Free Snowbound Baby (Silhouette Romance) by Susan Meier Page A

aroma of something he didn’t like and he groaned. “Not again!”
    She laughed.
    In the bedroom he was using, he repeated the diaper ritual, but this time with all the necessary equipment. Clean and happy, Daphne again settled on the blanket to play, but she never did nap.
    By the time evening rolled around, Cooper was exhausted and Daphne wasn’t much better. She could play on the floor, but she couldn’t sleep on the floor because the second she awakened, she crawled backward into some kind of trouble. But the bed situation on the second floor hadn’t changed and Daphne’s mother was still using the downstairs bed. Zoe had only come out once to check on things, but she’d been so weak and feverish she’d damned near fainted so Cooper had shooed her back to bed.
    Worse, Daphne had drunk theremainder of the last bottle. There were empties on the counter by the sink, but there was no milk to fill them. The only thing Cooper could give her was water and that earned him a bop with the same bottle he had filled for her.
    As nine o’clock quickly approached, Cooper rocked a very cranky baby with no idea where he’d put her down for the night and absolutely positive he couldn’t hold her for one more second.
    “All right,” he told sobbing Daphne. “I can’t do anything about the milk, but we’re going on a quest for a bed for you. And this time, we’re thinking outside the box.”
    He carried the baby upstairs again, not even glancing at the single beds or the bed he had been using because he already knew they were worthless. He scanned the room, reminding himself to think creatively, and then he saw a wicker laundry basket.
    Small, but somewhat tall, the basket had the look of a crib or cradle of sorts. He slid it out of the corner, positive he could put in on the floor beside his bed and hear Daphne if she awakened. It seemed perfect. But by the time he lined it with a blanket there wasn’t any room left for Daphne.
    He glanced around the roomagain. With the wicker basket and the bed out of play, the only thing left in the room was a mirrored dresser. He frowned at it. He remembered reading a story in grade school about a poor family who had been forced to have their baby sleep in a dresser drawer.
    He pulled one of the drawers from the empty dresser. It wasn’t quite as tall as the basket, but it was much wider and longer. There was plenty of room for Daphne and a blanket. He lined it with a quiltlike blanket that acted as a makeshift mattress, laid her inside and gave her the bottle of water.
    Sitting on the edge of his bed, he watched her drink enough to settle herself and ultimately fall asleep. Then he took the bottle and set it on the dresser, turned out the light and collapsed on the bed.
    When Daphne woke at two, Cooper knew she wasn’t going to let him get back to sleep. After no nap the day before, she had been too tired to protest the water, but with five hours of sleep behind her she wouldn’t settle for second best. His only hope was to rock her until she drifted off but he had a sneaking suspicion that wasn’t going to work.
    He took the dresser drawer downstairs, settled Daphne inside and turned on the TV.
    Zoe awakened the next morning feeling a bit stiff and sore, but no longer weak and dizzy. She rolled out of bed, tested her health by standing without holding onto anything and pronounced herself well. Then she remembered she’d abdicated Daphne’s care to a perfect stranger and ran out of the bedroom.
    In the great room, she skiddedto a stop and her eyes widened at the scene that greeted her. A comforter had been spread across the center of the floor. On top of the comforter was a dresser drawer lined with a blanket. On top of the blanket was her sleeping baby. And atop her sleeping baby was the long arm of the rancher/trucker who was lying on the floor beside her.
    Zoe couldn’t tell if he was keeping an arm across Daphne as a sort of early warning system for when she awoke, or if it