I immediately went to the bottle maker in the kitchen.
“Holy cow. This is like a coffee maker but for babies,” Piper exclaimed. I hadn’t realized she’d joined me.
“Exactly.”
“You made that bottle in five seconds.” She sounded stunned as I took the bottle and put the lid on it, wrapping it tightly.
“Do you think I could feed her?” Piper asked, her tone shy all of a sudden. It caught me off guard completely.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I know how to do it. I babysat my friend’s kids when they were tiny.”
“Right, then let’s see how you do.”
I transferred Charlotte into her arms. Piper expertly positioned her with her head slightly tilted up and offered her the bottle. Charlotte started eating right away.
“You like this, don’t you?” Piper cooed. “Your dad is so smart for buying this machine.”
Watching her with my daughter did things to me that I couldn’t explain. I could look at her holding Charlotte and feeding her for hours and be a completely happy man.
“I guess that frees you up to serve the jambalaya.”
“Exactly.” Shaking my head, I put the food on two plates and carried them to the table. Piper walked back to her seat much slower, eyes still trained on Charlotte.
“She’s so beautiful.”
“I swear, she’s the most beautiful baby girl in the world. You can give her to me so you can eat.”
“She doesn’t have much left to finish, so I’ll just wait.”
She kissed the top of Charlotte’s forehead. I instinctively knew this image would be branded in my mind for a long time. Last night, I started to think about Charlotte in the years to come. Surely she would ask me about her mother one day. What was I supposed to tell her? I felt bad, as if I was keeping mydaughter from having a normal family experience. But maybe one day, I would find the right woman for me.
I knew my parents and grandparents would love it—“The more the merrier,” they always said.
Damn, that was an unusual train of thought for me.
Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I asked, “You really like kids, huh?”
“Yeah, a lot. I told you I’ve had baby fever for years. I kept waiting for it to pass, but it doesn’t.” She sighed. “Damn it. I was supposed to keep everything professional tonight.”
I started to laugh. “I had that same goal. By the looks of it, we’re both failing at it spectacularly.”
And for some reason, I was totally okay with it.
CHAPTER 12
BECKETT
“Wearefailing, aren’t we?”she murmured, glancing down at my daughter again.
“What’s going through your mind, Piper?”
She shook her head without looking up. “Honestly, too many things. And none of them make sense.”
After we sat at the table, I quickly shoveled food into my mouth so I could relieve Piper.
“I’ll take her,” I said a few minutes later.
