It must be the hormones. Pregnancy can wreak havoc on them. Then again…she was never this worked up when she’d been carrying Emma. Didn’t want a man with ten feet of her back then, which has been her usual default on the subject. Lately, though, letting Wyatt closer doesn’t sound like such a bad idea at all.
She watches him use the clean side of his shirt to wipe Emma’s red-covered face. She got all the shorter rotters she could reach once the initial repulsion wore off. Now, she looks like the victim of a toppled bucket of red paint.
“I’m okay,” Emma says, though her whole body shakes along with her words.
She’ll have nightmares tonight, Addison’s sure of it. She’ll never survive long-term if she can’t defend herself. She’ll never learn to defend herself if her mother keeps her in the house.
“That was some solid work,” Wyatt tells her. “Your grip is getting better.”
A handsome, kind, shirtless man is tending to her child. If she wasn’t already attracted to him, then this would push her over the edge in a heartbeat.
Get it together, she mentally scolds herself. Letting her thoughts run wild on this subject isn’t productive in the slightest.
When they move into the library to begin their quest for books, he finds a t-shirt in the retail section. Dark gray with a random graphic print, and she wonders if he’s fucking with her the moment he rips at the collar to widen the fabric.
“What?” he questions, catching her stare.
“Nothing. I was starting to see the resemblance, that’s all.” She points to the poster for a romance novel featuring a shirtless man on a horse.
It’s a comment meant to detract from the fact that she was staring. She expects he’ll blush and scowl and tell her to stop. He only makes an irritated sound and wanders further into the plethora of books.
Oh yeah, now she remembers…he’s upset with her. His behavior lately has been even colder and more distant than usual. The why is still a mystery. Her heart sinks as he leaves, her mind working overtime to figure out where she went wrong.
It has to be something she said or did, or maybe he’s gotten sick of her like she always thought he would. Vincent said she’s hard to live with, and Wyatt could have realized the truth in that.
Her first worry is that he’s decided to move on from playing house with her in the middle of nowhere. He wouldn’t abandon them, though. Can’t jump to conclusions, except all she’s done is run through a mental Rolodex of terrible outcomes. She wants to come right out and ask him what’s wrong, but that’s a scary prospect.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘Are you done with us yet?’
‘Are you leaving soon?’
All valid questions that could only shove him further away. He doesn’t seem the type to discuss his feelings in plain English, and she isn’t about to nag him. That’s another thing she’s good at, or so she’s been told.
She watches him from the corner of her eye while he flips through various pages. Everything was fine before they bumped into each other in the hall on her way to the bathroom. After that, he’s barely been able to look at her.
Does he know what she’d been thinking somehow? Was it written all over her face that she was throbbing between her legs because of him? Has she made things weird?
“Shit, shit, shit,” she whispers to herself, certain she’s figured it out. There’s not a thing she can do about it now.
“Momma, can I take this one?” Emma shows her a fantasy novel from the young adult section.
“Of course, whatever you can fit in your bag, you can keep.”
That sends Emma off with a smile, ready to collect as many books about horses as she can find. Getting lost in a story might be exactly what she needs at the moment, and this library offers plenty of options.
She’s surprised by how large it is, with two levels and a grand staircase, out of place for a town this small. All their funding must have gone into this building.
Addison’s gaze falls on a book titled The Complete Guide to Golf Cart Maintenance. “Wyatt, what’s a golf cart?”
“Little car. Not street legal. Goes slow.”
“But why would you use that instead of a regular car?”
“It’s only for playing golf.”
“What’s—”
