Ever After (The Christmas Cottage - Book 2) (13 page)

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“She looks so small in this crib.”

“And so peaceful.”  They both looked down at a now-sleeping Olivia and sighed.  Together they’d played with her, fed her, changed her all while Brian looked over Ean’s plans and Ava ordered them dinner.  They ate while Olivia sat and watched from her infant swing.  “Yeah, so peaceful,” Ava said.

Brian waited a beat.  “How can something so small be so loud?”

“I know, right?  That child has some set of lungs on her.”  They started to laugh but when Olivia started to stir, Ava put her fingers to her lips to silence them.  Brian wrapped her arms around her waist as he stood behind her and pulled her in close.  “I think she just missed her mommy and daddy.”

“She’s too young to miss them.”

Ava elbowed him in the ribs.  “She is not too young to miss them; her whole little life has been spent with just the two of them.  They’ve been gone all day and I think she was fine until the whole bedtime ritual fell apart.”

“Ava, I have no idea how to sing ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider’.  And who is she to be such a critic?”

She chuckled in response.  “All in all I think we did a good job as last minute replacements.”

“Sure; I don’t think we scarred her for life or anything.”

Ava stiffened in his arms.  “That’s not possible, is it?  Oh, God; Lacey will never let me babysit again if I traumatized Olivia to that extent.”

Turning her in his arms Brian placed a gentle kiss on the tip of her nose.  “Relax, Ava; we didn’t traumatize their daughter.  She’s been fed and cleaned and changed and now she’s sleeping like a…well, like a baby.  She’s fine.  Stop worrying.”

Standing on tiptoes, Ava kissed Brian on the cheek.  “Thank you for helping with her tonight.  I had no idea how exhausting one tiny person can be.  I have a whole new respect for Lacey.”

“I’m sure Ean does his share of the work, too, you know.”

Ava waved him off and took him by the hand and led him out of the room.  “I’m sure he does something but I’m not exactly sure what it is.  All I know is that Lacey is the one at home with her every day and after the day I had, and it was only one, I know that I could sleep for a week.”  They were standing at the door to the guest room. 

“So,” he began in a husky tone, “speaking of sleeping…”

She looked up at him and smiled.  “Olivia still doesn’t sleep through the night.  Would you be terribly upset if we just…slept?”  Her words were said shyly and she actually felt herself blush.

Placing a finger beneath her chin, Brian tipped her face up toward his.  “Sweetheart, we don’t have to make love every night of the week.  I love just sleeping with you in my arms.” 

He followed that with a kiss that was so soft, so tender that Ava felt like her bones were melting.  She tried to deepen the kiss but Brian slowly pulled away and trailed a finger along her cheek to her neck and finally placed a hand on her shoulder.  “Go and get ready for bed; I’m going to go downstairs and make sure that we’re all locked up and that the alarm is set and everything’s put away.”

“You don’t have to do that; this was my responsibility today and…”

A finger on her lips stopped her.  “I know I don’t have to, Ava; I want to.  Let me help you; let me take care of you.  You spent the whole day caring for Olivia and you deserve some rest.  Go,” he said and turned her toward the bedroom.  “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

“Okay,” she sighed and did as he instructed.  She was in the bed in less than five minutes and by the time Brian returned, she was already half asleep.  She watched as he undressed and climbed in the bed beside her and sighed with contentment as he pulled her in close.  “Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?” he asked, settling her head on his shoulder as he gently combed his fingers through her silky blonde hair.

“For being you,” she said and in the next instant she was asleep.

While he would have liked to spend more time just talking with her, there was something just as wonderful in having her lying in his arms like this.  The afternoon and evening had flown by and he had to admit, though it was early by his own standards, he was a bit tired himself.  Who knew babies were so much work? 

Beside him, Ava sighed and snuggled closer.  They did have a lot of fun trying to figure out all of the mysteries of an infant.  What made her happy one minute had her crying the next.  Maybe Ava was right and Olivia simply missed her parents.  It seemed a bit odd for a baby to actually miss someone but if Brian had to guess he would say that the parent/child bond was just that strong.

So many times over the course of the evening he’d look over at Ava as she held the baby and just felt his gut clench.  It was very easy for him to temporarily forget that they weren’t married and that it wasn’t their child she was holding.  It fit; it worked.  They worked well together tonight with Olivia.  True, it was only for a few short hours but for two people who had never spent time together with a child, they honestly and truly survived it and had fun doing it. 

At one point when Olivia had been particularly upset, the look of pure devastation on Ava’s face broke his heart.  He knew that she was hurting for her niece and would do anything to make her feel better.  How much more would she be willing to do for a child of her own?  Their own?

He wrapped an arm around her a little tighter and sighed with contentment.  Soon.  They would talk about their future soon.  He could tell that Ava was feeling the same things he was this night and although he would have loved to talk about it more with her, he knew that tonight wasn’t the right night.  She was focused on caring for the baby and not letting Lacey and Ean down.  She needed to put all of her energy into being the caretaker this evening and he wasn’t so selfish that he would try and distract her from her responsibility.

Soon, though, he thought.  For the first time in his life Brian was confident in what he wanted and who he wanted.  He wanted a future with Ava and he wanted that future to start as soon as possible. 

Olivia had only woken up once in the night and both Ava and Brian had gotten up to tend to her together.  While Ava had changed her and soothed her, Brian had gone and heated up a bottle for her.  Ava sat in the rocking chair in the nursery while Brian went and made himself a middle- of-the-night snack and was back just as Ava was placing the baby back in the crib.  All in all, it was pretty uneventful and before they knew it they were all going back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at seven, Ava felt that she had gotten a pretty decent night’s sleep.  She took a quick shower while Olivia was still sleeping and as she got out and got herself rea
dy for the day, Brian headed into the bathroom to take his turn showering. 

Lacey had texted that they were on the road at seven-thirty and somewhere near eight, Olivia let out her first sleepy cry.  Ava tended to her niece and by the time she had her cleaned up and dressed, Brian was emerging from the guest room looking too delicious for words and as if he was ready to tackle the day.

“I’m going to head out in a few minutes and go back to my place and pack up for the weekend and I’ll meet you back here.  What time did Lacey and Ean say they’d be back?”

“Sometime around ten
,” she replied.  “You don’t have to come back here if you don’t want to; we can just meet up at my place at noon.  Most of my stuff is packed up so really, we’ll just need to grab my bags and go.”

“What time is the interview?”

“Four so we’ll really be under a time crunch.”

“No worries; if you dress for the interview, we can go directly there and I’ll hang out while you’re in your meeting and then we’ll head to your parent’s place.  What do you think?”  He took Olivia from Ava’s arms as they prepared to head down the stairs. 

“That works for me.  So my place?  Noon?”

“I think I’m still going to head back here; I want to just run a few things by Ean and if worse comes to worse, you can leave and I’ll finish up with your brother and still be to you in time to leave.”  He settled Olivia into her swing and set it in motion before turning back to Ava.

“You’re a natural with her you know,” Ava said lightly.

“So are you,” he replied evenly.  “We make a good team.”  He wanted to say something so badly about how good they would be with their own kids but didn’t want to take a chance of seeming pushy, especially if she wasn’t on the same page as him.

“Well, she’s my niece and so we’ve got a bit of a connection.  But you?  Most guys aren’t so at ease around babies.  Do you have any nieces or nephews?”  It hit Ava just then how little she knew about his family.

“Unfortunately, no.  I’m an only child so the only kids I get to be around belong to friends.”

“Well, you are definitely a natural with them.  Olivia is completely smitten with you.”  As if to prove her aunt’s point, when Brian turned to look down at her, Olivia seemed to blow raspberries at him and then giggled.  “See?  She’s flirting with you.”

Brian turned and wrapped Ava in his arms and kissed her.  “She’s a little young for me and besides, the only woman I want flirting with me is her smoking hot aunt.”

“Smoking hot, huh?  I think I like that title.”

“I’ll have the t-shirt made,” he joked and released her.  “Let me head out of here before it gets too late.  I’ll be back in about an hour and a half.  Don’t do anything to traumatize Olivia,” he teased and headed for the door. 

“Not funny,” she called after him but she was grinning from ear to ear.  Looking down at Olivia, she continued to smile.  “Okay, little miss, let’s get you fed and ready to see your mommy and daddy.”  With that she lifted her up and together they went to the kitchen in search of their breakfast.

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Lacey came barreling through the door at exactly ten o’clock.  She looked more relaxed than she had the previous morning but had the harried look of a mother who had missed her baby.  “Is she awake?  Did she go down for a nap yet?”

“Please, like I would put her down before you got home,” Ava said with an eye roll.  “We were just reading about bunnies and although I for one am anxious to hear how the story ends, I think Olivia wouldn’t mind if we waited until next time.” 

Lacey scooped the child from Ava’s arms and held her tight.  “Oh, I cannot believe how much I missed her,” she said, her voice catching.  “We thought that it would be no big deal to be away for one night but I have to tell you, it was like a giant part of me was missing!  I just can’t believe how hard it was.”

“Well, technically, she is a part of you,” Ava observed.  “It’s only natural that you’d miss her.”  She stopped speaking for a moment to watch Olivia place her tiny hands on Lacey’s face and thought how much she would love to have a child of her own do that to her.  Clearing her throat, she spoke again.  “So, how did the meeting go?”

Sitting down on the floor and not taking her eyes from her daughter, Lacey replied.  “It all went very well.  They’re an architectural firm moving their operations here to Raleigh and they wanted to get started on making plans for their new offices.  The building’s not even done yet, but it’s never too soon to start.”

“Couldn’t your firm send somebody else for the preliminaries?  I mean, why interrupt your maternity leave for this?”

Lacey finally looked at Ava.  “Actually, this is my first step in branching out on my own.”

Ava stared at her for a moment in confusion.  “Wait, what?  What do you mean branching out on your own?  Aren’t you going back to work?”

“Oh, I am; I’m just going to be doing it for myself now.  I’m starting my own company.”

“When did this happen?  Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?”  Ava actually cringed at her accusatory tone
, but not that long ago they had promised each other to not hide what was going on in their lives and here they were, outing something big.

“Okay, okay, I know I should have said something sooner but it wasn’t until I left that meeting yesterday that I knew for sure.  Ean’s been encouraging me to go out on my own so that I could be home with Olivia more.  I wasn’t sure if I was ready for such a big step and that’s why yesterday
was such a big deal.  I figured if I could handle this presentation and feel that it was a project that I could manage, then I’d be ready to leave the security of the firm I’ve been with.”

“So this extension on the house is going to also include work space for you, right?  That was the new stuff that Ean added to the plans but Brian didn’t share with me?”

“We just didn’t want to put it out there in case I chickened out.  Don’t be mad at me, Ava,” Lacey sighed.  “I didn’t mean for it to be some big secret, it was just something I had to figure out for myself.”

“Okay, whatever,” Ava said as she rose from the sofa.  “Look, I need to get home and finish packing for the weekend.  I’ve got that interview at four and…”

“Is this a position that you’re really interested in?”  Lacey asked, coming to her feet as well.

“It’s alright, I guess.  Nothing has wowed me so far.  This one was really just an excuse to get up to the cottage for the weekend with Brian.”  She looked up as Ean walked into the room and came over to take Olivia into his arms and kiss her hello.  The scene was beyond sweet and she felt like an intruder watching it all.  “I better get going.”