Chapter Nineteen

With a baby in the picture, morning afters had a very different feel. There was no lying in bed for hours, gazing at one another and making love over and over again while he professed his feelings.

Which was probably a damn good thing because if left to his own devices he probably would have told her he loved her again. And look how that had worked out last time. Sofie was the perfect distraction. Even if she did mean he woke up about two hours before his body thought was fair.

Rachel groaned and rolled onto her back, shoving her hair out of her face as the impatient, demanding cry came through the baby monitor.

“I’ll get her,” Cam offered, trying to work up the energy to actually heave himself out of bed.

One of Rachel’s eyes cracked open. “Really?”

The hope in her voice gave him the motivation to actually lever himself into a sitting position and fling his legs over the side of the bed. “Sure. Go back to sleep.”

She’d put on his shirt to pad to the bathroom in the middle of the night and it twisted around her as she turned toward him with a serious case of bedhead. It was a good look, a rumpled, sexy reminder of how they’d spent most of the night—making love and talking and making love again. But his daughter waited for no man, her crying taking on a frustrated note.

He pulled on his boxers and staggered barefoot through the house toward the impatient wail. It was still dark, but as he passed the grandfather clock he squinted at the face. A quarter to seven. He’d always thought of himself as a morning person—but apparently that only counted when morning didn’t start before he was ready for it.

“Hey, baby girl,” he said as he stepped into the nursery. Sofie’s eyes locked onto him, but she kept up her why-have-I-been-waiting-so-long cries until the second he lifted her out of the crib. “Did you sleep well?” he asked, making idle conversation as he carried her to the changing table and got her a fresh diaper.

Sofie was wide awake, and by the time Cam was done changing her, he was too. The Russell House event was tonight and Rachel undoubtedly needed all the sleep she could get—something a selfless man would have thought of last night, though he couldn’t regret the way they’d spent the midnight hours. All he could do was steal her a few more minutes now.

“Mama,” Sofie demanded—she was a strong-willed little thing. All of her words had a distinct aura of command. Just like her mother.

“Mama’s still sleeping. You wanna look at the Christmas tree?” It was one of Sofie’s primary fascinations and she agreed instantly.

He carried her into the great room and over to the tree his sisters had helped him decorate, inhaling the pine scent. “Dow!” the little dictator in his arms demanded, emphasizing the order with a bounce.

“How do we ask nicely?” he said, echoing something he must have heard Rachel say five dozen times in the last week, and Sofie’s whole demeanor instantly changed.

She smiled sweetly, actually fluttering her lashes, and chirped angelically, “Dow peez!”

“You’re a con artist, you know that?” he said as he plopped her on her feet and she toddled toward the tree, patting the presents and chattering to herself.

“You know the funniest thing is happening to my tree,” Rachel spoke from behind him.

“Mama!” Sofie shouted, running toward her mother, tripping on nothing, tumbling to her hands and knees and popping back up again to run some more.

Rachel—fully dressed now, though the dress from last night had a definite morning-after chic—met her halfway, scooping her up and giving her a kiss. “Good morning, Sofie Bear.”

“I was trying to let you sleep in.” He bent to claim his own good morning peck.

“We need to get going.” But her gaze lingered gratifyingly on his bare chest. “Mom and Yaya will be wondering where we are.”

Cam’s eyebrows popped up. “I think they know.”

She flushed, but didn’t meet his eyes, pulling on her all-business demeanor as a shield. “Be that as it may, we still need to go. I have a lot to do today to get ready for the event tonight.”

“Can I pick you up later? We can drive downtown together.”

“No, I have to be there so much earlier than you do. You’d just be bored for hours.”

“I could help,” he offered.

“You’re a guest,” she insisted. “The guest of honor. Just go and have fun. You probably won’t see much of me. I’ll be busy all night.”

“You’ll have time for a dance, though, right?”

Sofie wriggled to be let down and Rachel set her on the ground. He caught her eye when she straightened and she averted her gaze, pressing a smile between her lips. “One dance,” she promised, relenting. “After the auction. But you have to dance with the bidders too. We want them all to run up your price.”

“It doesn’t feel weird to you? That I’m selling myself to the highest bidder tonight?”

“Of course not.” She smoothed a hand over his chest, as if she couldn’t stop herself. “You’re selling a baseball experience. The winner will probably be buying you for a kid in their life. Or it could easily be a man who wins.”

“And if it’s a woman?”

“Then you will give her an amazing day at the ball park, a day she will never forget.” She smiled sweetly. “But if you so much as kiss her I will not be responsible for my actions.”

He grinned, delighted by the flash of possessiveness. “Fair enough.”

Rachel met his eyes as Sofie began patting the presents again—either admiring them or having a conversation with them, it was hard to tell which. “So we’re doing this,” she murmured, a flicker of uncertainty behind the words.

“We’re doing this,” he assured her, eliminating the space between them. He looped his arms around her, locking his hands at the small of her back and gently tugging her forward. “No regrets?”

He almost regretted asking, giving her the chance to back out—until she smiled and tipped her face up to his. “No regrets.”

She wasn’t in the heels anymore and had to go up on her tiptoes to kiss him. He bent his head, meeting her halfway. It wasn’t a hot kiss—not with morning breath and the baby right there. It was something better: a promise.

When he lifted his head, the words fell out. “I love you, Rache.” Her lips parted, her eyes widening, and he was struck by a terrifying sense of déjà vu as he blurted, “You don’t have to say it back.”

Last time she’d cracked a joke, something about how he wasn’t awful—and he’d replayed that moment a thousand times in the months after she broke it off with It’s over. He wondered, had that been the moment she decided to dump him? Or just the moment the universe had decided he was too comfortable and it was time to pull the rug out?

That tightrope feeling was back. One false step would send him plummeting and he had a nasty feeling he’d just taken that step—

But then her eyes softened, something wondering and almost awestruck lighting in them, and she whispered, “I might be somewhat fond of you too.”

She kissed him, clutching his shoulders, everything in that moment—until Sofie’s bright voice interrupted from the vicinity of their knees. “Mama! Hungry!”

They broke apart, grinning, and no moment had ever been more right.

Now he just had to smother that voice in the back of his head whispering that this, this was the moment it would all go up in flames.