One Moment Please (Wait With Me #3) - Amy Daws Page 0,86

eyes move from her face shining in the moonlight to the action happening beneath my palm.

The baby is…moving. Or kicking. Or hell, maybe even doing flips because the flutters happening right now are some serious Cirque du Soleil acts for such a tiny little thing.

My fingers widen, warmth flooding through me as I feel my child move for the first time. That warmth is almost immediately overshadowed by regret. I should have experienced this sooner. With Lynsey.

Damn, she’s been so good with all of this. She’s completely embraced this interruption into her life and every step of this process—even at the expense of looking crazy. And she does look fucking crazy with her prenatal yoga poses or when she’s reading dirty novels out loud to the baby.

Lately, however, I’ve been lingering in the doorway, eavesdropping as she connects with the little peanut and marveling at just how easy it is for her. How easy any of this is for her.

Lynsey makes everything personal and fun and carefree. Even when she sleeps, she seems completely at peace, her lips parted slightly and her dark hair fanned on the white pillow. Frankly, watching Lynsey sleep and talk to the baby has become almost therapeutic for me these past couple of months. I’m sure she could psychoanalyze the shit out of whatever fucked-up meaning stands behind that, but for now, all I care is that I like her here in my bed, knowing she’s safe.

And the sex…is fucking mind-blowing. For being so sweet and innocent-looking, the girl likes some kink in the bedroom. And fuck—that combination is lethal for me.

Maybe if things were different…maybe if my past hadn’t fucked me up so much, we could be something more. Though Lynsey’s past isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Lennon’s pain was her pain. She felt it acutely, even beyond the fact that she donated bone marrow for her niece. How is it possible for Lynsey to experience such heartache and still feel she can make the world a better place?

After everything that happened with Julian, the ER was literally the only contribution I could continue to make to mankind. And that’s only because I don’t have to follow up with patients or see any of them beyond the emergent state they find me in. I patch them up and pass them off. End of story. No connection. No long-term commitment.

Julian was different. He was small and wide-eyed and hopeful, just like Lynsey. He was my favorite little man. And now he’s gone.

And it was all my fucking fault.

The baby moves again, and my eyes sting with unshed tears over all that could happen to this kid too. All the pain and horrors in this world that are out of my hands. I can’t prevent everything, and that thought is terrifying.

That’s why I professionally detach. That’s why I can’t fully give myself to this baby or Lynsey. Because I need to keep my eyes wide open. I need to be able to see past them. Caring about them, loving them, will distract me from what’s most important—their safety.

But for right now, I will take this moment. I will savor this quiet time in the dark between this little baby and me and imagine what it would be like if life could be different.

“The directions say to slide the loose springs over the dowel and insert it just above the bottom hole in the drop side railing,” Lynsey says, her voice strained as we stand over a half put together crib in my once upon a time office.

“I told you there are no fucking dowels,” I growl, chucking the wrench to the floor. It clunks loudly on the hard wood, probably leaving a scuff, but I seriously don’t give a shit right now. I’m hot and irritated that something made for a baby needs a fucking team to put together. “I told you this crib you ordered online is missing parts.”

“I’m telling you that I went through all the parts earlier, and they were here!” She looks around the room with one hand on her thirty-week swollen belly.

“So what the hell happened to them?”

“I don’t know,” she exclaims, balling up the directions and throwing them over her shoulder. “Everything is a mess in here! If you’d get your big-ass desk moved out, then maybe we’d have some room to work.”

“Maybe if we didn’t get so many damn packages every single day, we’d know where shit is.” I retrieve the stupid wrench off the floor. “My garage is