And so did Maddie.
“Hey? Dude, you alive? Joseph? Joe?”
I cracked open one eye, Colorado right there, up in my space. First things first, he was way too close. Second, he’d had a shower, his hair scraped back from his face, and his eyes a lot less red than yesterday. He waved something under my nose. “Cold coffee?”
“Mr. Penn?”
“Call me Colorado.”
“Uh huh.” I attempted to focus. Then I wriggled to sit up, and took the mug gratefully, not caring if it was only lukewarm, just that it was caffeine. Sleep deprivation was a thing, but this had been one night and I was wrecked. Back with Emma it had been night after night. It was all about the rhythm of sleep and feed, and once I mastered it, then everything would be fine.
Colorado picked Maddie up out of her crib. “Wake up sleepy Boo head,” he sung as he scooped Maddie around the room before settling on the mattress beside me. He’d showered in some fruity citrus shower gel, wore faded jeans and a T-shirt proclaiming shut your five hole with a picture of what I knew was a hockey guy in his pads and with a stick and a helmet. That was my limit of hockey knowledge, but I’d seen the ads on the television.
“Is that you?” I asked, and pointed at his shirt.
He glanced down and huffed a laugh. “Pretty much.” Then he pointed at the Marvin the Martian shirt I’d not changed out of. “Is that you?”
“Pretty much,” I repeated, and cleared my throat. He was an intimidating guy, and even though he wasn’t leaping sofas in one bound, or threatening me this morning, he still looked as if he could handle a situation. One thing though, he didn’t look wide-eyed and strung-out, and there was a peace in him that was markedly different from yesterday.
He slid down the wall, and brought up his knees, settling Maddie against him and counting her tiny toes along to a throaty rendition of “Ten Little Piggies”. I felt something shift inside me; a tug of something weird, and pressed a hand to my belly. It felt an awful lot like attraction, or at least appreciation for a good-looking man, but it had to be mostly because he held his daughter gently and with so much love.
“Was she good for you?” he finally asked as I sipped at the coffee and watched his strong capable hands hold his daughter.
“She was, she’s a good girl.”
“Of course she is,” Colorado murmured, then unbuttoned her sleeper and picked her up to blow raspberries on her belly. “She’s way cuter than her dad.”
We sat in silence for a while, then he sighed, and chucked Maddie under the chin. “I have to go to work,” he said and there was regret in his voice. “I don’t want to, not that I don’t love my job, I mean I’m fu—fudging awesome at it, and the Raptors need me, and I need them, but I don’t want to leave my little Sweet Pea.”
“She’ll be fine with me, we might go for a ramble around the garden.”
“You’ll make sure she’s covered up with lotion and all? Don’t—”
“It will be fine, I know my job.” That may have sounded rude, but it was as if he needed the reminder.
He looked as if he wanted to say something, then bit his lip, and I was drawn to the way he held then released it and abruptly realized I was classifying his lips as plump and kissable. Also, he was really close, and hell, he was holding a baby. I might’ve framed everything in my life with science but kids were the one bit of non-scientific chaos I craved.
“Okay then,” he agreed, then wrinkled his nose. “Look, Simon didn’t want me say anything, but he told me you think we should have S.W.A.T. on call. Is that for real, because I know this cop, and he’s a big fan, comes to all the games and he could pass a message to them? I know people that can do me favors if I can get them something they want first. It’s kind of cool.”
He sounded proud of that, but I didn’t like to point out that he was securing their help first. It wasn’t cool, so much as sad. What the hell, where did that thought come from?
“No, we don’t need S.W.A.T. on speed dial.”
“Also, I have this friend Stan, big loud Russian, he plays for the Railers, now he really knows people. Guys who could be here if there was issue with… whatever.”
“You mean guys to help me with changing diapers and watch me stroll around your backyard?”
He flushed and dipped his gaze. “I don’t want anything to happen to her. I don’t know who her mom is, but if she came back, if I lost her…”
I gave a reassuring nod to indicate I understood. For a while when we’d first had Emma, Bobby’s parents had wanted a say in who raised her and we’d had to fight them for mother’s rights. They were still in our lives, on the periphery, waiting for us to mess up, so I got how he was feeling. I held out my hands for Maddie and after a small hug, he passed her to me. “Go work, we’ll be here when you get back.”
“Simon is staying here, Vlad is picking me up, he’s the captain. He’s got this bee in his bonnet about me getting to practice.” He rolled his eyes, but carried on talking. “I’ve got conditioning, gym work, other… stuff… I’ll be home by four.”
“And we’ll be here.”
“Then we need to start packing for the road trip
