Facing West (Forever Wilde 1)

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I let Goldie have Adriana’s room when she was here. I slept on the couch.”

“Why didn’t you sleep on the twin bed in the nursery?”

I rolled my eyes. Controlling much? Jesus. He didn’t need to know that I couldn’t sleep near Pippa because I spent the whole night having to mentally breathe for her. Every sound she made was surely her last one, and I’d been convinced she’d died of SIDS two hundred times over already. It was awful.

“Why are you so concerned with where I’m sleeping, Dr. Wilde?”

“I’m not. Forget about it.”

We ate in silence. West held Pippa on his shoulder with one hand while struggling to eat with the other. I finally felt sorry for him and offered to help.

“Let me hold her,” I said, reaching out to lift her off his shoulder.

His arms squeezed her tighter against his body, and I froze. Our eyes met over the bundle of blankets, and I could see remorse in them even though he still seemed reluctant to give her up. I remembered the day of the funeral, how possessive he’d been. It couldn’t be easy to go from being a part of this little girl’s world to not seeing her for several days.

“It’s okay,” I said softly. “I’m just going to hold her so you can eat. I’ll stay right here.”

“Sorry,” he murmured, releasing her to me while he kept his eyes locked on mine. I cradled her on my chest and watched him finally return to eating.

Once he was done, he carefully pulled a sleeping Pippa out of my arms and cradled her against his front as he stood up.

“I’m going to rock her for a bit before putting her in the crib.” He looked at me and seemed to replay his own words in his head. “If that’s okay with you, I mean.”

I wasn’t sure what saying those words had cost him, but it seemed a price he was willing to pay to spend time with Adriana’s daughter. I nodded and watched him make his way back to the nursery.

As I cleaned up our dishes and put away the leftovers, I could just make out his lullaby wafting across the open space between the kitchen and bedroom areas. The sound was low and sonorous, and it brought goose bumps up on my skin. I recognized the words and realized he was singing “Hush Little Baby.” The sound of it in that man’s voice was heartbreakingly beautiful.

I found myself inching closer and closer to the back of the house where the doorway to the nursery stood ajar. My body was close enough to the side wall to keep me hidden, and I stood there letting the sexy rumble wash over me like a warm balm.

As much of an ass as I’d still assumed he was, he sure as hell was sweet to my niece.

God, that baby girl was lucky. For just a moment I fantasized about Weston Wilde blowing soft words into my ear as he lay behind me in bed, pressed against my body with those long, warm limbs tangled in mine. I did not whimper out loud at the thought.

But fuck if I didn’t want to.

Chapter 8

West

As I finished doing my rounds at the small county hospital, I couldn’t stop thinking about Nico Salerno. It had been three days since I’d brought him dinner, and I’d stopped by every night since then on my way home from work to check on Pippa.

Not that Adriana’s house was on my way home. But hopefully he didn’t know I lived above my practice.

Those evening visits had been nice. We’d seemed to have found a neutral zone where we could stop hating each other as long as we didn’t discuss Hobie, Adriana, Pippa, the adoption, our families, or anything else remotely related to how he was doing with the baby. Discussion subjects allowed were work—his tattoo shop in San Francisco and my medical practice here in town, music—his love of retro rock and my love of acoustic guitar, food—both of our preference for anything we didn’t have to cook ourselves, and the weather, of course.

I’d brought him dinner every night, nothing fancy, just something to keep him from having one more thing on his plate. I hadn’t wanted things to get weird between us, and I’d continued offering to look after Pippa so he could catch a break. I could tell the man was losing sleep the way a new parent does, and I tried my best to encourage him to nap when Pippa napped. Unfortunately, he seemed to have a need to prove himself in some way and insisted he was fine.

Of course, I hadn’t believed it for a moment. He was noticeably paler and may have even been losing weight. Dark circles marred his lovely face under his eyes, and he seemed to have trouble concentrating. They were all signs of the sleep deprivation new parents went through in the newborn months. It wasn’t until the night before that I’d actually gotten proof of his exhaustion.