Baby Lessons

that were ridiculously impractical for rural Vermont, but damned if they didn’t make her legs look a million miles long. A large designer handbag was slung over one of her slender shoulders, perfect for carrying around a bushelful of apples.
Or, Jack thought nonsensically, possibly his heart.
His jaw clenched as once again, his mother’s words spun through his head.
Her name is Madison Jules...
She’s just what you’re looking for.
Madison was running late, and it was all Fired Up’s fault.
She’d planned her entire lunch hour around the coffee date she’d scheduled with Sarah’s son, John, but then Mr. Grant had called her into his office—again—to gush about the ongoing success of the feud. She’d been forced to sit and pretend to be excited about the fact that some random stranger was publicly insulting her again, as if it was a good thing.
It was a good thing, she supposed. Under the current circumstances, anyway. So long as she and Fired Up kept antagonizing each other, her job was secure.
But being mocked over and over didn’t exactly feel great. She wanted to be appreciated for her actual work, not the fact that she’d managed to spectacularly antagonize one of her readers. Was that really too much to ask?
A pickup truck honked at her as she dashed through the crosswalk. She waved in apology and blew a corkscrew lock of hair out of her face. She was so late. There was no way she’d get the night nanny job. Maybe that was okay, because she wasn’t sure she even wanted it. She should be in Manhattan right now, pitching articles for Fashion Week. Instead, her boss had decided to print her troll’s recent letter to the editor on the front page.
Oh, how the mighty—and stylish—had fallen.
The minute her nanny interview was over, she needed to send another round of emails to her contacts in New York. She needed to get out of Lovestruck. She needed her life back—her real life.
But first she needed to convince Sarah’s son that she was the next best thing to Mrs. Doubtfire. She was so not in the mood for this.
“Sorry!” she called out to anyone and everyone as she burst through the door of the Lovestruck Bean.
Every head in the establishment swiveled in her direction, save one. There didn’t seem to be an infant in sight, much less twins, and within seconds the patrons all turned their attention back to their coffee drinks.
Madison deflated a little, and then narrowed her gaze at the broad, muscled back of the person who’d managed to ignore her frazzled arrival. Heat crawled up her neck, and her stomach did a nervous little flip. She’d know that back anywhere.
Ugh, what was the surly firefighter doing here? This wasn’t good. Not good at all, given her track record of making a complete idiot out of herself every time he was near.
She squared her shoulders. Fine. She’d deal with it. Sarah’s son hadn’t even arrived yet, anyway. Maybe Lieutenant Grumpy would be gone by then. He definitely didn’t seem like the type to linger over his latte.
She fished through her bag for her cell phone and fired off another text to John, the father of Sarah’s angelic grandtwins, just to let him know she was at the Bean, ready and waiting. The second she hit Send, a nearby phone chimed with an incoming text message.
Odd. Madison gnawed on her bottom lip and glanced around. She tried to ignore Lieutenant Cole, but as usual, her attention was drawn to him like a magnet. So very annoying.
She frowned as she watched him pull an iPhone out of his back pocket. No. Her pulse kicked up a notch as she checked her own phone, and sure enough, a read receipt flashed beneath the text she’d just sent.
No.
Way.
He couldn’t possibly be Sarah’s son, could he? Madison hadn’t caught Sarah’s last name. She only knew that the single dad in need of a night nanny was named John.
Her heart sank to the soles of her patent leather Louboutin stilettos. Jack was a nickname for John, wasn’t it? She cursed small-town life under her breath. This would never happen in a city as big as Manhattan. In New York, she could have humiliated herself in the produce section of the supermarket and taken solace in the fact that she’d never again run into the hot first responder who’d witnessed her mortification.
Flight-or-fight instinct kicked in hard, and she started toward the door. She couldn’t work for him. No way, no how. She wasn’t sure if she despised him or if she wanted him to kiss her, and neither of those options was appropriate for an employer-employee relationship.
But her feet slowed to a stop halfway to the exit as the full implication of the sight of his chiseled back finally dawned on her. Jack had seen her text. He’d probably seen her approaching the coffee shop. Yet, there he stood—actively avoiding her.
Message received. He didn’t want to hire her any more than she wanted to be his nanny. It shouldn’t have bothered her, considering the fact that she was midflight herself. But it did bother her. Very, very much.
She spun around, marched straight over to him and tapped him on his sculpted shoulder. Good grief, how often did someone have to work out to have muscles like that?
She contemplated this question as he slowly turned to face her, mainly so she wouldn’t be forced to think about why she always seemed to be poking him in order to instigate a confrontation. But then there he was—looking down at her from his towering height—and she suddenly couldn’t think at all. Or breathe. Or do much of anything other than gape at the sight of him with two small babies strapped to his chest in some kind of sling contraption.
Her throat went dry. She wasn’t even a baby person, but wow. This was beyond adorable. He couldn’t have looked more attractive if he’d been caught saving an entire family of kittens from a tree.
“Hello,” he said,