Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(93)

This baby might not have been born mine, but he’s mine in every way that counts.

He’s mine in my heart.

Just like the woman standing guard at his crib.

“Daisy. Go to bed. I’ll keep watch.”

I can hear the exhaustion in my own voice, but I know that’s not why she shakes her head.

She feels the responsibility every bit as much as I do.

The guilt.

The remnants of the fear.

The knowledge that if we hadn’t realized he was gone as fast as we did, tonight could’ve ended very, very differently.

I won’t convince her to go to bed.

And so I do the next best thing, and I wrap my arms around her, and I stand there with her.

For the rest of the night.

Keeping watch.

I think Daisy might actually fall asleep on her feet for a while, but when the first light of dawn breaks through her gauzy curtains, she straightens and pulls back with a look of sheer determination on her face that makes my heart stop.

And not in a good way.

“Daisy?”

“I need to shower. And get to work. Can you—can you not let him out of your sight?” Her voice cracks.

“It’s Sunday.”

“Please.”

“Daisy—”

“Please.”

No, my heart screams.

Because I know this look. This is the look of a woman pulling away.

“This wasn’t your fault,” I tell her as she walks to the bathroom.

“I know.”

“Daisy—”

“I know, West. I know. I’m not the psycho who plotted to murder her own daughter-in-law, and I’m not the psycho asshole who paid someone to kidnap a baby as a life prize. I know, okay? I know.”

I let her go, because I don’t have any more good arguments to keep her.

And half an hour later, when she emerges from the bathroom, and I’m feeding Remy a bottle in the rocking chair, she kisses me softly on the cheek, then kisses him seven times on his head and cheeks.

And it feels like a fucking goodbye.

I tell myself it’s not.

That she needs time to process.

Hell, I need time to process.

Sleep would help.

Her, I mean. I don’t need sleep. I’m a fucking Marine.

A retired Marine whose mother isn’t even the fussiest person to fuss over me this morning when Remy and I make our way to the kitchen for breakfast.

No, that designation goes to Helene.

She looks like she hasn’t slept either, and she insists on making me an omelet, then plain scrambled eggs when the omelet turns out like shit, and then asks for my to-go order from Carbs ’n Coffee since she actually can’t cook.

Her words.

My sisters won’t give me enough space.

And I’m okay with that this morning.

We video chat with Tyler, who’s on a plane back to Virginia. All of his teammates—all of them—insist on seeing Remy for themselves, which results in all of my nieces and nephews insisting on talking to all the hockey players, and Daisy’s kitchen turns into one big massive pit of noise that I love as much as I hate.

We spend almost all day in there.

And because I’m not a fool, I give her space.

Daisy’s not in the house. Helene says she went to her office.

She hugs me.

A lot.

I tell myself that’s not a sign, but come on.

I’ve done this dance before.

I know when a woman’s gotten skittish.

But I don’t know how to fix this. Promise Daisy it’ll never happen again? I can’t. Neither of us can physically keep an eye on Remy twenty-four hours a day.

I can call in friends, but she has a seven-person security team here already.

We can’t post a guard on him his entire life.

He needs freedom. Room to grow. To explore.

And he can’t get that so long as the Rodericks are a threat. The police confirmed that the kidnapper named Anthony Roderick as the man who hired him. Anthony Roderick, the asshole who once made Daisy so uncomfortable—she hasn’t told me that story yet—that he was already on the list of people not allowed in Bluewater. Anthony Roderick, who’s a free man, hiding somewhere that the law can’t reach him.

Which means the only thing I can do is end the threat.

I know how to end a threat.

I’ve been ending threats for twenty years.

Daisy’s friends drop by mid-afternoon with their boyfriends, and while they all coo and fuss over the baby—yes, all of them—I jerk my head at Jude.

He and I have a few things in common.

“Plan?” he says without preamble when we step to the side of the sunken sitting room.

“Getting there. I’m not having my kid grow up in danger from nutjobs.”

“I’m in.”

He pulls out a phone and texts someone.

On one of the couches, Derek looks up from the baby, checks his phone, then nods to Jude.

Fuckers.

“Cut me out and I’ll disassemble Cam’s golf cart,” I mutter to him.

“You know I’d feed your balls to Steve if you so much as try.”

“Have to catch me first.”

Keely leaps over to me and tackles me with a hug before Jude can answer. “I don’t want to go tomorrow. I miss you, you big overbearing monkey.”