“Hey, baby,” he greeted, giving her a soft kiss, making both of us gag. Shooting a glare over his shoulder and ignoring Lily’s snort, he leaned down to his sleeping daughter. “Hey, angel face.”
Now that wasn’t an exaggeration. Somehow, both of my brother’s daughters were angel faces, regardless of the devil spawn who’d sired them. I’d been certain that they’d be born with horns and a tail, but they looked like miniature Disney princesses. Hell, I even had a photo of Jamie holding a silver bangle over her head like a halo, taken when she was only three weeks old.
She’d been having some photos taken by a professional photographer, and I’d had the idea to get her to hold the bangle – which I’d given to Luna for her birthday – thinking it would look cute in her tiny fist. When she’d raised her arm and bent it so her hand was over her head and the bangle had looked like a halo, phones had come out of everyone’s pockets so that they could catch the moment, and the photographer had kept her finger on the button of her camera praying loudly at least one photo turned out well.
“Thought I’d come and check in on you, and it seems it’s just as well I did,” Lily told him, moving further into the room and passing Rebel to Archer. “Go see your uncle, baby. He needs precious loves because your daddy’s an ass.”
Glaring at her, Tate snapped, “Hey!” You might think it was because of the insult that had just been lobbed his way, but it was because she’d passed his daughter to his brother and not him that was the problem.
Archer turned so his shoulder blocked him when he went to reach for her. “Get your own.”
“She is my own,” he growled.
“Then don’t be so selfish and learn to share.”
Sitting down in the chair her husband had just vacated, Lily shook out her arms. “She might not weigh a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but man alive my arms are aching.”
“Maybe it’s because of the man-sized child standing sulking behind you,” I suggested, looking pointedly over her shoulder at where he was still glaring at our brother.
Following where I was looking, she called, “Tate, come and sit down and let him cuddle his niece for Pete’s sake.”
It’s funny how a saying like ‘Pete’s sake’ can make you cringe, isn’t it? Well, that’s what it made me do when she said it, remembering the guy who’d been attached to Charlotte the last time I’d seen her.
Actually, it hadn’t been the last time I’d seen her – that was the morning after it when I’d woken up and found her sleeping next to me in my bed. I’d rolled over and tugged her closer to me and had fallen straight back to sleep. When I’d woken up, though, she’d been gone, and I hadn’t heard from her since.
It had only been a couple of days, but I felt like a part of me was missing. We’d gone from sending texts regularly – and as often as we could with our jobs – to complete silence. And I didn’t like it.
Fortunately, Tate was stubborn to a fault, and always had been – in fact, if I was honest, we all were – so he distracted me from my sulking.
Shooting one last glare at Archer, he turned and his face changed completely as he looked softly at his wife, before walking over and sitting down in the chair next to where she was. When that wasn’t enough, he scooped her out of her chair, and lowered her into his lap, holding her close to him.
“How are you feeling?” he murmured into her hair.
It had taken all of us days to get over it the first time we’d seen him acting like this with Lily. Tate was the joker and the one who lived life to the max in the family. So seeing him soft and tender with her? Yeah, that had taken some time and a couple of shots to get our heads around.
It also hadn’t helped that the first time I’d truly been an asshole in my life had been with Lily when we’d found out she was pregnant, and I’d pretty much called bullshit on it being his baby. I knew she’d forgiven me for it, but I still hadn’t forgiven myself. I hadn’t even gotten past the feeling that I’d let Luna down, so I was pretty sure the guilt of what I’d done to both women was going to be with me for life.
“I’m good,” she mumbled, practically curling around him. “Just tired.”
I knew Rebel was having issues sleeping at night - like most newborn babies - and even my brother looked exhausted just now.
“Why don’t we watch her for an hour or two, and y’all go home and have a nap?” I suggested, ignoring the panicked look Archer shot me. “I’m looking over these for a while,” I gestured at the paperwork, “and Archer has some calls to make to the office, so we’ll be fine.”