from the phone. “I’m on my way back from Mason’s. He was great.” Bea’s whimpers quieted. “How are things going there? I miss you guys. I hope everything’s okay.” Bea stopped fussing. “Love you both.”
The message ended, and Bea let out another bloodcurdling wail. Aurelia fumbled with her phone, replaying the message, and Bea quieted again. Holy shit. Every time the message ended, Bea cried, but the sound of Ben’s voice silenced her.
Aurelia spotted Everly coming out of the bathroom and called out, “Ev! Come here!” She played the message again. “Do you see this? She misses Ben. I need to find an audiobook that sounds like him. Can you help me?”
Bea cried again, and Aurelia restarted the message as they headed for the boxes of audiobooks.
“Find anything by Zachary Webber. I think he narrated Anything for Love by Charlotte Sterling.”
“Wait until Ben hears you have a thing for Zach Webber.”
“Hey, it’s not that easy to conjure a sexy voice, but you can bet your butt it was Ben in my fantasies, not Zachary. I pray this works before we all lose our minds.” She restarted the voicemail while simultaneously scanning titles. “Here it is! Wait! I can listen to the audio on my phone. That’s easier. Can you hold Bea for one sec? She’ll cry, but hopefully Zach’s voice will remedy that.”
Everly took the baby as Bea let out another shrill cry. “Holy crap. Hurry!”
“I’m trying!” She navigated to the audiobook and hit play, turning it up as loud as it would go.
She took Bea from Everly as Zachary’s soothing and commanding voice filled the air, sending chills down Aurelia’s spine at how similar it was to Ben’s. Bea’s crying hitched and, after a few short gasps, dialed down to sporadic whimpers. Aurelia rocked from side to side.
“We need rocking chairs,” she said.
“The heck with rocking chairs. You need Zachary Webber’s voice box.” Everly hiked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the mural, and then she turned and headed back toward her paints.
Zachary’s voice did wonders, but the book had a male and a female narrator, as it was told from both the hero’s and heroine’s points of view. Every time the woman’s voice came on, Bea cried. Aurelia fast-forwarded through those sections, making a mental note to find a book narrated by only Zachary.
After twenty minutes she got brave and set Bea in the bouncy seat with the phone beside her. She listened contentedly as long as Aurelia skipped the woman’s narrations. After the first few times, Bea only whimpered briefly at the sound of the woman’s voice, as if she knew Aurelia would quickly make the transition. She might have lungs like a hyena, but she was definitely the smartest baby on the planet.
When Ben walked in more than an hour later, Bea had finally fallen asleep. Aurelia sat in the middle of several stacks of books, holding a slice of pizza, and shushed him with a finger over her lips. “She just fell asleep.”
His brows slanted. He cocked his head to the side, his eyes serious. “You let her listen to porn?”
“What?” She realized Zachary was narrating a sexy scene. “It’s not porn. It’s contemporary romance, and for your information, Bea cried almost all day.” She told him about her chaotic afternoon. “When I listened to your message on speakerphone, she quieted right down. Zachary sounds a lot like you, so—”
“You listen to this stuff? Wait. Don’t answer that.” Ben pulled her into his arms and said, “I’m sorry you had a bad day.”
“It wasn’t bad, but it could have been better.” She kissed him, and then she held up the slice of pizza for him to take a bite.
“I’ll have her all day tomorrow, so you can make up for lost time today.” He took a bite of the pizza and said, “It’s cold.”
“Welcome to our new normal.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BEN CRADLED THE phone against his shoulder Wednesday morning, talking to Bridgette as he fed Bea. She had gotten up three times last night, and he felt like a walking zombie. “Four to six months of sleepless nights? I was hoping you’d have a few tips that might help her sleep through the night.”
“Don’t you remember how exhausted I was when Louie was a baby?” Bridgette asked. “Oh, wait. My memory of those crazy days is starting to come back to me. As I recall, you scoffed at me and said that you were used to staying up half the night and you couldn’t