“Wait...what?”
And the tough cop seemed to evaporate, leaving behind a slightly panicked man with a stain on the front of his uniform. His hand on Benjie’s rump covered the baby almost up to his little shoulders, and those gray eyes softened to charcoal as he met her gaze in dismay.
“You’ll be fine,” she replied, forcing herself to smile. “I’ll make up another couple of bottles for you before I leave, but this will be good for you. I promise.”
And Paige would be even better once she got out of here for an hour or two and could think straight. Maybe what she really needed wasn’t a muscular cop or a job that could let her get her feet wet again...but a nunnery. She needed some solitude and then some bracing older women to tell her what to do.
But that wasn’t likely, and she’d already taken the job.
* * *
PAIGE WAS GONE longer than Mike had anticipated. He didn’t have anywhere to put the baby down besides the car seat. Funny, he hadn’t thought of that before—where to put the baby. The car seat was by the door, and he moved it over to the couch and tried to get Benjie settled inside it again, only to have Benjie’s little mouth turn down. Then his eyes welled up and that plaintive cry erupted from deep inside his tiny chest. So Mike picked the baby back up and paced through the living room to the front window, then across again to the kitchen, all the while wondering what he was supposed to do with himself. If nothing else, he was getting his steps in on his fitness tracker.
Mike glanced toward the TV as he headed back into the living room, and that seemed like a good idea, so he sank into the couch, the baby on his chest, and flicked through some channels, keeping the volume low. Benjie wriggled a little bit, but when Mike put a hand over his back, he settled down and fell asleep. Twice, Mike tried to sit up to get Benjie into that car seat, but Benjie woke up each time, and that cry would start up again, so he’d lean back again and flick through a few more channels.
An hour passed, and Benjie woke up, his little mouth searching against Mike’s shirt, so he got another of the bottles Paige had prepared from the fridge and warmed it under the tap like she’d shown him. Feeding the baby was a little easier this time because Mike didn’t have an audience, and he sat down on the couch, a talk show keeping him company, the baby propped in his lap. Benjie’s eyes were wide open as he slurped back on that bottle, and Mike couldn’t help but smile.
“You’re cute,” he murmured as milk dribbled down Benjie’s chin. He was so tiny yet so solemn as he went to town on that bottle. And in the baby’s face, Mike thought he could see a little bit of his sister.
Jana had always been overly solemn, too. He would tease her when she was little. And when she’d get upset about something at school—some mean girls making fun of her clothes, a teacher telling her off for not trying hard enough—he’d counsel her to just ignore it. It was what he did, after all. He always blocked out the stuff he didn’t want to see. He’d been just as abandoned as she was, after all, and he didn’t let it get him down.
Looking back on it, he wished he could change some of those reactions. He hadn’t been helpful. But then, he’d been a kid, too, and it wasn’t fair to expect him to know how to fix problems that adults struggled with. Jana hadn’t needed him to tell her that the things that made her sad shouldn’t. She’d needed...what? Maybe just to be understood. And he hadn’t even managed that much for her. She’d run away from home...and from him.
“I’m going to do better by you, buddy,” Mike murmured, and he felt his throat tighten with emotion. Somehow, even with all his failure when it came to his sister, she’d still chosen him to take care of her little boy.
Did she think he’d do better now that he was grown, or was she simply desperate?
And where was she now? If he knew, he’d find her, bring her here. He’d keep her safe at long last. But his only connection to his sister was her tiny baby.
Benjie finished off his bottle, and Mike dropped it onto the couch next to him. He looked around for a cloth, found one and put it up on his shoulder. He wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
Mike’s cell phone rang, and he glanced down to see the station’s number. Work—that was actually a good thing right now. He flicked off the TV and hit the speaker button, then lifted Benjie up to his shoulder for that burp.
“Officer McMann,” he said.
“Hi, Mike, it’s Ellen.” The receptionist at the station. “How are you?”
“Not bad. You?”
“I’m fine.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “The chief wants to know if you’re free Sunday afternoon.”
“I don’t think I’m scheduled to work,” he said. Benjie squirmed and let out a little whimper, and Mike kept doing those circles on the little guy’s back with his fingertips.
“Good, because we want to throw you a baby shower,” she announced.
“What? No.”
“Yes.” She sounded so matter-of-fact.
“Ellen, I appreciate the thought, but I’m not really a party kind of guy. Besides, I’m not...a mother...”
“We’re having a baby shower,” Ellen said. “If you don’t come, it’s going to be a really awkward party.”
Mike sighed, and shut his eyes. Benjie let out a loud burp, and Mike looked down at the little guy, who looked rather pleased with himself.
“Sunday,” Ellen said when he hadn’t replied. “This is coming from the chief.”
Great. It was an order from the one man he needed to impress. If he’d come to Eagle’s Rest without family complications, he would be spending his time at the firing range and doing physical training. How was he supposed to prove to the chief he was SWAT material when he was being mollycoddled at the precinct?
“Thanks, Ellen,” he said.
“No problem,” she replied cheerily, and hung up.
The very last thing he needed right now was some stupid baby shower. This wasn’t funny—some joke played on the muscle-bound cop who now had a baby to take care of by himself. Hilarious. He hardly knew these people.
It was then that he felt a rumble in Benjie’s diaper. It started out small, and then started to grow. Mike looked down at the baby in surprise and saw that Benjie’s face was scrunched up in a look of intense concentration. The smell came next, and Mike held Benjie out in front of him like an unwanted Christmas fruitcake.
“Better out than in,” Mike said. He felt the obligation to say something encouraging, and he waited until the rumbling stopped. “Done?”
Benjie blinked a couple of times, and then there was another rumble.
“Wow. Kiddo. This is really something,” Mike said, looking around the room. Some leaks were starting to seep into the sleeper, and Mike quickly realized he was in a bind. This baby needed a new diaper—heck, maybe two, at this rate—and he had a very faint idea of how to make this happen.
“Benjie, you and I have a problem,” Mike said, pulling the baby back against his body again. There was going to be a smell, and probably some leaking, but he couldn’t just walk around for the next ten minutes, holding a five-pound newborn like an offering to the gods. He’d have to survive a little baby poop.
The diapers were in the box in the kitchen. So he headed in that direction. There would be wipes, too. He knew that much. He rummaged around, past bottles, soothers, some plastic doodads he didn’t recognize...and emerged with a small package of diapers. He tossed them overhand toward the couch, then snatched up the tub of wipes.
He was