“I’m so sorry,” Zach told Tessa. All the joy he’d been feeling crashed into despair. “Can I help?”
Tessa was sweet enough to smile at him. “Believe me, it’s not the first time. She’ll be fine.”
But Sophia had gone from happy-go-lucky to blubbering blob in mere seconds. And Zach felt helpless. With soft reassurances to Sophia, Tessa walked her into the bedroom and the bathroom beyond. Zach stared at the tea and ice cubes on the cream carpet. Right now, Zach might cry too if he’d had a bucket of ice water tossed on him.
The dark brown liquid seeping into the light carpet registered. “Shit.”
He jumped to his feet and searched the small kitchen for towels, then sopped up the mess on the rug. He’d gone through all the towels he could find by the time Tessa and Sophia came into the living room again. Sophia was wearing what looked like one of Tessa’s T-shirts, which would have hung down to Sophia’s feet if Tessa hadn’t tied a knot in one side. She carried Pegasus by one hoof.
“Thank you for doing that,” Tessa told Zach, then tapped Sophia’s diapered butt. “On the couch. We’ll watch a little of the Minions before you go to bed.” She took the soaked towels from Zach and lifted her chin toward the sofa. “Cuddle with your girl. I’ll get this.”
Zach moved to the sofa, and Sophia looked up at him, her whole expression drawn and weepy. “I’m so sorry, baby,” he told her. “I didn’t know the glass would tip.”
She sniffled, her mood subdued. “Mommy gave me her sparkly kitty shirt.”
She held out the shirt to show a stylized cat rimmed in rhinestones.
“Wow, that’s pretty fancy. Is Pegasus okay?”
“Yeah. All clean.” She patted the sofa. “Sit. You like Minions?”
Zach had no idea what she was talking about, but said, “I love Minions.”
“Mommy is putting them on for us.”
Zach had suddenly turned right back into the bundle of nerves he’d been when he’d walked in hours ago. The fact that this little creature could go from chipper and fun to a life-as-we-know-it-is-over meltdown unnerved him. Now he was just waiting to make another mistake to send her into the screaming zone.
But he sat, and when Tessa turned on the TV and punched a few buttons on the remote, the little yellow guys filled the screen, and Sophia smiled and told Zach, “Minions.”
“Minions,” he agreed.
Then she crawled close to him, snuggling up to his side with Pegasus clutched tight. Zach’s apprehension melted in a deep, overwhelming kind of love he couldn’t begin to explain. A love like nothing he’d ever even known existed.
Sophia held out her hand opening and closing her fist. “Come, Mommy.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” she said, sitting on the other side of Sophia and smiling at Zach before tickling the girl.
Sophia’s giggle brightened a spot deep in Zach’s chest. “I not Your Highness.”
“You sure act like it.” She pressed a kiss to Sophia’s head. “Now settle down. Even princesses need sleep.”
As Sophia snuggled between them, Tessa met Zach’s gaze. Her smile was soft and melancholy. And Zach experienced something foreign but powerful. He couldn’t define the feelings rolling toward the forefront. Not exactly. A lot of gratitude and affection, but something more, something he didn’t feel often. Admiration? Awe? He could face hundred-foot walls of crushing water with an attitude of unquestionable dominance, but this three-foot, pint-sized female mystified him. A little potential hellion that Tessa had molded into a thoughtful, grateful, compassionate angel.
He reached out and stroked his fingers down Tessa’s cheek, but the best he could come up with was “Thank you.”
She covered his hand with hers for a moment, holding it against her cheek. Then something happened on TV that made Sophia laugh, and the spell was broken.
Zach spent the next twenty minutes watching Tessa and Sophia, while Tessa and Sophia watched the Minions. All he could think of was the way Josh had talked about wanting a kid with Grace. “I love the idea of that cementing force of my own family. Of working with Grace as a team toward something we both cherish. It’s…I don’t know, grounding or something.”
Or something was right. Zach was experiencing exactly what Josh had described. Something he hadn’t even known existed until this moment. Now, Zach found himself wanting the same. He didn’t want to lose this. But he didn’t even know what do with it. Let alone how to hold on to it.
These two females were like riptides. They’d snuck up on him, grabbed hold, and dragged him under.
What a crazy, beautiful mess this had become.
Zach would never have believed he could fall in love instantly, but the little angel slouched between them already had him wrapped around her finger. Only a few hours with her and Zach couldn’t imagine living without her. And he was terrified to admit he was already halfway gone over Tessa too. The way she interacted with Sophia, the obvious and pure love she had for the girl, turned Zach’s heart over in his chest.
Tessa had been texting off and on for the last twenty minutes and seemed to grow more agitated with each message. After she finished the latest text, he lifted his hand from the back of the sofa and stroked it down her hair. She glanced over at him.