There Goes My Heart (The Sullivans #20) - Bella Andre Page 0,52

laugh burst from Cassie’s lips, and she couldn’t resist giving Ruby another smooch. Finally, she returned to Flynn’s car, and they managed to drive all the way out of the lot this time.

Zara admitted to Rory, “I’m already on cuteness overload with this one.” She lifted Ruby up so that she could blow raspberries against her tummy. Ruby laughed, delighted with their new game. Of course, Rory had to get in on it, leaning over to blow his own raspberries.

This time when Ruby giggled, however, a powerful smell permeated the air.

Rory wrinkled his nose. “I was hoping she had already done that today.”

Zara laughed. “Even if she had, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t guarantee that you’d be out of the diaper-changing zone until tonight.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have done this before, would you?”

Zara had babysat quite a bit as a teenager, but she wasn’t about to let him off the hook so easily. “Are you saying you haven’t?”

“I have.” He grimaced. “I wouldn’t say I’m great at it, though.”

“How not great are you?”

“Suffice it to say that full-body wipe-downs and changes of clothes have been involved. And not just for the baby.”

Ruby mimicked Rory’s grimace, looking less than thrilled about the fact that neither of them was rushing to clean her up.

Zara couldn’t stand it anymore. “Fine, I’ll do it.” She took the changing mat out of the bag, then a clean diaper and wipes, and laid them on the worktable. “But just to be clear, if I didn’t owe you for being so great about coming to the engagement party and—” No, she couldn’t bring up her mom again unless she wanted to risk her hastily rebuilt emotional dam breaking. “Well, just everything, I wouldn’t be saving your butt like this.”

“Isn’t it Ruby’s butt you’re saving?” he quipped.

Though she rolled her eyes, she otherwise ignored him as she laid Ruby down and set to work getting her all cleaned up. Fortunately, the baby was perfectly happy to have a virtual stranger tend to her, singing a nonsensical song to her stuffed elephant as Zara made short work of her dirty diaper, then snapped her back into her pretty romper.

As she picked Ruby up, Zara realized that the big cedar log Rory’d had in his woodshop for the past few weeks was no longer in the middle of the room. “Did you figure out what you’re going to use the cedar for?”

A strange look came over his face. One that reminded her of a little boy caught sneaking candy out of a sweet shop.

He tried to cover it with a smile and a nod. “It’s the new project I was telling you about this morning. I’m not ready to show it to anybody, though.”

She raised her eyebrows, a little surprised by how proprietary he was over this project when she’d never noticed him being that way before. “Okay.”

Ruby grabbed her hair just then, and when Zara shifted her attention to untangle it from the baby’s fingers, Rory threw a big sheet over a table in the corner.

Seriously, he was acting really weird.

“Why don’t we get Ruby’s things packed into my truck?” he suggested. “Then we can head out for our big adventure.”

“Oooh, hear that, little miss? We’re going on a big adventure!” Zara rubbed her cheek on the top of the baby’s head, letting the simple sweetness of the gesture soothe her.

It took several trips to get everything into his truck, then a few minutes of his cursing a blue streak under his breath as he worked to get Ruby’s car seat strapped into the extended backseat.

“And here I thought you were good at fitting things together.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “That was worse than the diaper change.”

She was midway through getting Ruby buckled into her car seat when she stopped to shoot him an incredulous look. “The diaper change you didn’t have anything to do with, you mean?”

“Just being in the same room was bad enough.”

She shouldn’t laugh and encourage him. Of course, she did anyway. “Next diaper change is all you.” She gave him a sinister grin. “I hope it’s really messy.”

She had just finished getting Ruby settled into the car, her elephant clasped tightly to her chest, when Rory put his hand on Zara’s hip and pulled her into him for a kiss.

It wasn’t until she was breathless and her knees were weak that she remembered where they were. “Someone will see.” Though they hadn’t completely ruled out PDAs at work, they had agreed they