“Okay.” She took the little girl from his arms, and he immediately turned toward Henry’s crib without looking at her.
“Apparently this is going to be awkward,” she said, standing beside the changing table with Katie propped on her hip.
“I’m sorry.” He carried Henry to the table and began unfastening his overalls.
“Sorry this is awkward?”
He finally lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Sorry I walked in on you in the laundry room,” he clarified.
“Forget it,” she said. “It was just unfortunate timing.”
One side of his mouth curved. “Or fortunate—depending on your perspective.”
She felt heat rise into her face again.
“But I wouldn’t have walked into the laundry room if I’d known you were in there. Naked,” he said.
Her gaze shifted to the trio of cribs lined up along the far wall, settling on the closest one, in which Jared was still sleeping. Of course, none of the babies was paying any attention to their conversation. And even if they had been listening, they wouldn’t have understood what the adults were saying. But that knowledge didn’t prevent Fallon’s cheeks from burning. “I wasn’t naked.”
“Close enough,” he said.
“I was topless,” she clarified. “And wearing a bra.”
“White lace,” he said, confirming that he’d noticed.
“A lot of women wear bathing suits that cover less,” she pointed out.
He finished with Henry’s diaper and turned back to face her. “Not in Montana in December.”
“I’m just saying—it’s not a big deal.”
“It is to a man who hasn’t seen an even partially naked female body in almost fifteen months.”
Fifteen months?
He nodded, obviously having read the confusion on her face. “Yeah, the minute Paula found out she was carrying triplets, she shut me out of the bedroom.”
Fallon didn’t know how to respond to that, so she said nothing.
“So if I was staring—” He shook his head as he set Henry back in his crib so that he could perform the diaper routine with Jared, who was just waking up. “There’s no ‘if’ about it—I was staring. And I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, and managed a small smile. “Truthfully, I’m flattered. My breasts are too small to garner much notice.”
“Your breasts aren’t too small, they’re—” He broke off again, swallowed. “Wow, this is a really inappropriate conversation.”
“Forget it,” she said again. “Please.”
“I don’t know if I can,” he admitted. “But I’ll try.”
* * *
The scent of something rich and savory teased Jamie’s nostrils and made his mouth water as he made his way back down the stairs. After setting Henry and Jared in the enclosed play yard with their sister, he headed toward the kitchen, where he could hear Fallon moving around.
“Something smells good,” he noted. And looks even better, he thought, surreptitiously glancing at her. Though she was fully dressed now, it was as if he could see right through her clothes to the creamy skin beneath, the tantalizing feminine curves, the peaked nipples pressing against white lace.
“I figured you would probably be ready for dinner by the time we got back from getting the tree,” Fallon said, “so I put a roast and vegetables in the slow cooker.”
He snapped a leash on his wayward libido and turned his attention to the pot. “We’re not eating until we get back?”
“The plan was to go out before it gets dark,” she reminded him. “And the roast won’t be ready for another hour, anyway. But to be honest, I’m not sure we should get the tree today.”
“Why not?” He had no objection to the reprieve, but he was curious as to why Fallon—who had been so eager to get the house decked out for the holidays—had suddenly changed her mind.
Was it his fault? Had his gawking at her nearly naked breasts made her uncomfortable? He mentally shook his head at the ridiculousness of the question. Of course, his gawking had made her uncomfortable. Unfortunately there was no way for him to unsee what he’d seen, even if he wanted to...and he wasn’t certain that he did.
“Well, the reason I was doing laundry today—” she glanced away, her cheeks flushing prettily “—is that Henry threw up on me earlier.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she assured him.
“But I knew he was feeling off,” Jamie said, relieved that she didn’t blame him for the incident, and especially that she didn’t seem to feel uncomfortable after the laundry room encounter. “He was awake a couple of times in the night, not for any particular reason that I could tell, but he was definitely unsettled.”
“Well, he seems fine now,” she said. “But I’m not sure that being out in the cold for an extended period of time is a good idea.”
“My mom always sent us out to play in the winter so the cold could kill off our germs.”
The words were out of his mouth before he even knew what he was saying. If she realized the significance of his statement, the implication that she was as close to a mother-figure as his babies had, she didn’t show it. In fact, she didn’t react at all, except to ask, “What if it wasn’t some kind of bug?”
“What else could it be?” he asked.
“Maybe...the muffins I made,” she suggested tentatively.
Jamie shook his head. “Your baking did not make him sick.”
“How do you know?” she challenged.
“Because all of the babies had the same thing and only Henry threw up.”
“So far,” she muttered.
“Besides, I ate four of those muffins,” he pointed out. “And they were delicious.”
She still looked dubious.
“He’s fine, Fallon. If I’ve learned nothing else over the past ten months, I’ve learned that kids get sick—and preemies more often than most. There’s no way to prevent it,” he assured her.
“I’ve also learned that three babies living in close proximity usually share germs and viruses much more willingly than toys—so it’s quite possible that whatever caused Henry’s stomach upset might already have been passed on to Jared and Katie.”
She nodded in acknowledgment of that fact. “Which is another reason it might be a good idea to delay the tree-cutting.”
“That will also give me a chance to haul down the boxes of decorations from the attic,” he said. “Because I assume that, after we cut down the tree, you’re going to want to decorate it.”
“No, you’re going to decorate it,” she said, but softened the directive with a smile.
A smile that drew his attention to her mouth and made him wonder if her lips could possibly be as soft and sweet as they looked. He pushed the tempting question aside. “There you go, being all bossy again,” he said, his tone deliberately light.
“But I might be persuaded to help,” Fallon relented.
He lifted the lid on the pot and peered at the roast beef and vegetables in an effort to avoid focusing on her and the new and unexpected hunger that was churning inside him. “Are