Call Her Mine (Harmony Pointe #1)- Melissa Foster Page 0,5
you ever heard the old saying Let sleeping babies lie?”
“I think that’s dogs, and what does it mean, anyway? Don’t wake up a dog? Why not?”
“I don’t freaking know,” she whispered, glancing at the baby in the basket. “But she’s finally quiet and I’m not upsetting her again.”
“So, what . . . ? We’re supposed to sit around with this kid until it wakes up? It could sleep for hours.” He paced like a caged tiger. “We’ve got to figure this shit out. Who would leave a kid on a doorstep? We need to find the mother. This is bullshit. I have an important meeting next week I need to prepare for, and I need a fucking shower. And now I’ve got a baby who could stop breathing at any second . . .”
She’d never seen Ben frazzled, and he was talking so fast Aurelia couldn’t get a word in edgewise. She went to him, but he continued ranting about laws of abandonment and not being the father.
She grabbed his arms and said, “Benjamin!” in a harsh whisper.
He blinked several times, as if he’d only just realized she was there.
“Take a deep breath, and don’t say another word until I get some coffee in you.” She picked up the basket.
“Where are you taking that?”
“I’m taking her into the kitchen. Let’s go.” Jesus, she was freaking out inside, and he was freaking out outside. They were quite a pair. She set the basket on the floor by the kitchen table, and then she pointed to the chair nearest the basket and said, “Sit.”
She was surprised when he complied. She began making coffee and said, “While she’s sleeping, we need to figure out who the mother is. Then we’ll get her checked out by Vic.”
His eyes widened. “So you think it’s sick, too?”
She rolled her eyes. “Stop calling her it.” She grasped for a name and went with the first thing that came to mind. “She’s Baby B for now.”
“Baby B? Who’s Baby A?”
“There is no Baby A. Baby Ben, just until—”
“She’s not my kid, Aurelia,” he said through gritted teeth, but his gaze fell to the baby, and though his jaw clenched tight, Aurelia swore his eyes softened a little.
Was he thinking about the possible mothers? Remembering the women he’d slept with? Or was he accepting that he might in fact be a father? She didn’t want to think about two of those questions as she handed him a mug of coffee.
“We don’t know that, and she can’t be it, so she’s Baby B. Or just B for now.” She poured herself a cup of coffee, grabbed a notepad and a pen from the drawer where he kept them, and sat at the table. “Okay, focus, Ben. Let’s figure this out. How old do you think she is?”
Ben looked like he’d swallowed a frog. “How the hell would I know?”
“Never mind. I’ll google it. Geez, when it comes to business you plan and strategize until you’re blue in the face. Just try to help me out here, please. She can’t be very old; she can’t hold her head up or anything.” She whipped out her phone and searched how to tell how old a baby is. Finding only baby-age calculators, she said, “Shit. This doesn’t help at all.”
“Because you suck at research.” He grabbed her phone, thumbed out something, then said, “This site should help. They have milestones by month, starting with month zero. What milestone does a newborn have?”
They huddled over the phone, reading about feedings, baths, and sleep schedules, and agreed that the information didn’t help since they had no information on which to base the baby’s schedule or weight.
“She can’t be more than a month or so, right? She’s so tiny. Maybe we should estimate three to six weeks, just to be safe.” Aurelia navigated to the calendar on her phone and counted back to figure out when the baby was conceived. “I can’t believe I’m actually trying to figure out when you had sex. This is so messed up.”
Ben’s jaw clenched again, and his eyes turned apologetic. “What do you want me to say? Neither one of us is celibate.”
“You have no idea what I am,” she said sharply, keeping her eyes trained on the phone. She’d been with her share of men, but it had been forever since she’d had sex, which was only part of the problem with staying overnight at Ben’s. When he held her, which was every damn time she stayed over, he