and dropped the wadded letter inside. Standing, she held it out. He would have to be as thick as the Great Wall of China to mistake her meaning.
Nate looked at her. She noticed his eyes were the same light blue as the baby’s, but his lashes were long and dark, not blond like Vanilla’s. “What do you expect me to do with it?” he asked, holding the pink bundle at arm’s length as though it were radioactive.
“Take her home.”
He looked as shocked as if she’d told him to eat it. “I can’t take care of a baby.”
“Of course you can.” The baby was really crying now and Hallie found herself torn. Did she allow this... this inept male to take this baby home? Maybe he could make babies, but he had no inkling of what to do when faced with the responsibility of his creation.
The infant’s cries had become choking wails of agony. Clearly she was starving to death and any delay would be murder most foul—at least in Vanilla’s opinion. “Oh—give her to me!” Hallie took the baby and cuddled her to her chest. “Dig out one of those bottles and a can of formula. We’ll have to heat it up.”
“We?”
She drew herself up to her full, threatening fivefour. “Yes, we!” Unfortunately for her threatening ability, she was a foot shorter than he. “You’re the father. I’m only the neighbor.”
“But I don’t know what to do with it.”
“First, Vanilla is not an it!”
“It’s not Vanilla!”
“Well, whatever flavor she is, she’s not an it!” Lifting the baby to her shoulder, she patted her back. “Get a bottle and that formula.” Hallie heaved a sigh at her weakness. “I’ll show you how to heat it. Then I want you to go.”
His handsome face displayed a small measure of relief. “Thanks.” He knelt and retrieved one of the two bottles and a can of formula. “I appreciate this—uh...”
She glanced at him, frowning. Good grief, he didn’t even remember her name—which had been on her rent check every month for the past half year. “Hallie,” she shouted over the baby’s bellowing. “Hallie St. John.”
“Right.” He held out the formula and the bottle. “Now what, Hallie St. John?”
With a wayward rush of pity for the good-looking guy who’d just had his life turned upside down, Hallie led him to the kitchen.
Thirty minutes later Nate Hawksmoor and Vanilla were still there—much to Hallie’s consternation. But her Christmas-spirit-neighborly-maternal side was winning out big-time over her get-them-out-of-herethat-baby-is-not-my-business rational side.
Her tummy full and her bottom dry, the baby slept on the couch, looking like a Christmas angel. Nate lounged on the floor, sipping fresh coffee and leaning against an easy chair. Hallie’d berated herself the entire time she’d made the coffee, but it had done no good. She’d still offered him a cup, and he’d accepted—no gigantic surprise. Deflated, she watched as he scanned his wife’s badly penned, rumpled note. “I’m pretty sure,” he began, taking a sip from his mug, “her name is not Vanilla Porterhouse Hawksmoor.”
“Thank heaven.”
He half grinned, but without humor. “The closest I can come is Vivienne Patricia. Vivienne was my wife’s name. Patricia was her mother’s.” He shook his head. “The baby’s named after my airhead ex-wife and Tyrannosaurus Rex Woman. Great start.”
He glanced at Hallie, and she was glad she’d taken the time to change into jeans and a bulky sweater. Those eyes could do things—weird things—that made you want to check yourself just to make sure you hadn’t thrown off all your clothes. Luckily her jeans zipper tended to stick. She cleared her throat. What were they talking about? Oh, right, Tyrannosaurus Rex Woman—his ex-mother-in-law. Baby names. “Well, if you don’t like Vivienne or Viv...”
His mouth took on an unpleasant twist.
“Okay, what about Pat or Patty or Patsy?” She wondered what in the world she was doing, lounging on the floor with a man who was hardly more than a stranger, discussing baby names on Christmas morning. Why was she getting involved?
Because he’s a helpless male, and you’re a stupid nincompoop! her brain chided. Unfortunately, she found herself agreeing wholeheartedly with her brain, but unable to do a thing about it.
“Nope.”
She frowned, confused. She’d lost the thread of conversation again.
“I’ve had girlfriends with those names. Seems kinky.”
She closed her eyes, counting to ten. “Look, there aren’t that many variations on Patricia. Maybe it would be faster if you tell me the names of women you haven’t slept with, or we might have to call her Vanilla.”
He sat close to the Christmas tree. Hallie couldn’t understand why she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing him. If she was bright, she’d be behind one of the chairs, brandishing a whip, screaming, “Out! Out, Simba! Out!” As a poor substitute, she held her coffee mug in both hands in front of her, a shield of sorts.
He eyed her narrowly. “I didn’t say I’d slept with them all.”
Luckily this time she managed to recall what they’d been talking about and answered without any significant hesitation. “Sure.”
He smirked at her. “You have a low opinion of me, don’t you, Miss St. John?”
She sipped her coffee, stalling. She tried not to have any opinion of him. He was her landlord—the tall, good-looking man who smelled like cedar and cherry tobacco, a nice combination in an aftershave. Over the past six months she’d seen him bring two or three different women back to his apartment. The latest girlfriend was a curvy blonde who giggled a lot.
That’s all she knew about him, other than that he was an architect who sometimes worked out of his apartment. She also worked at home, doing the bookkeeping for several companies. Every so often they ran into each other in the hallway, where he’d leave his lingering cedar-tobacco scent and she’d sniff for a second or two longer than necessary. “I have no opinion, whatsoever, about you.”
He grunted as though he didn’t believe that. “You don’t like me one bit.”
She glanced at his face. He was grinning for the first time since he’d found out he was a father. Apparently he got a real charge out of her supposed aversion.
“You think I’m a sex-crazed maniac,” he added.
She stared. Did he read minds? She took another sip of coffee, deciding to keep her mouth shut.
He shrugged. “Well, I’m not.”
She arched a brow.
“I’m not.”
“I don’t really care, Mr. Hawksmoor.”
“Call me Nate.”
“Nate, I don’t really care.”
He downed the remainder of his coffee. “I think I’ll have some more of that.” He got up and went into the kitchen. “You make good coffee, Hallie.”
“I know, Nate.”
He came back. “You don’t have to call me Nate every time you say anything.”
“Thanks, Nate.”
He chuckled; the sound was pleasant. “You’re welcome, Hallie.”
She felt her lips twitch, but she squelched the urge to enjoy his banter. Don’t let this guy get to you, Hallie. He’s trying to soften you up, to ask you to help him with the baby. Don’t let him suck you in!
He joined her on the carpet, this time, nearer. She could detect his scent, mixed with the pine of her tree. She swallowed, lifting her mug so she could smell only coffee.
“What are your plans for today, Hallie?”
She bit her lip. Darn, why wasn’t she in Bartlesville with Bea and her family? She put down her mug and toyed with one of the packages beneath her tree. “Oh, uh...I need to catch up on some work.” She avoided his gaze.
“Mmm.”
Unable to stop herself, she eyed him with suspicion. “Why?”
His glance held hers as he sipped coffee. When he lowered his mug he shrugged. “Do you have any more ideas about what we could call the baby?”
We? She didn’t like the sound of we! “At least you’re not calling her ‘it’ anymore,” she mumbled, before a totally-out-of-nowhere thought struck. “Hey, have you ever dated a Trisha?”
He pursed his lips. “Nope.”
“Do you like the name?”
“Trisha Hawksmoor,” he murmured, as though testing it on the tongue. After a moment he nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
She sighed. “Thank goodness that’s over.” Standing, she gave him a now-you-can-go nod, desperate to get him and his new daughter out of her apartment—and her life.
His smile was dazzling and a little too confident, filling her with dismay.
