The Baby Arrangement (5 page)

Derek turned and stared at her as if she had two heads.   “What?  Why?”

Oh, great,
she thought to herself,
I am a complete idiot. 
“I just thought that maybe you didn’t get a chance to eat dinner with the hours that you keep.  I have no idea what your schedule is, but…,” she hesitated for a moment, “but I was cooking for myself and had made a little more than I could possibly eat and so I covered it and left it for you.”  There, that sounded reasonable, right?

Opening the refrigerator door, Derek stood stupefied.  There was not one covered dish, but three; one for each night she’d been here.  He took a moment to let that sink in.  The last person to care about his well-being was his grandmother – and he hadn’t lived with her in well over
twelve years.  He’d been taking care of himself just fine, thank you very much, but the thought of Kayleigh cooking a little something extra for him made him smile.  He didn’t realize just how alone he had been until that moment.

When he made n
o attempt to move, Kayleigh padded quietly into the living room.  The reflection of the moon on the lake made for a breath-taking view.  She sat in an over-stuffed suede chair, curled her feet under her and settled Emery in for her bottle.  She didn’t try to strike up a conversation with Derek; she was too enthralled with the setting – the infant in her arms, the moonlight, the view, and Derek Sloan’s house.  In her wildest dreams she never would have thought this possible, yet here she was. 

The beeping of the microwave snapped her out of her reverie.  Soon Derek was sitting on the sofa facing her – each piece of furniture sat on either side of an enormous stone fireplace.  Kayleigh wondered how it would be to have a fire roaring in it while she and Derek made love in front of it. 
Stop it! 

“So,” Derek began after tasting a forkful of Kayleigh’s shrimp Alfredo
, “are you and Emery getting into a routine?”

“Yes.”  Her voice was barely above a whisper and she had no idea why she was feeling so shy in front of him all of a sudden.  After all, she’d worked for him for years and on the day that the
baby arrived, they’d shared a lot with each other.

“Do you have everything that you need?  Did we forget anything?”

“We’re fine, thank you.”

Derek dropped the fork he had been eating from as he rested his elbows on his knees and looked at her.  Kayleigh knew he was irritated; it was written all over his face.  That and pure exhaustion.  “If you didn’t want to sit with me, you just should have said so,” he said with a
weary sigh.

She wasn’t sure how to respond to that.  It wasn’t that she didn’
t want to spend time with him, but how could she possible explain to him that he was just so overwhelming to her?

“Kayleigh?”

“I don’t mind sitting here with you.  It just feels so…” she hesitated.

“So?” he prompted.

“It just feels a little…intimate.”  There, she’d said it.  He raised an eyebrow at her choice of words and now she felt the need to explain.  “I mean, you’re my boss, I barely know you and yet here I am, sitting here in a dimly lit room in your home, feeding your child, while I’m barely dressed.”  Well, maybe she could have left that last part out.  Kayleigh could have bitten her own tongue off at her own stupidity.

Derek’s eyes grazed over her.  She did look delectable with her long hair mussed up from sleeping, the snug tank top that hid nothing and revealed the fullness of her breasts and the moonlight shone on the silkiness of her legs.  With Emery curled in her lap, she looked like a Madonna.  He swallowed hard and tried to think of something to say to put her mind at ease
, but by the startled look on her face, he knew that she could read his mind.

Kayleigh was the first to look away – focusing her attention on the baby in her arms.  Emery was nearly finished eating and soon would need to go back to sleep.  Most nights Kayleigh enjoyed sitting in the dark cuddling her, but tonight she was just hoping to survive having sitting here under Derek’s thorough perusal of her. 

Would there be a graceful way to jump up with the baby and run from the room or would she end up looking like some frightened little girl?  Good lord, the last thing that she wanted to do was to look like more of a fool in front of him. 

Derek resumed eating and after another forkful of food asked, “So, how is Emery during the day?  What kind of schedule is she on?”  Kayleigh breathed a sigh of relief at the direction of the conversation.  If he had asked her anything personal she was unsure of how she would have responded.

“She’s settled in quite nicely.  She gets up around eight and by eleven is back down for a short nap.  After lunch we’ve started going out for walks since the weather has been so lovely.  She really seems to enjoy that.  I think she’s settled into a schedule of eating every four hours.”

“That doesn’t give you much rest at night, does it?” he queried.

Kayleigh laughed a little and the action brought Derek’s eyes first to her smile – which he was coming to adore – and then to her breasts which were shaking under the thin ribbed material.  “I was kind of aware of the sleep deprivation aspect of the job.  I figured I could handle it on a temporary basis.”

Lifting Emery to her shoulder, she began patting her back and talking softly to her.  “She’s really a wonderful baby.  You’re very fortunate to have her.”

Derek’s eyes shot to hers in a near state of alarm.  For the last several days it had been almost possible to forget the situation he was in.  Kayleigh had been nearly invisible, as was Emery.  His home still looked like his home on the downstairs – upstairs was another story all together.  He had a private investigator working on trying to find out who the child’s mother was, but so far he’d had no luck.  Of all the irresponsible times for Brian to leave the country!

“Have you had any luck with contacting your brother?”

Derek polished off the last of food before answering.  “Unfortunately, no.  I do think that it would be wise to set up a paternity test so that maybe some things will be resolved by the time Brian does get back.”  He leaned back in the chair and sighed.  “Who knew that one little person could change a life so much?”

Kayleigh wanted to remind him that thanks to her, his life really hadn’t changed so much.  He had taken no real interest in Emery since Kayleigh had moved in and if it weren’t for this chance meeting in the kitchen, he still
wouldn’t know what was going on.  But it was late and now was not the time for hashing these things out.  Eventually the situation would have to be dealt with and she would move on with her life and so would he.  Snuggling Emery close, she only hoped that it would be an easy transition for all of them.

“I think she’s ready to go back to sleep,” Kayleigh whispered; her voice bringing Derek out of his own thoughts.

“Thank you for sitting with me,” he said quietly, careful not to startle the sleeping child.  “And thank you for dinner.  I wasn’t looking forward to eating microwave popcorn.”  He smiled and Kayleigh though her heart would melt.  It was devastating.  Seeing Derek in this environment was going to make it so much harder to see him around the office when this was all over.   “Good night, Kayleigh.”  He stood as she did and for a brief moment she thought he was going to walk over to her.  Instead he placed his hands in his pockets and stood rooted to the spot.

“Good night,
Derek.”  Turning, she walked into the foyer and up the stairs, thankful for the darkness that swallowed her form and hid the nervous trembling of a body too aware of the man in the living room.             

****

The rest of the week flew by.  Derek had to go out of town for several days on business and that left Kayleigh at ease around his home.  She and Emery were bonding and had developed a routine where they went out frequently.  It was a suggestion that both her brother and his wife Sarah had presented her with – get the child used to being on the go and soon enough, you should be able to take her anywhere without a fuss.  Amazingly enough, it worked.

They went food shopping together and had an outing to the mall just for the fun of it. 
Once again she was assaulted by the amount of decorations up proclaiming that it was almost Valentine’s Day.  Wasn’t there another way of doing it without be so…obnoxious?  The red balloons and hearts and flowers were everywhere and all it managed to do was make Kayleigh hate the holiday even more. 

It had been so long since Kayleigh had had so much free time that she was unsure of what to do with herself.  A single woman on a limited salary had few options with what to spend her money on.  Derek had given her a credit card for groceries and necessities for Emery and she tried not to abuse the privilege.  There were lunches out with friends and even a night with Kayleigh’s family where Emery was the star attraction even among all of the grandchildren.

It was while at her parent’s house that Kayleigh found herself wondering about the little girl’s future.  She knew that Derek’s parents had died many years ago and that both he and Brian had been raised essentially by their grandparents.  What kind of family would that be for Emery?  It broke her heart to think that the child might never know the closeness that the Mitchell’s had.  If Derek were her father, would he put her in boarding school so that parenthood wouldn’t disrupt his career?  Would Brian hire some hot nanny to care for her – and for him at night? 
Ugh
, the thought of it all sickened her.

Her mother noticed the frown on her face and inquired of its source.  Kayleigh was sitting on the couch in her parent’s den, watching her charge sleep on a blanket on the floor.  “I just hate the fact that Emery may never know what it’s like to be part of a loving family.”

“That’s a pretty big assumption to make, don’t you think?” Kathleen Mitchell asked.  As the matriarch of such a large family, you’d never guess her age to be over 50.  She was the older version of Kayleigh - short, dark auburn hair streaked with silver and more laugh lines on her face, but still a vision.

“You haven’t met the Sloan brothers.”

“What about their grandparents?  What do they think of this whole situation?”

Kayleigh had wondered about that very thing and assumed that Derek didn’t want to burden them until they knew for sure who Emery belonged to.  She shared that theory with her mother. 

“What if the mother comes back and has a large family?”

Kayleigh chewed her bottom lip.  That though had never occurred to her and now it angered her.  After deserting the child, she felt that the birth mother had given up any rights to the precious baby.  And if that woman happened to be a former lover of Derek’s and they married and…and…
Oh!
  Just the thought of Derek with another woman raising Emery made her want to cry.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” Kayleigh said softly and quickly asked about her nieces and nephews interests to take the focus off of herself.  Kathleen wasn’t fooled.  She saw that her daughter was forming
quite an attachment to the baby – and her boss.  It was all too emotional right now and quietly decided that this was one time that she was going to have to just sit back and let nature take its course.  There was bound to be a broken heart in the near future but it was Kayleigh’s choice.  She just knew that she needed to be ready with the Kleenex and a shoulder to cry on when the time arrived.

****

Derek arrived home late Sunday night and found himself anxious to be there.  A glance at his watch showed it to be barely after midnight.  Would they be awake?  Would Kayleigh remember that he was due home and have food waiting for him?

Geez, get a grip man
,
He admonished himself.  She’s the nanny, not your wife, for crying out loud.  That thought stopped him cold.  He never imagined himself coming home to a wife and kids – it just didn’t fit into his plans – but somehow, in this last week, the thought became less scary and more appealing.  After all, if Emery was his and her mother never came back, he’d need someone to care for her.  Wouldn’t it be better if that caretaker was his wife rather than the hired help?

Shaking his head at his wayward
thoughts, he slipped the key into the lock and went inside.  Re-setting the alarm, he heard Kayleigh’s voice coming from the living room.  Quietly dropping his bags by the door, he walked towards her and stood in the shadows and observed. 

She was sitting on
the couch this time, curled into the far corner.  Emery was suckling loudly on her bottle and Kayleigh was singing a lullaby to her.  He actually felt an ache in his chest that he’d never felt before.  Stepping forward slowly, Kayleigh noticed him and smiled – never once breaking the song she was singing or alerting the baby that anyone else was there.

Her heartbeat accelerated wildly.  He actually looked relieved to be home and though he was slightly rumpled from his travels – a far cry from the model of perfection he presented at the office – he
still looked good enough to eat, Kayleigh thought as he came further into view.

Loosening his tie, Derek advanced in to the room.  “Hi,” he said softly, walking behind the sofa to get a better look at Emery.  “How’s she doing?”

Looking up at him and willing the tremor out of her voice, she replied, “Fine.  She’s going for a little longer between bottles and so our nights are getting better.”