Bound By A Baby

“Over there,” she said, pointing to the far corner.

“You want to move that box out of the way?”

She did, pushing the heavy box of books with her foot until Simon had a clear path. He muscled the oversize chair across the room, then angled it in a way so that she’d be facing both windows when she sat in it.

“How’s that?”

“Perfect, thanks.”

He looked around the room again. “Where’s the baby?”

“In his room. He took a late nap today.”

“Right.” He wandered around the room now, peeking into boxes, glancing at the haphazard stacks of papers on her desk. “You know, I’ve got some colored file folders in my office you could use.”

She bristled. “I have my own system.”

Simon looked at her and lifted that eyebrow again. “Chaos is a system?”

“It’s only chaos if you can’t find your way around. I can.”

“If you say so.” He moved closer. “Is there anything else I can do?”

“Um, no thanks,” Tula whispered, feeling the heat of him reach for her. This was her fault, she told herself as tension in the room began to grow. If she hadn’t given him that impulsive kiss, they’d still be at odds. If she hadn’t opened herself up, causing him to be so darn sweet, they wouldn’t be experiencing this closeness now.

So she spoke up fast, before whatever was happening between them could go any further. “Why don’t you go check on Nathan while I finish up in here? I’ve still got a lot of unpacking to do.”

She stepped past him and dug into a carton of books, deliberately keeping her back to him. Her heart was pounding and her stomach was spinning with a wild blend of nerves and anticipation. Pulling out a few of the books, she set them on the top shelf and let her fingertips linger on the bindings.

But Simon didn’t leave. Instead, he went down on one knee beside her, cupped her chin and turned her face toward him.

“I don’t know what’s going on between us any more than you do. But you can’t avoid me forever, Tula. We’re living together, after all.”

“We’re living in the same house, that’s all,” she corrected breathlessly. “Not together.”

“Semantics,” he mused, a half smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.

Oh, she knew what he was thinking because she was thinking the same thing. Well, actually, there was very little thinking going on. This was more feeling. Wanting. Needing.

She shook her head. “Simon, you know it would be a bad idea.”

“What?” he asked innocently. “A kiss?”

“You’re not talking about just a kiss.”

“Rather not talk at all,” he admitted, his gaze dropping to her mouth.

Tula licked her lips and took a breath that caught in her lungs when she saw his eyes flash. “Simon…”

“You started this,” he said, leaning in.

“I know,” she answered and tipped her head to one side as she moved to meet him.

“I’ll finish it.”

“Stop talking,” she told him just before his mouth closed over hers.

Heat exploded between them.

Tula had never known anything like it before. His mouth took hers hungrily, his tongue parting her lips, sweeping inside to claim all of her. He pulled her tightly against him until they were both kneeling on the soft, plush carpet. His hands slid up and down her back, dipping to cup the curve of her behind and pull her more tightly against him.

Tula felt the rock-hard proof of just how much Simon wanted her and that need echoed inside her. Her mind blanked out and she gave herself up to the river of sensations he was causing. She tangled her tongue with his, leaning into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on as if she were afraid of sliding off the edge of the world.

He tore his mouth from hers, buried his face in the curve of her neck and whispered, “I’ve been thinking about doing this, about you, ever since you first walked into my office.”

“Me, too,” she murmured, tipping her head to give him better access. Her body was electrified. Every cell was buzzing, and at the core of her she burned and ached for him.

He dropped his hands to the hem of her sweater and slid his palms beneath the heavy knit material to slide across her skin. She felt the burn of his fingers, the sizzle and pop in her bloodstream as he stoked flames already burning too brightly.

Oh, it had been way too long since anyone had touched her, Tula thought, letting her head fall back on a soft sigh. And she’d never been touched like this before.

“Let me,” he murmured, drawing her sweater up and off, baring breasts hidden beneath a bra of sheer, pink lace.

Cool air caressed her skin in a counterpoint to the heat Simon was creating. One corner of her mind was shrieking at her to stop this while she still could. But the rest of her was telling that small, insistent voice to shut up and go away.

“Lovely,” he said, skimming the backs of his fingers across her nipples.

She shivered when his thumbs moved over the tips of her hardened nipples, the brush of the lace intensifying his touch to an almost excruciating level of excitement. Tula trembled as he unhooked the front clasp of her bra and sucked in a quick breath when he pushed the lacy panel aside and cupped her breasts in his hands.

He bent his head to take first one nipple and then the other into his mouth and Tula swayed in place. Threading her fingers through his thick hair, she held him to her and concentrated solely on the feel of his lips and tongue against her skin.

She wanted him naked, her hands on his body. She wanted to lie back and pull him atop her. She wanted to feel their bodies sliding together, to look up into his eyes as he took her to—

An insistent howl shattered the spell between them.

Simon pulled back from her and whipped his head around to stare at the doorway. “What was that?”

“The baby.” Still trembling, Tula grabbed the edges of her bra and hooked it together. Then she reached for her sweater and had it back on in a couple of seconds. “I’ve got the baby monitor in here so I could hear him while I worked.”

She waved one hand at what looked like a space-age communication device and Simon nodded. “Right. The monitor.”

Scrambling to her feet, Tula backed away from him quickly.

“Don’t do that,” Simon said, standing up and reaching for her. “I can see in your eyes that you’re already pretending that didn’t happen.”

“No, I’m not,” she assured him, though her voice was as shaky as the rest of her. Pushing one hand through the short, choppy layers of her hair, she blew out a breath and admitted, “But I should.”

“Why?” He winced when the baby’s cries continued, but didn’t let go of her.

Tula shook her head and pulled free of his grasp. “Because this is just one more complication, Simon. One neither one of us should want.”

“Yeah,” he said, gaze meeting hers. “But we do.”

“You can’t always have what you want,” she countered, taking a step back, closer to the open doorway. “Now I really have to go to the baby.”

“Okay. But Tula,” he said, stopping her as she started to leave. “You should know that I always get what I want.”

When Tula carried Nathan into her office half an hour later, she found a stack of colored file folders lying on top of her desk. There was a brief note. “Chaos can be controlled. S.”

“As if I didn’t know who put them there,” she told the baby. “He had to put his initial on the note?”

She set the baby down on a blanket surrounded by toys, then took a seat at her desk. Her fingertips tapped against the file folders until she finally shrugged and opened one.

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt to try a little filing, right?”

Nathan didn’t have an opinion. He was far too fascinated by the foam truck with bright red headlights he had gripped in his tiny fists.

Tula smiled at him, then set to work straightening up her desk. It went faster than she would have thought and though she hated to admit it, there was something satisfying about filing papers neatly and tucking them away in a cabinet. By the time she was finished, her desktop was cleared off for the first time in…ever.

Her phone rang just as she was getting up to take the baby downstairs for his dinner. “Hello?”

“Tula, hi, this is Tracy.”

Her editor’s voice was, as always, friendly and businesslike. “Hi, what’s up?”

“I just need you to give me the front matter for the next book. Production needs it by tomorrow.”

“Right.” For one awful moment, Tula couldn’t remember where she’d put the letter to her readers that always went in the front of her new books. She liked adding that extra personal touch to the children who read her stories.

The scattered feeling was a familiar one. Despite what she had bragged to Simon about knowing where everything was, she usually experienced a moment of sheer panic when her editor called needing something. Because she knew that she would have to stall her while she located whatever was needed.

“It’s okay, Tula,” Tracy said as if knowing exactly what she was thinking. “I don’t need it this minute and I know it’ll take you some time to find it. If you just email the letter to me first thing in the morning, I’ll hand it in.”

“No, it’s okay,” Tula said suddenly as she realized that she had just spent hours filing things away neatly. “I actually know right where it is.”

“You’re kidding.”

Laughing, she reached out, opened the once-empty file cabinet and pulled out the blue folder. Blue for Bunny Letters, she thought with an inner smile. She even had a system now. Sure, she wasn’t certain how long it would last, but the fun of surprising her editor had been worth the extra work.

“Poor Tracy,” Tula said with sympathy. “You’ve been putting up with my disorganization for too long, haven’t you?”

“You’re organized,” Tracy defended her. “Just in your own way.”

She appreciated the support, but Tula knew very well that Tracy would have preferred just a touch more organizational effort on her writer’s part. “Well, I’m trying something new. I am holding in my hand an actual file folder!”

“Amazing,” Tracy said with a chuckle. “An organized writer. I didn’t know that was possible. Can you fax the letter to me?”

“I can. You’ll have it in a few minutes.”

“Well, I don’t know what inspired the new outlook, but thanks!”

Once she hung up, Tula faxed in the letter, then filed it again and slipped the folder back into the cabinet with a rush of pride. Wouldn’t Simon love to know that he’d been right? As for her, she’d managed to straighten up a mess without losing her identity.

Grinning down at the baby, she asked, “What do you think, Nathan? Can a person have chaos and control?”

She was still wondering about that when she carried the baby downstairs to the kitchen.

A few hours later, Tula said sharply, “You have to make sure he doesn’t slip.”

“Well,” Simon assured her, “I actually knew that much on my own.”

He was bent over the tub, one hand on Nathan’s narrow back while he used his free hand to move a soapy washcloth over the baby’s skin. “How is it you’re supposed to hold him and wash him at the same time?”

Tula grinned and Simon felt a hard punch to his chest. When she really smiled it was enough to make him want to toss her onto the nearest flat surface and bury himself inside her heat.

The kiss they’d shared only a couple of hours before was still burning through him.

He still had the taste of her in his mouth. Had the feel of her soft, sleek skin on his fingers.

Now, as she leaned over beside him to slide a wet washcloth over Nathan’s head, he inhaled and drew her light, floral scent into his lungs. He must have let a groan slip from his throat because she stopped, leaned back and looked up at him.

“Are you okay?”

“Not really,” he said tightly, focusing now on the baby who was slapping the water with both hands and chortling over the splashes he made.

“Simon—”

“Forget it, Tula. Let’s just concentrate on surviving bath time, okay?”

She sat back on her heels and looked up at him. “Now who’s pretending it didn’t happen?”

He laughed—a short, sharp sound. “Trust me when I say that’s not what I’m doing.”

“Then why—”

Giving her a hard look, he said, “Unless you’re willing to finish what we started, drop it, Tula.”

She snapped her mouth closed and nodded. “Right. Then I’ll just go get Nathan’s jammies ready while you finish. Are you good on your own?”

Good question.

He always had been.

Before.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

“We’ll be fine. Just go.”

She scooted out of the bathroom a moment later and Nathan drew his first easy breath since bath time had started. He looked down into the baby’s eyes and said, “Remember this, Nathan. Women are nothing but trouble.”

The tiny boy laughed and slapped the water hard enough to send a small wave into his father’s face.

“Traitor,” Simon whispered.

Six

A few nights later, Simon had had enough of slipping through his own house like a damn ghost. Ever since the kiss he had shared with Tula, he’d kept his distance, staying away not only from her, but from the baby as well. He wondered where in the hell the paternity test results were and asked himself how he was supposed to keep his mind on anything else when memories of a too brief kiss kept intruding.

Hell, it wasn’t just the kiss. It was Tula herself and that was an irritation he hadn’t expected. She was in his mind all the time. Moving through his thoughts like a shadow, never really leaving, always haunting.

She walked into the room and he felt a hard slam of desire pulse through him. His body was hard and his hands itched to touch her. But she seemed blissfully unaware of what she was doing to him, so damned if he’d let her know.

“Maybe we should talk about how this is going to work,” he said when Tula walked into the living room.

Lamplight shone on her blond hair and glittered in her eyes so that it almost looked as if stars were in their depths, winking at him. She was nothing like the women he was usually drawn to. And she was everything he wanted. God, knowing that she was there, in his house, right down the hall from his own bedroom, was making for some long, sleepless nights.

Oblivious of his thoughts, she smiled at him, crossed the room and dropped into a wingback chair on his right. Curling her feet up beneath her, she said, “Yes, the baby went right to sleep as soon as I laid him down. Thanks for asking.”

He frowned to himself and silently admitted that, no, he hadn’t been thinking about the baby. Hardly his fault when she was so near. He dared any man to be able to keep his mind off Tula Barrons for long. “I assumed he was sleeping since he’s not with you and I can’t hear him crying.”

She studied him for a thoughtful moment. “Don’t you think you should start being a part of the whole putting-Nathan-to-bed routine?”

“When I get the results of the paternity test, I will.”

Until then, he was going to hang back. Taking part in bath time a few nights ago had taught him that he was too damn vulnerable where that baby was concerned. He had actually thought of himself as the boy’s father.

What if he found out Nathan wasn’t his?

No, better to protect himself until he knew for sure.

“Simon, Nathan is your son and pretending he isn’t won’t change that.”

“That’s what we need to talk about,” he said, standing to walk to the wet bar across the room. “Do you want a drink?”

“White wine if you’ve got it.”

“I do.” He took care of the drinks then sat down again opposite her. Outside, night was crouched at the glass. A fire burned in the hearth and the snap and hiss of the flames was the only sound for a few minutes. Naturally, Tula couldn’t keep quiet for long.

“Okay, what did you want to talk about?”

“This,” he said, sweeping one hand out as if to encompass the house and everything in it.

“Well, that narrows it down,” Tula mused, taking a sip of wine. “Look, I get that you’re a little freaked by the whole ‘instant parenthood’ thing, but we can’t change that, right?”

“I didn’t say—”

“And I’ve closed up my house and moved here to help you settle in—”

“Yes, but—”

“You’ll get to know the baby. I’ll help as much as I can, but a lot of this is going to come down on you. He’s your son.”

“We don’t know that for sure yet and I think—”

She ran right over him again and Simon was beginning to think that he’d never get the chance to have any input in this conversation. Normally, when he spoke, people listened. No one interrupted him. No one talked over him. Except Tula. And as annoying as it was to admit, even to himself, he liked that about her. She wasn’t hesitant. Not afraid to stand up for herself or Nathan. And not the least bit concerned about telling him exactly what she thought.

Still, he was forced to grind his teeth and fight for patience as she continued.

She waved her glass of wine and sloshed a bit onto her denim-covered leg. She hardly noticed.

“So basically,” she said, “I’m thinking a man like you would feel better with a clear-cut schedule.”

That got his attention. “A man like me?”

She smiled, damn it and his temperature climbed a bit in response.

“Come on, Simon,” she teased. “We both know that you’ve got a set routine in your life and the baby and I have disrupted it.”

This conversation was not going the way he’d planned. He was supposed to be the one taking charge. Telling Tula how things would go from here. Instead, the tiny woman had taken the reins from his hands without him even noticing. Simon took a sip of the aged scotch and let the liquor burn its way down his throat. It sat like a ball of fire in the pit of his stomach and he welcomed the heat. He looked at Tula, watching him with good humor sparkling in her eyes and not a trace of the sexual pull he’d been battling for days.

Irritating as hell that she could so blithely ignore what had been driving him slowly insane. Fresh annoyance spiked at having her so calmly staring him down, pretending to know him and his life and not even once allowing that there was something between them.

Plus, in a few well-chosen words, Tula had managed to both insult and intrigue him.

“I don’t have a routine,” he grumbled, resenting the hell out of the fact that she had made him sound like a doddering old man concentrating solely on his comfortable rut in life.

She laughed and the sound filled the big room with a warmth it had never known.

“Simon, I’ve only been in this house a handful of days and I already know your routine as well as you do. Up at six, breakfast at seven,” she began, ticking items off on her fingers. “Morning news at seven-thirty, leave for the office at eight. Home by five-thirty…”

He scowled at her, furious that she was reducing his life to a handful of statistics. And even more furious that she was right. How in the hell had that happened? Yes, he preferred order in his life, but there was a distinct difference between a well-laid-out schedule and a monotonous habit.

“A drink and the evening news at six,” she went on, still smiling as if she was really enjoying herself, “dinner at six-thirty, work in your study until eight…”

Dear God, he thought in disgust, had he really become so trapped in his own well-worn patterns he hadn’t even noticed? If he was this transparent to a woman who had known him little more than a week, what must he look like to those who knew him well? Was he truly that predictable? Was he nothing more than an echo of his own habits?

That thought was damned disconcerting.

“Don’t stop now,” he urged before taking another sip of scotch. “You’re on a roll.”

“Well, there my tale ends,” she admitted. “By eight I’m putting the baby to bed and I have no idea what you do with the rest of your night.” She leaned one elbow on the arm of the chair and grinned at him. “Care to enlighten me?”

Oh, he’d like to enlighten her. He’d like to tell her she was wrong about him entirely. Unfortunately, she wasn’t. He’d like to take her upstairs and shake up both of their routines. But he wasn’t going to. Not yet.

“I don’t think so,” he said tightly, still coming to grips with his own slide into predictability. “Besides, I didn’t want to talk about me. We were going to talk about the baby.”

“For us to talk about the baby,” she countered with a satisfied nod, “you would have to actually spend time with him. Which you manage to avoid with amazing regularity.”

“I’m not avoiding him.”

“It’s a big house, Simon, but it’s not that big.”

He stood up, suddenly needing to move. Pace. Something. Sitting in a chair while she watched him with barely concealed disappointment was annoying.

Simon knew he shouldn’t care what she thought of him, but damned if he wanted her thinking he was some sort of coward, hiding from his responsibilities. Or an old man stuck in a routine of his own devising. He walked to the wide bay window with a view of the park directly across the street. Moonlight played on the swing sets and slides, illuminating the playground with a soft light that looked almost otherworldly.

“I haven’t gotten the paternity test results back yet,” he said, never taking his gaze from the window and the night beyond the glass.

“You know he’s yours, Simon. You can feel it.”

He looked down at her as she walked up beside him. “What I feel isn’t important.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Simon,” she said sadly, looking up at him. “In the end, what you feel is the only important thing.”

He didn’t agree. Feelings got in the way of logical thought. And logic was the only way to live your life. He had learned that lesson early and well. Hadn’t he watched his own father, Jarod Bradley, nearly wipe out the family dynasty by being so chaotic, so disordered and flighty that he neglected everything that was important?

Well, Simon had made a pledge to himself long ago that he was going to be nothing like his father. He ran his world on common sense. On competency. He didn’t trust “feelings” to get him through his life. He trusted his mind. His sense of responsibility and order.

Which was how he’d slipped into that rut he was cursing only moments ago. His father hadn’t had a routine for anything. He’d greeted each day not knowing what was going to happen next. Simon preferred knowing exactly what his world was doing—and arranging it to suit himself when possible.

Besides, despite what Tula thought, he wasn’t so much actively avoiding Nathan as he had been avoiding her. Ever since that kiss. Ever since he’d held her breasts cupped in his hands he hadn’t been able to think of anything else but getting his hands on her again. And until he figured out exactly what that would mean, he was going to keep right on avoiding her.

Damn it, things used to be simple. He saw an attractive woman, he talked her into his bed. Now, Tula was all wrapped up in a tight knot with the child who was probably his son and Simon was walking a fine line. If he seduced her and then dropped her, couldn’t she make it more difficult for him to get custody of Nathan? And what if he had sex with her and didn’t want to let her go? What then?

There was no room in his life for a woman as flighty and unorganized as she was. She thrived in chaos. He needed order.

They were a match made in hell.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Yes,” he muttered, though he was actually trying to not listen to her.

Which was no more successful than trying not to think about her.

Tula wasn’t comfortable in the city.

Ridiculous, of course, since she’d spent so much of her childhood there. Her parents separated when she was only five and her mother, Katherine, had moved them to Crystal Bay. Close enough that Tula could see her father and far enough away that her mother wouldn’t have to.

Crystal Bay would always be home to Tula. Right from the first, she’d felt as though she belonged there. Life was simpler, there were no piano lessons and tutors. Instead, there was the local public school where she’d first met Anna Cameron. That friendship had really helped shape who she was. The connection with Anna and her oh-so-normal family had helped her gain the self-confidence to eventually face down her father and refuse to fall in line with his plans for her life.

Now being in San Francisco only reminded her of those long, lonely weekends with her father. Not that Jacob Hawthorne was evil, he simply hadn’t been interested in a daughter when he’d wanted a son. And the fact that his daughter didn’t care at all about business was another big black mark against her.

Funny, Tula thought, she had long ago gotten past the regrets she had for how her relationship with her father had died away. Apparently though, there was still a tiny spark inside her that wished things had been different.

“It’s okay though,” she said aloud to the baby who wasn’t listening and couldn’t have cared less. “I’m doing fine, aren’t I, Nathan? And you like me, right?”

If he could speak, she was sure Nathan would have agreed with her and that was good enough for now.

She sighed and pushed the stroller along the sidewalk. Nathan was bundled up as if they were exploring the Arctic Circle, but the wind was cold off the bay and the dark clouds hanging over the city threatened rain.

She and the baby had been in that house for days and it was harder and harder to be there without thoughts of Simon filling her mind. She knew it was pointless, of course. She and Simon had nothing in common except that flash of heat that had practically melded them together during that amazing kiss.

But she couldn’t help where her mind went. And lately, her mind kept slipping into wildly inappropriate thoughts of Simon. Which was exactly why she had bundled Nathan up for a walk. She needed to clear her head. Needed to get back to work on the book that was due by the end of the month. It was hard enough eking out the time for illustrations and storyboards while the baby was napping. Forcing herself to work on the Lonely Bunny’s antics while daydreaming about Simon made it nearly impossible.

Whenever Tula was having a hard work day, she would take a walk, just to feel the bite of the fresh air, see people, listen to the world outside her own mind. Ideas didn’t pop into an idle mind. They had to be fostered, engendered. And that usually meant getting out into the world.

Actually, one of her most popular books had been born at the grocery store in Crystal Bay. She remembered watching a pallet of vegetables being delivered and immediately, she’d felt that magic “click” in her brain that told her an idea was forming. Soon, she’d had the story line for Lonely Bunny Visits the Market.

“So see, Nathan, we’re actually working!” She chuckled a little and picked up the pace.

There were so many people scurrying along the sidewalks, Tula felt lost. But then she’d been feeling a little lost since settling into Simon Bradley’s house. She hadn’t written a word in three days and even her illustrations were being ignored. She couldn’t keep this up much longer. She had deadlines to meet and editors to appease.

And Simon was taking up so many of her thoughts, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to think of anything else.

The only bright side was that she knew Simon was feeling just as frustrated as she was. That he wanted her as much as she did him. And she couldn’t help relishing that sweet rush of completely feminine power that had filled her when he’d practically thrown her out of the bathroom during Nathan’s bath time a few days ago. He hadn’t trusted himself around her.

Which was just delicious, she thought. Of course it would be crazy to surrender to whatever it was that was simmering between them. She had Nathan to think about, after all. She couldn’t just give in to what she was feeling and not think about the consequences.

Don’t I sound responsible? she thought with surprise.

Well, she was. Now. Now that she had Nathan in her life, she had to judge every decision she made along the measurement of what was good for him. And sleeping with his father couldn’t be a good idea. Especially knowing that it was up to her to decide when Simon was ready for custody.

She stopped short.

Was that why he had kissed her?

Was he trying to seduce her into giving him Nathan?

“Now, that’s a horrible thought,” she said aloud.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Hmm?” Tula looked at the older woman who had stopped on the sidewalk to look at her. “Oh, sorry. I was actually talking to myself.”

“I see.” The woman’s eyes went wide and she hurried past.

Tula laughed a little, then stepped to the front of the stroller to check on Nathan. “Well, sweetie, I think that nice lady thought I was crazy.”

He kicked his legs, waved his arms and grinned at her. All the approval she needed, Tula thought, and stepped around to push him along the sidewalk again.

There were stores, of course. Small boutiques, coffee bars and even a cozy Italian restaurant with tables grouped together on the sidewalk.

But what caught her eye was the bookstore.

“Let’s go see, Nathan.”

She stepped inside and paused long enough to enjoy the atmosphere. An entire store devoted to books and the people who loved them. Was there anything better? Crossing to the children’s section, Tula smiled at the parents indulging their kids by sitting on the brightly colored rugs to pick out books.

When she saw a little girl reading Lonely Bunny Makes a Friend Tula’s heart swelled with pride.

She wandered over to the shelf where her books were lined up and, taking a pen from her purse, began signing the copies there.

A few minutes later, a voice stopped her mid-scrawl.

“Excuse me.”

Tula looked at a woman in her mid-forties with a name tag that read Barbara and smiled. “Hi.”