Chapter 5 #2
Laurie grinned up at me, her freakishly long eyelashes starred from the water.
She was sitting in about six inches of water that was mostly foam.
She also had an array of plastic ducks, fish, whales, dolphins, and yes, Care Bears in the tub with her.
She held a bright pink netted puff in her hand as she painstakingly washed her blue Care Bear.
Fittingly, it was a plastic version of Grumpy Bear.
Just like me.
Well, until this little girl was in my space. I couldn’t be grumpy around her, even if I wanted to strangle her sometimes. Cuteness always won out.
She smiled up at me with a dimple winking. “This is a girls’ party.”
I kneeled beside her and brushed her damp bangs out of her face. “Is that so?”
She nodded and bit her lower lip in concentration as she washed under Grumpy’s armpit.
“Grumpy is a boy.”
She looked up at me with a knitted brow so much like her father’s. A blond version, but all the rest was the same. “Grumpy is a bear,” she said as if that made all the difference.
I supposed for an almost four-year-old, it really did. I shrugged. “All righty then.”
I turned on the taps to add to the water to bubbles ratio. From the looks of the bottle on the side of the tub, Laurie had been using a heavy hand.
When she lifted the bottle and started to pour more on the puff, I made a grab for it.
She stuck out her lower lip. “I need that.”
I swooped up a froth of bubbles and settled it on top of her puff. “There you go.” When she still frowned, I took another dollop and settled it on her nose.
She giggled.
Now we were in business. By the time Seth came back, I had her hair washed and was chaperoning her hygiene rituals. I’d already made the mistake of trying to help there.
I’d been an independent kid too, but I didn’t remember a lot about my childhood. Just moving a lot. And I’d learned to shower far earlier than a lot of my friends. Sitting in bathtubs in some of the places we’d lived wasn’t the best idea.
Seth knocked on the door.
“No! No boys.”
A clunking sound made me frown and then Seth’s lacrosse stick came through the door with a bottle of bubbles in the netting. I laughed and stood.
Laurie giggled. “Thank you, Daddy!”
I took the bubbles. “You’re a dork.”
“Daddy’s a dork.”
“Great. Thanks. She’ll be saying that for days.”
“Fitting.”
“Har-har. Everything okay in there, girls? It’s way past bedtime.”
“Almost done.” Laurie slapped her hand on the water. “Go away.”
“I’m going.”
I snaked a finger through the crack in the door and flicked a nail over the back of his hand. “We’re fine.”
He let out a slow breath. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” I rubbed my hand over my breastbone and went back to his daughter with the bubbles. I unscrewed the cap. “Okay, you get one blast of bubbles for each friend you finish washing.”
“Deal.” She dunked her dolphin into the water and it came out gleaming. She set it on the shelf along the back of the tub. “Go.”
I pulled the double wand out and blew out a stream of rainbow bubbles.
“Me. I want to do it.”
“Two more of your buddies and you got it.”
The big whale and baby whale got dunked and deposited on the shelf. I dunked the wand and handed it to her.
“No, I want to do it.”
“You are wet and soapy, kiddo. We don’t want these to fall in, do we?”
She scrunched up her nose and lips. “No. I guess not.” She shrugged and took the wand. She blew too hard and only got three bubbles. “Hey.”
I took it back and dunked. “Easy. Soft. Yes, just like that.”
When the stream of bubbles floated up, she clapped. Five minutes later, there were many squeaky clean fish guarding her tub and a pruny almost four-year-old standing with a purple towel on her head and fluffy pink Care Bears towel wrapped around her.
Before she could find another reason to extend her bath time, I swooped her out and deposited her on the bath mat. I wrapped another towel around her and started a rubdown. By the time she was mostly dry, she was still giggling and I was laughing with her.
I hadn’t even known this was exactly what I needed to even me out.
“Okay, Daddy, we’re ready.”
He opened the door so fast, I knew he’d stood out there the entire time. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Didn’t he trust me?
Then I looked down at the crazy monkey in my arms and her adoring eyes only for him. There was no way I could get upset about that. Laurie reached for him and suddenly I was forty pounds lighter.
He looked down at me, his eyes flashing for a moment as he dropped his gaze over my wet shirt. Yeah, good thing I had that padded bra on. I turned away from him to pick up the bubbles and empty bottle of soap.
He cleared his throat before burying his face in Laurie’s neck. She giggled and squirmed, causing the towel on her hair to fall to the floor. “I’m just going to get her dressed.”
“Yeah, good idea. I’ll just clean up.”
“Don’t worry about that. You’ve done more than enough.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, really. The nanny will take care of it.”
“Right.” Of course he had a nanny for her. I’d talked to her a million times. I didn’t know her duties included cleaning a bathroom, but he was right this wasn’t my house or my life.
He just wanted me to create a human, not take care of one. Even if he did call on me to help.
Would he do the same with my—our—his… God. How would I even classify him or her? Mine?
Ours.
I fisted my hands into my hair and tugged out my messy bun. “Fuck.”
In the hallway, I could hear giggling and Seth’s baritone voice. The love obvious between them. His heart was so huge for that little girl. It might be a little more reserved for others. He used charm to deflect emotions for other people in his life.
I’d seen it firsthand. The way my customers reacted to him. That half-grin and easy way with conversation left everyone at ease. And half the town’s female population would jump at the chance to do what he’d asked me to do.
But they would want more.
Every woman wanted more in his eyes. Mostly because of the lenses that Marjorie had left behind when she’d walked away from Laurie. He just assumed most women wanted something from him. And part of me understood that.
He could grant me opportunities that I’d have to work my ass off to achieve. But then again, they would be my achievements. No one else’s.
Part of me wanted to just up and leave this town and start over. Even if that meant I would be in debt up to my eyeballs for the next thirty years. It would be my debt, and my life, and a fresh start.
I lifted the towel that had fallen off Laurie’s head and hung it on the pink unicorn hook on the wall. And because I couldn’t stand to leave the mess in the bathroom, I listened to Seth tell his daughter a bedtime story as I tidied up.
When the rumble of his voice faded and I heard his footfalls, I shut off the light and met him in the hall.
He frowned at me. “I told you—”
I held up my hand. “Already done.” I crossed to him and ducked under his arm to enter Laurie’s room. His burnt sugar cologne mixed with the baby shampoo scent of his kid and my hormones decided that was the perfect aphrodisiac. Did I mention my life was unfair?
I focused on the little lump on the middle of the full-sized mattress.
The bed was way too big for her, but she was surrounded by Care Bears and stuffed animals from various Disney movies.
Dory, Hank, and the guppy from Little Mermaid guarded her.
A nightlight spun from her bedside table, shooting starlight around her room.
Pink and perfect in every way. This little girl had everything I didn’t have growing up. No wonder he wanted to give her the world.
I just wasn’t sure I was the one to help him.
“She’s out.”
I lifted my shoulder in reaction to his deep voice against my ear. He slid his arm around my waist and pulled me away from the doorway. He shut the door most of the way, then pulled me down the hall.
“I don’t want to wake her.”
I nodded. Understandable, of course. He needed to back up though. I couldn’t handle him in my space for extended periods of time. Even if I’d initiated it this time. What the hell had I been thinking?
Oh, right. I wasn’t really thinking. Actually, it had been a luxury I couldn’t afford for years. I was really good at ignoring my feelings for him. Why did he have to go and ruin it? Now all I could imagine was what he tasted like.
Fuck.
I tried to pull away, but he pulled me back against him. “Don’t go.”
I closed my eyes. “Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?” His nose coasted around the shell of my ear. “Touch you?”
“I’m filthy.”
He buried his nose in my hair. “You smell like lilacs and sunshine.”
“Liar.”
“Baby shampoo and lilacs?”
I tried not to smile, but I had no defenses for this man. The worst part was I was sure he knew that. And Seth Hamilton was always on the lookout for weaknesses to exploit to get what he wanted.
How the hell was I supposed to move out of his crosshairs?
Did I want to?
His hand slid along my midriff, his thumb grazing the underside of my breast. I groaned. “Honestly, you have to pick now to do this?”
“I’ve been thinking about this for days.”
I turned in his arms. “So this was all a ruse?”
“No. This was the last act of a desperate man. She’s been a handful all night. She misses you.”
“Low blow.”
“You’ve spent Mother’s Day with us since Marj left.”
I shut my eyes. “I know.” Didn’t he realize how hard this day was for me? Not only because it was Mother’s Day for Laurie, but the first without my mom?
He knew on some level. He’d sent me flowers, hadn’t he? But all my emotions were raw today. It just wasn’t fair that he was right here and finally noticing me.
Except he wasn’t seeing me as a partner. No, he was only seeing me as a woman because I had a functioning uterus.
He wanted something from me. It was just handy that he was attracted to me. It was how the world had propagated all these years. Just a biological response.