Leaning her back against the coffee table, she crossed her legs beneath her and watched the baby play. She’d had limited contact with the babies of a few friends back in Chicago but had never even babysat. Her father, a cop, had been too worried about her going to strangers’ homes to watch their kids, so he paid her to clean the house and cook instead.
Generally, babies didn’t take to her any more than she took to them, but Wyatt seemed to accept her. Maybe he just missed his mama and she was a better match for Jaycee than Nash.
Jaycee must’ve crossed the border after dropping Wyatt off with Nash. Was she looking for Brett? Maybe she figured those goons who’d paid her a visit at her place in Phoenix would be tracking her and she wanted to put space between her and Wyatt so they’d believe her story.
What would those guys want with the baby, anyway? Brett must be in some big trouble. If Jaycee really feared for Wyatt’s life, why not just drop him off with Marcus? They could work out the paternity and custody issues later. At least Wyatt would be safe with Marcus.
Emily’s gaze tracked back to Wyatt, now gnawing on a set of giant plastic keys with his toothless gums. Maybe she should just take off with Wyatt now and bring him to Marcus. Would any judge blame him for kidnapping the baby to keep him safe from whatever threat those guys posed?
Marcus had explicitly told her not to take Wyatt. He didn’t want to do anything that would prejudice a family court judge against him. And she knew more than anyone that the law followed its own protocols.
Marcus hadn’t seemed too concerned when she’d reported the visit by the two men. He figured they were looking for Jaycee’s boyfriend and that was the end of it. She’d tried to sound the alarm that if those two believed Wyatt was Brett’s son, they’d kidnap him to use as a weapon against Brett, but Marcus hadn’t seen them as a threat.
Wyatt scooted a few inches and then rocked back and forth in an attempt to roll onto his stomach. She crawled onto the blanket with him and put a toy just out of his reach to the side to encourage him.
When he finally made the big heave-ho and rolled onto his tummy, she clapped and whistled. His brown eyes got big and round when she whistled, so she puckered up and whistled a tune inches from his face. He patted her lips with his hand, and she didn’t even mind the stickiness this time.
After more gymnastics on the floor, a bottle and a diaper change, which she managed by holding her breath, Emily wheeled the stroller from the room Nash had pointed out before he left.
“Let’s take a walk and give that silly dog some company.”
She loaded Wyatt into the stroller and found Denali’s leash hanging from the front doorknob. She yelled his name in the back, and Denali emerged from the trees and scampered across the lawn. She patted her thigh. “C’mon, boy. We’re going for a walk.”
She hooked up the dog and pushed the stroller onto the porch. She eased it down the steps and aimed it onto the circular driveway.
The higher elevation down here made it cooler than Phoenix, although once the temperature reached over a hundred, it didn’t make much difference. She crossed the road with baby and dog and steered into the grove of trees, which offered some relief from the blazing sun.
For over thirty minutes, she circled around the trees, smelling the bark and crushing the leaves in her hand. This didn’t seem much like the desert.
She checked her phone for the time. “Okay, dog and baby, we need to head home for Nash’s lunchtime visit to make sure we’re all still alive.”
A little chill snaked up her spine, and she shrugged it off as she walked into the blinding sun.
She could definitely do this for a few more days until Jaycee returned. Then wherever Jaycee went with Wyatt, she’d follow, even if it took her away from Nash Dillon.
At the edge of the trees, Emily stopped to adjust Wyatt’s hat to keep the sun from his face. When a vehicle roared down the road, she squinted through her sunglasses. Wyatt hadn’t given her a chance to make some lunch.
She barreled ahead with the stroller and then tripped to a stop. The engine she’d heard didn’t belong to Nash’s truck. A black sedan idled outside the gates of Nash’s house.
Emily slowed down and stuck close to the tree line as she approached the car. Her heart slammed against her chest as she recognized the dark tinted windows and the round sticker in the back.
The thugs from Jaycee’s apartment had tracked Jaycee here to Paradiso—and worse, they had a bead on Wyatt.
Chapter Four
As Nash turned onto his street, a black sedan crept up to the intersection and rolled through the stop sign to make a right. A lot of people came this way before they realized the street came to a dead end, and they couldn’t drive through the pecan groves to get to the entrance to the highway. GPS steered them wrong every time, but it wouldn’t kill them to stop at the stop sign on their way out.
He pulled into his driveway and dropped his stiff shoulders when he saw Emily’s rental car. He knew it was a rental because he’d run the plate. Everything had checked out with Emily O’Brien, but he’d been happy he had Kyle Lewis install some security cameras in the house. He wouldn’t want to have to explain to Jaycee that he’d hired a nanny from the grocery store parking lot and she’d kidnapped Wyatt.
He’d been impressed with the way Emily played with Wyatt this morning. The kid obviously knew a good nanny when he saw one. He seemed a
