Be My Baby Tonight (42 page)

Baseball. It had been both of their lives,
for as long as he could remember. Oh, there’d been football and
basketball in high school, but it was baseball that consumed them
both. From the time they’d been five or six, it had been Jack
throwing the ball, Tim catching; Jack throwing the ball, Tim
hitting. Hour after hour, day after day, year after year. Their dad
had built a pitcher’s mound in the backyard, constructed a batting
cage out of iron pipes and chicken wire. He’d even drilled a hole
in a baseball, suspended it from a chain in the garage ceiling,
then put up an old rug for them to hit into in the off-season.

Baseball, baseball, baseball.

It had been their lives.

It was still Tim’s life, his brother now in
his eighth season as catcher for the Phillies, leading the club in
both doubles and triples and probably heading for yet another
Golden Glove award.

But it wasn’t Jack’s life. Not anymore. Not
since the last rotator cuff surgery last winter, and one hellishly
lousy spring training camp, culminating in his retirement before
the Yankees could cut him loose. He’d cried during his press
conference on ESPN, damn near bawled like a baby, then crawled into
his condo and hid. Now he was hiding in Whitehall, of all places,
still licking his wounds while his twin was second in the over-all
voting so far for the All-Star game.

Tell Tim he’d stupidly inherited Cecily’s
baby for God knows how long? Oh no. Not hardly.

“Which leaves the smart-mouth downstairs,”
Jack told his reflection before turning away, heading for the
walk-in closet and a clean shirt. “What’s her name again? Kathy?
Karen? No... Keely. That’s it. What the hell kind of name is
Keely?”

Jack pulled the tan shirt over his head, his
head popping free as he realized that he knew nothing about this
woman. He’d left M and M downstairs with a stranger who had been
handpicked by Aunt Sadie, queen of the silly fairies.

And he said Cecily was nuts? What did that
make him?

Desperate. Definitely desperate.

He looked at the clock sitting on the box
beside his stacked mattress and box spring. Nine-thirty. Shouldn’t
it be at least noon? Or maybe September? Because this had been the
longest two hours in his life.

But it was only nine-thirty, and he couldn’t
hide up here all day. He had to go back downstairs, see the woman,
see the baby. Figure out what to do with the woman, do with the
baby.

He’d rather be facing Mark McGwire in an
interleague game, in the bottom of the ninth, with the score tied
and the bases loaded.

Jack loped down the back stairs that led
directly into the kitchen, stopping dead when he saw the baby in
the sink, the woman holding the sink’s power spray over the baby’s
head. “What in
hell
are you doing? Trying to
drown
the kid?”

Keely, clearly startled by Jack’s bellow,
turned quickly, losing her grip on the wet, slippery infant—who
then sort of slowly
slid
down lower into the sink. “Oh God!
Oh God, look what you made me do!” she yelled, grabbing at M and M
with both hands, pulling her upright again. “She’s so damn
slippery.”

M and M was wailing again, her blond hair
stuck to her head, her long eyelashes all spiky and clumped as she
opened and closed her eyes and water dripped off her nose.

“Is she all right?” Jack asked, reluctantly
approaching the sink.

“Yes, she’s all right... I suppose. She’s
yelling, isn’t she?” Keely responded, holding M and M’s upper arm
with one hand, using her free hand to blot the baby’s face with
paper towels. “And she was liking it, too, until you showed up.”
She threw the damp paper towels on the counter and lifted Keely out
of the sink, a hand under each arm. M and M’s arms and legs were
wiggling, her smooth buttocks riding above chubby legs marked with
at least four fat creases. “Here,” Keely said, shoving those
buttocks at Jack, “hold her until I get more towels.”

“Hold her?” Jack backed up rapidly. “Are you
frigging
nuts?
You just said she was slippery.”

Keely held on as M and M laughed, and
wriggled, and reached for Keely’s hair. “Well then, if you won’t
hold her,
you
get the paper towels. And may I add, it’s a
poor kitchen that has no proper dish towels. Old Mother Hubbard had
a full pantry, compared to you. One mug, one can of coffee grounds,
half a loaf of bread, and some Chinese take-out that died in the
year of the dog. It’s pitiful, that’s what it is.”

He ignored her complaints, concentrating on
his new job as paper towel-getter. He could do that. He’d won two
Cy Young awards—he could fetch paper towels. He quickly slipped
past Keely—literally, as the floor was wet—and snagged the roll
from the countertop. “Now what?”

“Dry her off,” Keely said, rolling her eyes.
“And hurry up—this kid should be on a diet.”

Dry her off. Jack hesitated, holding a length
of paper toweling he’d stripped from the roll. Dry her off. How
could he dry her off? He approached from behind, one end of the
paper toweling in his hand, and began wrapping it around M and M’s
bare bottom, her wriggling legs.

Once, twice, three times around, until M and
M was in a cocoon of paper towels and Keely finally said, “That
ought to do it, thanks. Now you can hold her and she won’t
slip.”

“She’s still dripping wet,” Jack pointed out,
ripping off another section of toweling and draping it over M and
M’s wet head. The infant giggled, shook her head, and the towel
fell to the floor. “And she’s not cooperating, damn it.”

“Don’t swear in front of the child,” Keely
bit out, shoving M and M at him, so that he was forced to take her.
She then took a deep breath, stood up straight, smoothed down the
front of her once crisp white blouse. “I’ve got to find something
for this kid to wear. There has to be something in one of those
bags in the wash basket.”

“What was wrong with what she had on?” Jack
asked, carefully sitting down on the floor, figuring that M and M
would have less distance to fall if he lost his grip on her.

“Are you kidding? She was all wet... and
stinky.
What didn’t come out the top end when she spit up on
me made its way out the bottom end right after you deserted me. I
couldn’t do anything else but give her a bath.”

Jack shifted his eyes right, then left. He’d
noticed a new smell when he’d entered the kitchen, not a pleasant
smell, and now he looked at a small pile of discarded clothing on
the floor and saw what looked like a disposable diaper—a
full
disposable diaper—perched right on top of the mound.
Then he looked across the room at the sink.

“Let me get this straight,” he said after a
moment. “M and M sh—, er, did something in her pants, and your
answer to that was to stick her backside in my kitchen sink? My
sink?
I might want to put
dishes
in that sink,
woman!”

Keely had pulled two large, tightly packed
pink plastic zipper bags out of the wash basket and was rummaging
through them, selecting small garments. “Oh, shut up,” she said,
otherwise ignoring him as she pulled a disposable diaper out of a
box of them and placed it with the clothing. “Diaper, shirt, dress,
socks. That ought to do it. Oh God, look how
small
this
stuff is. Just like a doll’s. So cute!”

“Having fun, Ms. McBride?” Jack asked, trying
to hold on to M and M as the damp paper towels began to come apart
and the baby tried to reach up, destroy what was left of his bottom
lip and gums. “That’s good. Because I’m not. Trust me in this. I’m
not.
I don’t like babies. Not even cute babies.”

“She is cute, isn’t she?” Keely said,
spreading the pink blanket on the floor, then gingerly lifting M
and M out of Jack’s arms and laying her down on the blanket. “And
pretty much like one of the dolls I used to play with, except she
moves more, of course. I think I can dress her. I remember how.”
Then she picked up the disposable diaper, turned it one way, then
another, and frowned. “Okay, maybe not all at once. But I’ll figure
it out.”

“Good. You do that,” Jack said, easing
himself to his feet. “I’m going to go catch last night’s ball
scores on ESPN.”

“Figures,” Keely said, but she was talking to
M and M, not Jack. “Make the baby, zip up the pants, and go watch
ESPN. Remember this, sweetheart: men. They’re all alike.”

“She... is...
not...
my... baby.” Jack
pronounced each word slowly, distinctly. “She is my cousin’s baby.
And what the hell
should
I be doing?”

Keely redid the tapes on the disposable
diaper, then sat back, admiring her work. “There, that ought to
hold her.” She pushed a lock of honey blond hair out of her eyes
and looked up at Jack. “What
should
you be doing? Well, if I
could make a suggestion, Mr. Trehan, I’d say you should be figuring
out how to strap that little seat in the backseat of your car, so
we can go shopping.”

He eyed her warily. “Shopping for what?”

Keely rolled her eyes. “For M and M, of
course. I mean, you can wait for new furniture, but M and M can’t.
Or were you planning to have her sleep in her seat? And have you
decided which is to be her bedroom? I should know, take a few
measurements, and then we can be on our way. We can stop at my
aunt’s shop—I can change clothes, because we live above the
shop—then pick up the van, and be able to bring everything home
with us. I
have
decorated a nursery before, you understand.
I was thinking about a cherry wood crib with a canopy top—with a
white eyelet canopy—and a matching dressing table, and a rocking
chair, of course, and—”

Jack bent down, grabbed the car seat, and
headed for the door, practicing his Japanese.

* * * * * *

To learn more about Kasey or how to purchase

LOVE TO LOVE YOU BABY or any of her books,

please visit her online at

www.KaseyMichaels.com
.

Connect with Kasey on Facebook at

www.facebook.com/AuthorKaseyMichaels

Kasey Michaels began her career scribbling
her stories on yellow legal pads while the family slept. She
totally denies she chiseled them into flat rocks, but yes, she
began her career a long time ago. Now Kasey is the
New York
Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of more than 110
books (she doesn't count them). Kasey has received four coveted
Starred Reviews from
Publishers Weekly
, three for historical
romance,
The Secrets of the Heart
,
The Butler Did it
, and
The Taming of a
Rake
, and for the contemporary romance
Love To
Love You Baby
(that shows diversity, you see). She is a
recipient of the RITA, a Waldenbooks and Bookrak Bestseller award,
and many awards from
Romantic Times
magazine, including a
Career Achievement award for her Regency era historical romances.
She is an Honor Roll author in Romance Writers of America, Inc.,
and is a past president of Novelists, Inc. (NINC), the only
international writers organization devoted solely to the needs of
multi-published authors.

Please visit Kasey on her website at

www.KaseyMichaels.com

or connect with Kasey on Facebook at

www.facebook.com/AuthorKaseyMichaels