The Snow Leopard's Baby (Glacier Leopards 2)

“Grape is probably best. Thank you.”

“No problem.” He set down his bags and went to dig through the diaper bag for a bottle.

Once Emily had the bottle clutched in both hands, Leah sat down on the couch with a sigh. “Thanks for this,” she said. “She doesn’t want me to stop walking otherwise. And hopefully this’ll keep her hydrated.”

“Good,” Jeff said. “You hang out there for a second.”

He repurposed a shelf in the hall closet for baby items—the closet wasn’t packed full by any means, since he was just a single guy and the house was definitely too big for him. All of the diapers and wipes and other supplies fit neatly into it.

Once he got everything from the store stowed away, he went back into the kitchen and finished cleaning up in there. When he leaned into the living room to check, Emily was blinking sleepily against Leah’s shoulder, looking like she might conk out at any minute.

Quietly, Jeff ladled out two big bowls of chili and put them on plates with a biscuit each; the biscuits were fortunately still warm. He laid the table, and looked back in on Leah and the baby.

Emily was well and truly asleep now, so Jeff chanced it. “You ready for some dinner?”

Leah looked up, surprised. “I almost forgot about dinner. She’s probably going to have to come with me, though. I think she’ll wake up if I try to put her down.”

“That’s fine,” Jeff said. “Want me to bring it to you?”

But Leah shook her head. “I’ll need a table if I’m eating one-handed.” Slowly and carefully, she got up. Emily stayed asleep as she walked over to the table and sat down. “This looks amazing. It smells amazing.”

“Beef chili with cheddar biscuits,” Jeff said. “Enjoy.”

Leah tucked in with a long sigh. Looking at her, as she closed her eyes in appreciation of the spicy flavor of the chili, eating with one hand and with her sick daughter held protectively in the other, Jeff felt a surge of possessiveness.

This was his family, right here. And he wouldn’t give them up for anything.

***

Leah felt like she was living in a dream.

Jeff had washed Emily’s messy sheets. He’d gone to the store to get medicine for her. He’d cooked dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, and served it up...and it was good, mouthwateringly good. And filling. Exactly what she needed to keep her going with a sick baby to take care of.

She couldn’t help but think about how this night would’ve gone back home. She would have had medicine, she always kept some around, but inevitably there would be something she’d need to get from the store. If there was one thing she’d learned about having a baby, it was that you were always out of what you needed the most at that particular moment.

So she would’ve had to get the sheets in the wash, wrestle a screaming, miserable Emily into her car seat, drive to the store, annoy all the other customers while she grabbed what she needed as quickly as possible, drive home, finally get some medicine into Emily...and then she would’ve been stuck holding her while she fell asleep, and then she would’ve been faced with the dilemma of how to get some food for herself without waking her up again.

As though she’d heard the cue, Emily woke up and started squirming unhappily in her arms.

“Hold on just a minute, baby,” Leah told her. “I know you feel bad, but Mommy needs to finish eating real fast, and then we can walk around again, okay?”

“Let me take her for a few minutes,” Jeff said, standing up. “That way you can focus on your food.”

Leah hesitated. “She’s going to cry. She’ll probably get mad because she wants me.”

Jeff just held out his hands.

Leah handed Emily to him. She immediately started to cry, which tugged hard at Leah’s heart, but she knew that it was better for her to nourish herself so that she could better take care of her daughter. She bent her attention to her food.

And actually, after a few minutes, the crying slowed down. When Leah looked up, she saw Jeff walking with that lightly bouncing pace that Leah herself was intimately familiar with, talking quietly into Emily’s ear. Emily hadn’t quieted down completely, but she was just whining unhappily now, rather than screaming her head off.

She felt herself relax a little bit. She had time to eat. Jeff had it covered.

***

Emily wasn’t going to sleep.

Leah knew it. Even with the medicine, the baby was upset and whining, clearly uncomfortable and unhappy. Every time Leah got her to drift off, she’d sleep for a few minutes, at most half an hour, and then jerk awake again, crying.