Page 88 of Knocked Up in Alaska

She raced forward, ahead of him, and reached for her daughter. “What are you doing? Give her to me.”

His I’m-the-answer-to-your-prayers smile made her want to murder him. “My suite’s on the third floor. Lots of room and privacy. You get her squared away, quieted down, and then you and I can enjoy some adult time together. Man”—he held Shayla out, facing him, not supporting her head, and gave the baby a long-suffering look—“she is loud.”

“She’s loud because she wants me, and she wants a meal. Look, you’re very kind to want to help”—how she got that out without choking mystified her—“but it’s an unnecessary delay.” She held out her hands, reached for Shayla. “I’m just going to take her to the ladies’ room.”

He ignored her outstretched arms, actually angled Shayla away from them, and continued crossing the lobby. “Lilah, Lilah, Lilah.” He shook his head like a supervisor with a wayward employee and stopped in front of the elevator. “You can’t jump at every little tantrum. You’ve got to let them cry it out some. Otherwise, you’ll spoil her.” With that piece of parenting advice dispensed, he pressed the button.

What? What? She took a deep breath to clear the temper hazing her vision. A ding alerted her that the elevator had arrived. “Trent,” she said, looking him directly in his entitled blue eyes and pumping her voice with all the icy authority she could muster, “I’m not going upstairs with you.” The elevator doors whooshed open, but she didn’t move. Didn’t look away from him. “I’m not going upstairs with you,” she repeated. “I need to tend to my child. Now.” She reached over to lift Shayla from his shoulder.

He shifted away, his eyes dancing with amusement and, beneath it, something determined and…mean. “Chill, Lilah. I’m going to help you out, and I’m not going to take no for an answer.”

“Mr. Kane, if you do not give that baby back to her mother this instant, I’ll get the sheriff over here and have you arrested for kidnapping,” a flat, cold, and extremely familiar voice warned from inside the elevator.

Lilah looked over to see her mother standing there, all five feet, four forbidding inches of her, hand on her hip, eyes darkly furious, thumb poised over her cell phone.

“Lady, you need to mind your own damn business—”

Rose stepped out of the elevator, right into his space, and pointed a finger at him. “This is all my damn business. My hotel”—she circled her finger at the building in general—“my grand-daughter”—she pointed at the baby—“my daughter.” She pointed at Lilah.

Lilah reached over and took Shayla from Trent. When she would have backed away, Rose wrapped a hand around the strap of the diaper bag, tugged her into the elevator, and pressed the button for the second floor. “Enjoy the rest of your evening with us, Mr. Kane. It will be your last.”

The doors shut in his face. Rose said something under her breath. Lilah couldn’t make it out over the baby’s cries, but nerves and conscience forced her to say, “Don’t burn a bridge with him. His family is Kane Seafood. They’re considering opening a fish market and restaurant in Captivity.”

“I know why that l’ut’tlaak is here. I also know he is a self-centered bully. The Kane family can keep their fish market, their restaurant, and their sociopathic son.” She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “Captivity is better without them.”

“He is a snake,” she agreed but worried some of the factions in Captivity might not be happy to learn Rose Iquat had taken it upon herself to Pied Piper him out of their tourist-dependent hamlet. She, however, was grateful, and both manners and conscience required she express it. “Thank you for stepping in.”

Her mother turned, placed a hand gently on the baby’s back. “Bah. That was nothing. My duty. What is happening here?” she asked in a softer voice, stroking Shayla’s little back.

“She’s wet, hungry, and tired.”

“Poor t’ukanei’iyi.” She clicked her tongue several times, gaining Shayla’s attention. “We can fix this. Come,” she added when the elevator doors opened, and walked out ahead of them.

Lilah followed her mother down the carpeted corridor, to the door at the end of the hall containing the suite of rooms—more of an apartment, really—that she’d called home for most of her life. Rose opened the door, held it, and gestured her inside. “Sit,” she said and pointed to the practical, blue slipcovered sofa and matching loveseat Lilah had helped choose years ago, when Rose had finally decided it was time to replace the flat and outdated plaid set that lived on in some archive of Lilah’s memory. “Take care of this little one.”

As Lilah moved to do what her mother instructed, Rose closed the door and crossed to stand by the large, square trunk-style coffee table and eyed her. “I’m going to call the sheriff’s department and file a complaint against that snake. I want them to know he’s trouble. After I’m done, I’ll bring refreshments. You’re thirsty, I bet. Water or lemonade?”

She took the changing pad from the outside pocket of her diaper bag and spread it on the wide-planked heart pine floor. “Mama, I’m fine. You don’t have to—”

“Lemonade,” she decided, “for energy. I’ll be back in a bit.” With that, she turned and marched around the corner to the small, galley-style kitchen.

Lilah concentrated on changing Shayla, then unbuttoned her shirt and got down to the business of feeding her. Her hungry daughter’s cries quieted as soon as she latched on and began filling her little belly with enthusiasm.

Whew. The quiet swept in, almost deafening after such ceaseless cries. For what felt like the first time all day, she exhaled deeply, leaned back, and let her shoulder and neck muscles relax. Muscles so tight even the act of releasing the tension created a slow cascade of separate aches. Since her mother seemed to be taking her time, she let her eyes wander the room. Had it only been a couple of months? It felt like a lifetime. Sitting there again sent her time-traveling to her childhood. When she’d walked out on her twenty-first birthday, the whole place had felt confined and stifling, like a prison. But now, she viewed the comfortably lived-in space through clearer eyes.

No lodge-style guest room furnishings or generic art here. Lovely as the guest rooms were, her mother had made their space a home. She’d opted for casual, durable furnishings made to hold up to movie marathons, homework projects, and pizza sleepovers. A barnwood-framed photo collage of Lilah at various ages hung on one wall, and a few shots of mother and daughter filled a scattering of frames on the sofa table behind the loveseat. A ceramic rose she’d molded, fired, and painstakingly painted one year for her mom’s thirtieth birthday occupied a place of honor on the mantle of the fireplace across from the sofa. She breathed in familiar scents of lavender from the hand lotion her mother made and mint that she grew year-round in a clay pot in the kitchen window.

Letting out another breath, she smiled down at Shayla, whose little eyelids were already growing heavy. It really was a home. Not her home anymore, but there were good memories mixed in with all the teenaged angst and young-adult frustrations. Did her mother see it that way now? Could she? Or did she look at those pictures and experience only disappointment and betrayal?

From her seat on the sofa, she listened to her mother speak to the sheriff’s department and silently acknowledged the turn Rose’s philosophy on reporting visitor transgressions had taken when those transgressions involved her granddaughter. Up until this evening, her mother, like many Captivity business owners, mostly tolerated bad behavior from tourists so as not to put Captivity’s status as a tourist destination at risk. Apparently, Rose Iquat had decided enough was enough.

She shifted Shayla to her other breast while her mother puttered in the kitchen, making lemonade. The baby’s eyes drifted closed and stayed that way. Her suckling slowed.

Rose walked in, carrying a tray with a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses full of ice along with a small plate of big, soft ginger cookies. A large pastel gift bag hung from the crook of one arm. “Good eater,” she said, glancing at the baby as she placed the tray on the coffee table. “You always were, too.”

“I still am,” she said.

Her mother eyed her critically. “Too skinny.”

---