He looked up at her and then Dylan as if to say, Did you see me? Did you see what I did?
She was laughing and crying at the same time as she swooped him up into her arms. “You walked!”
“You’re amazing, kid,” Dylan said, as much awe in his voice as had been in hers.
She had rained kisses over her son’s entire face by the time he wiggled back down to the floor. He pulled himself up on the side of the couch and then, with a shove, propelled himself forward again.
Without thinking, Grace reached out to hold Dylan’s hand. Or maybe he was the one who reached out for her. Either way, all that mattered was that he was here to share this milestone with her, and that he was as amazed by it as she was.
“We have to call your mom, have to take a video and email it to her so that she can see what Mason is doing!”
Dylan didn’t seem to think it was at all strange for her to think of his parents when she and Mason had only just met them the week before. Probably because he knew his mom would go crazy over this news.
He filmed first Mason alone and then both of them when Grace held out her arms and Mason walked into them. She was so happy, even though she couldn’t stop crying. But it was okay. She knew Claudia would understand, because Dylan’s mother had likely cried tears of joy at all of her children’s first steps.
Finally, Mason stayed on his bottom and started yawning and rubbing his eyes. “Looks like it’s time to finally wind down for the night.” It had been an incredible evening, and she knew she shouldn’t be disappointed that it was over. “I should get him changed and into his jammies and then read him his usual bedtime story.”
“My nieces and nephews tell me I do a pretty good job with bedtime stories,” Dylan offered.
She was sure she’d never smiled so widely before or felt so happy in all her life. “In that case, we’ll be right back.”
* * *
Dylan’s voice was so soothing as he read to Mason that Grace felt her own eyelids grow heavy. And maybe she would have fallen asleep if she hadn’t been so totally sure that tonight was the night.
From their first kiss—heck, from the first time she’d set eyes on Dylan, if she was being totally honest with herself—she’d been on the verge of giving herself to him. And every time they were together, she moved closer to that daring tumble.
But when he’d rejoiced with her over Mason taking his first steps?
No woman could have resisted a man like that.
Though Mason began to make cute little snoring sounds partway through the story, Dylan didn’t stop reading. With his attention on the book, Grace took the opportunity to feast her eyes on him, and to marvel yet again not only at how good he was with her son…but also at the precipice on which they stood tonight.
Soon the book would be put down, Mason would be in his crib, and there would only be the two of them.
Finally, Dylan shut the book and looked down at the little boy sleeping so trustingly, so peacefully, in the crook of one of his strong arms. When Grace saw the emotion in his eyes, she felt her own grow wet.
She’d tried so hard to be careful, to protect both Mason and herself from having a man drop into their lives and then drop out on a whim. But how could she ever have been prepared for a man like Dylan Sullivan? For his heart-stopping, infectious grins. For the serious way he took his boatbuilding work and his life’s passion for sailing. For his strength, both in the way he used his hands and muscles to make a huge boat take shape, and in his personal convictions. For the gentle way he held her and Mason. For the way his family had taken in her and her son without so much as a pause. And, most of all, for the way he continually made her face her fears, one after the other. She hadn’t nearly faced them all yet, but at least she’d finally stopped feeling like a shell of the old Grace Adrian.
“We never make it to the end of the book, either.” She ran her hand over her son’s soft hair. “I’ll put him in his crib.”
“Could I?”
Her heart should have been used to the way it always thudded like a rocket against her breastbone whenever Dylan was near, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to being with someone so selfless, so full of kindness—all of it wrapped up in the sexiest package imaginable.
She’d already let her son and Dylan laugh together, little manly in-jokes that had clearly filled her son’s heart with pure joy. And she’d just let Dylan read Mason’s bedtime story with her little boy on his lap. Shouldn’t she draw a line—shouldn’t she remind both of them that for all he’d played the part of Mason’s father all night, he wasn’t?
The way Dylan softly said her name told her he’d just read every one of her thoughts and could clearly see how torn she was about letting him even more deeply into their lives. Perhaps it shouldn’t be such a big deal who put her son into his crib, but for Grace, that final kiss good night was a symbol of parenthood that she’d earned not just in every moment that she’d carried Mason inside of her body, but during every day of the past ten months when everything she’d done had been for him.
“I would protect Mason with my life,” Dylan said softly. “If he ever needs me for any reason, I’ll drop everything for him.”
And that was when she knew she’d never have to worry ever again about her son where Dylan was concerned. Because even if the gorgeous man sitting beside her on the couch grew tired of her, she now knew with utter certainty that he’d never walk away from Mason. Her romance with Dylan had absolutely nothing to do with the bond the two of them had created with one another.
Her relief was so swift and heady that the smile she gave him was completely genuine. “I’d love it if you’d help put him to bed.”
They walked together through the small living room and into the bedroom that she and Mason shared. His crib was in the corner, the stuffed zoo animals on the mobile above it sent dancing in the wake of the door opening. The changing table was beside it, loaded up with diapers and skin cream and wipes.
Most men, she imagined, wouldn’t be particularly interested in baby things. But she could see how charmed Dylan was by the scene. At least, right before he turned to look at her bed and then at her as though he couldn’t stop picturing the two of them having wild and crazy sex in it.
She’d been thinking of anything but sex when she’d bought the double bed and the sheets for it upon moving to Seattle. But suddenly, she knew she’d never be able to look at her bed in that sexless way again.