She texted back as best she could. Love cats. Had a cat most of my life. Why? Okay, I’ll plan dinner for seven.
But then she never heard back from him.
Did he have a cat and was worried she might be allergic to the dander?
With Ike wrapped up in the stretchy wrap—the way Celeste and Bianca had shown her—she swayed to the Bing Crosby that played on her computer over at her desk. The stove boiled with potatoes, the pan sizzled with brussels sprouts and the house smelled like turkey and stuffing, so in other words—incredible.
Ike had been a little fussy in the morning. Celeste figured he had gas, so she kept him upright a lot in the wrap and he seemed to settle right down. She’d even figured out how to nurse in the thing. But that success was short-lived when she shot her kid in the eye with her milk and he couldn’t maintain a latch that wasn’t painful.
“You’ll get it,” Bianca had said with an understanding smile. “It’s only week two. My kids were months and months old before I figured out how to nurse while wearing them. Don’t beat yourself up.”
Her friends and their children had come over around eleven that morning, all of them with oodles of gifts for Ike. Bianca’s twins, Hannah and Hayley, who were six, kept fighting over who got to hold Ike, until Sabrina, Celeste’s fifteen-year-old daughter, stepped in and took him from the girls.
“Nobody gets to hold him if you’re going to fight over him.” She pressed her forehead to Ike’s. “Nobody but me, that is.” Then, as she said, nobody else was allowed to hold him. She sat in the recliner with him for the rest of the visit, both of them happy and staring adoringly into each other’s eyes.
Sabrina was already a well-seasoned babysitter for Bianca’s kids—which was why she was able to go all authoritarian on them like she did—as well as many others. Lauren was looking forward to the time she felt comfortable enough to leave Ike with someone else—even just for an hour so she could go for a run.
But with only two weeks of being a mother under her belt, she felt weird not being in the same room as her kid, let alone not in the same house.
By the time her friends left, both she and Ike were exhausted. They took a Christmas siesta from one until three, and then she started cooking while Ike snuggled into the wrap for a post-nap nap.
It was five minutes after seven when there was a knock at her door.
She liked that he was a punctual person. Or at least appeared to be.
She glanced at herself in her hallway mirror. She’d been living in maternity leggings and baggy T-shirts with nursing bras underneath for the past two weeks, but tonight she decided to dress up. Black yoga pants and a red and white checkered flannel over a black tank top.
It was new-mom chic, as she told herself.
She’d also showered while her friends visited and styled and blow-dried her hair so it curled around her shoulders. A far cry from the messy mom-bun she sported every day.
Feeling less than sexy, but not as much like the hot bag of trash she’d felt like last week, she opened the door and plastered on a big smile. “Merry Christmas!”
That smile. Jesus, it was going to make her orgasm on the spot if Isaac wasn’t careful. “Merry Christmas!”
She stepped to the side so he could enter, but before she was able to close the door, he paused, stepped toward her and reached out. She held her breath. What was he doing?
But he innocently pulled back the part of the wrap that was covering Ike’s head and smiled again. “Looks pretty cozy in there.”
She swallowed. “He’s actually snoring.”
Isaac snorted and continued on into the house. “Maybe I should get one of those carrier things.”
For who, Ike? Why?
“I’ve just been using my coat.” That’s when he unzipped his jacket to reveal the most adorable, the most cuddly, the most purrfectly purrfect kitten Lauren had ever seen. “I found her in the alley under some trash bins. Her mother was hit by a car.”
Ah, fuck. Tears immediately sprang into her eyes. “Her mother’s dead? On Christmas?” Now she was blubbering. Damn hormones. Would she ever have control over her emotions again?
The man looked like he was ready to puke. Or at the very least find a quick exit. “I … I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He went to zip the kitten back up into his jacket, but she reached out and grabbed his hand to stop him.
“No. No. I told you, I cry over everything, remember?”
He nodded. “But I don’t want to make you cry.”
She smiled through the dripping tears and sniffed. “I’m okay, really.”
He didn’t seem so sure. “My friend, Sidney’s brother, is a vet. He runs his practice out of his home in an adjacent building. That’s why I was late. I called up Jim and asked him if he could give her a checkup. I didn’t want to bring her over to where Ike was if she had worms or something.”
It’d been a long time since she’d met such a considerate man. Did he also remember to put the toilet seat down?
“She’s about six weeks old. So she’s really young. Was filthy. We gave her a bath. She got her shots and some deworming stuff. I know it’s a lot to ask of you with a baby and all, and feel free to stay no, but I was wondering if when I’m at work, for the time being until she’s litter-trained and able to be alone, if you wouldn’t mind cat-sitting for me?”
Lauren coughed. “Cat-sit? As in you’re keeping her?”
She figured for sure when he started his whole “I know it’s a lot to ask,” he was going to ask her to take the kitten. And about ninety-five percent of her wanted to. But the other five percent was telling her to be practical. She had a newborn. That was enough work for now.
But he wasn’t asking her that. He was asking for her help. He was asking her to cat-sit for him. He was becoming a cat dad, and that just made her want him all the more.
“I’ve never owned a cat,” he went on. “I wasn’t sure owning a pet would be fair to the animal, given my busy work schedule. But the shelters aren’t open today, and they’re always so overrun after Christmas because so many idiots buy people pets for Christmas only for those pets to be dropped off at a shelter a couple of weeks later.” He shrugged, his expression turning boyish and innocent. “And besides, I kinda like her.”
Goddamn it. Her ovaries were about to explode.
“It’s a her? I mean she’s a her?”
He nodded. “Penelope the Magnificent, or Penny for short.”
Kaboom! Pow! Blamo! Both ovaries went off like fireworks. She was probably dropping eggs worse than a broody barnyard hen.
She knew the house was warm from all the cooking. And with Ike on her in the wrap, she was even warmer. But now? Now she was a nuclear reactor. She needed to cool off. She needed to get some air before she went into a full-on meltdown. And by meltdown, she meant attacking Isaac’s mouth with hers.
Nodding but not saying anything, she took off toward her garage.
It was cool in there, and the space away from the man muddling her brain was welcome. Ike began to stir in the wrap, his head bobbing around in search of food. Her breasts started to ache as well, and when her little man whimpered, her breasts actually throbbed.
It still amazed her how in tune and connected she and her baby were. Even outside the womb, her body still responded to his needs almost instantly.