Marriage Without Love & More Than a Convenient Marriage(93)

She held out the infant and Gideon had no choice but to take her so Rowan could retrieve the baby’s bottle.

He held the sturdy little girl’s rib cage between his palms. Her dangling legs wriggled and her tiny hands scratch-tickled his forearms while her doll’s face craned to keep Rowan in view. She was the smallest, most fragile creature he’d ever held and fear that he’d break her made him want to hurriedly hand her back, but Rowan was occupied tipping the bottle to spray milk on her wrist then licking it off.

“I’ve used crutches so many times I can do a full tea service on them without spilling, but I haven’t mastered juggling a baby. Yet.” She smiled cheekily and hopped over to him. “Just rest her in the crook of your arm and—yes, I know you want that. You’re hungry, aren’t you? Uncle’s going to feed you.”

No, I’m not, Gideon thought, but found himself with a weight of soft warmth snuggled onto his forearm. As little Evie got the nipple in her mouth and relaxed, he did too. Her charcoal eyes gazed up at him trustingly and he felt a tug near his heart. Her foot tapped lightly onto his breastbone while she swallowed and breathed heavily with audible greediness. He felt like a superhero, making sure she wasn’t going hungry.

“Shall we sit outside? I hope you’ve been comfortable here?” Rowan led him out of the kitchen to the patio.

“Very,” he assured her, sincere. “You’ll have to let us return the hospitality when our cruise ship launches next year. Now, how do we do this? Do you want to sit and take her—?”

A noise inside the house snapped Rowan’s head around like a guard dog hearing a footstep. “That was Adara into the ladies’ room. I’ll just— Do you mind? I want to make sure Nic...” She was good on crutches, swooping away like a gull, a telling thread of concern in her tone as she disappeared into the house.

He snorted in bemusement, thinking that Nic Marcussen seemed the least likely man in the universe to require a mother hen for a wife, but apparently he had one.

While Gideon was literally left holding the baby.

He looked down at the girl, surprised to see how much of the bottle she’d drained. As her bright gaze caught his, Evie broke away from the teat to give him an ear-to-ear milky grin of joy and gratitude and trust.

A laugh curled upward from deep in his chest, surprising him with how instant and genuine his humor was. Little minx. They learned early how to disarm a man, didn’t they? He was in very real danger of falling in love at first sight.

* * *

Adara wiped at her still-leaking eyes and tried to pull herself together so Gideon wouldn’t worry. He had been right. It was okay. Nico was and always had been her big brother in every way that counted. Nevertheless, her heart was cracking open under the pressure of deep feeling. She desperately craved the arms of her husband to cushion her from the sensation of rawness.

As she went in search of him outside, she saw him settling into a chair at the patio table, his back to her. Biting her lips together, she tried not to burst into happy tears as she stepped through the door and moved to his side—

—where she found him holding a baby, smiling indulgently at the infant as if the tot was the most precious thing in the world.

The kick of pain blindsided her. For a second she was paralyzed by the crash back to the reality of their imperfect life, winded so much she wasn’t able to move, let alone retreat, before Gideon glanced up and saw the devastated expression on her face.

If he’d been caught with Lexi in flagrante delicto, he couldn’t have looked more culpable. It wouldn’t have hurt this badly.

“She’s on crutches. The baby was hungry. I couldn’t say no,” he defended quickly while his arm moved in the most subtly protective way to draw the baby closer to his chest. In the way of a natural father sheltering his young.

At the same time, his free hand shot out to take Adara’s arm in an unbreakable grip.

“You look like you’re going to fall down. Sit.” He half rose, used one foot to angle a chair for her and maneuvered her into it.

Adara’s legs gave out as she sank into the chair. She buried her face in her hands and frantically reminded herself that her emotions were pushed to the very edge of endurance right now. The bigger picture here wasn’t that he was stealing an opportunity to cuddle a baby because she couldn’t give him one. He was getting to know their niece.

Longing rose in her as she made that connection and a different, more tender kind of emotion filled her, sweet with the layers of reunion   with family that had driven her here in the first place. She lifted her head and held out her hands.