Page 69 of Baby, Be Mine

She rolled her eyes. “I have some help coming, don’t worry.”

“Who?”

Emma rounded to the back of her wagon and opened the trunk. “I stopped at your dad’s place.”

“How did you get my dad to wake up this early?”

She gave me a sunny smile and shoved her sunglasses on her face. “I have my ways. I ran into him at the grocery store last night and we got to talking.”

“Alan Brooks?”

“Do you have another dad?”

“Maybe a doppelgänger. My dad doesn’t get up early for anyone but his orchids.”

“Guess you can count me in on that list now.”

Not shocking. Emma seemed to be able to get anyone to do things for her.

“Anyway, while I was there, I ran into Maddie Masterson. She works a few days a week at your dad’s shop.”

“I know.”

“Don’t get all grumpy. Drink more coffee.”

The fact that she was so chipper before seven in the morning made my head spin, but she’d obviously been moving way before then. “What the heck time did you get up?”

“Miss Fussypants had me up at 4:20.” She hauled out a canvas bag full of eucalyptus. “I remember the days that four-twenty meant something far different.”

I snorted. It had taken more than a minute for me to remember those days. “Okay, trade me for the baby. You’re not supposed to be lifting heavy things yet.”

She rolled her eyes but accepted Adriana with that bright-eyed, wide grin that gave me a stab of envy. Not that Emma didn’t smile at me plenty, but there was something so utterly besotted when she gazed at Adriana.

And I was officially going to go soak my head.

I gathered the two canvas bags and another vinyl flat-bottomed rectangular bag that held more greenery and fragile fan-looking things. “What are you going to do with all this?”

“Remember those mason jars we ordered?”

“How could I forget?”

She wrinkled her nose at me. “Well, I want to make a feature out of the grass in front of the oak tree. Maddie didn’t have anything going on today and said she’d help me decorate.”

“Does that include the lights?”

“No, I bribed my neighbor’s grandson to help me with that. He’s a metal artist from the community college. I told him what I wanted to do, and he came up with an even better idea.”

“You just convinced him to help?”

She pushed her sunglasses up on the top of her head where all her golden curls were gathered in a messy twist. “I said bribed, remember? He’s got the hots for Maddie.”

“How do you know that?”

“Me and bean like to hang out at Brewed Awakening. I hear stuff. Maddie started working at the café during her summer break from college.”

“And for my dad?”

She tucked Adriana into the wrap thing she wore daily. Shifting the material until the baby was situated just right against her chest. “Didn’t you have more than one job when you were in your twenties?”

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