“You need to go easy on Piper for a while, okay, sweetheart? She’s new at this, but I know she’d gonna be awesome, just like those uncles you’ve inherited. You’ll have them wrapped around your pinkie in no time.”

“Hey, you.”

He lifted his head and smiled at her.

“Grace and I have been getting acquainted.”

“I can see that. What time did she get up?”

“Five thirty.”

“Oh wow, you kept her quiet until now.”

“You looked tired, and I remember vaguely you getting out of bed a few times.”

He sat up with the baby in his arms, making her gurgle.

“So how about we eat some breakfast, then hit the road.”

“Yes, and Dylan—”

“I know, thanks, right?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t have got through last night without you.”

“Yeah you could, although that bowel explosion would have been a struggle.”

“Ha,” Piper said, then yawned.

“I’ll go pack up.”

“I gave her a bottle and some yogurt.”

“Thanks. You’re good at this.”

“It comes back to you.” His smile was loaded with boyish charm.

They packed, and loaded everything in the Range Rover. Piper paid the bill, even though Dylan wanted to split it.

“No way you’re doing this for me.”

“But I slept in that bed... with you, and let me tell you—”

Piper put her hand over his mouth.

“The mattress was a bit hard,” he said solemnly, although those blue eyes had a wicked glint.

Grace was in his arms, and the sight was enough to make her heart sigh. The man had no right being that hot. She felt way too comfortable here with him. Like he was the right fit, which of course he wasn’t, and never would be. But what they’d just been through had changed them—there was no way it couldn’t. Piper, however, needed to remember that this was a brief moment in time, not a long-term one. He’d be going back to his life soon and she hers, and now that included Grace, so a relationship was not in her immediate future... even if Dylan wanted one, which of course he didn’t. Shut it down now, girl.

Mrs. Little, the social worker, met up with them at the police station again, and while she wasn’t overjoyed, she seemed happy enough to let them take Grace. She’d also retrieved a lot of the little girl’s things. Dylan stowed them all in his car.

“Not entirely sure that woman knows how to crack a smile,” Dylan said when they were on the road out of Rummer.

“I doubt she has much to smile about in her line of work.”

“There is that.” He turned to smile at Grace, who garbled something to him. “She just told me she’s ready.”

“How do you figure that?”

He looked surprised. “You didn’t hear that?”

“Idiot,” Piper said around a yawn.