A Bride for Jackson Powers (Desire, 1273) (6 page)

She’d liked Gus, too, of course, and learned to love him for the sweet, decent man he was. And while Jax
was sweet and decent, what she was beginning to feel for him bore no resemblance to the mild, pleasant relationship she’d had with her husband.

Hetty told herself she’d do well to mind her p’s and q’s. And then she spent the next five minutes soaking in heavenly bliss, trying drowsily to remember what p’s and q’s were. She vaguely remembered reading about it somewhere in the distant past. Something to do with typesetting….

“Hetty? You all right in there?”

“Wha—?”

“If you’re going to fall asleep in a tubful of water, I’d better see if I can find you a pair of water wings. Supper’s here, in case you’re interested.”

Jax heard splashing and muttering, then heard water gurgling down the drain. “There should be a bathrobe behind the door,” he called through the door.

“I didn’t even think—yes, there is. Thanks, I’ll be out in two minutes.”

She was as good as her word. Jax knew damned well he had dined under more difficult circumstances, but at the moment he couldn’t recall when or where. Sitting across the small table from a woman who was wearing only a thick white terry cloth robe, her wet hair wrapped in a towel, her bare feet propped on a third chair, was enough to get a rise from a dead man. And Jax wasn’t quite dead yet.

Worried, yes. Bone tired, too, which was only to be expected. But damned if she didn’t turn him on doing no more than gnawing a chicken bone and licking her fingers.

“Did you find diapers and formula?” Earlier, leaving Sunny asleep in her crib, he’d called through her door that he was going to check out the drugstore just off the lobby.

“Laid in a supply.”

“She’s been amazingly patient. Pass me the ketchup, will you?” A grand cru chablis and ketchup on her fries. The lady was an enigma. “Robert was always colicky,” she remarked.

“Is that a fact?” He tried to look sympathetic, but he couldn’t help feeling smug. He was going to have to watch this baby-pride stuff, or he’d turn into one of those parents who hauled out snapshots at the drop of a hat.

“Babies react to tension just like anyone else. My mother-in-law was sick the whole time I had Robert—well, actually more incapacitated than sick, but she demanded a lot of attention. And I was worried about Jeannie, so it was probably no wonder Robert cried a lot. Poor little thing, he was such a fussy eater.”

He couldn’t help himself. He grinned. New fathers were allowed a little latitude, weren’t they? “Sunny’s pretty unflappable. That’s a sign of a well-adjusted personality, wouldn’t you say?”

She glanced up at him through a sweep of long, golden-tipped lashes. The look was innocent, mildly speculative, not at all flirtatious. “Not necessarily. Jax, if I’m supposed to be looking after her these next few days, is there anything I should know? About her background, I mean?”

A few days? Jax didn’t remember setting any limits. He considered satisfying her curiosity, told himself it was none of her business, then said, “Carolyn’s perfectly normal, healthy, no allergies or health problems, mental or physical, that I know of. And in answer to the questions you’re too polite to ask, she and I had a brief affair about eighteen months ago. I didn’t know her well at the time and haven’t spoken to her since, until she called to tell me we had a daughter.”

Looking thoughtful, Hetty reached for one of the triple-chocolate sundaes topped with raspberry sauce. “So why did she give away her baby?”

“She didn’t ‘give her away,’ as you put it. She’s leaving the country for an extended stay and decided Sunny would be better off in a more stable situation.” He didn’t mention the fact that if he hadn’t taken her, Carolyn had planned to put her up for adoption.

“That’s so sad. For Carolyn, I mean. I can’t imagine anything more painful than having to give up a child. I only had Robert five months, but leaving him was the most painful thing I’ve ever had to do. Did you tell her that people travel all the time with babies? They’re remarkably adaptable.”

“I didn’t tell her anything. I don’t know whether they’re adaptable or not. I took Sunny because I want her, and now, if the interrogation is finished, shall we polish off the wine?” He’d had three glasses. She had barely tasted hers.

Sunny’s adaptability evidently had its limits. Jax woke in the middle of the night to hear Hetty softly
crooning the song about looking glasses and mockingbirds. Pulling on his slacks, he moved silently to the door and opened it, wishing he’d taken the time to go across town to his own place to pack a bag. He hadn’t, only because it would have been unfair to Hetty, as she hadn’t had time yet to shop.

He made a mental note to call Lina, his secretary, first thing in the morning and have her take Hetty shopping. The thought of outfitting her from the skin out triggered images he could do without. Even so, for a long time he stood and watched from the shadows of the doorway.

She was still wearing the bulky terry cloth robe. She couldn’t have slept in the thing, it would hog-tie her the first time she rolled over.

Unbidden, his imagination took over once more, screening pictures of a nude Hetty sliding between silken sheets. He happened to know she slept on her side. She didn’t snore, but when she was deeply asleep she made soft, puffy little noises with her lips.

He swore softly and backed away. If just seeing her like this got to him until he was so hard he hurt, he’d damned well better start looking for a house and a staff before he did anything else.

If
he was going to get involved—big
if
—he would have to be sure it was for his own sake, not his daughter’s. Not that he was even considering marriage, but
if
he did—another big
if
—it damn well wouldn’t be any marriage of convenience.

“‘Hush, little baby, don’t you cry, Mama’s gonna rock you bye and bye.”’

Rocking chair. Yeah, he’d see about getting one of those, too, he told himself as the whispery sound of Hetty’s voice followed him into the bedroom.

Hours later, his head aching, his eyes burning, Jax stared up at the ceiling and tried to pinpoint the precise time his well-ordered life had begun to spin out of control.

H
etty would’ve given anything for concealer, blusher and lipstick. Jax had brought her a toothbrush, toothpaste, comb and a hairbrush from the drugstore last night and asked if she needed anything else before morning.

She could have mentioned several items. Deodorant. Nightgown. Clean underwear. Her old life back.

Instead, she’d sponged her skirt and mended the rip, using the hotel’s sewing kit. She’d rinsed out her underwear before she went to bed, then had lain awake, listening to Sunny’s breathing. Listening to Jax in the next room talking to someone on the phone. Trying to convince herself she wasn’t making a monumental mistake.

She had a family back in Oklahoma. She could never be one of those independent women who didn’t need her family. And whether or not her family realized it, they needed her, too.

Back and forth, back and forth, go or stay…

When morning finally came, nothing had changed. She was still feeling wary, vulnerable—afraid to go forward, afraid to go back. Most of all, afraid she was falling deeper in love with every passing day.

Her underwear was still damp, but she put it on, anyway. Whether she liked it or not—and she didn’t—she was going to need another loan. She could call it an advance on her salary, only they’d never got around to discussing the terms, much less the duration, of her employment.

Among several recent changes in her life, one stood out in stark relief—gone was the thirst for travel and adventure that had first driven her to jump at the chance to fly to Miami and board a cruise ship. Totally evaporated.

Unfortunately the dream that had crept in like a thief in the night to take its place involved a husband and a baby. Maybe two babies. His and hers. Theirs.

Which was hardly a realistic dream for a woman of Hetty’s age, but then, that was the nice thing about dreams. They didn’t have to be realistic. Before she’d even learned how to dream, she’d had her once-in-a-lifetime fairy-tale romance. Gus had come along like a knight in shining armor at a time when she’d been in desperate need of rescuing. She’d been too embarrassed to ask for help, but somehow Gus had known.

Over coffee, she said, “Jax, as far as I know, my luggage is somewhere between Oklahoma and Florida. I’m going to need—”

“All taken care of.” With the smug expression of a cat in a creamery he told her he’d put a tracer on her baggage and that meanwhile, his secretary would be there within the hour, bringing a selection of clothes for Hetty to choose from so that she would have something to wear while she shopped for whatever else she needed.

Hetty slammed her cup down. “Darn it, don’t
do
this to me!”

“What, you want to go shopping in sandals and that floppy thing you’re wearing now? It’s about thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit outside and windy.”

He had a point. Her clothes, while they might be fine for a Caribbean cruise, were hardly suited for a January rain. She spun around and glared out at the gray drizzle coming down outside. “This is just not working.”

“It’s working fine. Climb down off your high horse and listen for a minute, will you? Lina will—”

“You paid for my ticket. You—”

“You looked after my daughter.”

“You bought me food, you bought me—”

“That’s where you’re mistaken. I offered to trade what you need for what I need. It’s called the barter system. It’s a recognized and respectable custom all over the world.”

“Yes, well…but—”

“I’m listening.” He crossed his arms over his
chest. His jaw had that clean-shaven, early-morning look, even though he was still wearing the same rumpled shirt and baggy-kneed flannels he’d worn since day one.

It made her feel marginally better that he hadn’t raced home last night to shower and change. Misery liked company. “I hate being in debt. My—that is, someone ran up a huge bill on my credit card once, and I had to pay for it.”

“If you’d reported it immediately, you’d have been responsible for only about fifty bucks.”

“Yes, but Jeannie might have—”

She clammed up, but not before he got the picture. Evidently that stepdaughter of hers was a real piece of work. “Believe me, Hetty, you’ll earn every penny I pay you. Now, here’s what I’ve got planned for today. First, I’ll need to run by my apartment to collect clothes and mail.”

He’d already collected his messages. He’d still been on the phone when she’d fallen asleep last night.

“Give me—say, two hours. Meanwhile, Lina will bring over a raincoat and a pair of sensible shoes—size eight, narrow, right?”

“You looked!”

“So sue me.” His grin was wickedly attractive. “I’ll be back in time to watch Sunny while you two go shopping. After that I have in mind leaving you here while I start negotiating for a house. Once that’s in the works, I’ll get started on hiring staff.”

He peered at her closed face, looking for some clue that she was going to be reasonable. “The thing is,
all this takes time, and I’m in the middle of a big case right now, with several smaller ones coming to a head. In other words, I’m going to be tied up for the next few weeks, and I need someone I can trust to look after my daughter.”

She flung out her hands. “Jackson, that’s just it! I’m a stranger, someone you picked up in an airport. How can you trust me not to—to—”

“You can’t even think of an appropriate crime, can you? How about kidnapping Sunny and holding her for ransom?”

“Be serious.”

“I am serious. I trust you. Maybe not right at first, because you looked like a—”

“Like a fool, dressed for a Caribbean cruise in the middle of a blizzard.”

“Because you looked like a fashion model. Beautiful, but without the vacant stare.” He narrowed his eyes. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You thought I was beautiful? But I’m not. I never have been.”

“I didn’t say you were pretty. There’s a difference between being pretty and being beautiful, and don’t ask me what it is because I can’t explain it. The important thing is, I got to know you and I learned to trust you, and dammit, Hetty, I need you!”

They’d left it at that. The day had gone precisely as he’d arranged it. And as tired as she was, it felt good to know she could change from the skin out into
clean clothes and still have a spare in case Sunny spit up on her.

“That’s right, sugar-britches, Daa-daa. Maa-maa.”

Sunny stared up at her, her huge, dark blue eyes unfocused as she tried to interpret whatever message this odd creature was attempting to impart.

“Never mind, Daddy can learn to answer to “Goo-umble-umm.”

They had practiced sitting up. Sunny was wobbly, but she was ready. She’d already mastered the art of scooting across the floor on one knee, both hands and her bottom. There’d be no holding her back after this.

Later, while Sunny napped, Hetty took the opportunity to soak in a tubful of hot water, reading a chapter of the paperback novel Lina had recommended. It was a luxury she’d seldom had the opportunity to indulge in back in Minco, thanks to a lack of time and an elderly, inefficient hot water heater.

Sighing, she laid the book aside and closed her eyes. Every bone and muscle in her body ached, whether from all the shopping she’d done today or sleeping on a strange bed last night or from simply an accumulation of those plus sleeping on a hard airport floor in Chicago.

Old bones. She’d heard the phrase more than once. Now she knew firsthand what it meant.

Lina had been surprised—disappointed, Hetty suspected—when she’d insisted on going to a discount department store and buying the basics—two pairs of jeans, one dark knit skirt, three tops, an all-weather coat that made up in practicality what it lacked in
beauty. She’d splurged on a three-day supply of plain cotton underwear and the necessary toiletries, and then headed for the infant department.

“Hold on, you’re going to need at least two nightgowns, and what about a bathrobe?” the older woman had reminded her.

“I’ll sleep in a T-shirt. As for a bathrobe, the hotel provides a lovely one.”

“Huh! Well, at least get yourself two pairs of good shoes and some slippers.”

“One pair of shoes, no slippers.”

“You don’t know who’s walked on those hotel carpets before. They don’t shampoo them between guests, you know.”

“So I’ll wear socks if I get up in the night.”

“You’ll get up all right, unless babies have changed since mine were that age. I don’t understand you, Henrietta, I just don’t. Jax is paying. He’s going to blame me for bringing you here.”

“How long have you worked for him?”

“Ever since he first set up office. He’s two years younger than my oldest boy, but we took to each other right off.”

Hetty would have placed the secretary’s age in the midfifties. She revised it a few years upward. A large woman with a nice sense of style, Lina’s gray hair was cut in a sassy young wedge that was both daring and flattering. Hetty had been so proud of her own new haircut. Compared to Lina’s, it was small-town dowdy.

But then, so was she.

“I only met him a few days ago,” she confessed. “I guess he told you about how we met and how I came to be here.” She refused to sail under false colors. Lina had been hinting all morning at a relationship that simply didn’t exist. Nor was it ever likely to. “I’m only temporary, until he can find someone better. We have this barter thing going, so you see, I won’t be here long enough to earn more than the basics. Besides, Jax said he’d put a tracer on my baggage. Once that comes…”

Once that came, if it ever did, she’d have several pairs of summer pants, several tropical-print tops, one long skirt, plus shorts, camp shirts, bathing suits and the usual accessories.

At the infant-and-children’s section, Hetty insisted on buying several outfits for Sunny. When she’d discovered how little the child had, she’d asked Jax about it. He’d shrugged and said, “Carolyn said she outgrew things so fast there was no point in sending her old things, that I’d probably need to buy everything new in a larger size.”

Hetty knew for a fact that babies could outgrow things almost overnight. All the same, she was beginning to believe Sunny had been sorely neglected, in more ways than one. She was almost too undemanding.

She added a snowsuit in a larger size to the growing pile. “He won’t mind, will he?” she asked Lina as the two women stacked their purchases on the checkout counter.

“Lord, no. He’s generous to a fault, but he’s got a
lot to learn when it comes to taking care of a baby.” She took out a platinum card and watched like a hawk as the purchases were rung up. “Women, too. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, and if it was about his work, you couldn’t pry my jaws apart, but you might as well know that when it comes to women, that boy doesn’t have a speck of judgment. He won’t talk about his family—I’m not sure he even has one, but if he had no more brains than to get involved with the kind of woman who would give her baby away just so she could go traipsing off around the world, then the good Lord help him. If you ask me, she probably spent every cent she had on her own back. Babies aren’t cheap, you know. In my day we washed diapers and used them until they wore out, then used them as dust rags. All my babies ate regular food, strained and mashed in my own kitchen, not all this special stuff.”

At least there was nothing wrong with Sunny’s appetite. Hetty had stocked up on Robert’s favorite foods, and Sunny had yet to refuse anything. “Tomorrow we’ll go shopping for a stroller and a playpen, sugar-bun,” Hetty promised now, burying her face in Sunny’s warm, plump belly just to hear her gurgling laughter.

She was still smiling when she heard Jax let himself into the suite. He’d left as soon as she and Lina had returned from their shopping spree. Since then she hadn’t heard a word from him. In spite of all her common-sense resolutions, there was nothing she could do about the sudden leap of her heart.

Jax let himself inside the room quietly in case Sunny was sleeping. Since he’d left that morning, he had packed enough clothes for several days, dealt with the mail and the latest batch of phone messages at his apartment. They’d all been of a personal nature, including one from the woman he was currently seeing, reminding him of the birthday dinner he’d promised her.

He’d clean forgotten it.

Next, he’d met with a real estate agent to spell out his requirements, talked at length to a representative of the shipping firm that owned the vessel involved in the October oil spill, to the Coast Guard exec in charge of the cleanup and to someone from the governmental Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

He’d dealt with two minor cases, taped responses to several letters for Lina to transcribe and gone shopping for a birthday gift suitable for a woman with whom he’d shared a lackadaisical six-month affair.

While he was at the jeweler’s, he’d impulsively selected a sterling silver mug and had it engraved, “To Sunny from Daddy, with love.”

“Hi, is she asleep?” he whispered, closing the door silently behind him.

“I just put her down again. She’s still making noises. I think she’s practicing to surprise you with her vocabulary.”

“What vocabulary? I haven’t heard anything that sounded like words yet.”

“That’s because you don’t know what to listen for.”

Jax tried not to stare at the tall, elegant creature with the cheekbones and the big, rain-colored eyes. She was wearing the same old terry cloth robe. On her it looked sexy as the devil.

Which just went to show that he’d pushed the limits today, after a night in which he hadn’t slept more than a few hours.

He dropped his briefcase on the French Provincial desk and crossed to the miniature bar. “Drink?”

“I made coffee.”

“I need something stronger. Have you eaten yet?”

“No, I—”

“I’ll order. I skipped lunch. What do you feel like tonight, steak? Seafood?”

What she felt like was something homey, like stewed chicken and biscuits, something that didn’t make her feel so much like an imposter. Which was ironic for someone who, if things had worked out, would have been dining on the high seas tonight on such exotic fare as lobster and caviar.