LITMIR.BIZ

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back now and then.”

      After hanging up, Jack retrieved the bottle from the kitchen and settled down with Wyatt on the hotel sofa. He popped the pacifier out of the baby’s mouth and watched in horror as the tiny back stiffened and the tinier mouth opened wide to shriek.

      Frantically, he stuck the bottle in. And relaxed. Once that first taste of formula hit Wyatt’s tongue, he quieted quickly. “That’s my boy,” Jack said, feeling as if he’d conquered a major obstacle.

      He was going to get this baby business down and get back to Kansas City. Back to his life. Things would go much better there—he’d have his speakerphone, his main computer and his girlfriends to ask for advice. They might not know as much as Abby, but they’d never make him feel unfit, either.

      Under the circumstances, Abby’s snappy attitude made sense, but he was certainly not dim. He loved a challenge. He could make this work.

      Wasn’t he the same guy who’d managed to finish high school a full year early? In spite of having little help from a mother who was busy running through boyfriends.

      Jack had to keep Brian occupied and fed on many nights, and he’d still been able to attend college, keep a string of girlfriends happy and start his own business. He could learn to care for a person too young to walk or talk.

      Besides, for all practical purposes he’d already raised a boy. Although Brian had been older by the time he had taken over the chore, Jack knew that if he could just persevere until Wyatt was about school age, the job would be old hat.

      The most important thing, he thought, was a desire to do the job well. Motivation was half the battle with anything.

      He could always deal with the guilt later.

      But a few minutes after Wyatt finished the bottle, he started fussing again. Jack changed a diaper that was only slightly wet, but the baby kept screaming. Jack couldn’t figure out why. He’d have to call Abby again.

      “Hullo?”

      “Abby, he’s been crying for fifteen minutes straight,” he hollered above the noise.

      “Did you feed him?”

      “Yes,” he said in horror, thinking there must have been something terribly wrong with the formula. “He drank the whole bottle.”

      “Did you burp him?”

      “Oh…uh, no. I didn’t. Hang on, I’m picking him up. Talk me through it,” he implored. “Talk loud.”

      He held Wyatt out in front of him, hoping against hope the child simply needed burping. The baby howled as if a pin was sticking in his belly, but these diapers had Velcro. That formula must have been spoiled.

      Next time, his client would wait.

      Abby described the burping position she found most effective, and several others to try if that one didn’t work. Within a few minutes, the tiny boy had produced three burps that could vie for a record with Jack’s beer guzzling buddies. All of the sudden, Wyatt was gurgling and waving his fists in the air contentedly.

      Once again Jack thanked Abby for her help and hung up.

      After that, the Kimball men had a fairly decent evening. Jack found a soft blue blanket in the diaper bag and spread it on the floor. He let the baby kick around on that while he ate a room service dinner.

      Later, they took in the end of a baseball game together. Wyatt hadn’t actually developed a fondness for sports yet, but if Jack sat on the floor beside him and spoke animatedly about the wisdom or folly of each play, the baby seemed happy to respond to the conversation.

      When Wyatt started sobbing again after the game, Jack fed him—brilliantly, this time. He had the baby fed and burped within a half hour, without a single snag. Then he changed a dirty diaper, congratulating himself on that, too. It had been his first poopy diaper, and he managed it without needing a bit of advice.

      He called Abby only one more time that night.

      “Hullo, Jack. What is it?” she asked tiredly, after just one ring.

      “How’d you know it was me?”

      “Are you kidding? You’ve called at least once every hour for the past six. I was wondering where you’d gone.”

      “Oh.”

      “Well, what is it?”

      Abby had worked her magic again: he felt foolish. He considered hanging up, but he still needed to know the answer to his question. “How do I take a shower?”

      She giggled. “Now you’re kidding, right?”

      “No, I’m not,” he said. “What do I do with Wyatt?”

      “It’s eleven o’clock. He’s not asleep yet?”

      “No.”

      After another exaggerated sigh, she said, “Is there a separate place in your hotel room for him to sleep?”

      “Yes, we’re in a suite.”

      “Go pull a mattress off the bed and put Wyatt in the middle of it on his back. Stack pillows on every side. Then—and this is the most important part—leave the room.”

      It sounded too easy. “Won’t he cry?”

      “For a while, but if he’s quiet within a few minutes, you’ve made it,” she said in a whisper-soft voice that sounded sweet for the first time today. “Then you can go take a shower.”

      “Good,” he said, grateful for her kindness. He’d been through enough already.

      “And Jack?”

      “Yes?”

      “I’m going to bed. Babies wake up at night. You check their diaper, see if they’re hungry. You can do that. Don’t call me again unless it’s an emergency.”

      SEVEN HOURS LATER, Jack stirred from a light snooze when Wyatt starting moving around. The arm of the hotel room sofa was rock hard, making deep sleep out of the question. But Wyatt had been quiet and comfortable, belly down against his uncle’s chest, with a blanket tucked snugly around him.

      Jack had tried Abby’s suggestion. He had tried hard. But it had been impossible to listen to Wyatt shriek for longer than a minute or two. For all he knew, the child had fallen off the mattress and rolled across the floor. Or maybe the little guy missed his family. Jack couldn’t discount that possibility.

      Besides, he had the other hotel guests to consider.

      So he’d slept on the sofa with Wyatt nestled on his chest. The arrangement had worked wonders for the baby.

      Jack himself hadn’t slept more than an hour or two.

      All those wakeful hours had afforded him plenty of thinking time, and he’d started to come to some conclusions. For one thing, taking care of an infant was a laborious chore— Wyatt seemed to need constant attention.

      Where had Jack gotten the impression that babies slept most of the time? So far, Wyatt had cried more than he’d slept. Or so it seemed.

      If he took the baby back to Kansas City, he could try working from home so he could tend to Wyatt. He imagined a day broken into scattered segments of trying to feed, change and pacify a baby, while his clients cooled their heels on the other end of the phone line. And Jack had no idea what he’d do when he had to go on a business trip.

      In any case, his company would probably fail.

      If he hired round-the-clock care, he could spend time with his nephew whenever he wasn’t working. Then he’d have a definite hand in the boy’s upbringing.

      Of course, Jack would have to slow down his social life to a snail’s pace. The ladies would have to visit him at home, or see him a lot less often.

      But when it came right down to it, he didn’t have many options.

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