Dad in an Instant Read online

  “Did you rest up last night?” he asked her.

  “I sat down on my bed to take off my shoes and fell asleep in my clothes,” she admitted. “I feel great now.”

  And she did feel great. The sight of Jake and Lucas together would make anyone feel great.

  “There’s coffee in the kitchen,” Jake said.

  Abbie glanced up to see Jake gazing at her, his expression unfathomable. “Excellent news,” she said.

  He smiled at her. “Okay, I’ll get down to the kitchen if you think you’ll be okay.”

  “We’ll be okay, won’t we, Lucas?” The baby giggled at her.

  “Before you go,” she said to Jake, “since I’m officially the nanny now, is there anything you’re especially interested in teaching him? Or anything you’d like me to do for him that I might not think of?”

  “Well…” He hesitated. “I’ve been reading The Baby User Manual—”

  She laughed, and he grinned, then continued, “And it says babies should have activities. I’m at a loss. Like what? Little League? Piano lessons? Bingo nights?”

  Abbie laughed again at his silliness. “I don’t think so, but I’ve heard some of the moms around here talk about swimming lessons in special indoor pools and baby gymnastics classes, and even some learning programs. I’ll do some asking around to find out where they’re located.”

  “Thanks. Okay, then, I’ll go down to the diner—”

  “Then there are play dates with other children, and of course we’ll make daily trips out in the stroller now that he’s feeling better.”

  Suddenly, she was aware that Jake really wanted to go to work. That would change, she was sure. In no time at all, he’d prefer being with Lucas to being in the kitchen.

  She smiled up at him from the floor, where she was already showing Lucas how to play with a stacking toy. “Go on,” she said. “I know you can’t wait to hit the kitchen.”

  At the top of the stairs, watching him leave, she frowned. He should have kissed Lucas goodbye, told him exactly where he was going and when he’d be back. Someday when she felt comfortable about it, she’d mention it to him. Lucas might not notice at the moment, but soon he would.

  After lunch, she put Lucas down for a nap and began to straighten up the room, which looked as if poltergeists had attacked it. When her phone rang, she picked it up, then saw her mother’s name on the caller-ID screen. Her heart sank. She hadn’t confessed to her about her new job.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said cheerfully, crossing her fingers.

  “Abbie, I called Jake’s Place, and they said you were upstairs. What are you doing in Jake’s apartment?” Elaine’s voice was calm and pleasant, but Abbie could sense that she was nonplussed.

  “I’m helping Jake with Lucas,” she hedged. “He’s been sick, and he was totally disrupting the cooking and serving, so I offered to stay here with him.”

  “You’ve always been good with babies,” Elaine said, but her voice was guarded. “But you’ll have to be there with him all day, won’t you? And well into the night?”

  Duh. “Yes, but he’s what you call an easy baby,” Abbie said. “It’s not a problem.”

  “Except that, well, if you end up taking care of him every day so Jake won’t have to deal with him in the kitchen, that’s a full-time job.”

  Uh-oh. She had to tell her mother the truth. “I imagine that’s the way it’ll turn out, Mom. I’ll take care of Lucas instead of waiting tables. But during his naptimes, I’ll be doing my research and planning the details of the benefit…”

  “When you leave in January, won’t that be upsetting to Lucas?”

  She couldn’t bear to talk about it anymore. Her mother was saying aloud all the worries she’d kept to herself. And the biggest one was that Lucas would get attached to her—and she was afraid she was already attached to him. Their separation in January could be devastating.

  Separating from Jake could be devastating, too. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” she said easily, controlling a tremor in her voice that would give her away.

  She heard the sigh at the other end of the line. “The reason I called,” Elaine said, “was to ask if I could help you get Mrs. Langston’s house cleaned up enough for you to be comfortable there. Priscilla told someone it was filthy when you moved in.”

  “You’re so sweet to offer,” Abbie said, and she was touched by it, “but I won’t let you do that. I’m doing a little at a time, and I won’t have to clean the whole place, just the rooms I’m using. You just take it easy and raise money for the foster care center, okay?”

  “Come for lunch or dinner sometime, honey. You can bring Lucas. What about lunch tomorrow?”

  “Thanks, Mom.” Abbie was surprised. “We’d love to. I’ll walk him over in his stroller. About noon?”

  “Sounds fine. I’ll see you then.”

  Abbie hung up, feeling relieved. Her mother knew the plan now, so she would be nothing but supportive. All Abbie had to worry about was her own feelings when it came time to leave.

  Jake had always been able to seem calm on the outside. It was a skill he’d picked up back in his rodeo days. But now his calm demeanor was long gone. He was constantly twitching and jumping at loud noises. And at six o’clock that evening, he felt that every nerve ending was a violin string twanging inside him.

  “So what is your problem?” he asked himself. For the first time ever, he wanted his workday to be over, wanted to go upstairs and relax as much as he could relax with a baby in the house.

  Maybe he could. He’d spent most of the day coaching the new interns, who weren’t half bad, so the food was cooked. Maury was hard at work, and Becky and Colleen were there. He’d give it a try.

  “Maury, think you could do without me this evening?”

  Maury actually looked pleased. “Sure. You need a break. I’ll call you if anything falls apart.”

  “Maury” came a musical voice from the doorway, “where are the… Oh,” she said. “Hi, Jake.”

  “Hi, Carrie.” Becky’s daughter had changed in the last few years, too, just as Abbie had, and one look at Maury’s face said that he’d noticed the changes. No wonder he’d been perfectly happy to have Jake out of the way tonight. He was thinking about stolen moments, warm glances, the touch of hands as plates were handed back and forth. Ah, young love.

  Jake started up the stairs, quickly at first, then one leaden step at a time. Was he any different from Maury? Wasn’t he imagining stolen moments, warm glances, the touch of hands as he and Abbie passed Lucas back and forth—

  He stopped, leaning against the railing, suddenly tired. Tired of being a restaurateur, tired of being a man with feelings he was afraid to express, and most of all, he was tired of being a substitute father.

  He hadn’t even lasted a week. It wasn’t Lucas he wanted to be with this evening. It was Abbie.

  He had to stop it. The point in spending the evening at home was to give Abbie a break. And to bond with Lucas. She’d returned from her house at about four, and now he’d send her home at once. Abbie needed time off too.

  From behind the door he heard Lucas shriek, “Urrr.”

  “Urrr to you, too,” Jake said from the doorway.

  Abbie jumped. She must have caught the twitchiness from him. He examined the chaos of the room and said, “Are you having a party? Am I invited?”

  “Absolutely,” Abbie said. “Join us, won’t you, if you can find space.”

  Jake felt pretty happy sitting on the floor with Abbie and Lucas and almost every toy Lucas owned. He’d send Abbie home in just a minute. Selfishly, he wanted to spend some time with her.

  She turned a glowing gaze on him. “Look what he’s learned to do. He knows how to pull his train toward him! Good job,” she congratulated Lucas and gave him a hug.

  “Wow,” he said. “Hey, big guy.”

  “Urr,” Lucas burbled.

  Abbie laughed. “I think Lucas is going to be an early talker. He’s so smart.”

>   Jake stood up. “So am I. I decided to take the evening off.”

  “Good for you. You can play with Lucas while I straighten up.”

  “Nope. You, young lady, may go home early. We fellas will clean up.”

  “I’ll have an evening to work on the house. That’s awfully nice of you. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “I have The Baby User Manual.”

  She smiled. “Promise to call me if anything goes wrong?”

  “Nothing will go wrong,” he said. ‘Trust me.”

  She picked Lucas up and snuggled him, gave him kisses that made him giggle, then handed him to Jake. Their hands brushed, just as Jake had been hoping they would. She looked up into his face.

  “I do,” she said. “I do trust you.” She held his gaze for a second or two, then said, “See you in the morning, Lucas.” She gave him a final kiss and said to Jake, “He hasn’t had dinner yet. And remember you have to share the train.”

  Once she was gone, Jake admitted to himself how sorry he’d been to see her leave.

  “Okay, Lucas, what’s for dinner?” He carried him into the kitchen and examined the jars of baby food. “How about,” he said, showing Lucas a jar of pureed chicken, “chicken with,” and he hefted another jar, “carrots, and let’s see what we have here, spinach.”

  Lucas babbled at him and reached for the jar of spinach, which gave Jake an idea. “I wonder if you really need to eat this stuff,” he said. “I’m going to consult The Baby User Manual.”

  With the baby book open on the kitchen counter, he got to the section on foods for babies at various points in their development. “Here we are. Eight months. ‘At eight months, your baby may have vegetables and fruits you’ve mashed with a fork.’ See,” he said to Lucas, “if we had some peas up here, I could mash them for you.

  “‘The food shouldn’t have any lumps, pieces of skin, strings, or seeds.’ Hmm. Guess that rules out green beans. Uh-oh, Lucas, we’re doomed. ‘Don’t season your baby’s food with…’ With anything, it sounds like. And it says absolutely no leftovers because they might have bacteria. Guess we’ll just have to make do.”

  He thought he might be getting the hang of this fathering thing. Dinner was a big success, and he managed to give Lucas a bath without any problems.

  And at the end of it, he was exhausted.

  “A rest period, that’s what we need,” he told Lucas and yawned. He put the baby, clean and sweet-smelling, into one of the things with feet that crib-dwellers apparently slept in and lifted him into his playpen so Lucas wouldn’t feel that the fun had ended forever. He added several soft toys, a fuzzy ball—what marketing expert had dreamed up that vile orange color?—a stuffed lamb Clint had brought over, and a weird-looking thing Abbie had told him was an “educational” toy. Lucas seemed happy to be talking to the educational toy.

  Jake dropped into the brown leather wing chair, leaned back, and put his feet up on the ottoman. He’d just rest a minute, one single minute, and then he’d be up and at ’em again.

  Maybe two minutes.

  He must have fallen asleep because he was certainly jolted awake by pounding on the front door that was loud enough to be heard two counties away. Jake’s heart slammed against his breastbone as he leapt up and looked into the playpen.

  Lucas must have been sleeping, too, because he was sitting up now and on the verge of tears, obviously scared by the noise.

  Jake rubbed his face, willing his pulse to return to normal, then picked up Lucas and settled his chin on the baby’s silky red hair. “It’s okay,” he assured Lucas.

  He threw open the door and glared at his brothers. Clint, he could tell, was the culprit, because Rafe was standing back, glaring at Clint, too.

  “Why don’t you just kick it in the next time?” Jake asked. “Lucas was asleep. You scared him.”

  Clint shrugged. “We got tired of the usual kind of knocking. Dads tend to doze in front of the TV. You have to knock hard to wake ’em up.”

  Jake’s hackles rose. “I wasn’t asleep.”

  “Yes, you were,” Clint said. “I could hear you snoring.”

  “Must have been Lucas,” Jake muttered. Clint was only pushing his buttons, and, in fact, he had been dozing. Lightly. Not in front of the TV, but close enough.

  “Sorry about that,” Rafe said, taking Lucas and giving him a smacky kiss on each cheek. No longer afraid, Lucas giggled, delighted. “Uncle Clint is a real pain, kid. The sooner you learn it, the better.”

  “Very funny.” Clint flopped on the sofa. “So how’s it going?”

  Jake frowned. “You turned social worker all of a sudden?”

  Rafe shoved Clint over and sat next to him, settling Lucas in his lap. “We just wanted to see how you are.”

  Suspicion snaked up Jake’s spine. “Why?”

  “Because we care about you,” Rafe said. “A lot has happened to you lately.”

  “Yeah, and we’re here to make sure you don’t have a breakdown.” Clint shifted his weight and pulled a stuffed rabbit out from under him. He glared at the rabbit, then at Jake. “Man, this would really get to me. Hey,” he protested as Lucas lurched for the rabbit and snuggled back onto Rafe’s lap, holding it tightly.

  It was the rabbit Abbie had chosen at the toy store. It was soft and squishy. And washable, she’d told him.

  The eyes were embroidered on so there were no loose buttons for Lucas to swallow. Abbie called it Lucas’ Bunny Buddy. On one of his quick visits upstairs today, he’d found her doing the bunny hop with Lucas and the rabbit bouncing up and down in her arms.

  He realized he’d been obsessing on the rabbit, or on Abbie, when Clint said, “You have lost it. I knew it.”

  Jake pulled his attention away from the rabbit and stared at his friend. He must have had a sentimental expression on his face, because Clint was looking at him as if he’d sprouted wings.

  “I haven’t lost it,” Jake insisted, even though he wasn’t one hundred percent certain about that. When Clint gave him a skeptical look, he added, “Sure, right now I feel like I’m being pulled in a dozen different directions.”

  Rafe nodded. “Kids will do that. But they’re worth the sacrifice. They deserve the best you’ve got.”

  Jake nodded. Yeah, he knew that. He’d grown up with the other option, the father who didn’t give him anything of himself, much less his best.

  He’d do better by Lucas, but the pressure on him was immense. It wasn’t as if he’d planned to be a father, wanted to be a father. He’d been forced into being one.

  Right now he thought he was doing great. But he kept thinking of Lucas as someone else’s child—which he was—a child Jake was babysitting—which he wasn’t—until those people came to pick him up, which would be never.

  “I’m trying,” he said to Rafe. “Like you said, it’s not easy.”

  “Nothing important ever is.” Clint’s look was hard, resolute. “Can’t screw up this one, Jake.”

  “I can’t screw up anything,” Jake retorted. As if he needed more pressure. “But a couple of weeks ago it was just Jake’s Place I couldn’t screw up, and now it’s Jake’s Place and the franchise opportunity that won’t wait forever, and Lucas, who needs my full attention.”

  “Put Lucas at the top of that list,” Rafe said. “You need to spend more time with him.”

  “Well, look, here I am,” Jake said. “I took the evening off, sent Abbie home, and we’ve been playing.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “But I can’t do it every night. Maybe when Barney comes back I can figure out something.”

  “Can’t recapture lost days,” Clint said. “Make time now.”

  Make time now. Talk about easy to say and hard to do.

  “Yeah, I know you’re right. But how? I’m already exhausted, and Maury goes back to school Monday and has football practice until six or so—”

  “When do your interns from the culinary school start?”

  “They started today, and t
hey’re pretty good, but I can’t just turn them loose in the kitchen. They’re here to learn, not to take over. I have to be available, like right on top of them.”

  “Think of someplace you could take Lucas this weekend. Away from the diner, so your mind will be on him.”

  Lucas was still clutching the rabbit.

  Jake wished he had a rabbit to clutch.

  But Lucas didn’t seem to mind at all being handed over from Uncle Rafe, who had a billion brain cells of stored information about children, to Jake, who had a billion brain cells of stored information about food, and six, maybe, about children.

  In fact, the baby smiled up at Jake and cuddled into his arms as if he’d been doing it forever.

  Rafe had asked him a question. Or delivered an order, depending on how you looked at it. “Take Lucas someplace? Where?” Jake asked.

  “Somewhere interesting,” Rafe said.

  “What’s interesting when you’re eight months old?”

  “Everything,” Rafe said.

  Clint shrugged. “Someplace that interests you. If you’re happy, the kid will be, too.”

  Rafe gave him a wondering look. Jake suspected that Rafe was surprised that Clint was even taking an interest.

  “That would be the kitchen, Clint,” Jake said, “which isn’t what you’re talking about. But actually, The Baby User Manual—”

  “User Manual?” Clint asked with a laugh.

  “Yes.” If Clint even tried to make fun of The Baby User Manual, he’d toss him out the window—one of the street-level windows of the diner, of course, which would leave Clint dusty but not maimed. “It mentioned activities, and I asked Abbie to do some research. She’ll find something.”

  He didn’t miss the look Clint and Rafe exchanged, but he could ignore it. Yes, he was responsible for Lucas, but he’d hired Abbie, who was a responsible person.

  Then old memories came back to him, and he thought, like my parents put me in the care of a responsible person.

  But Abbie was different from any nanny he’d ever had. He could actually depend on her. She seemed to know what to do with Lucas.