Part 8 (1/2)

”No, that's an order,” she replied calmly. One step at a time, she pulled him up the stairs. ”You know, the things I'm good at giving.” Finally on the landing, she looked around. ”This way?” she guessed, nodding toward the right.

His legs were no longer functioning. He wasn't even sure if he felt them. ”Just leave me here-I can stretch out on the floor.”

She laughed, tugging on his arm. The door to the room she'd indicated was standing open. She was right; it was his. And it was in a state of complete chaos, which meant it matched the rest of the house.

”It's not that bad,” she told him.

Her denial was like a final rallying cry. Evan drew himself up. ”Want to bet? I didn't have any sleep last night. Or the night before, either. At least, not much.”

It felt as if he'd always been awake. Always stumbling through life.

Very gently, she led him to his bed. The blanket was a mess. For the time being, she pushed it to one side. ”Welcome to parenthood.”

”But she's not-” It was a feeble protest that died before it was completed.

”I know, I know.” Exerting very little force, she pushed him onto the bed. He collapsed like a tower of limp laundry. ”Shut up and get some sleep.”

His eyes were already shutting again. ”You'll be here when I wake up?” he mumbled.

From somewhere in the distance, her voice floated back to him. ”I'll be here when you wake up. This was the slack I was talking about.”

He didn't have any strength to say another word, or even to rue the fact that he'd been laid low by someone who weighed less than his television set. He hardly ever talked in his sleep.

Chapter Six.

It curled around him slowly, nudging him to consciousness bit by bit. The scent of coffee mixed with the fragrance of spring.

Vaguely, Evan remembered that it wasn't spring. Halloween and strangely dressed children with pumpkins and pillowcases, begging for candy, had gone by. It was fall, almost winter.

Increments of facts sprinkled through his brain like light morning drizzle, melding with the scent. But it was the sound that woke him.

Or rather, the lack of it.

There was no buzzing in his ears, no persistent wailing.

Evan opened his eyes, listening, wondering if it had all been just a bad dream. The baby, the mess, the sleepless night. Just a bad dream.

And then he looked down at his rumpled clothes and knew that it wasn't. It was all too real. Someone had left him a baby and called him a father. And the blonde next door had abandoned him.

With a sigh that was one part weariness and two parts resignation, Evan sat up and dragged both hands through his hair, trying to come to. There was no doubt in his mind that this was what it felt like to be run over by an eighteen- wheeler. And there was this odd taste in his mouth, as if he'd been chewing on old sweat socks that had long since been forgotten in the bottom of a laundry hamper.

The smell of coffee and spring persisted. He saw no reason for either. If anything, his room should have smelled like a compost heap.

His eyes drifted over to the corner, where his wastepaper basket should have been. It was there, all right, but completely unenc.u.mbered by diapers.

Hadn't he...?

It slowly penetrated his mind that the room was neat. All of it. There was no container of overturned talc.u.m, no used diapers waiting for further disposal, no hint of chaos of any kind.

It was even neater than he normally kept it. The blanket he'd used to separate his bedspread from Rachel's overactive bottom was neatly folded at the foot of his bed. Even the pile of empty diaper boxes had gone the way of the used diapers and disappeared.

Evan looked around again, completely confused. Maybe he had dreamed it after all.

Uncertain about the stability of his mind, he walked cautiously to the closed door.

As soon as he opened it, he heard Libby announce, ”He's up!” and knew that if this was a bad dream, he was still trapped inside it.

Before he could say a word, Libby grabbed him by the hand. She immediately commenced chattering like one of the scrub jays that appeared by his window in the early spring. It seemed that her enforced silence had only given her that much more energy to exude on him, now that he was awake.

”Mama's got coffee for you.” With the guileless determination of a terrier puppy, Libby began tugging him toward the kitchen. ”She said to tell her as soon as you were awake, but not to wake you.” She smiled up at him brightly. ”So I didn't. Mama says that's what makes me a big girl. Do you think I'm a big girl?”

Evan's head was swimming. He was vaguely aware that Libby was asking him questions, but he couldn't quite make out what they were. The only thing his brain had latched onto was the word coffee, and it was hanging on to it as if it were a life preserver.

Maybe coffee would help him make sense of what was going on. He stumbled the rest of the way to the kitchen, still in Libby's wake.

Coffee was waiting for him at the table. Yes, there was still some order to the universe.

Evan automatically picked up the cup in both hands and drank, then swore, breaking the word off in the middle when he realized that Libby was still standing there.

”Careful, it's hot,” Claire warned needlessly after the fact, then shook her head. ”But you already know that.”

Nursing his bottom lip, Evan sipped the rest of the coffee slowly, needing the liquid and what it could do for him more than he needed to keep himself from getting burned. When he finished, he set the cup down and looked around, getting his bearings.

He knew for a fact that he'd left the kitchen in an advanced state of upheaval, trying to warm bottles for Rachel while keeping her from wailing. Yet everything was washed and replaced, as if he'd never even been in here last night. No spilled mess, no pots flung every which way, no empty milk carton left standing. It hardly looked like his kitchen.

She'd worked nothing short of a miracle, he thought as he slowly began to feel like his old self again. Evan looked around a second time. He'd always admired the ability to organize. Last night, he'd thought that he had completely lost the knack himself, utterly undone by a six-month-old.

He turned to look at Claire. She was by the stove, busy with something that was sizzling. ”Do you hire out?” he asked, only half joking.

She looked at him over her shoulder, a smile dazzling him. ”You couldn't afford me.”

”Probably not.” As consciousness settled in to stay, so did the grudging admiration. Grudging because she'd succeeded where he had obviously failed. ”How did you man-age?”

It wasn't in her nature to brag, although this time she was a little tempted.

”I've had more on-the-job training than you,” she replied simply. With Rachel nestled comfortably against one hip, Claire crossed to the table and poured Evan a second cup of coffee. ”Try not to burn your mouth this time.”

He began to protest that he'd been half-asleep, then gave it up. Life-reaffirming coffee was more important than his pride.

Setting the pot down, Claire surprised him by cupping his chin in her hand before he had the opportunity to bring the second serving to his lips. She examined his mouth.

”Doesn't look too bad.” She smiled into his eyes. ”You'll be yelling again in no time.”

Yelling was the farthest thing from his mind at the moment. What was on his mind was that he was very, very conscious of the touch of her hand, the feel of her skin against his.

And the lack of it when she drew her hand away and picked up the coffeepot again.