Emergency Delivery (Love Emergency) (8 page)

Chapter Eight

Hey, where are you? I went to the Grind, but Marcy gave me the death stare and told me you didn’t work there anymore. I went to our old place, and that asshole Randy says you moved. Maddy, I need to see you. We need to talk.

Madison snapped her crappy, old flip phone shut and resisted the urge to turn the last part of her afternoon walk with Joy into a sprint. She did succumb to an irrational urge to scan the street for a black F-150. Talking to Cody was the last thing she needed. Marcy, her old boss, had pegged him as trouble the minute she’d slapped eyes on him. The imposing divorced mother of five wouldn’t tell him a thing. Madison hadn’t left a forwarding address with Randy, her former landlord, so he couldn’t divulge anything even if he wanted to.

This was what she got for reloading her phone. She’d let her pre-paid minutes run out at the beginning of January, planning to save the money and just do without a cell phone, but Hunter didn’t have a land line, and he’d lost his shit at the idea of her being home with a baby and no way to call if she had a problem. This morning she’d bought more minutes, and as soon as she’d come back online, Cody had surfaced, as if he’d been lurking in cyberspace, waiting for the opportunity to worm his way back into her life, or more specifically, her wallet.

The phone dinged again. After a short internal debate, she flipped it open.

The baby’s due soon, right? I want to help you. I’ve been working on what we should do, and I finally have everything figured out. Get in touch, Maddy. Please. You don’t have to handle this on your own.

She turned the phone off and clipped it back on the baby sling. Yeah, right. He hadn’t even figured out the baby’s due date. Her conscience tried to take a stab at her, because this was Joy’s father reaching out, after all, but she pushed it back. He’d never once acknowledged being the father, and he still hadn’t. He’d stolen from her. Worse, he’d stolen from Joy, and letting him come anywhere near them amounted to begging for him to do it again.

A noise brought her head up and around in time to see a petite, middle-aged woman wearing trim black workout clothes and short sassy red hair step onto her porch. She straightened the welcome mat with the toe of her white sneaker and then came down her front porch and followed the walkway toward Madison. She smiled as she neared, and Madison realized the woman was older than she’d first assumed. Closer to sixty than forty-something—but a good sixty.

“Hi,” she said, still smiling. “I saw you out walking yesterday. New to the neighborhood?” Then she peeked over Madison’s shoulder at Joy and went on, “Aw. This little one is new to every neighborhood. How old?”

Madison angled herself toward the woman. “Five weeks.” She managed what felt like a weak smile and rubbed her free hand along the curve of Joy’s back. “She aced her second checkup with her pediatrician earlier in the week.”

“I remember when mine were that age. Vaguely,” she added with a laugh. “Enjoy the first year. It goes fast.”

“I’ll try.”

The woman laughed, and the late afternoon light bounced off her short red waves. “Easy for me to say, looking back through the filter of time, which conveniently blurs stuff like midnight feedings, three a.m. crankiness, the challenges of finding a moment to shower, and all the rest of it, but you’re off to a great start, getting exercise already, and you’ve chosen a wonderful neighborhood. Wayne and I—God rest his soul—raised four boys here. You couldn’t ask for a better spot.”

“It’s lovely,” Madison agreed, “but we’re just here temporarily. We’re staying with a friend for a few weeks.” Without really meaning to, she gestured across the street toward Hunter’s house.

The older woman’s eyebrows lifted so high they disappeared behind her bangs. “You’re staying with Hunter?”

“He’s, um, helping me out until I can…” How could she put this without sounding like the homeless woman she was? “Until I move into my new place.”

“That’s interesting.” Curiosity sparkled in her striking green eyes, and while those curious eyes stayed front and forward, Madison suspected they were sharp enough to have noted no wedding band graced her finger. But she simply said, “He’s a good boy. Keeps busy. Very, very busy.” She punctuated the observation with a bland smile.

“Yeah, I’ll bet he does.” An unreasonable, almost possessive instinct consumed her as she imagined Hunter escorting a nameless, faceless parade of women to and from his front door. She did her best to push the inappropriate emotion away, because he wasn’t hers—not even temporarily—and they were cramping his style, 24/7, which might account for why he seemed edgy and distracted lately. His trademark easy grin didn’t meet his eyes any more. All the more reason to get out of his house as soon as possible. Hunter didn’t deserve to suffer from lack of…ahem…visitors, as a result of his good deed.

The other woman held out a hand. “I’m Nelle, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Nelle. I’m Madison, and this is Joy.”

“Hi, little girl,” she cooed at the baby “Aren’t you precious? Yes you are. A precious little bundle.” She turned to Madison. “My newest grandbaby celebrated his first birthday last month.”

“Congratulations. How many do you have?”

“Five and counting. I don’t mean to interrupt your exercise. I can walk and talk at the same time. You’re headed home?”

She briefly considered taking another lap around the neighborhood, but Joy would be ready to nurse soon, and Hunter would be home any moment, so instead, she nodded and fell into step beside Nelle. “How old are your grandkids?”

“The oldest will be ten this year, which is impossible, but there you go. Next time I blink she’ll be a teenager. Then comes grandson number one, who’s eight, his little brother, who’s seven. The second granddaughter is three, and Jack is the baby…for now.”

“You’re blessed in the grandchild department.”

The older woman nodded but then sighed. “I am. Sadly, I’m not quite as blessed in the geography department. My boys and their families live all over the place. They came home for the holidays, which was wonderful, but the house seems too quiet now.”

Joy chose the moment to whine. Madison recognized the noise as the opening notes of the cranky-pants chorus and did her best to pick up her pace as they made their way along Hunter’s front walk. “There’s such a thing as too quiet?”

Nelle grinned. “Believe it or not, yes. This”—she wiggled a finger at Joy—“is music to my ears. I usually walk in the morning if the weather permits, but if you ladies need or want a walking buddy, don’t hesitate to knock on my door. Anytime.”

Madison paused at the porch steps and rocked Joy in her arms. “I may take you up on your offer.”

“I hope you do. If you ever need anything, including ten minutes to yourself, feel free to holler. Hunter knows the number. Have a good evening.”

“You, too,” Madison replied and waved from the porch as Nelle power-walked down the sidewalk. As she stood there waving, a Tahoe rolled down the street and turned into the driveway.

Hunter was home.

…

Some days being a paramedic flat out stunk. And Beau motherfucking Montgomery had some kind of EMT ESP when it came to their shifts. He always managed to be driving—leaving Hunter teching—when they caught the truly unholy calls. Today’s had come in innocently enough, as a customer at The Atlanta Cantina with difficulty breathing. He’d shown up ready with the epinephrine, fully expecting a food allergy, and come out covered in a few of his least favorite occupational hazards because some drunk-ass moron had tried to win a hundred bucks off the other three drunk-ass morons at his table by consuming three Fire in the Hole Habaneros in one bite.

The only thing fouler than the incident was his mood. Dealing with an idiot-induced shit-storm tended to suck the good humor right out of him, but even more so knowing it didn’t bring him a damn bit closer to his goal. What would Ashley add to his rec letter based on today?
Hunter Knox can handle any hot mess you throw at him
.
I still don’t know if he’ll make a good doctor, but he’s fully qualified to be a frat house janitor.

He pulled into his driveway and mustered up a wave for his neighbor, Nelle. While he waited for the garage door to open, he glanced at the house and caught sight of Madison and Joy standing at the front door. The late afternoon sun put a gleam in her loose, dark waves and backlit the lines of her body. Black leggings showcased slender thighs and calves. The baby sling draped across her like a pageant sash, and an oversized black hoodie swallowed her upper body—except for her breasts, which strained the limits of a clingy workout top she’d definitely bought a while ago. She cuddled Joy against those lush, ample curves.

His mind flashed back to their kiss the other night, the feel of those curves pressed against him, and her soft lips opening under his. The moment had been a mistake, practically an accident, and he’d read all kinds of uncertainty on her face as soon as she’d pulled away, but his dick didn’t know the difference. Not then, and not now.
Jesus, Knox, you sick fuck.
He drove into the garage and cut the engine
. How the hell are you supposed to walk into the house like this?

An Everlast heavy bag hung from a rafter near his treadmill, bench press, and weights. He seriously considered going a few rounds with one hundred pounds of sand for as long as it took to pound the tent pole out of his pants.

But that might take all night.

He peeled off his uniform shirt and prepared to dump it in the laundry basket when a new wave of irritation settled under his skin. The laundry basket sat empty on the dryer. Where the hell was the rest of his dirty laundry? Gone. Three guesses who’d done it. They’d already talked about this tendency of hers to clean up after him. Just yesterday morning he’d had to wake her on his way out the door for work to ask her where the hell she’d put his car keys. How did that make either of their lives easier? He didn’t need a houseguest with a renegade sense of indebtedness serving as his maid, or his… Their kiss flickered in his mind again, and irritation turned to something mean and ugly that dragged sharp claws through his gut. What else did a sense of indebtedness inspire?

He stepped through the door and into the kitchen, ready to lay down the law about laundry, and kisses, and… Holy shit, his kitchen gleamed. Even the glass-front cabinets. Every surface sparkled, which was definitely not how he’d left it this morning. Those invisible claws tightened around his stomach, and now
he
wanted to throw up. A Pyrex pan covered with aluminum foil sat on the counter. Dammit, she’d prepared dinner again, too, even though he’d already told her she didn’t need to cook for him.
He
was supposed to be taking care of
her
.

A few more strides brought him to the empty, and equally spotless, living room. Unacceptable. He intended to put a stop to this right now.

“Madison?”

She said something he didn’t catch, but the response came from his office. Correction, his guestroom/nursery. He made his way there and found the door hanging half open. He stepped through just in time to see Madison bare her breast in preparation to nurse Joy. His hard-on came back with a vengeance at the same time he realized she’d said, “Give me a minute.”

“Sorry.” He made a move to back out of the room, but she started speaking.

“It’s okay.”

It was not even close to okay, but apparently her perv-o-meter hadn’t picked up on that yet. She got Joy situated and arranged a baby blanket over her chest. “I wanted to let you know I left a couple stacks of clean clothes on your dresser. I would have put them away for you, but I didn’t want to go into your drawers without permission.”

Under other circumstances he might have cracked a joke at such an inadvertent double entendre, but the image of her going
into his drawers
turned his hard-on into something brutal. His voice followed suit. “Cut it out. You’re not here to do my laundry, cook for me, clear my dishes, or tidy up the living room. If I wanted a live-in housekeeper, I’d get one.”

Nice job. Her wounded look made him feel like an asshole.

“I needed to wash some things for myself and Joy. Your clothes were there, and where I come from, you do a full load…” She broke off, smooth forehead wrinkling as her big, concerned eyes scanned his face. “What’s wrong?”

He backed up. “Nothing. I’m going to take a shower.” A long, cold one. “Do me a favor and give the maid the night off.” With that pissy remark hanging in the air, he strode to the bathroom, closed the door, and stripped off his clothes. A twist of the knob put the water on full blast. He adjusted the temperature and attempted to do the same with his attitude. He’d been raised better than to bite the head off someone who’d tried to do something nice for him. She didn’t deserve the brunt of his sour mood. A simple “thank you” wouldn’t have killed him.

He stepped under the spray and let it pound him for a couple minutes. As the steam loosened the tension in his neck and shoulders, he acknowledged his bad reaction this evening had little to do with work, and absolutely nothing to do with any burning desire to handle his own laundry. No, the bug up his ass had a name—obligation—and he hated the idea of Madison doing anything for him out of some misplaced sense of it. Especially kissing him.

He worked the soap into a lather and did his best to scrub his frustration away. They hadn’t talked about the kiss. Normally, he never second-guessed a woman’s motives for putting her lips on him. Mutual attraction, a sense of adventure, a desire to have a little fun… Call him shallow, but he was okay with any of those reasons.

Unfortunately, the situation with Madison was far from normal. Iron pills, better rest, and regular meals seemed to have resolved the issues that had landed her back in the hospital, but that didn’t change the fact she’d given birth a month ago. There were semi-hard limits on how much fun and adventure she could handle—although the idea of exploring every inch of ground right up to those limits inspired a whole new level of cock torture. Hopefully nothing a blast of cold water and cool reason couldn’t cure, because acting on mutual attraction with a woman sharing his house for the next little while edged toward the bat-shit crazy end of the reckless scale. Even if he
could
navigate the hard limits—which he could—and disregard the reckless—which he’d definitely done on other occasions—their dynamic was so unbalanced at the moment, his conscience kept protesting. Motives did matter, as it turned out, and he wasn’t one hundred percent sure of hers. Accepting kisses, or anything else along those lines, as some kind of appreciation for giving her a place to stay… He was not okay with that.