Page 86 of The Sweetest Mistake

“Maybe I should set up the crib so I can lay her down. She’s starting to get heavy.”

Julia giggled. “Now is the only time she’d be okay with you saying that. Babies are supposed to be chunky. Do you want me to hold her while you set up the crib?”

“Sure.”

They made the transfer again, and this time, Ava whimpered. She popped her eyes open and looked right at Julia, but then her eyelids grew heavy, and she fell back asleep.

Connor took the fold-up crib that he’d leaned against the front door and started walking down the hall toward his bedroom. “You coming?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Yeah.”

She stood in the doorway and watched while he set up the portable crib in an open corner of his room.

“You do realize that you’d still be able to hear her if she was in the spare room, right?” Julia teased.

“Maybe, but I’m a pretty deep sleeper. What if she needed something and I didn’t hear her right away?”

Julia thought it was sweet that he was being so protective, so she didn’t protest. Once he finished with the crib, he said, “Should we change her first?”

Julia shook her head. “She had a huge blowout not long ago, so I think she’ll be good for a while.” She carefully set Ava in the crib and covered her with the blanket that Cam had provided.

“Excuse me. Did you just say blowout?”

The look on his face was priceless, and if Ava hadn’t been sleeping, Julia would have rolled with laughter. Instead, she just smiled and said, “You don’t want to know.”

Connor sat down on the edge of his bed and raked his hand through his cropped hair. As she came and sat beside him, she realized that he looked tired too. Leaning her head on his shoulder, she said, “It’s been a long day. I should leave and let you get some sleep.”

“What? No. I mean stay…please.”

Looking up at him through her lashes, she melted. “Do you want me to stay and help with Ava?”

“No. I mean…yes and no. I really want you to stay for me.”

“Oh.”

Sitting together in the dark with the sound of Ava’s steady breathing as background noise, the scene felt oddly intimate. It was something she’d expect to do with her own child someday—sit there and watch him or her with wonder. It felt very…cozy.

“Lie down with me,” Connor said.

“Are you sure? What if we wake her up?”

But Connor was already pulling back the covers, and then he started undressing.

After he’d removed his shirt, he unzipped his pants and stepped out of them, leaving on his underwear.

At any other time, the display of flesh would have tempted Julia, but now she looked over at Ava’s sleeping form and felt uncertain.

“We don’t have to do anything, Jules. Just let me hold you.”

She looked at him strangely, and he said, “I know. There’s a first time for everything.”

Smiling, she walked around to the opposite side of the bed and started removing her clothes. Connor lay on his side, his head propped in one hand, and watched as if he’d never seen her before. When she was down to her bra and panties, she crawled up next to him and felt his arms come around her.

“How’s that?” he whispered against her hair.

“Perfect.” And it was. She was lying beside the man she loved with a baby asleep in the crib across from them.

Rubbing her palm over his chest, she began to talk, telling him all about the visit with his mom, Harper, and McKayla.