The Baby Arrangement (The Daycare Chronicles 3)

It would take extra time. She wasn’t kidding herself about that. She wasn’t going to be getting a lot of sleep in the foreseeable future. Nor would she have much time apart from work and babies, but she didn’t want or need any, either. She loved her career and she needed a family. Those two things were her joy.

She was reminding herself of that fact as she ran out to her car the first Wednesday afternoon in August to retrieve from her trunk the month’s decorations she’d made the night before. She wanted to get them up that evening so she could sleep in a little later in the morning and not have to come in early.

“Hey, I was just getting ready to call you!”

She jumped, hitting her head on the roof of the car as Braden’s voice sounded behind her. She’d seen his car in the parking lot that morning, but it hadn’t been there when she’d headed outside just before.

Turning, she saw him, still in his SUV, stopped in the aisle behind her, calling to her out of his window. He always let her know what city he was in. That night he was supposed to be back in L.A.

“What’s up?” she called over her shoulder.

Instead of answering, he pulled around and parked, getting out and reaching to help as he saw her lifting things out of her car.

She wasn’t ready to take them in. She was sorting through them, arranging, so when she got inside she could go directly to the room for which the decor was intended. She’d have done so before she loaded them into the car if she hadn’t been so darn tired the night before.

Carrying two babies was vastly different than having just one growing inside her.

She turned as he approached and saw him staring. “You’re huge!”

“Hardly,” she chuckled.

“You barely showed at all last time when you were four months.” He stopped talking but kept looking and coming closer.

Before she realized what he was doing, he’d put his hand on her stomach. “Can you feel them yet?”

Their eyes met and though neither of them looked away, his hand dropped away.

He used to love feeling Tucker kick from inside her. She’d forgotten that until right then. The look on his face the first time he’d felt their son had been like he’d seen God face-to-face. He’d been so fascinated by that proof of the life growing in her and he’d wanted to know how it felt.

Was he remembering that now?

“I haven’t felt them yet,” she said. “But the doctor says it could be any time.”

He nodded, looking uncomfortable, so she did what she knew to do.

Bring them back to his comfort zone. Business.

“I’ve reconsidered and I’ve decided to accept your offer to take The Bouncing Ball with you to L.A.”

“Oh, good!” He grinned. “I’m glad to hear that. I’ll have my contractor contact you with any questions he has when he gets to that part of the building. It’s being framed now, but the basic building will be just like here, and electric will run the same as well, so your outlets will be in the same places. But if you’d like door placements changed or anything, you’ll have a chance for input on that.”

She cared about the fact that he’d instinctively wanted to feel her baby kick. Not about doors. She cared that his lips looked like she had to touch them with hers.

And while he talked about countertops and light fixtures, she wondered what he’d do if she quieted him with a kiss wet and hot.

Then he reached into her car for the entire pile of decorations, lifting them up and out, waiting for her to lock up before he followed her inside.

* * *

Braden was halfway back to L.A., looking forward to a quiet dinner with Anna, when Mallory called.

“You said you were just getting ready to call me, but never said what for.”

He had, in fact, said that when he’d seen her in the parking lot earlier. But all too soon what he was about to say hadn’t mattered as much as getting the hell out of there. He wasn’t sure what it was about her these days, but every time he saw her he was out of sorts. Not himself.

She was having a baby without him. Kind of what she’d done the first time around, too.

“I was going to ask if you’d had any further thoughts about putting my name on the birth certificates. I know there’s still plenty of time to decide, but if we’re going to have legal things drawn up, we should probably start thinking about hiring someone to do that.”