Angel Baby (8 page)

As they rounded a curve in the country road, Claudia pointed
anxiously and said, “That’s it. Isn’t it just darling?”

They turned off into a gravel driveway to park right in
front of a small, two-story cottage. The exterior had been recently painted a
clean, bright white. Flower beds surrounded the front porch and the small lawn
was freshly mown and sweet smelling. Claudia envisioned chasing after Sarah,
rolling around in the grass, and making daisy necklaces. Out of the corner of
her eye, she watched Ryan smile broadly. He was as charmed as she’d been.

“It looks all right,” he admitted.

Claudia hopped out of the cab of the truck and ran up the
front step onto the porch. She had already pictured the rocking chair she could
place near the railing, which would be a perfect spot to sing to Sarah on warm
evenings.

“It’s better than all right,” she exclaimed as Ryan joined
her on the porch. “The minute Mrs. Campbell showed it to me yesterday, I knew
it was home. It’s fate. She told me she and her husband built the cottage for
her daughter and baby grandson, but they never got a chance to live in it. Mrs.
Campbell seemed so pleased that a woman and baby would finally be able to make
use of it.”

Ryan and Claudia quickly unloaded the truck and carried
everything inside. The cottage was unlocked. That alone gave Claudia a strong
sense of peace. It had been a very long time since she’d lived in a place where
the doors could be left unlocked.

Mrs. Campbell had left most of the furnishings in the
cottage. She’d also obviously had someone clean last night after Claudia
left—the house was immaculate. Claudia took time rinsing her good dishes and
putting them in the cabinets, then placing a few favorite pictures in the
living room. Ryan helped her remove a twin bed from the smaller bedroom, and
then set up Sarah’s crib. The little house soon looked warm and welcoming.

“Hello, there,” a voice called. Claudia peeked out the
window to see Mrs. Campbell walking across the lawn from the main house.
Rushing outside, she hurried to meet the woman, taking her arm to help her
across the uneven grass.

“I see you’ve gotten in all right. Now where’s that darling
baby?”

“She’s not here yet,” Claudia said. “She will be shortly,
though. Please, won’t you come in for a cup of tea?”

“I’d love to, dear, but I do need to keep an eye out. I’m
expecting my grandson. He lives right next door, and generally stops by on
Saturday mornings. I invent chores around the house to make him feel useful. I
think I have the best-oiled doors in the county.”

Claudia laughed as the woman rolled her eyes, then saw Dorien
Campbell glance back over her shoulder. A white truck had pulled into the paved
front driveway, up to the large two-story main house. Dorien waved both arms
over her head to capture the driver’s attention.

“There’s my grandson,” she said, and Claudia heard the pride
in her voice.

Claudia noticed the smile curving the elderly woman’s lips,
and saw her eyes twinkling brightly. She looked very excited about something.
Bemused, Claudia followed her gaze to see the man exit the truck and walk
toward them across the yard.

It was Chase Paxton.

“Your grandson...” Claudia said softly as she watched Chase
approach. “Right next door?”

The woman nodded briskly, “You probably didn’t even notice
his house when you came out. It’s set back off the road. Of course, I don’t
imagine you’d recognize it anyway. From what Chase told me, you were pretty
well incoherent by the time he got you indoors the night your baby was born.”

Claudia froze, turning slowly to stare down at the little
woman. The other’s gray eyes twinkled merrily back at her.

“Chase told you? When?”

“Why, right after I came home from Pittsburgh the weekend
your little Sarah was born. Oh, he was in a high snit, mind you, because you’d
disappeared out from under his nose. Then he mentioned a few weeks ago that not
only had he found you, but you were coming to work for him.”

“And, this house, me moving in...was that his idea, too?”

Dorien shook her head firmly. “No. He hasn’t a clue. I had
talked about renting it out a few years ago, after he moved out of it.”

“He lived here? In the cottage?” Claudia gasped

“Yes, while he was getting the business going, he lived here
to be close to me and his grandfather. He also worked every spare moment on the
house next door. He finished it, oh, probably two years ago.”

Claudia breathed deeply for a moment, watching Chase walk
across the lawn toward them. That same unsettling sensation she got in her
stomach whenever he was in the same room was starting up with a vengeance as
she imagined him living in the small house she now shared with Sarah. Had he
slept in the same bed? She shivered slightly, in spite of the heat of the day.

“My, won’t he be surprised that you’ve moved in here.”

“Surprised,” Claudia said weakly, “I guess you could say
that.”

Chase recognized Claudia’s beautiful hair as soon as he
pulled into the driveway of his grandmother’s house. “What on earth is she
doing here?” he muttered aloud as he parked the truck. He’d been planning to do
a great deal of physical labor today, figuring with a hammer and a few ten
pound nails he’d be able to get the attractive widow out of his head. And here
she was, in the flesh. A great deal of flesh, he conceded, noting she again
wore a pair of shorts that were probably considered modest, but with those
long, sexy legs, looked almost wicked instead.  

Chase saw his grandmother gesture wildly to get his
attention. Squaring his shoulders, he began to walk across the lawn toward the
two women, wondering, with every step, what his irrepressible grandmother was
cooking up this time.

“Hello, Dorien. Claudia,” Chase said warily when he reached
them.

His grandmother held her arms up imperiously, so he bent to
give her a quick hug and a kiss on her lightly powdered cheek. Then he
straightened glancing toward Claudia. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Why, Claudia’s moving in, of course.”

Chase felt his heart begin hammering in his chest, but
maintained a completely relaxed expression as he asked, “Moving in?”

“Into the cottage. It’s working out just beautifully. I’ve
wanted to rent it out for the longest time, but I had to find the perfect
tenant. And I have.”

“Perfect,” Chase conceded as Claudia finally stopped staring
down and lifted her head to stare back at him. 

“I had no idea,” Claudia said. “I mean, I didn’t
realize....”

The widow was going to be his next door neighbor. The
thought elicited a mix of feelings in him. He recognized them as initial
excitement segued into anticipation, then concern and finally acceptance. Maybe
it was meant to be. Maybe fate kept thrusting Claudia Warren in his path for
some divine purpose, as on that October day last year when he’d found her in
that graveyard. Or  maybe, he conceded, his grandmother was a meddlesome old
matchmaker.

That was probably more likely.

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Chase said, taking pity on her. It
was obvious by her high color and the way Claudia kicked at the gravel with the
toe of her sneaker that she’d had no idea that Dorien was his grandmother, or
that he lived next door.

“If I know my grandmother, that’s exactly how she planned
it,” he said dryly, casting an accusing glance toward Dorien.

She widened her eyes innocently, raising a fluttering hand
to her heart. He’d seen the gesture too many times to believe it wasn’t
completely calculated to soften him up by reminding him of her age and
frailty. 

“Why, Chase, how could you possibly think...”

“Save it, Dorien. You've found a reliable tenant. From my
few encounters with Mrs. Warren, I’ve discovered she has an incredible amount
of pride, and is extremely honest, if a little lacking in common sense.”

Claudia, who had begun to smile under his initial
compliments, gasped at his last statement and said heatedly, “No common sense?”

“Well, would you call it really sensible to drive out in the
middle of nowhere, alone, without even realizing you were in labor?”

Claudia didn’t respond. She had to know she’d taken a
terrible risk that day. He’d often wondered what would have happened if he
hadn’t come along, and suspected she did, too.

“You leave her alone, young man. There will be no bullying
of my new tenant,” Dorien said as she shook her finger in Chase’s face.

“Who’s bullying?” a voice asked, and Chase glanced over to
see Ryan strolling toward them from the cottage. “Oh, it’s you, boss. Now I
know who’s bullying.”

Dorien and Claudia laughed out loud as Chase frowned. “She still
has you carrying her luggage around?” Chase asked Ryan.

“This is my first time,” the younger man responded. “Seems
to me, you were the one hauling her stuff around the last time.”

Chase reluctantly smiled at Ryan’s reminder. Gently taking Dorien’s
arm, he asked, “So, have you met Sarah yet?”

“No, but I’m very anxious to. From the way you were raving
about the child, Chase, she sounds adorable.”

Chase shifted uncomfortably, catching Claudia’s pointed
glance. He shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes, as if to imply Dorien
was exaggerating.

“Of course,” his grandmother continued, “your description of
Claudia was perfectly accurate. I had no trouble finding her. I looked for the
tall, willowy, auburn-haired beauty with eyes as green as springtime.”

Claudia heard Ryan chuckle audibly. She quickly glanced at
Chase, wondering if he’d actually used those words, or if his grandmother had
exaggerated. The way he sighed and rolled his eyes told him he might actually
have described her in such a way. 

She shivered a little, despite the heat of the day, studying
him covertly. She almost wished she hadn’t. For the first time she noticed he
wore another one of those sleeveless white t-shirts, and his thickly muscled
arms flexed with his every movement. A pair of long, khaki shorts allowed her
to examine his bare calves. She wasn’t surprised to find they were every bit as
finely toned as the rest of him, tanned, and thickly muscled, with a covering
of dark hair.

Her mouth went dry as a sudden image of his limbs entangled
with hers—sweat-tinged skin sliding together in heat and want—flashed across
her mind.

Realizing what she’d just pictured, Claudia jerked her gaze
back up to Chase’s face and caught him watching her. She didn’t look away, and
they exchanged a long, silent stare. In spite of the other people standing
nearby, it felt as if they were completely alone. For an instant, she wondered
if he could read her mind because she knew, without a doubt, that he’d been
having thoughts just as dangerous and exciting as hers. She felt his gaze on
her, saw it linger on her lips, then slide down over the scooped neck yellow
shirt she wore. Her body tingled in reaction, as if he touched her with his
glance.

She had no idea how long they stood that way, but wasn’t
able to break the electric contact until Ryan broke in.

“Here they are, finally,” he said as Claudia heard Melanie’s
car pull into the driveway. Pasting on a bright smile, she ignored her pounding
pulse and the tingling sensation coursing through her body, and turned to greet
Melanie and Sarah.

Claudia sensed Chase’s eyes on her as she walked toward the
car, but she resisted the strong urge to look back. And by the time Melanie and
the baby got out of the car, and everyone headed toward the house, Chase had
already turned away and begun walking across the lawn toward his truck.

As if he, too, couldn’t bear for them to be together with
all these other people around.

As if he, too, was shocked by the intensity of the
attraction that danced between them like a live wire.

As if he, too, had no idea what to do about it.

Sarah seemed to love her new home, exploring it thoroughly
for the first week. Her brightly colored plastic toys filled a carton in the
corner of the living room, and she loved to crawl over and pull out every
single thing. Claudia had to laugh when she realized the baby was playing a
game with her. Sarah didn’t want to play with the toys, she just wanted to pull
them all out and watch Mommy put them all back.

One morning while fixing breakfast, Claudia became
distracted for no more than sixty seconds then found Sarah trying to climb the
stairs. Though the baby had only reached the second step from the bottom and
was completely unharmed, Claudia still felt terribly guilty. She bought a baby
gate that very day. Claudia suppressed a smile at Sarah’s angry pout when she
saw her path was permanently blocked. "Heaven help me when you start
walking, kiddo," Claudia said with a grin. "I'll really be in trouble
then, won't I?"

 Claudia fell into a comforting sense of home in the little
house. Leaving the windows open while she slept was utter heaven, a luxury
she’d never been able to indulge in Philadelphia. And Claudia loved lounging on
the grassy lawn with Sarah every afternoon when they arrived home.

Then there was Dorien. She was not only a terrific landlady,
but also a very good neighbor, never intruding, but occasionally stopping by to
say hello. As for her other closest neighbor...Claudia hadn’t seen him, except
at work, since the day she moved in.

“Now, you’ve got to promise to be a good girl for Mrs.
Campbell, all right sweetie? She can’t be chasing you all over the place,”
Claudia said as she carried the baby, and the gate, across the lawn to the main
house on Saturday morning. “She’s just going to watch you for a little while.
Mommy will be right next door.”

Claudia was still unsure about leaving the baby with the
elderly woman for a few hours, but Dorien had been so excited at the prospect
of babysitting. And Claudia couldn’t very well bring the baby with her. She had
to work for a little while. At Chase’s house.