Page 16 of Good as Gold
“Look, buddy! Reinforcements,” Matteo says as he ushers me inside.
“No progress, huh?” I toss my jacket onto a leather armchair in Zara’s gorgeous living room.
Her husband is loaded, so they could probably live in a mansion. Instead, they’ve renovated their historic three-bedroom Tudor in the center of town. With its brick fireplace and antique wooden moldings, it’s a lovely family home—the kind I’d hoped to live in at thirty-five.
“What am I doing wrong?” Matteo asks. “His diaper is dry. He refuses his bottle. I’ve tried everything. Well, everything except admitting defeat. My mom and my brothers are blowing up my phone asking me if I got the kids to sleep. I think they’re taking bets.”
I laugh, because it’s so easy to picture his family doing that. “Hang on—don’t you think that’s a sign? I think they know something you don’t. Maybe he doesn’t like to go down for strangers.”
“Maybe,” he says with a handsome frown. “How should I know?”
“Let me have a chat with him. May I?” I hold out my arms.
“Be my guest. But, uh…” He gingerly extends the baby toward me. “I’m terrified of dropping him. He might be the first baby I ever held for longer than ten minutes.”
Micah is a burly ten-month-old and not exactly fragile. But it’s cute that Matteo is worried about him. “He can probably sense your unease.” I take the warm, solid little guy into my arms, and he gazes up at me.
Wow. What a cutie. He has his daddy’s dark red hair, and it’s a little curly. He blinks up at me with sleepy brown eyes and a slightly put-out expression. Then he lifts both chubby fists and rubs his eyes.
“Somebody’s overtired,” I announce.
Matteo rolls his own set of handsome brown eyes. “Aren’t we all. So why doesn’t he just go to sleep?”
“Show me his room.”
“Yes, queen.”
He leads the way up the stairs. At the top, he enters a cute little nursery. There’s a crib and a rocking chair made of blond wood, and a fuzzy rug covers the wood floor. A nightlight emits a warm glow on the windowsill.
I carry the baby in a slow lap around the room. “Okay, sir. I know you’re disoriented. You’re used to bedtime going a certain way. Mama isn’t here, and that’s a problem for you. This change in personnel was not pre-approved, right? And you would like a word with the manager.”
Matteo snickers. Micah coos.
I begin to sway from foot to foot, and then I whisper, “The thing is? Everything is just fine. There’s no reason to be afraid. Mama loves you. She’s just out for the night with your daddy. He loves you, too.”
With one hand, I begin to pat his back.
The little guy sighs. He rests his cheek against my shoulder. After a few minutes, he closes his eyes.
“You are magic,” Matteo whispers.
“It’s just confidence,” I whisper back. “Want to finish the job? Just rock him in that chair and talk to him until he passes out. Then lay him down in the crib.”
“Okay, sure.” He sits down in the rocker and holds out his hands. “I need the bragging rights.”
“Just tell him everything is all right. He’ll believe you.” I lean down and place him onto Matteo’s chest. “When you think he’s asleep, count to two hundred before you make the transfer.”
“Yes, queen,” he says softly. Then he winks.
At the door, I turn around for one more look. Matteo is rocking slowly, his head tilted back, his body relaxed. He’s rubbing the baby’s back with a soft, circular stroke.
The sight gives me an honest-to-God ache behind my breastbone. I’m thirty-five years old, and this will never be my life.
That’s on me. My own choices are to blame. I know this.
But it still hurts.
CHAPTER7
