Southern Playboy (North Carolina Highlands 4)

“No,” he says at last in his high-pitched toddler voice, and the three of us adults burst into mostly relieved, slightly nervous laughter.

Rhett’s wiping away tears with the crook of his thumb, sniffing as he stares at his son. Is Rhett thinking about everything he’s about to gain? Or is he still dwelling on everything he’s going to lose?

Probably a little bit of both.

I don’t want to ruin the moment. But I also know Rhett could use a little backup at this point. So introduce myself to Natasha as Liam’s nanny, and then I turn to Liam himself.

Using my best teacher voice, I smile and lean down, flattening my palms on my thighs. “Hi, Liam, I’m Amelia. Can you tell me who that is?” I point at his lovey.

Liam is looking at me. His eyes are wide, the expression in them uncertain.

“Tell Amelia who you’re holding,” Natasha says. “That’s Pup Pup, right?”

Liam buries his head in Natasha’s leg. “Pup Pup,” he says, the words muffled.

“Would you and Pup Pup like to come play? We have lots of new toys.”

“So many toys,” Rhett adds.

Liam looks back at his father. Turns his head to study me.

“Toys,” he says.

“Yes, sir,” I reply. “We have a slide, and a shopping cart with all kinds of food to put in it, and a school bus—”

“Bus!” Liam turns his head to look at me. “Bus! Bus!”

I glance at Natasha. “I take it he’s a fan of Wheels on the Bus?”

“Oh yeah,” she replies. “That, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

I straighten and hold out my hand. “Liam, would you like to come play with the school bus? You can bring Pup Pup too.”

Liam doesn’t take my hand, but he does look up at Natasha and say, “Bus.”

“All right then. Let’s go play with your new bus.”

Natasha leads Liam inside. Rhett closes the door behind them and lifts his arm to wipe his nose on his sleeve.

“Hey.” I nudge him with my elbow. “You’re doing great.”

He offers me a tight smile. “I’m not, but I appreciate you saying that.”

“Did you or your son try to kill each other yet?”

He blinks. “No?”

“There you go.” I pat him on the shoulder. “You’re already doing better than Darth Vader.”

“He’s not that hard to beat.” Rhett thinks about this for a minute. “But he probably doesn’t know the words to Wheels on the Bus.”

“You do?”

“Hank plays it all the time for Maisie.”

I grin. “See? No one on the Dark Side sings—you always did have a nice voice. Me, on the other hand . . .”

“Atrocious.” He manages a grin too. “C’mon, Jabba. Remind me just how terrible it is.”

Chapter Ten

Rhett

The poop happens the second Natasha leaves.

Thanks to a show called Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, she was able to slip out without upsetting Liam, leaving the three of us—him, Amelia, me—on the floor of my family room. Liam is standing entirely too close to the TV, head tilted all the way back as he stares at Mickey and Minnie singing a pretty painful song about pancakes.

Liam has these nubby knees and big, square hands. His hair is straight, a little unruly, just like mine was at that age. He’s not a towhead with the almost white hair Milly had as a kid, but he’s definitely blond, and he’s definitely a Beauregard.

I can’t stop staring. The lump in my throat refuses to budge as I wonder if he’ll be tall, like Beau and Samuel, or on the shorter side, like Hank and me.

One minute, he’s stomping a foot in time to the pancake song.

The next, Liam is bending his knees into this half-squat thing, going completely still as his eyes flick to meet mine.

His little face turns red. He grunts and starts to shake, and I don’t know whether to laugh or call an ambulance.

“He’s all right.” Amelia puts a hand on my forearm, presumably to keep me from leaping into action and performing the Heimlich maneuver (yes, Beau hooked me up with an infant and toddler CPR class, where I was able to practice the Heimlich on a plastic dummy even scarier than Dwight’s on The Office). “I think he’s just going to the bathroom.”

My heart dips. One thing I haven’t been able to practice? Changing a diaper.

“Please tell me it’s just a number one,” I say, even as I get a whiff of something that doesn’t smell promising.

Amelia’s lips twitch. “Hate to break it to you, but I think we’re looking at a number two situation.”

“Already?”

“Just you wait.” She laughs. “The amount of poop in your life just increased exponentially.”

“Poop,” Liam repeats, and then his eyes are on the TV again.

Amelia pushes up to standing. “Is that what you have in your diaper, little man?”

My eyes, traitorous bastards, flick to her legs. They’re bare—she’s wearing denim shorts—and they are long, all smooth skin and lean muscle, light catching on the fine hair on her thighs.