Lilly just clapped her hands together,
grinning up at him with her blue eyes shining even in in the dim light. With deft fingers, Walker grabbed the tiny foot again and gently pushed it back into the pajama leg. He did the same with the other one then grunted with accomplishment.
Amy giggled herself, unable to stop her laughter when the man looked so satisfied at putting Lilly’s pajamas back on. He looked like he’d just accomplished world peace!
Amy reached out for Lilly, stifling her laughter so she could keep the morning routine moving along. “Okay, I’ll take her now.”
“Why?” Walker said, putting a hand to Lilly’s tummy to protect her. “I can handle whatever comes next.”
Amy stepped back from his bare chest, but her amusement wasn’t completely gone. “Not this part,” she said firmly, her eyes unable to look up at his, staring at his chin instead. “And you have to leave her room.”
Walker’s eyes automatically went downwards, zeroing in on her breasts which looked fuller at the moment. “You have to feed her,” he said and his stomach clenched with anticipation.
“Yes. And I can’t do it with you in here. So go downstairs and make yourself some tea. I’ll be down in a few minutes. You can feed her breakfast while I shower.” Amy swooped down and lifted Lilly into her arms, hiding her embarrassment as she snuggled her daughter and kissed her soft, fuzzy head.
“I’m not leaving,” he said and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the far wall while he waited for Amy to do her thin
g, eager to watch once again.
It wasn’t sexual when she fed
Lilly, but he couldn’t deny that he was eagerly looking forward to seeing Amy’s breasts again. Even if Lilly was the recipient. There was just something about it that….well, he couldn’t describe the feeling that shot through him.
Amy was holding Lilly who knew exactly what came next and was trying to find Amy’s breast. Amy looked up at Walker, sighed and then sat down in the rocking chair. She grabbed one of Lilly’s blankets though, covering up her face and breasts.
Unfortunately, Lilly wasn’t having any of that. While her mouth latched on to Amy’s breast, her hand moved the blanket away, preferring to look up at her mother while she filled her tummy.
Amy tried hard to hold the blanket while glancing occasionally at Walker. She felt painfully self-conscious when she noticed Walker’s eyes looking at her breast. She felt her face heat up, then his eyes rose higher. When he saw her blush,
one black eyebrow rose in question, but those firm lips that rarely showed any emotion, quirked up slightly, revealing the extent of his amusement.
Thankfully, he didn’t say anything
, but his dark eyes continued to hold hers captive. Amy had trouble breathing, her mind whirling just the way it had so many months ago when he’d looked at her.
“You’re more beautiful now,” he finally said.
She swallowed, not believing him for a moment. She was exhausted, wasn’t wearing any makeup and hadn’t taken the time to polish her toenails in so long, she wasn’t even sure what they looked like anymore. Before Lilly, Amy wouldn’t dare to have left the house without her fingernails and toenails painted perfectly. Oh, the time she’d spent grooming and languishing around, reading the newspaper, or even a book! Goodness, she’d read so many books.
She sighed, remembering all the free time she used to have. But then she looked down at Lilly and those thoughts disappeared. Shifting her over to the other side, Amy felt her cheeks turning red again even though she tried hard to
quickly close the maternity bra, a.k.a. “the most unsexy piece of underwear ever created”.
“What are you going to do today?” she asked, trying to distract him.
Walker’s eyes lifted. Finally!
He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly
as he looked down at Lilly’s black fuzz, all he could see of her face. “I’m going to find the… person… who is trying to scare you.” he stated. It obviously wasn’t his first choice to describe the worthless waste of oxygen who had been stalking Amy.
Amy almost laughed at his cleaned up language.
“But how? What can you do besides wait for the guy to show up or do something?”
Walker
casually shrugged his shoulders, looking down at the two most important people in his life. “I’ve never been very good at waiting.”
She shifted slightly and wished she’d kept still because Walker’s eyes dropped once more to her breast and her face felt warm once more. “He hasn’t really done anything wrong.
Nothing to overtly hurt me. He just scares me because he’s…”
“Stalking is a crime, Amy,” he interrupted before her soft heart could defend the bastard who was terrorizing her. People like that got off on scaring people, thinking it was some warped sense of control or power.
She shivered at the threat in his voice and the fury in his eyes. “But all he’s done is follow me and leave one note on my car. And I’m pretty sure he could make a case that he just happened to be in the same places as I was all those times.”
He looked directly at her. “Do you feel threatened? Do you feel as if your life is in danger?”
She thought about that for a long moment, wondering if she was just being silly. “Yes,” she finally said, but it came out more as a whisper. She didn’t like admitting that, wishing that she wasn’t afraid of this mystery guy. But she was. And she couldn’t fight this alone. She was so grateful to Walker for helping her, for being there for her, and now for Lilly.
“Then it is a crime. A stalker doesn’t need to actually inflict bodily harm. He just has to make the person feel threatened for a conviction to stand.”
That somehow made Amy feel better, but her hand reached up to touch Lilly’s head as if protecting her somehow. “He hasn’t approached me yet.”
His shoulders tensed and his eyes hardened as the need to convey the seriousness of the issue to Amy unfurled in his chest.
“He doesn’t need to. Just be hyper-vigilant. I’ll be driving you to work and picking both of you up from now on until this guy is caught. You don’t leave the school without me being right out front. You don’t even stand in the lobby alone, do you understand?”
“Yes,” she replied quickly
, loving the way he conveyed powerful strength and absolute confidence just with his hard, firm tone of voice.
“You don’t go to the
same grocery store, you’re going to change your whole routine.”
Amy thought his instructions
made a lot of sense, but it would definitely disrupt her daily schedule. Then she looked down at Lilly and accepted that she would do that for Lilly. She’d do anything for Lilly.
Looking up, she
saw the same determined expression, the same complete devotion in Walker’s eyes and swallowed, her heart constricting as she considered the possible wrong she’d done him over the past year.
Clearing her throat, she looked away, trying to think of something new to say. “
Don’t you have other cases you need to work on? Isn’t this going to impose a burden on you?”
He shook his head emphatically.
He had other cases, but he would work around them. “Not in any way. You and Lilly are my priorities now.”
That was a startling declaration!
She was a priority? Not just Lilly? Amy felt that dangerous warmth seep into her heart. She desperately tried to stop it, not wanting to count on him like she had in the past, but some of that warmth snuck around her barriers anyway. She tried to look away and pretend like she wasn’t feeling that enormous, crazy feeling that Walker used to generate inside of her, that feeling she’d hoped had died a year ago or was killed as she worried about how she would get through the pregnancy alone. But with his words, it was right back with her again. Was the feeling stronger? Impossible! She shivered at the very possibility.
Clearing her throat, she seemed to remember where she was and how horrible she must look. “Can you feed Lilly breakfast while I shower?” she asked.
She must look hideous after her sleepless night with her short hair going every which way. She even glanced down at her toes, cringing inwardly when she realized that her toenails didn’t have even a chip of nail polish on them.
He looked down at his daughter and excitement grew inside of him
at the idea of feeding the tiny child. “Sure. What should she eat?” he asked, his huge hands cradling her tiny butt and her fuzzy, dark head. That strange tightening shifted inside of him again when those blue, baby eyes looked right back up at him as if she were somehow trying to memorize his face. He liked it, even though she still terrified him on so many levels.
Amy was already backing out of the room, eager to escape his overwhelming presence.
“She needs one jar of vegetables and one jar of fruit. You can pick anything, but she really loves peas.”
Walker grimaced. “Were you feeding her peas last night?”
Amy smothered a laugh, knowing exactly where this line of questioning was heading. “Yes.”
“Then they’re the disgusting green slime?” he clarified
, his face not showing any of the disgust or revulsion.
Amy couldn’t stop the laugh this time because peas really d
id look like green slime. She could ignore their color and the putrid smell because…well, because she was a mother now and she’d never thought she had the right to judge something that was healthy for her daughter. But Walker didn’t seem to have those reservations. It was almost liberating to admit that they were foul looking.
Her eyes twinkled with amusement as she nodded her head to confirm his worst fear.
“Yes. Peas are the stuff that look like green slime. But she loves them.”
Walker’s only response was to grunt which was hard to interpret. But he took Lilly, carrying her down the stairs and Amy watched with increasing longing swelling up inside of her
as the two of them disappeared down the stairs. Goodness, she hoped he put on a shirt while he was downstairs.
She swallowed and walked into her bedroom when the two of them were finally out of her range of sight.
In the shower, Amy basked in the luxury of having extra time in her morning routine since Walker was here feeding Lilly. She normally put Lilly in her bouncy chair right in the bathroom while showering, not wanting her daughter out of her sight. After Lilly’s birth, showers had become a race and a necessity, not a luxury. So standing under the warm water now, Amy relaxed and shampooed her hair, shaved her legs, deep conditioned her hair which she hadn’t had the time to do in more than six months. It was amazing!
Stepping out of the shower, she wrapped a towel around her
body and padded barefoot over to her closet. Selecting a pair of black slacks and a warm sweater, she tossed them onto the bed. But as she looked at the outfit, she was undecided. The pants were a must. Running after her kids in the school, bending, lifting supplies, doing all the things that had to happen in the classroom…all that activity required pants. But the sweater? It was functional. It would be easy to feed Lilly with the buttons along the front.
But it wasn’t very….sexy.
She gasped when she realized where her thoughts were heading. She couldn’t start dressing to impress Walker! He was just Lilly’s father! Nothing more. She needed to dress for practical purposes. And if he didn’t like it? So what!
Disgusted with herself, she pulled the slacks and sweater on, refusing to look at herself in the mirror
which might force her to re-evaluate her choice. She was a mother now! She shouldn’t even be thinking of trying to be attractive to Walker. They were done! Finished! He was Lilly’s father, nothing more!
She was just about to step out of her bedroom when she whipped the sweater off, tossing it onto the bed
and refusing to acknowledge the reason why she was changing clothes. Going to her closet once again, she pulled out a pretty pink sweater. This one was soft and fluffy, not the easiest to nurse in but she felt much better, prettier.
Now if only she could do something about this hideous nursing bra!
She even went back to her dresser and put on mascara, started to walk away, then hurried back and dabbed on a touch of concealer to hide those horrible dark circles under her eyes. She looked more awake, but felt silly. She was a mother! She was simply not going to try and look pretty for Walker! No! This was…
She went right back to the dresser and dabbed on a touch of lipstick. She hadn’t worn lipstick in….goodness, had it really been over a year? Since Walker had left her life, she’d really let herself go! Amy hadn’t even realized how much, but it was true. Without Walker in her life,
all the sizzle had gone. She’d just shut down, stopped being a woman and trying to look pretty. Presentable had been her only option for so long. Only Lilly had been important. She’d ignored all of her feminine needs, suppressing them as unimportant.
Not that it was important to look pretty for Walker.
No, she was doing this for herself! She wanted to look nice because it felt good.
With a
skip in her step, she walked down the stairs and stopped in her tracks when she saw Walker’s broad shoulders - no he hadn’t put on a shirt and those stunning, rippling muscles were still on display! He’d pulled a kitchen chair closer to Lilly’s highchair and was carefully feeding her tiny daughter a jar of peas.