He frowned. “That many what?”
“Women.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” The baby squirmed in his arms, and James realized he’d tightened his hold a little. He relaxed.
“Well, he’s yours, yes?”
Her words punched him in the gut. He’s yours. James stared down at the baby. Why hadn’t that occurred to him? Because he hadn’t had sex with anyone in six months. Not since Harper Broussard had first opened her apartment door and given him homework on olive trees.
But babies took longer than that to make. Well, not to make. That only took a few minutes if you wanted to get scientific about it. But the whole pregnancy thing took more than six months. So really any of the women in the maybe three or four months before Harper could be the mother of this baby.
Holy shit.
It wasn’t like that was hundreds. But it was… more than one or two.
He heard Harper take a deep breath and he looked up.
“The baby is less than six months old. Forty weeks of pregnancy. That means it’s someone you slept with about sixteen months ago who also knows where you live.” She moved closer and then nudged him out of the way. “I’ll be back.”
She slipped out of the door before James could say anything.
She could not be upset about this.
But she was.
Harper pushed her cart up and down the aisles of the twenty-four-hour shopping center that had everything from fresh produce to diapers to car seats to wine.
She had a little bit of all of that in her cart. Except the produce. She didn’t need fresh veggies. She needed diapers. And wine.
How the hell had that happened?
An hour ago she’d been sitting in her apartment trying to read over papers her students had turned in that morning, unable to keep from glancing at the clock over and over, wondering if James would be home tonight. And if so, whether he’d come over. And if he did, would he want to pick right up where they’d left off with the phone flirtation the other night?
He’d gotten home while she’d been at class yesterday, and she knew he was likely sacked out from the long night at the fire, so she hadn’t gone over. But she’d thought about him all night. She’d woken up to find him gone again. When his schedule got thrown off by a big fire where extra personnel was called in, it took a bit for him to get back into routine. But she’d assumed he’d be home at his usual time tonight. She’d hoped.
When he’d come pounding on her door, he’d scared the daylights out of her. She’d rushed to the door, half worried and half hoping it was all because of pent-up desire and he was going to storm in, sweep her up in his arms, and stalk into her bedroom.
She hadn’t expected him to look panicked.
She had definitely not been expecting a baby.
Harper turned around at the end of the wine aisle and went back to add another bottle.
A baby.
She was fine with babies. Pretty much. In theory. She didn’t have much experience with them. But she was fine with them. As far as she knew, anyway.
She supposed it was like what James had said about Henry… she’d never met a baby she didn’t like. She just hadn’t met a lot of babies.
What she hadn’t expected was a hard punch of jealousy.
She wasn’t opposed to dating a guy with a kid. But dating a guy who was divorced or widowed or had already figured out the co-parenting thing with the mom was completely different than…this. This chaotic situation with a guy who she wasn’t even officially dating and who’d now had a baby anonymously left on his doorstep. There were no established roles, no custody agreements, no structure, no plan. This was very outside her comfort zone.
There was also a woman out there somewhere who James didn’t exactly have closure with. Which meant that he needed to see her again and work some things out. To say the least.
Just when things were maybe changing between her and him.
Harper blew out a breath and grabbed another bottle of wine.
She never should have let him and his stupid olive tree into her life.
She checked out, paying an exorbitant amount for a car seat that she wasn’t even sure would work. She had no idea how old the baby was, but there was no way he was too big for this car seat. Still, she was glad that James would be the one to worry about it.
But as she loaded everything—being especially careful with the wine—she admitted that bugged her, actually. She’d love to leave him and his accidental offspring to themselves. They’d bond. They’d wait for mom to show up—or he’d figure out who she was and call her—and then they’d proceed to be whatever kind of family they decided to be.
And her staying the hell out of it, starting the second she got back to the building and delivered the supplies, would keep her heart from getting broken when the woman realized that James was absolutely the full package and there was no way she could walk away. And James, being James, would take her in and support her and help her and… hell, he might even fall in love with her. Harper knew from their conversations that he had several friends who were not just married or in very serious relationships but who were also dads. If she’d ever met a man who was a natural dad, it was James.
That might sound like a strange way to describe a hot young bachelor who played jazz and partied in the French Quarter when he wasn’t strutting around with his big old fire truck, saving lives. But he had a nurturing side that seemed second nature.
She wasn’t the only one who saw it—as evidenced by the number of people who kept dropping things off on his doorstep. Once something was there, it didn’t leave. He brought it in and took care of it. More, he enjoyed it. Sure, she’d made him look things up about olive trees and bearded dragons, but he’d gone with it. Not many guys would have. Especially when she didn’t drop her panties when he turned that first paper in. He’d done it good-naturedly and had actually seemed amazed when the tree started producing. And when he’d found out that he could leash-train Henry, he’d been like a kid on Christmas morning. Ami loved him, Courtney thought he was “the absolute best,” and… Harper had very little evidence to the contrary.
He’d be a great dad. He just would. Any woman would think that was hot, especially if it was with her baby.
Harper frowned at the wine bottles settled on the floor behind the driver’s seat.
She should have gotten one more.
When she got back to the apartment, it took Harper a little extra time to climb the stairs. Not because of the heavy load of wine and diapers, but because she was really reluctant to go up there. She liked him. She really liked him. She should have known better. She didn’t know him. She knew he didn’t bring a lot of women—okay, any women—to his apartment, but she had no idea what his social life looked like. She didn’t know if he had a couple of casual women he saw from time to time or if he was with a different woman every weekend. She didn’t know how he felt about kids, if he had younger siblings, or truly anything about any of that.
Now she was about to face him and a baby, and all of those unknowns were now front and center and very important.
She didn’t really want to know any of them. Because she was afraid she wouldn’t like the answers.