Chapter 20 #2
Maximus carefully helped me slide Cait back into her car seat.
“This Banks woman won’t get your daughter,” he said to me, his voice deadly serious.
Then he glanced over his shoulder to where Scarlet talked to her sister and dropped his voice even lower.
“I know what it is to fight for a child, and we won’t let her win. ”
I dipped my head at his words of support, but fear still held me in its grip.
Scarlet and I returned to the loch house together, and I forced away the awful sense of doom that the new potential claim on Cait had brought.
This was a new first, and it should be perfect.
Though Cait had visited once already, it had been brief. I wanted her to know the place, how it smelled and felt. To recognise the rooms and start to think of it as home.
In the lounge, I held her to my shoulder then raised an eyebrow at Scarlet. “If I make up her bottle, do ye want to give it to her?”
Scar blew out a breath. “Let me get comfortable.” She hopped on the spot like readying for exercise, then leapt on the couch, curling up before making gimme actions with her hands. “I’m ready.”
With her eyes glassy, she looked petrified.
I couldn’t stop my laugh. “What are ye afraid of? I’ve seen you carry Mathilda’s kids around the place.”
“When I was a teenager. This is different.”
I perched next to her and placed Cait in her arms, then I laid a soft kiss on Scarlet’s cheek. “Why?”
Scarlet gazed down at my daughter’s face. “She’s yours,” she said, quieter. “My boyfriend’s baby. This has a whole different set of connotations.”
“Because you’re crazy about me.”
This earned me a smile. “Don’t get cocky about it. It’s just that soon, you’ll be full-time dad. She’ll be your world. You two, therefore, come as a package deal, and that’s huge.”
An acute sort of longing hit me square in the gut. She meant that if she wanted me, she’d have to accept Cait, too.
The fear was gone from her eyes as she said it.
Scarlet raised Cait’s hand and spread out her tiny fingers, staring, like she was memorising features I’d already obsessed over.
Ah, Scar. I already fell for ye both a long time ago.
In a rush, the emotions I’d tried to hold at bay rushed in.
I wanted this. All of it. To have a home with Scarlet and Cait.
To be a family and to be happy together.
A beautiful image of that future skirted my vision.
There was still so much up in the air that could harm it, but that didn’t stop my heart from finding a target and locking on.
“I’m crazy about you, too,” I said, hoarse.
Scarlet’s lips parted. “About time you said so. I told you that last night.”
Cait snuffled, then she gave a hiccup of a cry, blinking up at us in soft protest.
“All right, lass. I know.” I jumped to my task of feeding her.
At the kitchen counter, I mixed up the formula and warmed it in a bottle. The rush of emotion kept on going, and I returned to the couch in a daze.
Scarlet took the bottle and sprinkled a few drops on her wrist then ran the teat over Cait’s mouth. We both watched in rapt awe as she took to her meal.
“She likes you, but fair warning, the first time I fed her, she was sick all over me.”
“Duly noted. This is both terrifying and wonderful,” Scarlet murmured. “She’s so small but isn’t she gorgeous! Skye and Lennox were cute babies, and the new boy is a sweetie, but Cait? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby like her.”
“Ah, she takes after me.” I smirked, expecting to be taken down.
Scarlet cocked her head, still gazing at my daughter. She ran her thumb over Cait’s cheek. “She does. She’s so completely yours, it’s hard to imagine her mother from her features.”
That was sobering. “I wish I had pictures for her.”
“Maybe this Georgia Banks is a blessing in disguise. After we’ve shown her that there’s no way on God’s green earth that she’ll get Cait, I mean.” A severe look swept over her face. “But she can do what my birth father never did and provide background that you don’t know.”
Cait’s head lolled, and her eyes closed.
“Milk-drunk,” I mouthed.
Scarlet raised the baby to her lips for a soft kiss. I did the same, and I took the bairn, winded her, then laid her in the Moses basket I had set up in the lounge.
Then I returned to Scarlet, found her mouth, and gave her a tender peck.
“I wish you were both staying,” I said, the brutal truth hurting.
“I also wish we’d had S-E-X last night, multiple times this morning, and had time to again now.
” I spelled the crucial word because it seemed wrong to say rude words in front of my daughter.
Scarlet placed a hand on my chest, pushing me to lie back on the cushions. “You’ll get over it. When does Cait stay over next?”
“Saturday. I have to work until then to start my track record.” I still hadn’t told her about the driving job. I would, in time.
“Can I come back on Friday night? Maybe stay the weekend?”
I dragged her onto my body and caught her with my legs. “For real? I will be the happiest man alive.” Plus, with a whole week to prepare, I could turn Friday night into a date night like Scarlet Storm had never seen.
Then Saturday, I’d have the two of them here. Overnight, too.
Just like a real family.
I gazed into Scarlet’s blue eyes and smiled when she settled on my chest. She held my head steady and gave me a long, drugging kiss.
Then she wriggled out of my grip, leaving me hot and breathing hard on the couch.
“I need to leave for my flight. See me out?” She walked backwards a few steps, and I caught up with her at the door.
“Don’t miss me too much,” she said against my lips.
But I already was. I wanted her. I wanted Cait.
I’d fight every step of the way to keep them both.
Half an hour or so after Scar left, Ma showed up with Lily, my half-sister in tow. They’d both met Cait already, as they lived in Edinburgh and had done the same doorstepping as Wasp, but wanted a proper playtime with her.
Ma busied herself around my house, fussing over areas I hadn’t yet fixed up and pointing out places where Cait could harm herself in years to come.
“Ye ken, if she’s anything like ye—” Ma started, Cait on a muslin over her shoulder.
“I know, I know. I’ve got my work cut out. Callum already lorded that one over me.”
“Ally, who’s the girl you’re kissing in the picture?” Lily flew into the lounge, a photograph in her hand.
I took it and stared. It was the polaroid from Milan of my and Scarlet’s first kiss. “Where did ye get this?”
“It was on your fridge under a red heart magnet.”
I didn’t own any fridge magnets. Scar.
“That’s Scarlet Storm.” Ma peered over my shoulder. “Your brother mentioned you might have news for me on that front.”
My grin spread. Today, I’d finally stopped covering my scars in front of Ma, and she’d stopped pulling her sad face when I informed her I was healed fine.
“Aye. Maybe I will. Wait and see.”
“Good.” My mother stroked my daughter’s back. “Very good to know.”