Page 45 of Jay Bird

Except attraction wasn’t the part making him dangerous to her peace of mind. It was Lily and the sippy cup he had remembered to fill, the toddler fork he had somehow located, the way he automatically wiped syrup from her fingers before she could smear it across the table, and the way her daughter looked at him without even a trace of fear. That was what Willow couldn’t stop noticing.

“Did you sleep okay?” Jay Bird asked.

She looked up. “I did. Your bed is amazing.”

His eyebrows lifted. “My bed?”

“Oh, God.” She immediately shook her head. “Not your bed. Obviously I don’t know anything about your bed. I meant the bed I slept in, which is technically your bed because you own the house.”

His mouth twitched.

Willow wanted the floor to swallow her. “I’m going to stop talking now.”

“Jay funny,” Lily squealed as she shoved a piece of pancake into her mouth.

“Don’t encourage him,” Willow muttered.

Jay Bird looked extremely pleased with himself.

A moment later, he nodded toward Lily. “By the way, she came prepared when she escaped this morning.”

“What does that mean?”

“The bag she dragged out had pull-ups and clothes in it.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep. So we handled business. Changed her pull-up, brushed her teeth, and tried to do something with her hair.”

Willow’s eyes went to Lily. Now that she wasn’t panicking, Willow finally took a closer look at her daughter and noticed her hair had been gathered into a slightly crooked ponytail that leaned noticeably to the left.

Willow pressed her lips together. “You did her hair?”

Jay Bird looked mildly offended. “I attempted her hair. There’s a difference.”

She laughed.

He gestured toward Lily’s clothes. “She picked the outfit.”

It was a really cute outfit. Dark green shorts decorated with tiny pink elephants and a white shirt trimmed in matching green with a larger pink elephant across the front. Lily looked ready for a very fashionable safari.

Willow smiled and pointed at Lily’s shirt. “Look at you.”

Lily immediately beamed. “Ell-fant!”

“I see that.”

“Pink!”

“Very pink.”

“She was committed to that one,” Jay Bird said.

Willow looked across the table at him. Then felt the familiar words leave her mouth before she could stop them.

“Thank you.”

Jay Bird immediately leaned back in his chair.