“She’s one pissed off woman,” Lauren said while scribbling down measurements on a notepad.
He raised an eyebrow. “How did you know it was a woman?”
The angry red writing said it all. “A man would probably follow you into a dark alley and beat the crap out of you, but a woman…” She waved her arm to take in the office. “...would trash your office and write love letters on the walls.”
“Do you know this from experience?” he teased.
No, she’d never done anything like this, but she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about getting Graham back in some horrible way.
A woman calling out Jack’s name from the reception area saved her from answering.
“I’m in here,” he called out.
A pretty lady with light brown hair and tired green eyes entered the room, pushing a dark gray pram. Smiling widely, Jack walked over to the pram and reached inside. The woman slapped his hand away and whispered, “Don’t wake her. She’s been up all night crying and is absolutely miserable this morning. This is the first sleep she’s had in hours.” “What’s wrong with her?” Jack peered into the pram with concern.
“Not sure. I’m on my way to see Doctor Sandon. I just stopped in so we can quickly check the order that arrived yesterday afternoon.”
“Don’t worry about it. We can do it tomorrow.” He turned to Lauren. “Leah, have you met Lauren? She’s the owner of the shop Mum likes to spend our inheritance at. She’s going to fix my office. Lauren, this is my sister Leah.”
Leah’s attention had been on her sleeping baby, and she looked surprised to see that there was someone else in the office. “Sorry, I didn’t notice you. Hi, Lauren, how are you?”
“Good, thanks,” Lauren answered. “How are you?”
“Tired.” She laughed. “I didn’t slept all night.” Dark smudges smeared the bottom of her eyes, and she looked ready to drop. She turned back to Jack. “I’d rather check it now. I don’t know what’s going on with Emma, so I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to come back. It won’t take long.”
“Do you have much more to do here?” Jack asked Lauren.
“I wanted to go over color schemes and the type of furniture you like, but we can do it tomorrow.”
“I’ll leave that stuff up to you.”
“Excellent. So it’s the pink and purple color scheme we discussed last night?” she replied, laughing, but it died when he gave her a heated look that had nothing to do with picking color schemes like they’d joked about. She cleared her throat. “Umm… I’ll need to take a few more measurements, but you don’t need to be here.”
Leah, oblivious, or just too tired to notice the sexual tension in the room, laughed. “My brother looks so handsome in pink.” She glanced down at the sleeping baby and frowned. “I thought Ellen might have been here to watch Emma. She might wake up with the noise in the storeroom.” Then she stared at Lauren and nibbled her bottom lip, looking like she was trying to assess her character. Glancing back down at the sleeping baby, she appeared to have made a decision. “You wouldn’t mind looking after Emma for a few minutes, would you, Lauren?”
The request had Lauren’s gaze darting to the pram, and she reached for her locket. She couldn’t see the sleeping baby inside, nor did she want to. “Umm… I wasn’t going to be here much longer.”
“We’ll be quick, I promise. I don’t want to have to make another trip back.” With pleading eyes, she continued. “She really needs to sleep before the doctor starts poking at her.”
The poor woman looked desperate. How could she say no? “Okay,” she said on a whisper.
Blowing out a long breath, Leah’s shoulders sagged with relief. “You’re wonderful.
Quick, Jack, let’s go.” And she ran out of the office.
Jack studied Lauren’s face with concern. It was as if he knew something wasn’t quite right. “Will you be okay?”
The reassuring smile she tried to give him wobbled. “Sure.”
Jack didn’t look convinced. “We won’t be long,” he assured her and followed Leah from the room.
Lauren didn’t know how long she stood frozen. She avoided babies as much as possible. Never looked at them, and definitely never touched them. After tragically losing her own the pain of being near a small, delicate, innocent little being sliced through her heart like thousands of tiny knives, so she learned to avoid them completely.
When mothers came into the store with their babies it was Jaime who assisted them. Lauren always found something urgent to do, either back in her office or outside the shop. The smaller the baby, the harder it was to deal with.
A soft mewling sound snapped Lauren out of her daze and drew her attention to the pram. She looked at it like a giant, human-eating spider was about to crawl out of it. She had a better chance dealing with one of those than she did a tiny baby.
The sounds soon turned into loud whimpers, but Lauren still couldn’t move. Her gaze flicked to the office door, and she prayed Leah would be back at any second. But Leah didn’t come back and Emma’s cries grew louder and more insistent, and Lauren could see her tiny hand flailing above the edge of the pram. The cries grew more frantic and urgent, and Lauren had no choice but to go over to her.
