Footsteps thunder down the hall as I reply, Valid. Later. Gotta go.

I shove my cell in my pocket just as Crissy slides to a stop in her socked feet in front of me and thrusts her arms out to the sides, “I’m a bat!”

I take in her outfit—black leggings and a black sweater with a silky black cape she’s attached to her wrists with pink hair elastics to form wings—and grin. “You are. And I’m jealous. If I’d known we were wearing costumes, I would have grabbed my kangaroo onesie. It has a pouch to put my cell phone in and everything.”

Crissy giggles. “That’s silly. Only mommy kangaroos have pouches.”

“That’s okay. When you dress up, you can be whatever you want. That’s part of the fun. Were you a bat for Halloween last year?”

She grins and prances on her tiptoes. “No, I was the Queen of Hearts. Off with her head! But next time I’m going to be a T. rex. Mommy’s going to make me a giant head with huge teeth.”

“Oh, I am, am I?” Natalie says, emerging from her bedroom dressed in a fluffy turquoise sweater the same color as her eyes and black jeans, looking so snuggly and gorgeous I can’t help but sigh in appreciation. “That’s the first I’m hearing about it.”

“You can do it, Mommy,” Crissy says, bouncing toward the door. “You can do anything.”

Nat rolls her eyes. “Oh, can I? Really? Might be a little hard to make a T. rex costume with my sewing machine still at Gram’s house in California.”

I smile as I take her hand. “Harlow has one you can borrow if you want. I use it to sew my patches on my coats for work.”

She squeezes my fingers. “It’s nice that you have such supportive friends.”

“They’re your friends now, too,” I assure her. “We’re all here for you guys.”

And we are. Even if one of the ways we end up doing that is by figuring out what happened in San Francisco and helping keep her and Crissy safe from this creep from her past.

But for now, I push my unanswered questions to the back of my mind and head out into the clear, cold day with my new girlfriend and her adorable daughter, feeling even luckier than I did last night, and hoping the trend will continue.

Chapter Nineteen

Natalie

One week later…

Two weeks isn’t enough time.

You can’t fall in love with someone in two weeks!

Not real love, anyway.

Infatuation—yes. A crush—obviously. A horny, orgasm-driven obsession—not only possible, but probable in my case.

All the orgasms—in my office after work, in Cam’s bed the day we skipped lunch to race back to his place for a quickie, and last night when I snuck him into my bedroom after Crissy was asleep—are the reason I’m flipping chocolate chip pancakes with a goofy grin on my face right now.

It has nothing to do with the fact that Cam is incredible with my daughter and currently building a giant dinosaur cave out of blocks with her in the living room. It has nothing to do with the way he modified his mushroom Wellington recipe to make it nut-allergy safe and had it delivered to my place as a surprise Wednesday night or that he brings me my favorite vanilla-lavender latte every morning.

And yes, he’s great with the staff at the restaurant, insanely talented, and hot as hell when he’s barking orders, expertly grilling three different kinds of protein, and making jokes to keep morale up in the kitchen at the same time, but that’s cause for professional admiration not scribbling Mrs. Cameron Brennan in my dream journal before bed.

I’m not that girl. I never have been.

Even when Phillip and I first found out we were pregnant, before he turned into a living nightmare, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get married. I value my independence, and I’ve watched too many of my girlfriends slog their way through messy divorces to take saying “I do” lightly.

Not to mention the fact that Cam is ten years younger than I am and getting hitched probably isn’t on his radar. He did say that he and his college girlfriend were planning to get married, but that was after nearly five years together, not two weeks.

Two. Weeks!

“You’re crazy,” I mutter to myself, my ovaries melting into twin puddles of goo as Cameron hoists Crissy onto his back for a monster ride to the bathroom to wash her hands before breakfast.

It’s something they invented after pizza night on Thursday. Cam gallops through the apartment making growling, slobbering, monster sounds, while Crissy clings to his shoulders giggling so hard she gives herself the hiccups.

It’s adorable, sweet, playful—basically everything I’ve dreamed about finding in a potential stepdad but wasn’t sure I ever would.

But Cameron clicks with Crissy every bit as naturally as he clicks with me. And he’s so chill about kid drama. He didn’t bat an eyelash when she had a meltdown at the fair last weekend because the line for the soft pretzels was so long that she went boneless with despair and low blood sugar before we could get to the front.

Tags: Lili Valente Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net