Page 29 of Marrying the Nanny

Easier. “Thanks.” They were ridiculously small, like a pair of balled-up tissues. Laundry, he thought with an internal wince. If he knew Glenda, she would draw up a chore list before she left and hang it next to the meal plan, ensuring they all took their turns keeping the house running.

“Tiffany was okay,” Emma answered. “Just overwhelmed.”

He could relate. He got the jeans over the bulk of the diaper then noticed the snap at the shoulder on Storm’s shirt. It was tiny as hell. How was a man supposed to get hold of it? He was starting to sweat and question his competence and he’d only been at this parenting thing five minutes.

“Those are for show. The collar stretches. But it’s easier if you pull her arms out first and then roll her onto her side and kind of pull it up over the back of her head. There you go.”

“That’s dumb. Why do they put something on there for show?”

“I don’t know. Why did your dad want a pretty, young wife?” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry.”

“No, that’s fair. I wonder what she saw in him.”

“A big”—she reached for the clothes he’d discarded, briefly offering a glimpse down her gaping top—“house?” she finished, sucking her cheeks hollow.

“No doubt.” He hadn’t thought of Emma as funny, but they shared a smirk.

The kid’s undershirt had an hourglass-shaped diaper cover that didn’t make much sense to him as a clothing item, but at least the snaps all released at a single touch. It came off like a coat, but rolling Storm side to side scared the hell out of him. Her torso was no wider than the diagonal of his palm.

“I felt for her.” Emma set the folded clothes on her knees, braced her forearms across them, unconsciously letting him see down her shirt again while she leaned to let Storm grab her finger. “Tiffany was trying really hard to make the life she wanted, but it was more than she could chew. She was living on coffee and that didn’t help this one’s sleep schedule, let me tell you.”

He didn’t mean to ogle. She didn’t have big breasts, but they were right there and pretty as hell. He had noted their shape the morning in the kitchen. Even braless, they sat high and pert, bottom heavy with nipples that tilted up.

He swallowed and made himself drag his gaze elsewhere.

Emma must have realized she was giving him a show because she suddenly sat straight and caught the front of her shirt, plucking it into place as she cleared her throat. Her cheeks turned pink.

Storm was down to her diaper. Her belly was pale and round, her navel a dimple above the belt of white. Her plump legs pedaled the air, and her arms flailed while she blew raspberries and gabbled nonsense.

“If she hasn’t dirtied it, we’ll use it again,” Emma said as he picked the tabs loose.

It was wet so she showed him how to fold it and threw it in the pail. Then she draped a thin towel in the molded tub. “So she doesn’t slide around too much.”

He was a smart guy. He caught on fast and had always been good with his hands. It was humiliating that she had to tell him how to pick up a naked baby and set her in the bath, but she coached him, then walked him through every step of soaping and protecting her eyes, using the handheld spray to rinse her and—most uncomfortably—“Talk to her. Make it fun. This is her playtime.”

It’s not mine, he wanted to say, and wouldn’t have interpreted the baby’s wriggles and kicks and little shivers when water drops hit her face as “play.”

Emma picked up the fish and stuck its mouth in the water, sucking water into it then squirting it on Storm’s chest. “Boop, boop, boop.”

The kid showed her toothless gums in a grin that kicked Reid in the chest. He knew the shape of that smile. He saw it in the mirror occasionally, but had seen it most often on Logan’s and Trystan’s faces back when they were kids.

He had seen it on the man who had given it to them.

He gripped the edge of the tub, breathing carefully as he fought to keep the searing pain from showing on his face. The baby released strangled little laughs and grabbed at the fish while Emma chuckled and evaded, squirting here and there.

“Give her one more rinse and we’ll dry her off,” Emma said after a moment. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“No, it was fine.”

Emma sobered, probably thinking he was angry that he had to do this, but that wasn’t it at all. Grief he shouldn’t even be feeling was suddenly right there, sizzling beneath the surface, threatening to bust him open.

“My shirt is soaked,” he lied in a tight voice. “I’ll be right back.” He walked out with a cold patch on his chest that remained even after he changed.

*

Emma woke when Storm began to fuss around two thirty, the way she did pretty much every night.

Part of her wanted to roll over and drift off. She hadn’t slept through the night once since she’d been in Canada. Reid had the monitor. He was the one who’d made the rookie move of saying he’d take the first night.

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