Surprised by Family: a Contemporary Romance Duet (31 page)

The idea of Ella in school clearly never crossed Sam’s mind. And why would it? She’d only been with him for a day. Nikki quickly said, “It’s not like he has to worry about that right now.”

“True. How about child care? Do you have that lined up?” Eric asked.

“Not yet.” He reached for the pacifier Ella spit out. “I’m going to look at two places tomorrow—not that I have any idea what I’m looking for.”

“I can help you with that,” Nikki offered. “If it’s the places I told you about, either one will take good care of Ella.”

He nodded, though he still looked uncertain. With the crib all set up, they went back downstairs, and Nikki detoured into the kitchen to warm a bottle while Sam laid the baby in the playpen.

“I’m going to head home,” Eric said. “See you Friday for Savannah’s party, Nikki.”

“I’ll be there.” She glanced back to see Sam walking him to the door.

“Thank you, and your wife, for everything.”

“We’re happy to help.” After a slight pause, he added, “Listen, you mind stepping outside with me for a minute?”

Nikki’s heart thumped hard when she caught her brother-in-law’s low request, but by the time she spun around, the front door had clicked closed on the both of them.

Damn it. What the heck was he up to?

Sam faced Eric Riley on the porch, not sure what to expect after the guy’s low, almost secretive request.

“You said you moved around a lot.”

“Yeah?” He shoved his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders against the cold autumn air. It’d started with him searching for Rae, then became a defense mechanism until he’d landed in Pulaski.

“You planning to stick around?”

A hint of accusation in the question put Sam on the defensive. “I bought a house, didn’t I?”

“You can sell it just as easy as you bought it.”

“Probably.” Inside his pockets, his fingers curled into fists, and he locked his gaze with Eric’s. “How about you just get to the point.”

When the other man crossed his arms over his chest, Sam didn’t miss the bulge of his biceps under his shirt.

“I don’t want you toying with Nikki.”

He figured Eric was close to his age, maybe a few years older than twenty-nine, but his steel gaze made Sam feel like a teenager who’d been caught making out with the guy’s daughter. It was a totally new experience, and if Eric hadn’t been one hundred percent serious, Sam would’ve laughed.

Instead, annoyance reared up and he went straight to smart-ass. “As I understand it, you’re married to her sister, not her.”

Eric’s jaw tensed as he took a step closer. “She’s family, and she’s barely a month out of a bad relationship. The bastard broke her heart, and I’m not going to stand by and let someone else hurt her.”

Sam frowned at Eric’s vehemence. Had Joe done something more than leave Nikki because they wanted different things? And what made him think Sam was a similar threat? “You realize we just met, right?”

“And yet you looked like you were in the middle of something when I showed up.”

When he thought of how he’d finagled that kiss, guilt doubled his defensiveness. “What we were doing when you showed up—uninvited, I might add—is none of your business. I don’t know her exact age, but I’m pretty sure she’s old enough to make her own decisions.”

“That’s true,” Eric conceded. “But she also wants to get married and have kids, and you’ve got a ready-made family here just begging for help.” He stepped closer and poked a finger into Sam’s chest. “I’m giving you fair warning. Hurt her and you’ll answer to me and Marissa, and the rest of our family. Got it?”

Sam held his gaze without making any attempt to move. “Yep.”

“Good.” Eric suddenly grinned, backed off, and descended the porch steps for his truck. “Good talk, Sam. Nice to meet ya.”

“Yeah, sure,” he muttered under his breath as Riley drove away.

Shit. If the rest of the family was anything like Eric, maybe he understood Joe’s reluctance to join in.

But the guilt that’d surfaced a moment ago returned, and he saw himself through her brother-in-law’s eyes. Damn it. The guy’s gut instinct was dead on. Sam knew Nikki still had feelings for her ex, and he’d used them to get what
he
wanted. If that wasn’t messing with her emotions, he didn’t know what was.

He leaned against the porch railing behind him, closed his eyes, and banged his head back against the vertical support post. He’d never stooped this low for a woman before, so what the hell was his problem now?

The sound of the door made him pull his head forward. He straightened, meeting Nikki’s concerned gaze as she asked, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t look okay. What’d Eric say?”

“Nothing. I’m just tired.”

She clearly didn’t buy the excuse, but didn’t press further as he strode forward to go inside. When he passed her, he caught a hint of her scent, that combination of almond and vanilla that had nearly driven him crazy in the kitchen.

Heaven help him, she smelled good enough to take a bite, but in all fairness, he couldn’t continue down that road. Making her ex jealous was one thing—and a stupid-ass plan at that—but ‘practicing’ kissing her in private was a colossal mistake.

He’d had one moment of sanity where he’d managed to keep from exploring all that warm, soft skin under her sweater, but when she’d started pulling at his shirt, rational thought flew out the window. Forget the baby. Forget that they’d only known each other a day. If she’d have let him, he’d have walked her right up the stairs to his bed. Then he’d have ended up wondering if she’d wanted him, or if he was just a stand-in after an emotionally tough evening.

For the first time ever, that thought turned his stomach, and he fought to keep his hands from becoming fists again. He’d never cared about something like that before. As long as there was mutual satisfaction...

Ella’s bottle sat on the coffee table, and he seized the excuse to keep busy.

“I already changed her diaper,” Nikki advised when he stooped to lift the baby from the playpen.

“Thanks.”

See? Right there was another problem. Yes, she was beautiful and sexy, but with her constant assistance making his life easier, he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure the real reason he wanted her around. He wasn’t that hard up for sex, and using her to help him manage with Ella wasn’t right, either. Not after what both she and Eric had said about her wanting a family of her own.

He sat on the couch, upended the bottle to drip a few drops of formula on his wrist like she’d taught him, and then sat back to feed his niece. When Nikki would’ve sat next to him, he said, “I appreciate all your help tonight, but you must be tired, too. You should head home while you’ve still got the chance to have a little time to yourself.”

She stood there for a long moment, completely silent. He avoided looking up at her because her sky-blue sweater not only accented her enticing curves, it also deepened the color of her eyes. Eyes that had drawn him in at every turn, all evening.

“Yeah, good idea.” A step sideways allowed her to swipe her coat off the back of his recliner, but then she paused at the door. “So...I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” he glanced up with a shrug. “I’ve got a lot to get done so I can get back to work on Thursday. I can’t afford that much time off without pay.”

“All right then.” She opened the door. “I guess I’ll see you when I see you.”

He nodded. “Goodnight. And thank you.”

“Yeah, sure,” she muttered, her tone identical to his when Eric had driven off. He cringed as the door slammed, then gently shushed Ella when she started in his arms. A wiggle of the bottle got her attention back to sucking down her bedtime meal and gave him plenty of time to think.

A couple minutes later, he almost wished the baby would give him a distraction again.

***

Oh, hell, be careful what you wish for
.

Sam resolutely picked up the crying baby and did yet another weary turn around the living room. Hell would’ve been a welcome relief right about now. She stopped crying in his arms, and he allowed himself to pause and peer at the numbers on the kitchen stove. After blinking a few times to clear the blur, he groaned when he saw four-thirteen.

Twice he’d twisted the doorknob, ready to go pound on Nikki’s door and beg for help, but each time the blast of cold air stopped him in his tracks. After practically kicking her out, he couldn’t very well wake her up in the middle of the night.

“Damn it all anyway, Ella, can’t you give me one hour?” he growled. “Just one damn lousy hour of sleep is all I’m asking for at this point.”

She’d stopped being a sweetie, or honey—or angel, as Nikki called her—shortly after midnight. He wished like hell he’d taken the nap Nikki offered earlier, but his shower had revived him enough to delude him into thinking he’d make it through just fine.

Sleep when the baby sleeps
, she’d advised.

Yeah, great advice, if he didn’t have to be holding Ella and walking in order for her eyes to close. The moment he stopped, those little eyelids popped wide open. If he tried laying her down, the screaming started.

She’d eaten. Shit her pants twice. The second time he’d changed her diaper, she’d peed on him and set off the gag reflex he thought he’d conquered.

He’d been oh-so-proud of his frickin’ genius when he figured out he could put her in the carrier and rock her with the toe of his boot—until he nodded off and his foot went still. In his dream, a puppy whimpered a few times, then let out a blood-curdling scream that jerked him awake to see Ella’s blue eyes glaring at him, full of watery accusation.

That’d been an hour ago, and he wasn’t sure how much more he could take. In his sleep-deprived state, he briefly considered leaving her in the playpen while he stuffed a pillow over his head upstairs in his bed, but then a mountain of guilt piled on for even thinking such a thought. She was defenseless. He was in charge of taking care of her. He couldn’t leave her alone like that.

On his next circuit around the living room, his foot caught the coffee table leg and he tripped. He threw out one hand to catch his balance on the back of the couch as his other arm instinctively tightened around the baby. When the alarming rush of adrenaline subsided, he sank down onto the arm of the couch, his heart still pounding so hard he could barely breathe.

What if he’d dropped Ella? Or fallen on her?

He shot to his feet, laid her in the playpen, and rushed from his house to Nikki’s front porch. He kept knocking until he saw the curtain move. A second later the door flew open.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded, tying the sash of a short, pale green robe. “Where’s Ella?”

“Next door.” Fatigue hit hard now that she stood in front of him. “She won’t sleep, and I almost dropped her, and it scared the shit out of me. I tried the playpen, the crib, the carrier. She ate. Her diaper’s clean, but unless I’m holding her, and
walking
, she won’t close her damn eyes. What the frickin’ hell am I supposed to do?”

“First of all, take a breath.”

A blast of cold air filled his starved lungs.

“We should’ve gotten you a swing,” she muttered as she stepped outside and pulled her door closed.

“A swing?” His gaze cut to the one hanging on her front porch, suspended from the roof on chains.

“To rock her to sleep.”

Was she serious? “It’s too cold to rock her outside in the middle of the night.”

“A
baby
swing for
in the house
,” she explained, taking his arm to steer him back toward his place.

“Oh.” As they crossed the frosty lawn, he noticed her bare feet. Guilt piled on top his fatigue. “I’m really sorry about this. I wouldn’t have come over, except, when I tripped, I thought
what if I dropped her?
and I freaked out. I don’t want to hurt her, but I’m so tired I can barely stand.”

Ella’s cries were audible now as they crossed his porch and entered the house. Nikki picked her up, and even though she immediately stopped crying, she checked her over. He didn’t blame her for not trusting him—he didn’t trust himself.

Finally, she hugged the baby to her chest and faced Sam as she rocked back and forth. “She’s fine, and she will be fine, and so will you.”

He blew out a weary breath that was a combination of relief and frustration. “I’m not so sure. If I can’t sleep, how am I going to work, much less care for her?” He swiped both hands though his hair and locked his fingers behind his head. “Nikki, I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You
can
do it, Sam. You’re not even two days in.”

“Exactly,” he exclaimed, extending his arms over his head before dropping them to his sides. “If I can’t handle two days, how am I going to handle the rest of her life? Those papers said permanent custody!”

The weight of those words on his tired mind dropped him to the couch. A moment later, Nikki’s bare legs moved into his line of vision, then she sat next to him. Her hand covered his where it gripped his thigh.

“You did the right thing coming to get me. Now you need to go get some sleep. I’ll take care of Ella, and we’ll talk through everything later. It’s going to be fine.”

Her calm, quiet voice and the comforting squeeze of her fingers on his quelled the rising tide of panic. She was right, sleep first, then talk. He nodded, looked into her concerned blue eyes, and believed her promise.

“Okay.”

She rose to her feet, giving him room to move past the coffee table, and he headed for the stairs. His boot hit the first stair when her bemused voice carried across the room.

“What happened here?”

He saw her standing in the doorway to the kitchen and remembered the last time he’d been in there.
Shit.

“Turns out I can’t make coffee one-handed, and Ella’s got one hell of a kick.”

Picturing the coffee grounds spilled all over the counter and the floor, he heaved a sigh and headed in her direction.

“I got it, go to bed.” Nikki waved him back toward the stairs. “Go,” she insisted when he hesitated.

Too tired to argue, he did as she ordered. In his room, he sat on the bed, intending to take his boots off. What energy was left drained out of him, and he dropped back onto the bed, rubbing his burning eyes.