Amanda couldn't hear their words after that, but she saw Shelby reach out and take Danny's hand and squeeze it. Saw Boston huddle together with the two of them, Danny casting worried glances at Piper. His daughter.
Piper was petting Baby's head, the kid's tongue pushed out between her lips in concentration. Amanda took Piper's arm and rested it under Baby. "Here, you hold her for me."
Piper's mouth went wide, and she tensed up. "What if I drop her?"
"I've dropped her before, and she always lands on her feet. No biggie. But you look reliable."
The little girl bit her lip, anxious, undecided. Amanda moved her hand back so Piper was holding Baby on her own.
Piper sucked in her breath, but a slight smile tipped up the corner of her mouth. Amanda tried not to breathe at all. The kid smelled. Oy vey. Taking minute drags of oxygen through her lips, Amanda concentrated on preventing air from going up her nostrils. Piper needed a bath. A rank odor was floating off of her, reminding Amanda of when her father had inadvertently kicked a peeled banana under his desk then headed to New York for a week. When he'd returned, his whole home office had reeked, the sweet, sickly, putrid stench wafting into the hallway for two days until he'd found the source.
Piper smelled a little like rotten banana.
She figured it must take a rather long time for a child to ripen to that extent, which meant Piper hadn't bathed in God knew when.
"She likes you," Amanda said, a funny lump lodging in her throat, as Baby snuggled into the crook of Piper's arm. "See? She's lying down for a nap."
"She's so soft." And Piper gave a beatific, heartfelt sigh.
And Amanda found herself wanting to stroke Piper's arm just like the little girl was petting Baby.
Chapter 3
Danny was feeling a little like he had when his cousin Jimmy had run over his foot with a tractor. Stunned, panicked, and just about blind with pain.
"So what are you going to do with her?" Shelby asked.
Rubbing his temples, Danny shrugged. "I'm keeping her. Her mother is dead, her stepfather's an idiot, and given the looks of her clothes, no one else gives a care about her."
"How do you know she's really your kid?" Boston asked, darting a glance over at Piper.
His daughter was petting Amanda's goofy little dog, a rapturous expression of terror and joy on her face. "The timing is right. And she looks like me."
"She's got your eyes," Shelby said, her voice sounding amazed. "And look at the way she tilts her head. That's just the way you do it."
It was pretty damn amazing. And Danny was finding that he liked it, once he mucked through the fear and the panic and the guilt that Piper had been around for eight years and he'd never once set eyes on her.
But he wouldn't have hurt Shelby for the world, and she was looking a bit like she'd taken a punch to the gut. "Shel… I'm sorry. I didn't know, please believe that."
It wasn't just about the fact that he'd been intimate with another girl when he and Shelby had been taking a break that summer; it was that not so long after, Shelby had given in to his increasing pushy demands for sex. And wound up pregnant. They'd gotten married, only she had suffered a miscarriage.
So while Piper was standing there petting Baby, Danny was damn sure it was causing Shelby to remember their child who would have been seven years old already.
"Hey." Shelby took his hand, squeezed it. "It's alright, Danny. Water under the bridge, and neither one of us did anything wrong. It just turned out the way it turned out. And now I've got Boston." Her husband put an arm around her waist, and she leaned into him. "And you've got Piper."
That relieved him. He cared a great deal about Shelby and wouldn't want any rift in their relationship.
"Even if I did a DNA test, even if it was negative, I can't give her back. She's mine now." There was no way he could close his eyes to Piper's need, her vulnerability. And deep in his gut, he was certain that any paternity test would only verify what he already knew. This was his daughter.
"I wouldn't expect that you would, Danny Tucker." Shelby smiled at him. "So what now?"
Now he needed some help. His mother wasn't home, and he'd only spoken to his father on the phone, who in spite of the shock of learning he had a grandchild, had been very supportive and re-assuring. But his father didn't know any more about taking care of a little girl than he did, and Danny was hoping Shelby could give him her female opinion.
"I need you to go shopping with me. She needs a bath." He kept his voice low so he wouldn't hurt her feelings. "But I couldn't bring myself to get her all clean, only to stick her back in those nasty clothes. So I figured we should go shopping first."
"Shopping?" Amanda Delmar straightened up, her perfect chin jutting out just a little as she honed in on what Danny figured was her favorite word. She could probably hear it even if she were sitting in a soundproof booth.
"If someone is going shopping, I want to go too."
Just run a pitchfork through him. There was no way in hell he wanted to go shopping with Miss Madison Avenue. She was extravagant, impractical, and worst of all, sexy as hell. He didn't need her distracting him right now with that Barbie-doll-size skirt she was wearing.
So he ignored her.
"I don't know anything about clothes for kids, especially little girls, so I really need your help, Shel." Danny subtly turned his back toward Amanda so she wouldn't hear what he was saying.
But Shelby was already shaking her head. "Sorry, Danny, I can't tonight. I have a ghost tour I'm running at seven o'clock. Whole busload of tourists want the 'real' story of Red-Eyed Rachel and her attack on Boston. I can go tomorrow if you want. Or I'm sure your mom would go with you."
"I'll go," Amanda called from the couch ten feet away. "I'm an expert at shopping."
He'd just bet she was. Danny sighed. "Not this kind of shopping, Amanda, trust me. I guess I'll just go by myself. I forgot my mom is out of town. She went on a tour of the Longaberger basket factory today in Newark. She won't be back until tomorrow."
He was about to call to Piper to come along, when Amanda stood up and took a step in his direction. Danny froze. Damn, she did it to him every time. She laid one look on him, and he was like a drooling dog. Half the time he felt like turning tail and running away to save his ass, the other half he wanted to just dig his fingers into her platinum blond hair and ram his tongue down her throat.
Neither seemed like a good plan with his ex-wife and his daughter looking on, so he stood his ground.