Their Little Princess. Susan Mallery
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he said.
Kelly could barely manage a squeak in response. He’d obviously been up most of the night. There were dark shadows under his eyes and his expression was slightly dazed. But he’d showered that morning. His strong jaw was freshly shaved and the dampness in his hair only added sheen where the light reflected on the thick dark layers.
His clothing wasn’t all that much different than it had been the day before. A soft-looking, worn sweatshirt replaced the long sleeved shirt he’d had on the previous day, but he still wore jeans and boots, although today the latter were cowboy, instead of reinforced work boots.
“Morning,” she managed on her second attempt to speak. “You look tired. Did you sleep at all?”
He shrugged. Big, muscled shoulders made a casual male movement. It shouldn’t have affected her heart rate, but it did. Her palms got a little damp, too, and she had to worry about the coffee slipping and falling.
“A couple of hours. Mostly I just worked and worried.” He motioned for her to come into the house.
“You’ll be fine,” she said, handing him a cup of coffee as she entered. “It’s not as if you’re going to be on your own. Ronni is going to come by and give you that lesson in basic baby care and I’ll be right here.” She smiled. “Although I do have to warn you I have a couple of patients ready to go into labor. I’m caught in one of those cycles. Currently over two-thirds of my practice is in various stages of pregnancy. I have twelve due in the next four weeks, if you can believe it.”
He glanced at the pager she’d clipped to the waistband of her jeans. Some of the worry left his eyes. “I have one of those too, but when it goes off, it’s just a building crisis. Not one about giving birth.”
“Such are the differences in our professions.” She handed him the bag. “Bagels. Did you eat last night?”
He shook his head.
“I figured you wouldn’t. Men get upset and they stop eating. Most women go in the other direction. I know during finals there were semesters when I felt like I was chowing my way through the entire candy aisle of the student union.”
His gaze brushed over her body before returning to her face. “You’d never know it.”
“That’s because I’m tall.” After a moment of relaxing, she found herself getting nervous again. It was all this body talk. She didn’t know how to handle it. For as long as she could remember, her body had been merely functional. She didn’t think of herself as especially feminine and certainly not sexy. But around Tanner, she remembered she was a woman and she enjoyed the fact.
“I spoke to the hospital this morning,” she said briskly, to change the subject. “Your daughter had a great night. She’s sleeping well, taking formula with no problem and she’ll be released any time after noon. You just have to go pick her up.”
“Okay,” he said cautiously.
“Don’t worry. Ronni will be here in about an hour and she’ll take you over all you need to know. At the hospital, one of the nurses will give you the same lesson, so you’ll have reinforcement. Besides, I’ll be here through the weekend.”
“Yeah, okay,” he muttered, but he didn’t sound convinced. He shifted awkwardly. “I put together most of the baby furniture and some of the clothes.”
“I’d love to see what you’ve done,” she said. “And when we’re finished, we can empty my car. It’s packed.”
The previous evening she and Tanner had loaded as much as possible into his Explorer, then he’d taken Kelly back to the hospital. There, she’d collected her own car, returned to the store and taken the rest of their purchases, which she was delivering this morning. Tanner had looked stunned by the amount they had bought, so she hadn’t had the heart to tell him there was a lot more yet to buy. She figured she would make the grocery-drug store run later that afternoon to stock up on lotions, shampoo, baby wipes, a thermometer and the like.
Tanner took a couple of steps into the house, then paused. “Want the nickel tour of the place?” he asked.
“I’d love it.” She glanced around at the spacious living room. There wasn’t any furniture yet, but the walls had been stripped of wallpaper and she could see that he was in the middle of refinishing the wood around the bay windows. Underneath the drop cloths on the floor, she spotted scarred but still beautiful hardwood.
“I’m working on this room now,” he said. “I’ve been doing a room at a time, mostly because that’s all I have time for. Sometimes I think I should just get a crew in here and finish it, but I like doing the work myself. It’s relaxing.”
He led the way down a short hall. To her left she saw a dining room. The walls were still covered with a flocked print in burgundy and gold. Heavy furniture made the large space seem small and dark.
“I bought that set from the former owners of the house. It’s about a hundred years old. It’s in great shape. When I finish a few more rooms, I’m going to start moving pieces around. The table and buffet can stay in the dining room, but I’ll move the old armoire into the guest room.”
“But you’re keeping the wallpaper, right? I mean it’s so you.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. A grin tugged at the corners. “You had me going there for a second. I thought you really liked it.”
“Scary, huh? Someone must have liked it. Not only is it in this dining room, but I’m willing to bet it wasn’t ordered custom, which means hundreds of people chose it.”
“You wouldn’t believe some of the ugly stuff I’ve seen in houses I’ve remodeled.” He continued down the short hall, which ended in a bright, open kitchen. “Before I bought the company, they were split about fifty-fifty between residential and commercial contracting. I changed that, making the business one hundred percent commercial. I’d rather work on one big job for four or five months than have sixteen small ones.”
He set the bagels on the counter and took a sip of his coffee. “The kitchen turned out pretty good.”
She turned in a slow circle, taking in the beautifully fitted and finished cabinets, the granite countertops and a large stove that would make any cook weep with joy. “Did you do the cabinets yourself?”
“Yeah. I made them up because it was more fun than ordering them. It took about a year, but I didn’t mind.”
To the right of the kitchen was an oversized family room. There were two sofas and a couple of recliners, along with a movie-theater sized television and more remote controls than she’d ever seen outside of an electronics store. He caught her studying the coffee table and smiled sheepishly.
“Okay, I know. I’m a guy. What can I say? I like my toys.”
“I guess.”
Sliding doors on the far side of the room led to a huge backyard complete with room for a play area.
“This is very nice,” she told him. “You have a beautiful home.”
“Thanks. The baby’s room is upstairs. I’m converting the guest room because that’s where I started remodeling. I needed a small project to make sure I remembered everything,” he said as he led the way up the stairs. “Owning the company has meant spending more time in the office and less time working on the projects.”
At the top of the stairs, around to the left, were a pair of double doors leading to the master suite. Kelly caught a quick glimpse of a king-sized bed, a sitting area complete with fireplace and beyond that, a bathroom to die for. Then Tanner was motioning her across the hall.
The new baby’s room was large with cream colored walls and a bay seat window. Tanner had put together the four-drawer dresser and the crib. The three-drawer changing table was still in pieces, but he’d put the rocking chair into the alcove by the closet and moved in a floor lamp. A couple of bags of