The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(42)

She looked up at him, their eyes meeting, and she felt a shiver run down her spine, going all the way to her toes.

“Thanks again,” he said, his voice rough. “I think I’ll head to bed.”

“Okay.”

She just stood there, watching him walk up the stairs. And then she turned around, heading to the door. She put her hand on the doorknob and she thought she might just... Wait. She would just wait.

He might need something. And yes he could call her, but if he needed her right away, she would just still be here. It made sense. It made a perfect kind of sense.

She paced around downstairs for a while, but he didn’t come back.

And after a while, she moved herself into the living room and sat down on the couch. Then she pulled a blanket down from the back of it and lay down. And she realized she was crossing a line. Maybe. But what if he needed her? She would just lie down for a minute. Just a minute.

AN EARSPLITTING WAIL broke Colt out of his sleep.

“Shit,” he said. The events of the day came flooding back to him. He was completely disoriented, he had no sense of time or space. But he remembered the baby. Lily.

Lily.

She was crying. Screaming.

All right. What did babies need when they cried? A diaper or a bottle.

He had never changed a diaper before. He picked her up, and he couldn’t smell anything too intense. She felt slightly damp, and so he knew she would have to be changed. He had an actual changing table set up in the room, and he set her down on the table, unzipping the pajamas that Mallory had put her in before bed. There were wipes and diapers right there. And it couldn’t be that hard.

It turned out, it was hard. And while the baby didn’t stink in a conventional way, there was... A shitstorm. Quite literally. He had used almost an entire package of wipes and had a sweaty brow by the time he was done changing her. It was basically like dressing a fish. And the little thing could hardly move herself with any intention. But still. She managed to stiffen and flop at all the wrong times, and he was just afraid that she might break. He didn’t want to hurt her. So he took it slowly, and she was getting madder and madder. Because you’re hungry.

And finally he gave up on the clothes. He wrapped her up in a blanket as best he could and carried her downstairs. She ought to stay warm enough. But he needed to make a bottle.

And he could only hope that he remembered how to do that. Mallory had showed him, and he knew there were instructions. But he was still a little bit sleep groggy, and there was no telling how much of that he would actually be able to reenact in his current state.

He reached the bottom of the stairs, and nearly jumped back. Because there was someone standing in the living room.

“Colt. Sorry. I...”

“Thank God,” he said. “I can’t get her into the pajamas.”

“I’m glad I stayed then.”

“Do you know how to make a bottle better than I do?”

“I’m not that practiced with bottles. Not that I’ve never done it, but I’m not usually the one handling feedings. And even then, at the age I get them, it’s mostly breastfeeding. Dressing and undressing though... That I can handle. Give her to me.”

And he did. Gladly.

With his hands free, he felt a lot more able to sort out the bottle situation, and he found it wasn’t all that complicated and didn’t take that long. But by the time he was finished, Lily was dressed in a new pair of pajamas and had quieted slightly.

“She likes you,” Colt said.

“I think she likes you just fine.” She was just cranky because she was out of sorts. She held the baby up to him. “Feed her.”

He cleared his throat and took her into the crook of his arm, pressing the bottle up against her lips, surprised when she latched on quickly and easily. She began to drink, making greedy little noises, along with an occasional sigh. His take on babies this size had always been that they basically didn’t do much. But she was an expressive little thing. He had been able to tell when her anger was increasing with him, and he could see now that she took some delight in being fed. It made his lips curve up into a smile.

He held her and fed her, reflexively swaying slightly back and forth.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should’ve left. I was going to. It’s just that I...”

“Rightly got nervous that I wasn’t going to have any idea what I was doing?”

“You look like you’ve got a handle on it.”

“I’ll tell you what. Come up to the guest room. If you don’t mind. I mean... You shouldn’t drive back up to the cabin, and sleeping on the couch isn’t the most comfortable.”

“Thank you,” she said. “And if you need anything... Anything at all.”

“Sure.”

She smiled at him, and he followed her up the stairs, a tightening in his gut as he did. What he really wanted to do was ask her to come to bed with him. And weirdly, it wasn’t even all that sexual of a thought. Right now, for some reason, he just wanted to pull her down onto the soft mattress and hold her close to his body.

He gritted his teeth. “This room right here. It’s set and ready to go. I had all the bedrooms done already. New beds.”

“Hey, be careful. You might end up with a roommate. This place is nicer than the cabin.” She seemed to regret saying that. “No. I’m kidding. Because... Obviously that’s a bad idea. Obviously.”