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Derek scrunched his nose up.
“What? No,” he immediately denied. “I can’t do that. Babies don’t like me.”
“Actually,” Sierra said. “That baby was screaming her little head off before you got in here. She heard you and stopped.”
I pointed to the seat where the parents sat and grinned. “Sit.”
“Avery, no,” he tried again, backing away this time.
“Derek,” I said softly. “This is your niece. Your sister and brother-in-law love her. They love you. The baby settled down when you came in here because she knew the sound of your voice. You’re holding this baby.”
Derek sighed and started to jerk his suit jacket off.
I walked up to him and took off his tie.
When he looked down at me, there was fear in his eyes.
“I don’t know how to hold a baby,” he told me. “I stay away from them until they can sit up on their own. When they’re not breakable.”
“Riggs will just lie there,” I told him. “You don’t need to do anything but hold her.”
“Riggs?” he laughed.
“I can’t call her ‘the baby’ until we learn her name,” I pointed out. “And she reminds me of a little Martin Riggs off of Lethal Weapon. A fighter to her very core.”
He closed his eyes with a pained expression on his face, and I started to slowly undo the buttons of his black silk shirt.
I’d had visions of doing this again tonight, but this definitely wasn’t where I expected to be when I did it.
Derek’s eyes caught mine, and I knew he was thinking much the same thing.
He winked at me when I got to the last button, then shrugged that shirt off, too.
When it got caught on his hands, I rolled my eyes and unbuttoned his cuffs, too.
“Thanks,” he said as he got to his t-shirt and shrugged it off. “Now what?”
“Now you sit,” Sierra said. “Get comfy.”
Derek did, getting into the chair and propping his feet up on the ottoman.
All the while he got comfortable, Sierra worked diligently to get the tiny little baby out of the incubator.
I reached forward and helped with the detangling of cords, and Sierra pointed.
“You get the baby, I’ll get the cords,” she suggested.
So that was what I did. I picked up the cutest, tiniest little creature on the planet as Sierra got the cords, and together we moved as one to place the baby on Derek’s chest.
Right over the tattoo that covered his heart.
The tattoo that still brought tears to my eyes every time that I saw it.
On the middle of his pectoral, there was a tattered black and white flag with a thin blue line coloring one of the middle lines. Underneath it, in beautiful script, it said, ‘I was born for this. I will live for this. I will die for this.’
Sierra laid the baby right over his heart to the point where you couldn’t see the words of his tattoo, then grinned. “Perfect. Let me grab her blankets.”
I grinned widely at Derek, who looked uncomfortable as hell, then lifted his hand to place it over Riggs’ back.
Riggs wrapped her tiny little finger around Derek’s, and I saw him fall.
His eyes lit up, and his mouth opened as he looked down at the tiny miracle in his arms.
“I can’t wait to rub it in Katy’s face that I got to hold her baby first,” he snickered.
I rolled my eyes and backed up as Sierra covered the baby with the blankets, then tucked them all around her so she was snug.
“We do this with parents all the time,” she said as she did it. “The baby is thirty-four weeks, so almost all the way there. She’s going to be nice and healthy and strong. But the biggest concerns at this stage is of course their lungs being developed fully, and them being able to control their body temperature. The other would be eating on her own, but the way she’s going to town on that pacifier? She’s going to be okay.”
“When will you feed her?” I asked curiously.
“Katy will be out of surgery soon, or Logan. Then we can talk to them about what they’d like to do. Most likely we’ll supplement with formula if they’re not going to be upset. But there are other options,” Sierra chattered.
“Am I doing it right?” Derek asked, eyes huge and worried.
For such a big man, he was scared of an itty-bitty baby.
It was cute as hell.
“You’re doing fine,” Sierra snickered. “These babies are more durable than you think they are.”
Derek swallowed.
My phone buzzed with a text, and I opened it up to find Reese sending an update. “Your sister’s out of surgery and in recovery. They’re waiting an hour before they move her to her room.”
Derek blew out a relieved breath.
“Thank God.” He sighed, his eyes closing briefly.
I quickly snapped a picture of two of my now most-favorite people and sent it to Reese. Then I sent it to Luke. Katy and Rowen. I didn’t have Logan’s number, or I’d send it to his phone, too.
