Anxiety: Hey, let’s get upset over nothing and push people away and be weird about stuff, okay?
Mark ignored his exhaustion at work. It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d been gritty-eyed through an entire shift. Luckily the worst he had to deal with was a couple of belligerent hitchhikers on the highway and a drunk trying to break into a grocery store.
Not exactly an adrenaline-filled shift.
But thanks to zero sleep the night before, by the time he got home, he was ready for food and bed, in either order. But his life didn’t lend itself to fulfilling his own needs very often and today was no different. He knew from the slew of texts he’d gotten all day that River and the baby were home and his entire family was abuzz with excitement. No one cared that River wasn’t a Capriotti. When the Capriottis fell for someone, they gathered them in and treated them as their own.
And that’s just what they’d done with Lanie and River, whether the two women liked it or not.
And Lanie didn’t. Or at least she didn’t trust it.
Or him.
He wanted to prove her wrong. Wanted to prove that she could, and had, fallen for this family, this place, and him—since he’d most definitely fallen for her no matter what he’d promised himself.
But he had no idea where she stood. For a guy who’d put his life on the line and trusted his instincts on the job, he actually wasn’t sure of anything when it came to Lanie.
Inside the house, everyone was hovering and helping with the baby, and after being home for a couple of hours and taking in the goings-on, he realized something not all that surprising.
Lanie was doing everything in her power to not hold the baby.
After he’d gotten Sam and Sierra into the tub, Mia showed up with something called a bath bomb and took over, so he left them to it. He made his way into the huge living room where Alyssa, his mom, his grandma, and River were sitting on the couch, staring in loving marvel at the baby asleep in a little bassinet in front of them.
“I just want to eat her up,” Cora said.
“Nibble on her fingers and toes,” Grandma said.
“Me too,” Alyssa said with a laugh as she cupped her hands protectively over her own baby swaddled to her chest. “She makes my ovaries ache.”
Lanie was standing near the ceiling-to-floor windows, looking out into the night.
“How about you?” he asked, coming up next to her. “Your ovaries aching?”
She didn’t take her eyes away from the window. “I think mine might be defective.” She met his gaze in the glass, still not turning to face him. “Do you look at a baby and wish you had one?”
“I’ve already had two.”
“I mean . . . do you ever want more?”
He could tell by her sudden stillness how very important his answer was to her. Reaching out, he ran a hand up her back, trying to soothe, even though he wasn’t one hundred percent sure what was wrong. “My life feels full with what I have,” he admitted. “And only a few months ago, I’d have said I’ve no need for anything more.”
At this, she turned and faced him. “And now?”
He smiled into her worried eyes and gave her the utter truth. “Things have changed. I’ve learned that life is a crapshoot, and at any moment someone can walk into it and change it forever.”
She closed her eyes. “Don’t,” she whispered.
He started to ask her Don’t what? but from behind him the baby began to cry at the same moment the twins came into the room wearing nothing but wet towels from their bath.
“Hey,” Mia said, coming in behind them. “I’m looking for two cutie-pie escape artists, has anyone seen them?”
The twins giggled and the baby wailed louder, scrunching up her eyes and waving angry fists.
“I’ll get her,” Alyssa said.
“Wait,” River said, holding out a hand to stop Alyssa from getting up. She smiled over at Lanie. “You haven’t had a turn to hold her at all. Don’t you want—”
“I’ve got it,” Lanie said.
Mark glanced over in surprise, as he knew damn well she hadn’t so much as looked at the baby, much less touched her.
She moved away from the window and . . . went straight for his kids. She scooped up a giggling Sierra in one arm and then Samantha in the other arm. With the girls grinning from ear to ear, she swept them out of the room.
“One of these days,” he could hear Lanie saying as they vanished down the hall, “I’d love to hear what your objection to bedtime is. Because that’s my personal favorite time of the day.”
River met his gaze, her own worried.
“Lanie’s just amazing,” Cora said. “So sweet and kind and helpful. Whatever’s needed, we can always count on her.”
Mark nodded. “She is amazing,” he agreed, because she was.
An amazing actress too, as she was hiding in plain sight, doing to River and the baby exactly what her parents had done to her—freezing them out. And no one, least of all him, could blame her.