It startled Nick into turning to Tess in alarm. ‘I didn’t hurt him.’
She shook her head, smiling as she explained, ‘It’s just Zack’s stomach clock going off. Time for his night feed. Would you like to pick him up and soothe him while I heat up his bottle?’
‘Pick him up,’ Nick muttered, his hands diving under the miniature bundle, eager to gather it up for a much closer and more personal encounter. It moved. It made itself heard in no uncertain terms. It was not some passive doll-like creature. This was his son!
‘Mind you support his head, Nick,’ Tess quickly instructed. ‘He’s not strong enough yet to hold it up on his own.’
‘Got it!’
The loud bawling stopped the minute the baby was airborne. In a very swift maneouvre Nick had him tucked safely against his chest, head resting in the crook of his arm. If rocking was required, action stations had been reached, but Zack had apparently decided he didn’t need soothing, or the distraction of being handled by a stranger had put a hold on further complaint. He was well and truly awake now and weighing Nick up with highly alert eyes—green eyes!
Father? they seemed to be asking. What the devil is a father and do I want him standing by?
‘Yes, you do,’ Nick heard himself crooning. ‘You can trust me on that, Zack.’
‘What?’ Tess queried, distracted from getting a bottle of milk out of a mini-fridge and putting it in a microwave oven.
Her voice ended the moment of peace. Zack was far more familiar with his mother and promptly yelled for her. Trust clearly had to be earned and as far as their son was concerned, Nick hadn’t been hanging around long enough to earn it.
‘You’ve had a head start on me at soothing, Tess,’ he excused when rocking had no calming effect and she came over to take Zack from him.
‘I’ll change his nappy while the milk is warming up,’ she said briskly, carrying him off to a highly functional trolley loaded with a comprehensive range of baby toiletries.
Nick followed on her heels, wanting to see his son unwrapped from the cloth cocoon. Besides which, he needed to conquer the mystery of nappy-changing so he couldn’t be accused of being useless on the baby front. The urge to be a hands-on father who automatically commanded Zack’s trust was powering through him. Standing by was not enough. Bonding obviously came from real involvement in his life. Nick had some fast catching up to do to match Tess in the parental stakes.
Once laid on the flat trolley surface, Zack fought free of the constricting cloth with very little help from Tess—arms and legs going like pistons, determination to be rid of this imprisonment clearly written on his little face. Tess had quite a job undoing the press-studs on the blue body-suit he wore, her hands darting around all the kicking and squirming. However, he did lie still while she whipped off his nappy—an easy matter of opening two contact tabs.
Before Nick could get a good look of his son’s male equipment, Tess had placed a small towel over it.
‘What’s with the modesty?’ he protested. ‘Seems to me Zack likes to get naked.’
‘Yes. And the first thing he does on getting naked is let fly with a fountain of pee. We’re right in his firing range but if you want to risk it…’
Even as she spoke, the towel was developing a wet patch and Nick found himself grinning at the look of blissful pleasure on Zack’s face. ‘Mother knows best,’ he told his son and didn’t care that he sounded fatuous. Two sets of green eyes were telegraphing a very mutual understanding of male instinct at each other.
‘You can check him out now,’ Tess tersely invited as she removed the absorbent towel and dropped it in a bucket. ‘I’m not qualified to comment on the size of a baby boy’s private parts, but the paediatrician who delivered him observed that Zack was built like a bull, and from this admiring approval I assume that our son needn’t be concerned about looking suitably virile.’
A bull certainly seemed an exaggeration, but Nick was pleased to see this special area was absolutely free of problems. ‘Nothing worse for a guy than feeling inadequate about his masculinity,’ he explained, glad of the paediatrician’s opinion. Everything was so tiny!
Tess threw him a derisive look as she covered Zack up with a fresh nappy. ‘Hardly a feeling you’d be familiar with.’
‘It’s not just men who care about size, Tess,’ he sliced back at her.
‘I’m sure all the women you’ve had were very satisfied, Nick. I just don’t want Zack to think he has to sample every female passing by because he’s well endowed.’
‘I do not and never have sampled every woman passing by,’ Nick protested. ‘I hope you’re not going to load Zack up with a neurotic mess of unnatural inhibitions.’
She’d done up the press-studs, completing Zack’s dressing, and with the confidence of plenty of practice she scooped him up and planted him against her shoulder. ‘Guess you might have to stick around and make sure I don’t,’ she slung at him, scarlet flags in her cheeks again as she headed back to the microwave oven for the bottle of milk.
Another challenge.
Plus the major point that she was in the box seat…the one in control over their son’s life. Nick saw very clearly that it wasn’t just a matter of getting married but staying married if he was to have serious input on all the decisions that would shape Zack’s future. And Tess was in the box seat there, as well. She didn’t have to marry him and she’d already proven he was expendable. He had to change her thinking on that, make himself valuable to her.
She settled onto a rocking chair with Zack already attached to the teat of the bottle. Anger at her implied criticism of his life choices spilled into the terse comment. ‘I’m surprised you’re not breast-feeding. Isn’t mother’s milk best for babies?’
‘I couldn’t breast-feed. There were…’ She grimaced. ‘…complications.’
He frowned. Tess had great breasts. He couldn’t believe they had failed their prime function. Nick knew his own mother scorned the practice of breast-feeding—peasant women who want to be cows—rattling on about the old aristocracy having had it right with employing wet-nurses for their children. Was Tess lying, making excuses for the vanity of not wanting sagging breasts in future?
‘What complications?’ he asked.
‘You don’t really want to know the gory details, Nick,’ she said dismissively.