Read Online Baby in Her Arms by Judy Christenberry - Free Book Online Page B

apartment was quiet as she slipped into Ginny’s room. The baby was sleeping on her tummy, her diapered bottom stuck up in the air.
    Maggie tugged the blanket farther over her. Ever since she’d been with Ginny, the baby had slept until six in the morning. Three more hours before this special little alarm clock went off.
    So there was nothing to keep Maggie from returning to the warm, maybe even hot, bed next door. What was she going to do?
    Find the pillow, she decided. If she put the pillow back in place, everything would be all right.
    With a sigh, she left Ginny’s room and crossed the hall. Josh was asleep, sprawled on his stomach, just like Ginny. Maggie turned on the bathroom light after first pulling the door almost closed. A thin sliver of light shone into the bedroom.
    Aha! There on the floor by Josh’s side of the bed was one of the long pillows. She realized the other was at the foot of the bed, pushed out of the way.
    She carried the pillow she’d found on the floor to her side of the bed. Josh was taking up more than half of the space, but he was a big man. She wouldn’t fuss about that. Shoving the pillow toward the center, where Josh’s arm lay, she hurried back to turn off the light, then got into her side of the bed.
    Just as she settled down, she felt Josh shift, and she held her breath.
    “Okay?” he muttered.
    “Yes,” she replied, keeping her voice soft.
    When he said nothing else, she let her breath out slowly, allowing the languorous warmth to steal over her. Such a comfortable bed.
    Just as she was drifting off to sleep, she vaguely noted movement from somewhere. Then strong, warm arms nestled her against a furnace. Such a comfortable, warm bed....
     
    Maggie was dreaming about being toasty warm on a tropical beach, wrapped in the arms of a handsome man, when she heard Ginny’s cries. Alarms always interrupted the best dreams, she thought ruefully.
    As she struggled to open her eyes, the strong, warm arms of her dream tightened around her. That brought her awake.
    “Josh!” she protested, her voice rough with sleep.
    “Hmmm?”
    “What happened to the pillow?”
    “You asked me that earlier. You got a fetish about pillows?” he asked drowsily.
    She sat up, pulling down her pajama top, which had somehow been shoved up, exposing her middle. “You—it’s over there, again,” she said, seeing the big pillow on the floor where she’d found it last night.
    “The baby’s crying,” he reminded her. “Shouldn’t you do something?”
    That did it! She folded her arms and glared at him. “No, I shouldn’t. She’s your baby. You do something.”
    Her suggestion, or maybe she should call it a challenge, brought those sleepy bedroom eyes wide open.
    “What? You want me to—but I don’t know anything about babies. And I make her cry.”
    Maggie felt the urge to rescue the little girl from her father’s inexperienced hands, but she fought it back. “I don’t know much more than you. And you have to learn sometime. Besides, she’s already crying.”
    “Come on, Maggie, you know she wants you,” he pleaded. The bedroom eyes were now forcing all their seductive charm on her.
    “She wants a dry diaper and a bottle of milk. You can figure out how to change a diaper, and the milk is ready in the refrigerator,” Maggie said crisply. Then, doubling the pillow behind her, she leaned back against it and stared at him determinedly. He could be as charming as he pleased; she would resist to the end.
     
    Josh recognized an intractable object when he saw one. And Maggie O’Connor, looking sexier than she should in her cotton pajamas, her crossed arms pushing her breasts toward the closure of her top, was intractable.
    At least he’d gotten away without having to account for removing the pillow. The first time, he’d thrown the pillow aside in his sleep. When she’d awakened him, he’d been as surprised as she was to discover his arms wrapped around her. But the second time, he’d