“Oh, I like her,” Will says as he nudges me down the hall towards the nursery.
I listen to his instructions on getting the baby I’ve been tasked with dressing into a nappy, a cute, fluffy little all-in-one and what looks like a zip up sack.
“Aren’t we going to bath them?” I don’t know if it’s normal, but there’s goo all over them.
“Nope. You have to leave all that stuff on them. It’s good for their skin. Just make sure there’s no hay or dirt.” Will is already zipping up the sack on his twin before I’ve even worked out which way to put the nappy on.
“How the hell did you know how to do that?”
“YouTube. You’d be amazed what you can learn.”
I’m both shocked and unsurprised he’s acing it in the father stakes already. Shocked because I never thought I’d see the day, and unsurprised because, despite his sometimes-flaky persona, Will is one of the most competent people I know.
He watches with a smile as I struggle, making no attempt to help. Even when I start with the nappy on backwards. Eventually the babies are dressed, and Will puts them in a basket together and carries it out to the lounge room, setting it in the middle of their enormous coffee table.
I leave him gazing adoringly into the basket and check on Sadie in the kitchen.
“There’s no cold meat, so I’ve made cheese and salad sandwiches. And a pot of tea. How are your eyes?”
Huh. I hadn’t even given them a thought since I walked into the barn.
“Good. Pretty much back to normal, I think.”
Sadie steps closer and gazes up into my eyes.
“Hmm. Your pupils still look a little enlarged. Those drops take forever to wear off.”
I know she’s only checking my pupils, but something catches in my throat at her standing so near, gazing into my eyes.
She smells of the perfume I remember from the night we met. Her eyes are bright. Her lips curved in a half smile. She’s so close I can feel her breath on my cheek. The warmth of her body radiating against my chest.
I brush a wayward lock of her hair back off her cheek. Somehow my fingers linger in the warm, shiny strands. I watch as her lips part, and her tongue runs over her full top lip. Mine echoes the movement. I’m aware of every beat of my heart. Every beat of hers. The only sound is our breathing and the blood rushing in my ears, telling me to kiss her.
And into the quiet falls a scolding stage whisper.
“I told you we should have left yesterday morning. We missed it. They’re already here. I can feel them.” The voice raises an octave or two. “Where are they? Where are Freyja and my grandbabies?”
Chapter Fourteen
Sadie
Ethan and I jump apart. Thank God for the interruption. I was a breath away from stretching up on my toes and kissing him. Finally knowing what those full lips might feel like on mine. And that would be bad.
A tiny, round woman with long, brown hair, dark eyes and bubbling energy bustles around the corner into the kitchen, followed at a lazy saunter by a tall, thin man with silvery hair and bright green eyes. They couldn’t be more opposite if you designed it that way.
“Oh. You must be Ethan.” Without missing a beat she hurls her arms around him for a fierce hug. “And who might you be?” She peers past Ethan’s bicep to get a look at me.
“I’m Sadie. Ethan’s …” Ethan’s what? Friend? Colleague? She doesn’t seem to need further clarification, though. We’re saved from the awkwardness by the arrival of Will, toting a basket full of babies.
“Caroline. Ansel. You made it.” The grin hasn’t left his face. Nor the look of stunned pride.
Ethan is released, and Caroline zips across the room to Will and the babies without even appearing to move.
“I told Ansel we should’ve come yesterday. But no. He was convinced we had time. You’d think after thirty years of marriage he’d know to listen to my instincts.”
“Thirty-three, Caro,” the man, apparently called Ansel, says in a deep and melodious voice that sounds like it belongs to a Shakespearean actor.
She lifts a sleeping baby from the basket, cradling it expertly in the crook of her elbow and peering at its little face. “Anyway, all’s well. It’s a lovely thing you delivered your babies, William. A wonderful bonding most men don’t get to experience.”
