Jeff arrived at his sister-in-law’s about ten minutes later. “Hey, Lauren. Sorry I’m late.” He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek as he stepped into the foyer of the one-story house. Jeff immediately reached for his niece. “How’s my little boo?”
Lauren rolled her eyes at Jeff’s pet name, but Hailey didn’t seem to mind. From the security of her mother’s arms she lunged forward and reached both hands out for her uncle. Jeff caught her. As soon as he had Hailey securely, Lauren stepped back and let go.
Jeff walked into the living room carrying Hailey. His niece smelled of baby powder and that fresh, sweet scent synonymous with little girls. Lauren had probably given her a bath.
Jeff glanced at Lauren. Her blond hair was pulled up in a ponytail and woven through the back of her white St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap. In shorts and a T-shirt, she looked every bit the suburban mom.
“So get shopping,” he told her. “I’ve got this down. Is the formula still in the same place?”
Jeff bounced Hailey slightly and his niece laughed. The television was on in the corner of the room, tuned to a children’s show on PBS. Jeff put his hand under Hailey’s back and said “Airplane!” Then he swooped her slightly, as if using her body to draw the bottom of a bowl. Hailey shrieked, and Jeff grinned as Lauren tried not to wince. “Giving Mom a heart attack, aren’t we?” Jeff teased. “Paying her back for probably doing it to her parents.”
“Yeah, well,” Lauren said. She watched for a moment before giving a resigned shake of her head. “The formula’s in the cabinet and I just washed the bottles. Call me if you have any problems.”
Lauren reached for her purse and Jeff followed her into the kitchen. Because she’d walk through the utility room into the garage, he’d parked on the street so she’d be able to back out easier.
“Go. I’m fine here,” Jeff commanded.
Lauren was always hesitant about leaving Hailey, especially now that her daughter had just started walking. Hailey was one of those babies doing everything early, just as her daddy and her uncle had.
“You know I’ve got her,” Jeff insisted.
“I know you do,” Lauren said. She looped her purse strap over her arm. Content with Jeff, Hailey didn’t cry even as her mom headed out the door. Lauren paused a moment. “You know, you’d make a good dad. You should think about having one of your own. Give Hailey here a cousin or two to play with as she gets older.”
Jeff’s cheeks heated and he knew his face probably matched his hair. “Well, I…Jared’s taken care of that,” he said. His older brother did have two children already.
“Good save,” Lauren said. “By the way, what’s going on with you and Tori? You dated her longer than anyone else.”
“Yeah, well, things change,” Jeff said. “This here is the only girl who has my attention right now. I guess Kansas City is too far away to make anything work.” Hailey laughed as Jeff gave her a raspberry on her belly.
Lauren frowned, the small crease between her brows indicating she wasn’t done with the topic. “So what if she’s in KC? Last I checked that wasn’t very far away, a four-hour drive tops in that speedy new Corvette you just bought. And I know you have plenty of frequent-flier miles you could use. I mean, if you want something to work, distance shouldn’t be a factor. Perhaps you should go after her. Women like that. Justin chased me and see how happy we are?”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Jeff prodded, not really wanting to discuss Tori. He wrinkled his nose and his expression soured. “You know, Lauren, you’re welcome to stay and linger if you’d like to change your lovely daughter before you leave.”
Lauren shook her head and laughed. “No, no, I’m going. That diaper can be your penance for being late.” She opened the door to the garage. “Remember, call me on my cell if there’s a problem.”
“Will do,” Jeff promised. He held Hailey easily as he took her back to her bedroom and placed her on the changing table. She gazed up at him, her green eyes wide. While she’d inherited her dad’s eyes, the pale downy hair coming in was definitely from her mother.
“You are a pretty thing,” Jeff told her. “You’d have to be for me to change you. I’m pretty discriminate about whose diapers I take off. You know, I never changed any of your cousins. Don’t tell them, okay? They might get jealous.”
Hailey simply blinked at him. She was still a little too young to say actual words—those would come in another month or two, followed by incessant conversation at eighteen months.
Jeff folded up the diaper and tossed it into the trash. “I won’t bore you with the statistics on how that diaper will take more than five-hundred years to degrade,” he said. Hailey continued to wait as Jeff wiped her bottom, added some baby powder, then securely fastened her new diaper. Within seconds, she was back in his arms, her cute pink dress draped over his arm.
“So what do you think? Did I do an okay change?” As he walked back into the living room, Jeff thought about what Lauren had said. He liked the idea that he’d make a good father. He loved Hailey and even though Jeff and Justin were twins, Hailey could tell them apart. Stand Jeff and Justin next to each other and she wanted her dad every time.
Perhaps babies simply made you feel paternal. For a minute Jeff reflected on the fission of happiness that had shot through his system when Hailey had reached for him. Was the moment exponentially better and more powerful when it was your own child? Jeff had no idea, but holding Hailey felt right. Maybe he was getting to the place in his life where he was ready to settle down.
“Who knew guys had biological clocks?” Jeff mused aloud as he placed Hailey in her exerciser. While he might have doubted it a few years ago, he knew now that he wanted to be a father. Of course it took two people for that. Had he committed a cardinal sin somewhere along the line with Tori? They’d been so comfortable together and then all of a sudden, boom, she’d moved to Kansas City and broken up with him. He sighed. On the TV screen a blue puppet was singing about the letter H.
Hailey was happily playing and safe, so Jeff mulled over the conundrum. He’d known Tori for what amounted to forever. She’d outlasted any other woman in his life aside from his mother. He and Tori had been friends for years before they’d first gotten together after the company Christmas party. Their passion had been hot and fast, but the next day she’d told him it had been a mistake and had gone back to her ex-boyfriend for a few weeks. He’d chased her then, won her and then they’d developed a routine. He cared about her more than anyone else.
But was she the one? Jeff sat there a moment, distracting himself by watching Hailey spin around in her exerciser. How did somebody know he’d found his soul mate? Justin had screwed things up terribly with Lauren and almost lost her. Jared hadn’t had things easy, either. Sure his brothers were happy now, but neither had had a lightbulb “aha” moment at the start of their relationships. And love wasn’t like installing a software program. There were no signs that you were one-hundred percent complete.
As for compatibility, he and Tori thought the same. They were both math people who had taken extra math classes in school just for fun and to boost their GPAs. They were long beyond such trivialities as wooing and making an impression. She knew how much he cared about her and he the same. Actions spoke louder than words, which could often be meaningless, any day. Tori’s last boyfriend had told her he loved her and then cheated on her right and left. Jeff hadn’t wanted to make that same mistake, so he’d erred on the side of caution.
In his job, he was the one who traced problems back to their source. He found solutions, made sure the situation never crept up again and, if it did try to rear its ugly head, he made certain that it could be quickly eradicated. So had he missed something? Had he been too conservative? Had he taken Tori for granted? A squeal interrupted his reverie. Hailey had stopped spinning and was looking at him with a dazed but satisfied expression. She held out her arms.
Jeff