Page 45 of The Perfect Deception
His lips were moving and sound was emerging from them. And while Mackenzie was still fussy, she wasn’t screaming her head off.
Adam had calmed her.
Maybe hewasan expert. Or if not an expert, a natural.
You know what he also was? Bone-meltingly sexy. Whoever said men with babies were sexy knew what they were talking about.
“You going to give me that bottle?” Adam asked in a singsong voice.
She jolted out of her reverie and handed him the bottle, watching as Mackenzie lunged for it and gulped it down. Adam couldn’t have looked more pleased if he’d been able to nurse her himself.
When the bottle was empty, Dina reached for her. “Here, I’ll burp her.”
“No, let me.” He tilted the baby onto his shoulder.
“Wait!”
Too late. Mackenzie spit up all over his shirt. Dina tried to hold back a laugh.
“Maybe you should take her after all,” he said.
She grabbed the diaper cloth she’d tried to hand Adam before the spit-up incident, flung it over her shoulder and took Mackenzie from him. “Do you want help cleaning up?”
“No, I got it. And hey, at least I’m wearing a white shirt.” He winked at her and her stomach fluttered.
Maybe she was hungry.
She patted and rubbed Mackenzie’s back until she burped, then looked at the instructions Tracy had left. There was a half hour before she was supposed to check her diaper. Now what?
“Hey, I found this, think she’ll use it?” Adam walked in carrying a bouncy thing.
Well, it probably had a name, but Dina had no idea what it was called. There was a seat for the baby and things to play with. And it bounced. Yeah, that would do.
“We can try.”
She placed Mackenzie in the seat and Adam spun some of the toys. Mackenzie laughed and bounced as she kicked her legs. Excellent. Problem solved.
They sat on the floor watching her. Adam made funny faces, which also caused Mackenzie to laugh.
“You’re quiet,” he said to Dina, as he played with Mackenzie’s toy.
“Did you know a baby can’t taste salt until they’re about four months old? It’s thought that the delay is related to—”
He grabbed her hand and rubbed his thumb across her palm and she forgot the rest of her sentence.
“What’s wrong, Dina?”
She swallowed. “Wrong?”
“You’re nervous.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re quoting random facts. You only do that when you’re nervous.”
He was not supposed to know that. “I don’t do that when I’m nervous.”
Adam arched one eyebrow, making Mackenzie giggle again. “Even she agrees with me.”