And hell, Harper Broussard was hardly just some girl. She was sassy, but in this very classy, almost elegant way. She was onto him. She didn’t fall for his lines. Yet she kept opening her door. That mattered. She could have told him to leave her alone. She could have told him to shove his olive tree. She could have killed his olive tree. He knew women who would have done that. But she’d kept the thing alive and made him olive tapenade with the olives.
She liked him.
And she hadn’t even seen him naked yet.
Most women who’d seen him naked liked him.
Most women who’d seen him naked hadn’t spent a lot of time talking to him about books and dogs and his job.
None of the women who’d seen him naked had made him olive tapenade.
Harper liked him in spite of the fact that he’d kept his clothes on, and she’d never heard him play the piano in the club.
It was interesting. Not that he thought that was all he had to offer a woman. He wasn’t sad. He was just a little out of his element with her.
That made him want to take her to bed even more. While the thought of it intimidated the hell out of him.
And now, when he was finally here when she was, both able to take their clothes off and he could carry her into her frilly, mostly-white-with-touches-of-green-and-yellow bedroom and lay her down on the fluffy, white comforter that he’d wanted to mess up since the first time he’d seen it… he was holding a baby.
A freaking baby.
“How do you know it’s a boy?” she asked tentatively.
“The note says I know you’ll take good care of him,” James said. Repeating those words made his heart thump as it all seemed even more real. He really was holding a baby that had been left on his doorstep.
Harper was still gripping his arm. Tightly.
“Oh my God, he was just out there? Outside your door?” she asked. “Oh my God, I had no idea. I didn’t hear anything! Someone could have come and taken him! He could have starved or gotten too hot or—”
“Harper,” James cut in firmly.
Her eyes came to his.
“He’s sleeping. I don’t think he’s been out there very long.”
“But…” She frowned. “How do you know?”
James shrugged. “He’s asleep. Babies fuss when they’re hungry and wet and hot and cold and stuff, right?”
He watched her take a deep breath, appreciating for the moment that he was the calm one. Harper Broussard had her shit together. He’d challenge anyone to say any differently. But it seemed that perhaps babies were one area where she was less than fully confident.
Of course, this baby was a huge surprise. To say the least.
“That’s a good point,” she conceded. She leaned in a little closer to peer at the baby.
Her demeanor was more that of a woman leaning in to check out an armful of rotten vegetables—very hesitant and with a scrunched-up nose and frown that made her look very put off—than one looking at an infant. But it gave James a chance to smell her hair. One of his favorite scents in the world. He took a deep lungful. Might as well. If he was going to be holding a baby, he might not get her very close very often. Seemingly.
Something about Harper being even less enthusiastic about the baby than she had been about the bearded dragon made James feel a shot of I-want-to-take-care-of-this. He liked her confidence and her sharp wit and her intelligence. But he also liked the little flickers of surprise he saw in her eyes from time to time when he said or did something that she clearly hadn’t been expecting. Like when they’d talked about music. He’d given her a lesson on the history and rise of jazz music. Or when Clyde had come up asking for assistance on a pretty bad burn he’d gotten in the candy store kitchen, and James had taken quick care of it.
He should maybe feel insulted that she thought he didn’t know anything about anything, but instead it made him want to tell her—and show her—all of the things he was good at.
“Can you take him while I run to the store?” James asked.
He said it mostly to see what her reaction would be, because it had only just now occurred to him that he’d need supplies for the baby.
Her eyes went round, and she took a huge step back from him and the baby. “Take him?”
“Yes, watch him.” James bit back his smile. So Professor Broussard wasn’t maternal. Okay. She was downright gorgeous when she was cuddling and playing with Fred, and that loving, warm side of her was a huge fucking turn-on, but babies might be a different story. “I can’t leave him in my apartment alone, obviously, and I don’t have a car seat or anything for the truck to take him with me.”
He could, of course, have some things delivered. Or call any one of his friends to bring him stuff. Hell, all of his closest friends were also dads. But he wanted to do this with Harper.
He wanted to do everything with Harper.
Yep, red flag.
If he wanted to stay single and unattached and with a different woman every night.
But that was becoming less and less appealing.
While the woman standing in front of him in soft cotton flannel pants and fitted tank top with her hair up in a messy bun and no makeup on, looking like the baby in his arms was about to leap out and bite her, was more and more appealing every damned time he saw her. Especially now that they’d had a date for sex.
Because that was absolutely what the other night had been, and he wasn’t going to let her forget it.
As soon as he didn’t have a baby to deal with.
He looked down. When would that be? Who was this? Why was this baby on his doorstep? What the actual hell?
He felt his heart rate kick up again as his amusement over Harper’s reaction gave way to the reality of what was actually going on.
“I’ll go.” Harper stepped to the side, carefully, as if to avoid touching the baby. Like having a baby in his arms was contagious or something. She slipped into her sandals that were always by the door and grabbed her little purse and keys. “I’ll get stuff. You stay here with… him.”
But she couldn’t go anywhere because James and the baby were very much in the way.
“You’re going to go?” he asked.
“Sure. Why not?”
So she was clearly freaked out by the idea of the baby—understandably, honestly—but she was still willing to jump in and help James. Maybe not touch the baby, but she was there for James.
God, he wanted to kiss her. Badly. Not because she was dressed in a short, tight dress in a club, moving her hips and rubbing against him, saying dirty things and giving him fuck-me eyes. But because she was going to help him, even with something she was clearly very uncomfortable with.
“Do you know what to get?” he asked.
“Diapers, food, formula.”
He nodded. “A car seat. A crib. Probably some… toys?” He looked down again.
“Toys?” she repeated. “What kinds of toys?”
“I don’t know.”
“How old is he?”
“I have no idea.” When he looked up, he saw her watching him with one eyebrow lifted. “What?”
“You have no idea?”
“How would I know that?” he asked. “I mean, somewhere between a few days and a year?”
Harper actually propped a hand on her hip. “You can’t narrow it down, even a little? There have been that many?”