Page 13 of This Baby Business
And for someone who had gone through his life with a plan set in stone, sue him if he felt like the ground underneath him was constantly shifting these days. But this, assembling a crib, he could do. It was mechanical. The parts fit together and made sense. What’s more, they’d stay together after he was done.
He went to his knees and took a quick look at the instructions. Simple. But when he grabbed the screwdriver, Carly stopped him.
“You should teach me how. Let me do it.”
“Seriously?”
“Sure. I mean, if I’m going to rate how easy or hownoteasy it is to assemble for moms, I think I should be the one to do it.” Her amber eyes fixated on his, hand held out for the screwdriver. Waiting.
He handed it over after a beat. Reluctantly. It was her house and her crib. Next door, he had a tool kit with power tools, including a screwdriver. But hey, this could be a lot more fun.
He did, in fact, enjoy working side by side with her for the next few minutes and surely could be excused for taking a whiff of her hair when she leaned close to grab a screw. Smelled like coconut.
“Here,” he said, handing her another screw and nut. “You’ll need this next.”
She took it from him, her hand bumping into his briefly. Her skin was silky soft. Smooth. And all this talk of screws and nuts had made him as horny as a bear after a long damn winter. It had been a while since he’d felt this attracted to or this pulled in by any woman. But why did it have to be this woman?
After a few more minutes, Carly successfully attached one side rail—while he held it up for her—and smiled at him with such obvious pride that his heart pinched.
“Hey, you’re pretty good at this,” he lied. He’d have been done with this crib twenty minutes ago, but maybe that part didn’t matter as much as the look on Carly’s face.
“Well, I don’t want to brag but I know my way around a sewing machine. Mine breaks down a lot.” She nodded in the direction of the machine in the corner.
She leaned forward to reach in front of him and her low-riding jeans slid down just enough to reveal a beautifully curvy patch of smooth skin rounding out to the world’s most perfect butt. He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly parched. If she kept this up, he would soon tease himself into oblivion.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour of torture, she’d put together the crib. She then checked the sturdiness by tugging on the rails several times, making him smile again.
“Hey, look, I did it.”
“You did.”
“With your help.”
She left the room and came back a few minutes later, a pad of paper and a pen in hand. “I need to write some thoughts down.”
“Is this for your blog? Because if it is, I agree with you that this diagram looks like someone on crack drew it.”
She laughed at that, scribbling something down. “So glad it’s not just me. Sorry, Cribs for Mommies, I’m going to say it’s a two-person job.”
“So does it work?” He stood up to stretch his legs. “Do they take your advice when they read your blog?”
“I don’t really know. They used to take my mom’s advice.”
“But not yours?”
She lifted a shoulder. “My mother was the real baby whisperer.”
“Baby whisperer. I could use me one of those.”
“I do have her baby bible. But it’s incredibly disorganized, and sometimes it’s hard for me to understand. Of course you need to put a baby on a schedule, but it doesn’t say what to do when your baby is too tired to stay awake because they’ve been up all night.”
“Exactly.” Finally, someone got it. “I have it on good authority she’ll sleep through the night. When she’s a teenager.”
He wasn’t going to be one of those parents who wouldn’t let their teenager sleep till noon. Figure she’d have a lot of catching up to do.
Carly rose to jot something down on her pad while he checked the baby monitor. Grace slept peacefully. Still, he should get out of Carly’s house right now before he had any more random thoughts about kissing her. Because at the moment, it would be nice to find out if the rest of her was as soft as her rosy pink skin. Like her lips. For starters.
Carly met his gaze and caught him staring at her lips. He didn’t bother trying to hide it. She smiled and looked away first. Back to her notes.
