Free All She Ever Wanted by Rosalind Noonan Page A

copy of Parents Magazine, which Chelsea hadn’t been able to focus on since before the baby was born.
    She glanced up, the line of her bifocals evident in the light. “How was your dinner?”
    â€œNice,” Chelsea and Leo said in unison.
    Chelsea wanted to escape upstairs and pump, but she didn’t want to seem rude.
    â€œDid she cry?” Leo asked.
    â€œFor a little bit.” She rose and smoothed down her smock.
    â€œI was hoping she wouldn’t give you a hard time,” Leo said.
    â€œAll babies cry, Mr. Green. But she took the bottle right away, and after some fussing she went to sleep.”
    â€œShe really fights sleep at night,” Chelsea said.
    Mrs. Rosekind nodded sympathetically. “Little Annabelle might have a touch of colic.”
    â€œThat’s what I was thinking,” Leo said. “Sometimes when she cries at night, it sounds like she’s in dire pain.”
    â€œI hope she wasn’t that bad for you. I know a baby like Annabelle must be more challenging than a good baby.”
    The nurse turned a stoic face to Chelsea. “Oh, they’re all good babies, Ms. Maynard. Some of them just need more care than others.”
    â€œWell, sure.” Chelsea fiddled with the button of her jacket, feeling awkward. Of course Annabelle was a good baby. She was just stuck with a bad mother.
    Leo paid the nurse, asking her if she could help out the following week when he would be out of town for business.
    â€œOh, no. I have a full-time job Monday to Friday, and my weekends get booked up weeks in advance. My husband would divorce me if I start working a second job during the week. But I do enjoy the little ones, and Annabelle is precious. She reminds me of my daughter when she was a baby.”
    Leo beamed. “Underneath all that fussing, Annie does have a great little personality.”
    â€œShe’s a sweet little thing,” Mrs. Rosekind said. “And don’t worry. I never mind the crying.”
    I hate the crying, Chelsea thought as she escaped up the stairs. She wished that she could say that in front of the nurse. I hate it all . . . the whole mother thing. And you’re so good at it. You’d be a better mother for my baby. Why don’t you take her home for a few days . . . weeks . . . months?
    Just take her.

Chapter 8
    â€œY ou put dee lime in dee coconut, drink it all up,” Leo chanted as Annie looked up at him with those amazing blue eyes that had won his heart from the moment she was born.
    The delivery room docs had insisted that she couldn’t see him because of those drops they always put into babies’ eyes, but from the way she stared up at him, stern as a lawyer cross-examining a suspect on the stand, he knew the doctors were wrong. Annie could see him, and she wanted some answers. She wanted to know who the hell he was, what the hell she was doing here in this brightly lit room that seriously lacked décor—her mother’s daughter—and why was everyone fussing over the lady on the other side of the curtain?
    â€œYou got a lot of questions for a little bundle with a button nose,” he’d told her. The surgical nurses had put him in a chair at the side of the room and told him to stay put with her. So, seeing all the questions in those eyes, he’d rattled off the answers.
    â€œI’m your dad, Leo Green. You’re in an operating room. Sorry, kid, but with a C-section you didn’t score the birthing suite. And all those people in blue scrubs and hats and booties and masks are working on your mom. You’ll get to meet her soon, and I’m pretty sure you’re gonna love her. I know I do.”
    Leo had talked with his daughter from the start. He gave a play-by-play on each diaper change. He asked her what she wanted to wear. Whenever he gave her a bottle, he sang to her. And though she didn’t talk back yet, the look in her eyes was enough of an answer. She liked