ago last September,” he said in that gritty tone. “You’ve had ample opportunity to come forward.”
As she recalled the terrible headlines she’d read with morbid anguish, her heart turned inside out with agony for him. She had nursed thoughts every day of telling him he had a child after all, but...
“I’m sorry for your loss.” She truly was. No matter what he’d felt for his wife, losing his child must have been devastating.
His expression stiffened and he recoiled slightly at her words of condolence.
“My grandfather was quite ill,” she continued huskily. “If you recall, that’s why I came home. He passed just before Christmas. Gran needed me. There hasn’t been a right time to shake things up.”
His expression altered slightly as he absorbed that.
She imagined his sorrow to be so much more acute than hers. She mourned a man who had lived a full life and who had passed without pain or regret. They’d held a service that had been a true celebration of his long life.
While Rico’s baby had been cheated of even starting its own.
Rico nodded acceptance of her excuse with only a pained flicker as acknowledgment of what must have been his very personal and intensely painful loss.
Had grief driven him here? Was he trying to replace his lost child with his living one? No. The thought of it agonized her. Lily wasn’t some placeholder for another child. It cracked her heart in half that he might think she could be.
Before she could find words to address that fear, the timer beeped in the kitchen.
Lily had become very quiet, too, which was a sure sign of trouble. Poppy turned to glance around the doorframe. Lily sat with one finger poking at the tiny hole on a bowl’s rim, where the bowl was meant to be hung on a nail.
Firm hands settled on her shoulders. Rico’s untamed scent and the heat of his body surrounded her. He looked past her into the kitchen. At his daughter.
Poppy told herself not to look, but she couldn’t help it. She was afraid he would be resentful that Lily had lived when his other baby hadn’t. Even as she feared he was planning to steal her, she perversely would be more agonized if he rejected her. He had come all this way. That meant he felt something toward her, didn’t it? On some level, he wanted her?
His expression was unreadable, face so closed and tense, her heart dropped into her shoes.
Love her, she wanted to beg. Please.
His breath sucked in with an audible hiss. He took in so much air, his chest swelled to brush against her back. His hands tightened on her shoulders.
At the subtle noise, Lily lifted her gorgeous gray eyes, so like her father’s. A huge smile broke across her face.
“Mama.” The bowls were forgotten and she crawled toward them, pulling herself up on the gate.
Lily’s smile propelled Poppy through all her hard days. She was Poppy’s world. Poppy’s parents were distant, her grandfather gone, her grandmother... Well, Poppy didn’t want to think about losing her even though she knew it was inevitable.
But she had this wee girl and she was everything.
“Hello, button.” Poppy scooped up her daughter and kissed her cheek, never able to resist that soft, plump bite of sweet-smelling warmth. Then she brushed at Lily’s hands because it didn’t matter how many times she swept or vacuumed, Lily found the specks and dust bunnies in her eager exploration of her world.
This time when Poppy looked to Rico, she saw his reaction more clearly. He was trying to mask it with stoicism, but the intensity in his gaze ate up Lily’s snowy skin and cupid’s-bow mouth.
Her emotions seesawed again. She had needed this. Her heart had needed to see him accept his daughter, but he was a threat, too.
“This is Lily.” Her name was tellingly sentimental, not the sort of romantic notion Poppy should have given in to, but since her own name was a flower, it had seemed right.
Poppy faltered, not ready to tell Lily this was Daddy.
Lily brought her fingers to her mouth and said, “Ee.”
“Eat?” Poppy asked and slid her hand down from her throat. “You’re hungry?”
Lily nodded.
“Sign language?” Rico asked, voice sharpening with concern. “Is she hearing impaired?”
“It’s sign language for babies. They teach it at day care. She’s trying to say words, but this works for now.” Poppy stepped over the gate into the kitchen and snapped off the oven. “Do you, um...” She couldn’t believe this was happening, but she wanted to put off the hard conversations as long as possible. “Will you join us for dinner?”
A brief pause, then, “You don’t have to cook. I can order something in.”
“From where?” Poppy chuckled dryly as she set Lily in her chair. “We have Chinese takeout and a pizza palace.” Not his usual standard. “The soup is already made.”
She tied on Lily’s bib and set the bowl of cooled soup and a small flat spoon in front of her.
Lily grabbed the spoon and batted it into the thick soup.
“Renting the car was a challenge for my staff,” he mentioned absently, frowning as Lily missed her mouth and smeared soup across her own cheek.
“Gran said you’re driving something fancy,” Poppy recalled. She had forgotten to look, unable to see past the man to anything else.
“An Alfa Romeo, but it’s a sedan.”
With a car seat? Poppy almost bobbled the sheet of biscuits as she took them from the oven. “Are you, um, staying at the motel?”
He snorted. “No. My staff have taken a cottage an hour from here so I have a bed if I decide to stay.”
Poppy tried to read his expression, but he was watching Lily, frowning with exasperation as Lily turned her head, open mouth looking for the end of the spoon.
In a decisive move, he removed his jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. Then he picked up the teaspoon beside Poppy’s setting and turned the chair to face Lily. He sat and began helping her eat.
Poppy caught her breath, arrested by the sight of this dynamic man feeding their daughter. His strapping muscles strained the seams in his shirt, telling of his tension, but he calmly waited for Lily to try before he gently touched the tip of his teaspoon to her bottom lip. He let Lily lean into eating it before they both went after the next spoonful in the bowl.
Had she dreamed of this? Was she dreaming? It was such a sweet sight her ovaries locked fresh eggs into their chambers, preparing to launch and create another Lily or five. All she needed was one glance from him that contained something other than accusation or animosity.
“You said the timing was wrong.”
It took her a moment to
