made no move to dry herself or wrap up in a dressing gown.
She’d completely lost it. Non compos mentis. He’d been thinking he would bathe Billy, make sure Emma fed him, clean up the apartment and leave. Now he realized there was no way he could leave her on her own.
In a detached fashion another part of his brain registered her body. Her belly was still slightly rounded from childbirth, her breasts were full and the nipples bright red. Even postpartum she was sexy. Ordinarily he would feel lust seeing her fresh from the shower without a stitch on. But with her in this state it was wrong, like lusting after someone not capable of rational thought.
He averted his gaze. Even looking at her was wrong because he was doing so without her informed consent. Instead he concentrated on Billy, holding him firmly in one hand while he cleaned him with a soapy cloth, gently getting in between the crevices and folds.
“You’d better dry off and put some clothes on,” he said. “Then get ready to feed him. He feels hot.”
“I have no milk.”
Darcy glanced over his shoulder again. She’d made no move to dress. “What have you been feeding him?”
“I have a trickle. And I’m supplementing with formula.” She cupped her breasts, wincing when she touched her cracked nipples. “He won’t latch on properly so the milk hasn’t come in the way it should.”
Darcy pulled the baby from the water and looked around for a towel. “Pass me a towel? And put something on, for heaven’s sake.”
She pulled her dressing gown on over her still-wet body. “I’ll see if I can find a clean towel in the hall.” Off she went as if everyone kept their clean linen on the hall carpet.
Meanwhile Billy was shivering and whimpering. Darcy couldn’t wrap him back up in the dirty towel. Poor little sod. He unbuttoned his shirt and tucked the wet baby inside next to his bare skin, pulling the shirt over his back as far as he could. Billy stopped wriggling. He stopped crying. He snuggled in as if he belonged there.
Oh, man. Darcy could feel a tiny heart beating next to his. He glimpsed himself in the foggy mirror, a frazzled-looking man with a huge lump in his chest. And he didn’t mean the baby.
* * *
EMMA SIFTED THROUGH the piles of clothes for a clean towel. She really ought to tidy up a little. But hey, it wasn’t like Darcy had never left a dirty mug on the coffee table. She held a towel to her nose but her sinuses were too blocked to tell if it was clean or dirty.
She picked her way across the living room and drew the curtains to hold the towel up to the window. She was surprised to see daylight. What time was it? The clock on the TV read seven o’clock. Was that morning or evening?
Had she dreamed that moment in the bathroom when she’d stepped out of the shower naked in front of Darcy? Had that really happened? Maybe she’d imagined it. The past few days had been a blur. Once, she’d woken in the dark, delirious with fever, and thought she’d seen hundreds of dwarves in medieval tunics marching off to the mines with pickaxes over their shoulders.
Maybe she’d hallucinated Darcy, too. She listened. She could hear him in the bathroom, clearing his throat. Thank God. She hadn’t gone completely off her rocker. But now she cringed to think he’d seen her postbaby flabby stomach, stretch marks and heavy breasts.
Forget about her appearance, it was her emotional state she was worried about. She had to hold it together. She couldn’t let Darcy know how close she was to losing control. There must be no repeat of her earlier outburst. Cool and calm and organized, that’s what everyone said about her. And she was, really she was. This— She glanced around the room as if seeing it for the first time, and was horrified. This wasn’t like her.
At least Billy was quiet for once. When he cried and cried and cried her brain short-circuited, and she couldn’t think. The cold/flu/bronchitis—whatever it was she had—made her head ache like it was going to explode.
“Did you find a towel?” Darcy stood in the doorway, his shirt half-open revealing olive skin flecked with dark hair. For a moment she couldn’t figure out what the bulge in his shirt was. Then she saw it move and whimper. A fleeting revulsion made her look away.