His Ex's Well-Kept Secret(20)

One step at a time, Ballantyne. Keep Ty safe for the next couple of hours.

He could do that if he didn't panic. Rainn was his safety net, just as  much as he was Piper's. If Rainn hadn't been a yell away, there was no  way Jaeger could have sat here with Ty, on his own.

But he could do this; he had to do this. The chances of this happy,  healthy little boy dying of SIDS, or anything else, were a gajillion to  one. His mind knew that; his heart still was in fight-or-flight mode.

Calm the hell down, Ballantyne. You can do this.

Jaeger looked out the window of the den and saw Piper climbing into a  taxi, her long legs catching an appreciative glance from a pedestrian  walking by.

He'd fed Ty, made some coffee and intended to tackle the mess on the  kitchen floor, but then Piper walked down the stairs, and the sight of  her nearly dropped him to his knees. The dress was black and skimmed  across her sexy body, stopping midthigh. He'd just stared at her as she  pulled on her coat, wondering whether he could dump Ty in his playpen  and take her back upstairs. The dress was enough to give any red-blooded  male a heart attack, and like her boots from last night, those silver  ice pick heels made him think of her wearing nothing else.

He was seriously worried he might have a shoe fetish. He was seriously  worried, period. Jaeger released a long sigh, holding Ty against his  chest as he watched Ty's mommy drive away.

"Your mother is driving me nuts, dude," Jaeger told Ty, sitting in the  wingback chair by the window, Ty straddling his knee. He jiggled, and Ty  laughed and waved his yellow duck around. "I just look at her and my IQ  drops by twenty points."

Ty blew him a raspberry, and Jaeger bounced his knee again. "I'm  supposed to be risk-averse and yet I do this. I mean, what idiot agrees  to give a woman he barely knows a loan against the sale of her gems?  From his own friggin' money, no less. She makes me do things I would  never normally consider, just to make her smile. I'm teetering on the  edge of a cliff and it's a long way down."

But he had yet to take a step back.

Ty cocked his head and gave Jaeger a look he couldn't read. Was he  supposed to keep talking or keep bouncing? Hedging his bets, Jaeger did  both. "The gems will definitely sell for three million, and if they are  the Kashmir Blues, they'll sell for a lot more. But I have to trust her  to pay me back. I can trust her, right?"

Jaeger nodded and Ty nodded, too, liking this new game. Jaeger chose to believe the kid knew exactly what he was talking about.

"And every time she walks into the room, I just want to strip her naked  and slide on home." Jaeger heard what he'd said and winced, suddenly  remembering he was talking not only to a baby but also about the kid's  mother. "Hearing me talk this way about your mom isn't going to scar you  for life and send you into therapy, is it?"                       
       
           



       

Ty tipped his head sideways and waved his hands after noticing a fabric  ball on the carpet by the foot of the chair. Jaeger lowered the baby to  the floor and placed the ball between his chubby legs. Then Jaeger moved  off the chair to sit on the carpet next to Ty, his legs bent at the  knees.

Thanks to the long windows, he could still look at the street below. He  rather liked Brooklyn, he thought. Stylistically it was a million miles  from his luxurious but cold penthouse. There were trees and families and  schools. It was all a little more real, a lot more normal.

"But normal isn't me," Jaeger said, watching a couple and their three  young kids walking down the street. A golden Labrador, looking like he'd  taken a hit of doggy crack, walked a young boy.

"I'm a vagabond, a drifter, someone who is perfectly happy with a  designer apartment, with all the amenities of city living. God knows I  deserve a little luxury after some of the hellholes I visit and sleep  in."

Ty pushed the ball away from him, Jaeger rolled it back and Ty shouted  his approval. This was such a happy kid. Everything made him laugh.

Outside, the dog wrapped his leash around the legs of the kid, and the  entire family laughed as they tried to separate the kid and the dog. Dad  took control of the dog but not before he dropped a hot openmouthed  kiss on Mom. Jaeger grinned when the boy made a "gross" face.

"But really, this house, this place, it's for families, and I'm not a  family guy," Jaeger said, resting his head back against the cushion of  the chair. He watched the street for a couple of minutes, enjoying the  changing light. "I was going to be, but I never got the chance. I had my  shot at having a happy family, and losing it nearly killed me. I'm not  interested. No matter how sexy your mom is. No matter how much I like  her, this is a one-shot deal. It's not forever. So don't think it is,"  Jaeger warned Ty, dropping his head to the right to look at Piper's son.

Except Ty wasn't where he'd left him.

Jaeger's heart stopped. He'd been watching Ty for what, ten minutes, and  he'd already lost him? He shot to his feet, his heart pounding as his  eyes scanned the den. His head told him the kid wasn't that fast, but  his heart went into panic mode. Jaeger looked at the front door-locked,  thank God. Ty had to be somewhere in the apartment. Babies didn't just  vaporize! Then Jaeger caught the movement of a socked foot as it  disappeared into the kitchen.

Gotcha. Jaeger put his hands on his thighs and took a few calming, deep breaths. Relax or you'll give yourself a heart attack.

After a couple of moments, after his heart slowed from a gallop to a  jog, Jaeger walked toward the kitchen and found Ty sitting in the mess  on the floor-the mess he'd promised Piper he'd clean up. Ty's little  fingers went straight into the goop and up to his mouth. He sucked his  digits and dove back in.

By the time Jaeger reached him, the baby had smeared the goop over his  face, into his hair, down his clothing and around his neck. The kid had  the ability to cause major mayhem in the shortest time possible. Jaeger  rather admired that about him.

Jaeger stood in the doorway to the kitchen, pulled his phone from his  back pocket and, keeping his eyes on the tiny troublemaker, lifted the  phone to his ear.

"Linc? How do you bathe a baby?"

"With soap and water, moron."





Eight

Piper stepped into the dark hallway of her apartment and sent a guilty  glance at her watch. It was after midnight; she'd intended to be back  home hours ago, but Latimore's new work was spectacular and  thought-provoking and mesmerizing. She'd spent far more time in the  gallery than she'd planned on.

What an evening, Piper thought as she slipped off her shoes. At around  ten, the very sexy sculptor finally emerged from a back room, walked  directly over to Sage and, without greeting a single soul or saying a  word, planted a smokin' hot kiss on Sage's mouth. Sage responded by  slapping him, and they'd both stormed out of the gallery. Neither  returned, much to the consternation of the gallery owner and his guests.  Latimore and Sage were the only topic of conversation for the rest of  the evening.                       
       
           



       

Piper, who'd immediately bonded with the quiet but wickedly funny Sage,  was annoyed by the crowd's fascination with something that had  absolutely nothing to do with them. She'd blocked out the snippets of  gossip drifting her way and immersed herself in Latimore's art. The  steel and carved wood elements remained but the sculptures weren't as  heavy, as masculine as before. There was fluidity in his work and an  unexpected femininity that hadn't been present in his earlier works.

Latimore might be a jerk-he had to have done something more than kiss  Sage to earn a slap like that-but dear God, he was a brilliant artist.

Piper dropped her clutch onto the hallway table and jerked when the bag  hit the floor. Dammit, she still wasn't used to the empty space where  the blue marble side table had stood for thirty-odd years. Piper stared  at the empty space and slowly raised her eyes to the blank space on the  wall. Her Mom's favorite possession, an early Frida Kahlo, was also  gone. So was her beloved eighteenth-century rolltop desk and the  ballerina bronze. The items had left her apartment a few days before,  soon to be sold to make a teeny tiny dent in her father's debts.

Tears stung Piper's eyes and she placed her hand beneath her rib cage,  fighting the wave of pain. It wasn't fair. They were her mother's  possessions, the only proof Piper had that her father loved her mother,  that he felt enough for her to buy her a very expensive gift  occasionally.

But was that love? Piper wrapped her arms around her waist and stared at  the empty spaces on the floor and on the wall and in her heart. Was it  still an expression of love when it wasn't freely given? These gifts,  like her father's affection, were on loan to her mom, always able to be  pulled back, to be used for something else.