“Who’s hungry?” She sat forward and took in her handsome Maxwell men.
“Me!” Kian raised his hand, his smile goofy. “Pancakes!”
“Of course. I’ll make us some breakfast,” she offered.
Kian had a love affair with pancakes, and with a smile like the one on his face, she’d make them every day.
“I have to potty.” Kian scooted to the edge of the bed. He ran from the room.
When his footsteps faded, Vic turned to her, his grin crooked.
“The only excuse I could come up with was a bad dream.” He chuckled.
“That was slick. I sure as hell couldn’t think of anything.” She giggled and held up their son’s blanket. It was plush and smelled like it had recently been washed. “And he wanted to help.”
“He’s a good kid,” Vic murmured.
“He is. We did good,” she whispered. She peeled back the comforter and slid her legs from underneath it.
Vic’s eyes went to her bare legs, then upward toward his shirt. His eyes darkened for a moment.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded, but her heart raced. Not from embarrassment, but from the way he looked at her and from the truth she didn’t want to admit.
She wasn’t okay. Not really. Last night had opened a door inside her that she’d tried to keep locked. With Kian climbing in the bed with them, it had given her a glimpse of something she wanted badly.
A family.
A real one.
Not their child going in between two houses. Two schedules. Each of them having ‘a weekend’.
Just…them.
“Tachina.” Vic must have read something in her expression. He reached out and rubbed her knee.
“I’m okay. Really.”
He didn’t push her. He stood and grabbed a shirt from his dresser and pulled it on. She tried not to stare at the stretch and flex of his muscles.
“I’ll take him downstairs and find his show for him to watch while you get dressed,” he said.
She nodded wordlessly and watched him walk toward the door. He paused and glanced back at her. He studied her in that moment, and for a brief second, she would have sworn the man was able to look into her soul.
“Everything is going to be okay.”
She inhaled sharply, and before she could say anything, he stepped into the seating area and left the room. She closed her eyes and laid hand on her chest.
She knew without a doubt that she wasn’t just having baby fever anymore.
She was falling for her son’s father.
Hard.
And she didn’t know how to stop it.
Vic had never been a morning person, but as he leaned in the doorway and watched Tachina move around his kitchen in his t-shirt, he thought maybe he could become one.