Megan felt the blush rise up her neck. The tone of his voice made her uncomfortable. It was a bedroom voice, velvet – edged and suggestive. She slurped her chocolate milk shake and wondered what she was getting into. Patrick Hunter looked like the wolf about to eat the gingerbread man.
“Forget it,” she said. “This is one gingerbread man who’s going to make it to old age.”
“You want to run that by me again?”
She stuffed her empty wrappers into the bag. “No. It would be embarrassing. I’m going home.”
He followed her to the kitchen. “Hold on. You can’t leave me alone with the baby.”
“Sure, I can.”
“I’ll turn him over to the state.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“I have no choice. I work all day. What would I do with him?”
“You could get a baby – sitter.”
Gotcha, Pat thought. He’d gotten her back in his kitchen. Back in his rocking chair. And who knew where they’d go from the rocking chair?
“Okay. I’ll let you baby – sit, but only if you agree to have supper with us every night. I think it’s important for a family to be together at the dinner table.”
Megan smiled triumphantly and wrapped her cape around her shoulders. “Deal!”
She whisked out the front door and headed for her car, parked by Merchants Square. She’d walked less than a block when she stopped short and gasped. Patrick Hunter had manipulated her! That no – good, irresistible skunk had wheedled her into taking care of the baby!
Chapter 2
Megan opened one eye and squinted at the clock radio. Five – thirty in the morning, and some lunatic was pounding on her front door. She dragged herself out of bed and looked out her bedroom window. She was right. It was a lunatic. It was Patrick Hunter. She opened her window and yelled down at him. “If you want to live you’ll stop pounding on my front door.”
“Cranky in the morning, huh? I know how to fix that.”
She might be cranky, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly what he meant, and she was going to ignore it. “What are you doing here?”
He held up a blue plaid bundle for her inspection. “The baby.”
“It’s five – thirty in the morning!”
“I have to be at the hospital by six.”
Megan blinked, nodded, and slammed the window shut. She shuffled into a pair of big blue furry slippers and halfheartedly slid a blue velour robe over her long silk nightgown.
“Hospital by six,” she mumbled as she scuffed down the stairs. She flicked the light on in the foyer and unlatched the front door. “I’m not a morning person,” she explained to Pat.
He handed her the sleeping baby and retrieved two grocery bags from his car. “That was before motherhood, Mrs. Hunter.”
Mrs. Hunter, she thought. Very funny. She awkwardly held the baby in front of her as she headed for the kitchen. “I don’t remember how to hold him.”
Pat followed her. “You act like you’ve never seen a baby before.”
“Not up close. I was an only child. I was spoiled and pampered and never exposed to the sordid aspects of life… like drool and baby poo.”
He set a pile of baby clothes on the counter, deposited a gallon of milk in the refrigerator, stacked up a few jars of baby food, and slapped a hastily scribbled note on the kitchen table.
“I’ve jotted down a few helpful hints. And just in case life gets sordid…” He took a huge box of disposable diapers from the second bag and set it on the floor.
She closed her eyes and thought of an appropriate expletive. “I don’t know how to do this,” she wailed. “I can’t change a diaper!”
Pat unwrapped the baby and spread the blue plaid blanket on the floor. He removed Tim’s heavy sweater and knitted hat, leaving him in yellow terry – cloth pajamas, and sat him in the middle of the blanket. Then he rummaged through the kitchen drawers, finding two wooden spoons, a plastic measuring cup, and a medium – size saucepan. “Toys,” he told Megan, placing them on the blanket with Tim. “If you have any problems, my office number is on the paper.”
“How did you find me?”
“My receptionist. She’s lived here all her life and knows everything about everyone.”
“Did she tell you I have a job? What about my job? How am I supposed to work?”
“You only work on weekends. Today is Monday.”
“Wrong. Being a visitors’ aide is a weekend job. I’m just doing that temporarily to make money. My real job is-”
“You should have thought of all this before you begged me to let you baby – sit.” Pat bent down and kissed Tim on the top of his head. “Good – bye, Tim. Be a good guy for Mommy Hunter.” He turned to Megan and kissed her on the top of the head too. “Good – bye, Mrs. Hunter.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I hate when you do that!”
“Do what?”
“Tweak my nose or kiss the top of the head… or wherever.”
Pat looked down at her. In all honesty he wasn’t that happy about tweaking her on the nose or kissing her on top of the head, either, but he was just about foaming at the mouth to kiss her on her wherever. She’d been too sleepy and too distracted to belt her robe, and in the course of her travels about the house it had parted, exposing a tantalizing corridor of smooth skin and slinky nightgown. He had been making a supreme effort not to stare. He was afraid if he got a really good look, he might start drooling, and he knew she hated drool.
“Megan…” He studied her face, unsure of the emotions he found there. She was lovely. Already she was tying him in knots, yet he didn’t have a clue about her feelings for him. He suspected they might not be flattering. His gaze strayed to the low neckline of her pale yellow nightgown. Oh, hell, he thought, sliding his hands along her neck. It would be worth a broken nose to get a good – morning kiss.
Megan stood absolutely still at the touch of his hands, barely breathing, wondering at the sensations flooding through her, a paralyzing mixture of desire, guilt, and anger. There was something else, too, a ridiculous delusion that she actually was Mrs. Hunter.
It felt perfectly natural to be standing in her nightgown and robe, waiting for Pat to kiss her. She tipped her head toward him and instinctively parted her lips, thinking that he was really very nice in the morning. Warm and cuddly, with that endearing, teasing grin. She watched him slowly move closer and felt his lips barely skim across hers. Much better than getting tweaked on the nose, she thought dreamily. This wasn’t a boring, taken for- granted kiss. This was a friendly kiss.
His hands slid down her arms and she was suddenly crushed to him. His hands moved across her back. He whispered her name and kissed her ear, then her neck just below the earlobe. She gasped at her body’s fiery reaction. She hadn’t expected this. Not so fast. Not so intense.
“Whoa,” she said, pushing against him. “Time out.Just a darn minute.”
He stared at her in a haze of desire. “Whoa?”
“You have some nerve, having an innocent little nose like that and then kissing like Conan the Barbarian.” She swallowed and put her hand to her chest to help keep her heart from breaking through the skin. “And in front of the baby! What will he think?”
Shoot, Pat thought. Now he’d done it. He’d attacked her like some kind of animal. Hunter, he silently shouted, you’re such a weenie! He wrapped the blue robe tightly around her and tied the belt in a double knot, then looked at his watch.
“Damn, I’m late. I’ll pick up the kid at six.”
He bolted through the doorway, then paused. “About that kiss. I don’t want you to think I’m easy.”
“I don’t think you’re easy. I think you’re nuts. I think you’re a sex maniac.”