Page 13 of Single Pucking Orc

Nora stood there in flannel pajama pants and a college sweatshirt, her reading glasses pushed up into her dark hair. Her hair was down, he noticed distantly, and considerably longer than he’d realized. Her expression was already halfway to a comment about the hour. Then she looked at Charlie, and she looked at him, and whatever she had been about to say died.

He had no grin for her, and no joke, and he didn’t say neighbor in the voice that always made her eyes narrow. For the first time since he’d moved in next door to Nora Bennett, he had absolutely nothing charming to offer.

Instead he held his furious daughter between them like she was the last open man on the ice.

“Do you know anything about babies?”

CHAPTER 4

The honest answer was no.

Nora knew this about herself with the same certainty she knew her tax bracket. She had no siblings, no nieces, no nephews, no maternal fog descending over her ovaries when she passed a stroller. What she had was one screaming infant on her doorstep at half-past ten and a giant orc looking at her like she was the last helicopter out of a war zone.

“No,” she said.

His face fell so completely that it would have been comical under other circumstances.

“But,” she said, before she could stop herself, before the ruthless part of her that guarded her sleep and her schedule and her uncomplicated life could veto it, “I know more than you appear to right now, so come in.”

He came through the door sideways, ducking under the frame and turning his shoulders. Her front hall had never felt small until that moment. He filled it entirely, from the coat hooks to the bottom of the attic stairs, and brought the smell of cold air and cedar in with him. The temperature seemed to go up several degrees, because orcs ran hot and there was a very great deal of this one.

She decided, very deliberately, to have no reaction to that whatsoever.

“How long has she been crying?”

“Off and on for a few hours. It keeps getting worse.” He was jiggling Charlie against his chest, fast little movements that looked almost unconscious. “She settles for five minutes, maybe ten, then starts again. She’s not hot. I checked. Twice. She won’t take much of the bottle. Diaper’s clean. Brogan thinks she’s overstimulated.”

Nora blinked. “Brogan?”

“Yeah.”

“The goalie?”

“Unless you know another enormous antisocial orc named Brogan.”

Charlie let out another furious wail.

“Right. Brogan later.” She put her hand on his forearm. The muscle beneath her palm was warm and about as yielding as a fence post. She ignored that too.

“Rognar.”

His eyes dropped to her hand, then lifted to her face.

“You’re vibrating,” she told him, and he tried to stop. But his hand was still rubbing Charlie’s back in quick, anxious passes, and one foot was tapping against the hardwood.

“You’re still doing it.”

“I’m standing still.”

“Your foot isn’t.”

He looked down, and the foot stopped moving.

She stepped back. “Come sit down.”

He followed her into the living room and lowered himself carefully onto the sofa. It made a sound she had never heard it make before. He took up most of one end, Charlie tucked against his shoulder, and she had the absurd thought that she should have bought sturdier furniture.

Not relevant.