It was a relief when JT reached the gate to the driveway at last. After spending well over a day with him in a motel room, Gemma no longer feared him and hadn’t fussed much during the drive, especially after he found the kids music streaming channel.
Of course, after an hour of songs sung by Muppets, he was ready to cry.
Well, except for “Rainbow Connection.” That song brought back memories of six-year-old Lee’s adoration of his new big brother. At eleven, JT had loved the attention.
He parked in front of the steps to the porch and met Gemma’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Ready to see the cabin I’ve been telling you about?”
“Hungy!”
He smiled. Of course she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten in ninety whole minutes. “Sure thing. Right after I unload the SUV.”
Her face scrunched up, but he wouldn’t give in this time. She could scream all she wanted, there was no one for miles.
Today, the dynamic between them would change. Stripped of the ability to disturb other motel guests, the fifteen-month-old no longer held all the cards.
He carried her into the house and deposited her in the living room, taking off her shoes so she wouldn’t track mud on the cream-colored carpet and couch. “Wait here while I unload the car. Got it?”
Her eyes were big and round as she stuck her thumb in her mouth and leaned back against the plush couch cushion.
He left her and was grabbing the portable crib when he looked up to see her walking barefoot in the patchy snow on the front steps.
She slipped, and his heart leapt into his throat as she tumbled down the last step with a loud shriek.
He dropped the crib and scooped her up. He scanned her for injury before pulling her to his chest as she sobbed.
He needed to clean the fresh scrape on her forehead.
Shit. What was he doing? He was utterly incompetent. Of course she’d follow him outside. Barefoot. In the snow.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he crooned in the pitch he no longer had to work to find when talking to Gemma. “Uncle JT shouldn’t have left you like that.”
He glanced at the portable crib, thinking he could place her in it while he unloaded the SUV. That’s when he realized he’d dropped it in a slushy mud puddle next to the path.
Crap.
He resigned himself to once again unloading the car with only one arm free to haul the bags.
He’d finish unloading after he cleaned her scrape and made sure her feet were warm. And fed her a snack.
An hour later, the car was unloaded, and he moved his SUV into the carport next to the garage. He put Gemma back in her car seat for the drive twenty yards across the driveway. He’d forgotten to grab the garage door opener in his haste the other night, so he’d need the side door key to get inside and hit the button. The carport would do for now.
He carried Gemma back into the house and let out a heavy sigh as he set her down, then leaned against the closed door.
He wondered what the odds were he could get her to nap, then remembered the soaking wet crib.
Next chore: clean up the crib.
Gemma was running in circles in the living room—she appeared to be a big fan of the open floor plan—and he realized how not baby-proof the room was.
For the next hour, he rearranged furniture, used masking tape to cover all power outlets, and moved all the breakables from low shelves and tables on the main floor of the house. He placed the breakables and cleaning supplies in the laundry room and drilled a hole in the door and frame and screwed in eyebolts in both holes, then threaded a scrap of electrical wire through the holes and twisted it together for a make-shift lock.
He surveyed the downstairs and mentally declared it Gemma-proof. His gaze landed again on the dirty crib, which he’d left on the slate floor in the foyer, and sighed.
He then scooped up Gemma, who was singing while sitting in a laundry basket he’d set out for her to play in. Who knew toddlers were so much like cats?
“What do you think of showers?”
She grabbed his ear with a pudgy hand and said, “Ower?”
“C’mon. We’ll all get clean.”
He grabbed her diaper bag and the crib and headed up the stairs.
He wore boxers in the shower. It was silly, he knew, but at the same time, he wasn’t comfortable stripping bare, not without Lex’s permission, even if it was just a shower for kid and crib.
It was clear that Gemma had never taken a shower before, but no way would he try to give her a bath—he didn’t have a safety chair and had no clue how to bathe a kid. As it was, he had a large two-headed shower stall that fit him and the fully setup crib, with Gemma giggling in the corner whenever he sprayed her with the shower wand, in between washing the mud from the baby jail.
He was feeling like a pro by the time he secured a fresh diaper and clean onesie on the smiling girl, who now smelled like baby shampoo.
It was late afternoon, and she’d skipped the nap Erica had promised. What were the odds that would translate to an early bedtime?
He dressed her in a pink set of footed pajamas he’d purchased in the middle of the night a day and a half ago, marveling at the elasticity of time.
On one level, that shopping trip had been a lifetime ago. It had happened in a world where he didn’t know Gemma Vargas. And now he couldn’t imagine a world without her in it.
Thirty-eight hours.
“Hungry?” he asked. As if he didn’t know the answer.
“Hungy! Hungy!”
He smiled. “We need to teach you some new words. Can you say ‘yes’?”
“No.”
He laughed, then enunciated clearly, drawing out the word, “Yeessss.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Yesss.” She smiled, an eight-tooth grin, and giggled.
Holy shit. She had made a joke.
“Silly,” he said.
“Knock-knock.”
Wait, she told knock-knock jokes? “Who’s there?”
She stuck her tongue between her lips and made a raspberry sound.
He laughed. “That might be the cutest and funniest knock-knock joke I’ve ever heard.”
She made another raspberry sound.
This kid. He might be in love.
All at once, he thought of how much danger Lex was in, how much she must be missing her daughter, and he squeezed Gemma tight to his chest as he fought the burn of tears.
Gemma pushed at his chest. “Hungy.”
He loosened his grip and swiped at his eyes. “Let’s get you some food, kid.”
He left the crib to drip dry in the shower. Gemma wouldn’t be able to sleep in it tonight anyway. Once again, his chest would be her mattress.