What the hell did I think I was doing?
I'd gone into this with my usual fake confidence, thinking sure I could raise a kid. Millions of women popped out babies every year. Why would I have a problem with it? And look, I'd almost gotten Skylar killed.
I sobbed even harder, my chest heaving. I had to pull my hand free of Skylar's incubator and bury my face in both my palms to muffle the gut-wrenching sounds so I wouldn't wake her.
She was here, like this, because I was unfit, because-
"Hey," a cheerful voice interrupted my pity party. "Well, looks who's up and out of bed already."
He sounded so relieved and happy. I turned to look up at Pick. He stood in the doorway with the biggest grin and a pink gift bag dangling from his hand. When he saw my face, his smile dropped flat.
"What's wrong? Skylar?" He dropped the bag as he hurried to the incubator.
The worry on his face warmed my heart and helped calm my tears. "No, she's okay. Getting better every day."
A heavy sigh escaped him as he set his hand on the clear plastic separating him from my daughter. "Thank God."
I blinked, still in awe over how worried he'd been. "How did you get back here?" They hadn't even allowed Reese into the NICU. She still had to look at Skylar through the window in the hall.
"Being a flirt comes in handy sometimes." He finally turned to me and winked. "The nurses love me." His grin was brief though. His worry returned almost immediately as he reached down to pluck me out of the chair. "Now what're all these tears about? You're looking better, by the way. The yellow skin and swollen face scared the shit out of me."
I didn't realize he was going to sit me in his lap until he was already settling me into place. I felt even younger, and stupider than I had when I'd started my crying jag. A silly little girl needing to sit on a nice comforting lap to get over herself.
"I don't know," I mumbled, wiping the drops off my cheeks and feeling lame. "I'm just so . . . overwhelmed." Along with scared, worried, lost, unsure-ugh! What had happened to the cocky Eva Mercer I'd been a year ago? I'd take a nice, big dose of her right now.
Pick chuckled and kissed my forehead, stirring up a nest of butterflies in my stomach. Or maybe it was the staples in the C-section cut that created such a sensation, except I really couldn't feel much in that area. Awesome drugs and all.
Unable to help myself I plunked my head onto his nice, wide comforting shoulder. I mean, he was offering it. I couldn't resist. And it felt good, so amazingly good to let someone hold me for a minute.
"I'm sorry," I started, sniffing up the end of my tears. "Just ignore me. I-"
"No, I will not ignore you. I will never ignore you. You have every reason in the world to have a freak-out moment. Fuck, you just gave birth. That alone would put enough strain on anyone's emotions. Tristy cried for three weeks straight after Julian was born."
I'm sure if he'd looked at me in that second, he would've seen a frown line appear between my eyes. I really didn't want to hear about his wife right now, not when I was snuggled on his lap, letting him comfort me and wishing things from him that he could never give. But I guess it didn't bother me enough to slide off him. It would take the Jaws of Life to get me off Patrick Ryan's lap.
I ran my finger over a tattoo of a cat face on his forearm as he kept talking.
"But look at what else you've had piled on top of that. I don't know all of it, but what I do know seems like a lot of shit. It'd certainly break me down if I were in your shoes." He kissed my temple this time. "You don't have to be brave and strong all the time, Tink."
My lips fluttered with amusement. "You're never going to get over that nickname, are you? A girl wears Tinker Bell on her shirt one time-"
"Embrace it." He grinned before nuzzling his nose against my temple. "Not everyone can pull off the Tink image."
My smile bloomed wider. Petting the cat's ears, I asked, "Does this one mean anything? The cat tattoo?"
He glanced down. "Of course. They all mean something. I don't get random images tattooed on my skin for no reason at all."
He sounded defensive enough for me to glance up. "Then why do you?"
With a shrug, he glanced at the cat face. "I grew up in foster care from birth to eighteen. I didn't stay at the same place but a couple years each, if that long. And you learn young that the rules change from house to house. You don't always get to bring much with you wherever you go next. And you don't always get to keep what you bring. Forget photos or sentimental knickknacks. It's just you and the skin on your back. So if I ever wanted to keep a memory of anything, I just-"
"Tattooed it into your skin," I finished for him. Studying him in a new light, I glanced back at the cat. "Was that cat your first pet?"
"Only pet," he corrected with a grin in his voice. "Actually, it wasn't really a pet at all. It was just some mangy alley cat. A stray that came by our place. I snuck out some food to it, and it kept coming back. After a while, it let me pet it while it was eating. It never let anyone else in the neighborhood come near it."
I smiled, liking that story. "What'd you name him?"
He sent me an irritated look. "He was a wild stray. You don't name strays."
Something in his narrowed brown eyes made me nudge him lightly with my elbow. "Whatever. You so named him. Now spill."
With a sigh, he leaned his head back and stared up at the ceiling before mumbling, "It's stupid."
That only made me like him more. "I don't care. Tell me."
"Shakespeare," he said, rolling his eyes. "I named him Shakespeare."
Aww. There I went, liking him even more. I touched his chin, loving the way his rough jaw scraped against my fingers. I wanted to touch the metal hoops in his lip next, but managed to restrain myself. "You were a daydreamer, weren't you?"
His voice was dry and still full of irritation as he grumbled, "If you knew how many fights I've gotten into over the years, you wouldn't think that."
"Bet I would. I've seen why you get into fights. It's frankly shocking I don't see a hero cape inked anywhere on here." I scrolled my fingertips up toward his elbow. "I can only imagine how many other damsels in distress you've saved over the years."
"Ha ha," he muttered.
I grinned. "My daughter and I have our lives to thank you for, Patrick. I'm not just going to forget that."
He stared at me, and something thunked heavily into my stomach. My breasts tingled and I seriously don't think it was my milk coming in.
"Why do you call me Patrick so much?" he whispered.
"Because it's your name," I whispered back, not even daring to breathe. The glaze in his eyes told me he wanted to kiss me. And, oh hell, I wanted to kiss him back.
But he glanced away toward Skylar.
"Only social workers and teachers ever called me Patrick."
The moment was growing too deep. Remembering I was sitting on a married guy's lap, I refrained from pushing the issue. I didn't ask whether or not he liked me calling him that. Instead, I focused on another tattoo of a plant. "What about this one? What does this stand for?"
"My favorite foster mother. She liked to garden."
We went through the list, from his wrist to his shoulder, going over the meaning behind each tattoo. I sighed wistfully after he explained the one symbolizing the first car engine he rebuilt from the ground up. I liked knowing what mattered most to him.
"I'd like to get a tattoo someday," I said thoughtfully, knowing exactly what mattered most to me as I gazed at my daughter.
"You will." Pick traced his finger delicately along the bare patch of skin behind my left ear. "Right here. You're going to get my name."
I rolled my eyes, fighting back a smile because I knew I shouldn't encourage his flirtatious attitude. "Always so sure of yourself, aren't you?"
He grinned. "Of course. I don't say shit I don't mean."
He sounded awfully serious about that. But I shook my head and finally let a smile seep out. Resting my head back on his shoulder, I continued to outline the pictures on his arm with my fingernail. "Your wife would probably kill me if she knew I was letting you hold me like this."
"Nah." He leaned in and buried his nose in my hair. As I listened to him inhale deeply, something tight and foreign wrapped around my stomach. "She's not like that."
Well, maybe she should be, because I wasn't feeling friendly companionship for him just now. Experiencing something so much deeper, I opened my mouth to argue. Accepting, non-jealous wife or not, this was still wrong. He belonged to someone else. I shouldn't let him keep coming to my rescue. It might not mean so much to him, but to me, it meant way more than I knew it should.
"In any case," I said, letting the issue drop so he wouldn't know just how much I was crushing on him. "I really appreciate you being here and talking me off my crying jag. You always know when to show up at just the right time to save me."