Tabby retreated behind her wall of reserve. “See that you do.” Sweeping to her feet, she collected her handbag. “Please return the diaper bag the next time we have visitation.” She didn’t bother waiting for an answer, but stalked away without a backward glance.
“Let’s get out of here,” Lucius said. “Are you okay with Mikey?”
“If you’ll grab the diaper bag, I’m fine.” She traced her hand across the baby’s soft dark curls. “It’s so noisy here, I can’t believe he’s fallen asleep again.”
“He’s a good kid, just like his dad.” After making sure Mikey was protected against the elements, they exited the emergency room and headed for the car. Lucius hit the remote to disengage the locks. “Did she buy the engagement?” he asked, shooting Angie a searching glance.
“Seemed to.”
“Let’s see if we can’t find a way to shift that to ‘completely sold’ on the concept.” He took Mikey and slipped him into the car seat with the ease of three months’ worth of practice. Angie watched carefully while he took care of the various buckles, committing the process to memory in case she was called on to do it in the future. “Let’s get home. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.”
The return trip didn’t take long. Mikey woke up just as they were parking the car, his whimpers increasing to wails with each passing minute. The instant they reached the foyer, Lucius inclined his head in the direction of the kitchen. “He sounds hungry. I’ll warm up a bottle.”
“I’ll check his diaper and get him ready for bed.”
“His bedroom is opposite mine. Ours,” he corrected himself. “You’ll find everything you need in there.”
She located the room without any trouble. Before Mikey’s advent it had been used as an office. A crib occupied one corner of the room, while a huge mahogany desk had been transformed into a changing table, the surface boxed in with a wooden topper to prevent the baby from rolling off. His pitiful wails eased off the instant she stripped him of his sopping disposable diaper. She’d have been a bit more uncertain about the process if she hadn’t had the opportunity to help out with Mikey’s care over the past dozen weeks. She hadn’t been called on to assist often, just enough to refresh her memory from her babysitting days. With luck, Lucius wouldn’t pick up on the fact that she wasn’t quite as experienced as her résumé claimed.
To her amusement, she found sleepwear in a gorgeous mahogany file cabinet that matched the desk, clearly repurposed to serve as Mikey’s dresser. Fighting flailing limbs, she managed to get him snapped together. Then she scooped him up and carried him into the living room.
A couple minutes later, Lucius entered with a baby bottle. “Want me to take him?”
“I don’t mind feeding him.” She took a seat on the couch and smiled down at Mikey. “I don’t often get the chance.”
“That’s about to change.” He tested the temperature of the milk a final time and handed her the bottle. “A lot of things are about to change.”
Mikey latched onto the nipple and she chuckled at his greedy enthusiasm. “At least we got the hard part over with. Now that the Ridgeways know about our engagement, maybe they’ll hold off suing for custody.”
He turned off the overhead lights, allowing the illumination from the city to bathe the room in a soft glow. “They might hold off. Especially if we follow it with a wedding as soon as possible.”
It took a moment for his words to penetrate. The instant they did, her head jerked up and she looked across the room at him. He stood in front of the bank of windows that marched along one full wall of the room, his forearm braced against the glass. He kept his back to her while he stared out at the city. Even though his stance gave the impression of casual indifference, she caught a line of tension sweeping across his shoulders and a dangerous stillness that usually came before the predatory pounce.
“As soon as possible?” she repeated uneasily. “What sort of time frame are we looking at?”
He shrugged, a swift, restless movement. “Days. No more than a week or so.”
Angie lifted the baby to her shoulder and rubbed his back, struggling to pinpoint the quality in his voice that sounded off. “Why the rush?” she asked.
He turned to face her. Even then she couldn’t read him, his expression buried within the thick shadows consuming the room. “I want this tied up. A done deal.”