Page 15 of I Found You (Wilder #1)

Maeve

Oh. My. Goodness . I could hear Wyatt’s truck as he pulled up outside my house. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say? Did I just blurt out, “A friend gave it to me as a joke”? Did I not say anything at all?

He saw my vibrator. I’d never even used one before. I thought I was embarrassed when I was caught ogling him yesterday; that was nothing compared to how mortified I was when I walked into my bathroom and saw that box on my counter.

Oh no! He was coming to the door. I could hear his footsteps. Maybe I would just ignore him. Hide in my house until he left.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I froze. I didn’t know what to do. What did he think about me now?

Not that I thought he was thinking about me.

Okay, get it together. He probably chuckled and never thought of it again.

He wasn’t looking at me, with my rolls and dimples in places other than my (face) cheeks, like that.

He’d probably seen a lot crazier things than one small vibrator, in a box, no less.

It’s fine. Everything is fine. I took a few calming breaths, my heart rate gradually decreasing back to its normal rhythm.

I opened the door to find Wyatt and a second, younger version of Wyatt.

“Morning,” I said cheerfully. “I didn’t realize you were coming over this morning. With company.” I smoothed my sundress. Today’s was light green with white butterflies that were so small they looked like polka dots from afar and tucked my hair behind my ears.

“Maeve, this is my youngest brother, Reid.” He made the introductions, and I got a quick “Hey” from Reid.

He had an easy smile that made him look even younger than he probably was, which was already pretty young.

It reminded me of Wyatt’s smile, when he chose to discard the smirks and sly grins for the real thing.

Jane started making some noises from her bouncy chair.

I swore she heard Wyatt’s voice and was just looking for attention.

Of course, it worked. Wyatt blew right past me into the house.

Reid paused like he didn’t want to be rude and follow in his brother’s footsteps.

I just shook my head and opened the door wider, gesturing for Reid to come in too.

Wyatt moved with confidence through my house to get to her.

He picked her up and tickled her cheek and neck with the scruff from his beard.

And there went my heart rate again. Something about him looking so comfortable in my house, playfully showering this little girl in love, was doing things to me.

“You want to meet Jane?” he asked Reid. He looked like a proud father in that moment, eyes bright, smiling down at her.

“You know she’s not yours, right?” Reid’s eyebrows quirked up, but an amused expression flitted across his face.

Wyatt’s eyes visibly dimmed, and I found myself not liking Reid very much at all. It didn’t last long though. Wyatt recovered in the blink of an eye. “You come look at this little girl and tell me she doesn’t steal your heart, I dare you.”

Reid went to stand on the side of Wyatt, reaching over and tickling the baby in Wyatt’s arms. “Hey, baby Jane. You got this big fucker wrapped around your little pinky finger, don’t you?” he cooed. Jane cooed back, presumably in agreement. She really did have Wyatt in the palm of her hands.

“Hey, I hope you don’t mind me popping by. I noticed some of these boards needed to be replaced on your front porch, so I stole Reid for the day so we could replace them. I don’t want you tripping down the stairs holding Jane.”

The small front porch covered my entry door and spanned to the right to cover the rest of the front of the house. It wasn’t in total disrepair and already looked better after the pressure washing yesterday, but some of the boards had started splintering. And the stairs were a bit rickety.

Reid started getting set up, gathering their tools and equipment. When he went to the truck for something, I took the opportunity to talk to Wyatt alone.

“Wyatt, I can’t really afford all this. I’m on a teacher’s salary, which I think we both know is laughable.

I don’t go back to work for another three weeks, and I’m not sure if I’m going to be paying for childcare for Jane or what.

I don’t really have a lot of extra right now, even with the payments from DCF for Jane. ”

“If I expected you to pay for this, doll, I would have told you ahead of time. Don’t worry about it. Besides, this is what Reid does for a living. This project will be a piece of cake for him. ”

I couldn’t help but laugh at him putting all the onus on his brother. “And you’re here for what? Moral support?”

“And eye candy.” He winked. “Have you heard from DCF with any update?”

He looked down at Jane sprawled along his forearm and started making funny faces for her, tickling her chubby little legs.

“Yes and no. I’ve heard from the social worker assigned to the case, Kara Dawson.

I guess the police are still investigating the situation.

No family has been found or come forward as far as she knows.

It’s taking a lot longer than they thought.

Kara actually mentioned looking for another placement for Jane since that wasn’t our initial agreement…

” Wyatt’s head snapped to mine, his eyes wide.

“I told her not to worry about it. I like having Jane here, even if it is a little overwhelming sometimes.”

“I can help. If you ever need a break or something, just call me. Text me your number.” He waited for me to pull out my phone, not leaving any room for argument, not that I wanted to argue about getting his phone number.

He rattled it off, and I sent a quick text message so he would have my number too.

Reid came back with some tools, so Wyatt passed Jane back to me so he could get to work. I still felt weird not paying for this. I wasn’t even sure why he was doing it. It wasn’t like he was getting anything out of it. Why would he want to spend his weekend making repairs to my house?

It didn’t take them long to finish, and I made them both a sandwich for a late lunch as a thank-you. I had just put Jane down for a nap, so I took my sandwich and joined them on the newly repaired front porch. There were no chairs out there, so we each sat on a stair in a zigzag pattern.

“What do you think I’ll need to pick up to get the boards all the same color,” I asked.

Reid shot Wyatt a look, his brow raised.

He looked so much like Wyatt when he did that.

Wyatt didn’t even bother looking up, not at Reid’s expression or my question.

He took a bite of his sandwich, and after taking a second to swallow, he replied, “You don’t need to get anything, doll.

I’ve got a sander and some stain. I’ll come by another day to finish it up. ”

“Yeah, Wy will make sure you’re well taken care of.” Reid’s raised his brows up and down with a cheeky grin on his face.

“Ignore him. He thinks he’s funny. I keep telling him he’s not, but he doesn’t listen.”

A little black convertible with the top off pulled up to the house with a pretty brunette at the wheel.

“Seriously though, thanks for your help today,” Wyatt told his brother with a quick clap to his back. Then, directed to the woman in the car, he yelled, “Hey, Kayleigh. Thanks for letting me steal your boy this morning.”

“It was nice to meet you, Maeve,” Reid said.

“I’ll give Jane a kiss for you,” Wyatt told him.

“You do that,” Reid laughed, shaking his head.

Reid climbed into the passenger seat, and Kayleigh threw her hand up in a wave as they drove away, leaving Wyatt and me alone.

I moved to collect the plates and cups from our lunch, bringing them inside with me, Wyatt following my steps.

As I busied myself in the kitchen, cleaning the few dishes I had and straightening up, Wyatt went to the bathroom to clean up.

Nerves racked my body as I wondered if he was going to say anything about the toy.

After I found it on the counter yesterday, I raced to hide it somewhere else.

It was foolish, really; he had already seen it.

It would have been better to just leave it on the counter and make it seem like it didn’t bother me at all.

But there was no way I would be able to walk by that multiple times a day.

My cheeks flushed just thinking about it.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to go through all that trouble of worrying—Wyatt never said a word about it.

Jane made the smallest sound, barely even a whine, and Wyatt scurried over to her to pick her up. “It’s so fucking crazy that someone just left her behind. I don’t think I could ever understand that.”

“We don’t know the circumstances. Maybe they had a reason in their mind.”

“Fuck that. There is no good reason. They didn’t even drop her off at the fire station, or police station, or a fucking church if that’s what they wanted to do.”

I completely agreed with him. It was one thing to give up your baby because you wanted what was best for them, but it was a totally different thing to put her down on the ground and walk away from her in the middle of the night.

“Well, she certainly lucked out where rescuers were concerned.”

“Nah, she would have been luckier to end up with someone like my brother Luke. He would have known what to do with her.”

“But would he have hired a private investigator to track her down so he could see her again?”

“Ha. Not a chance. He’s a cop, so he has this thing against PIs to begin with. Plus, he follows rules like he’s made of glass. Like stepping one toe out of line will shatter his very existence.”

“Why do I get the feeling that you don’t feel the same way?”

“Listen, rules are more like guidelines. You’re not supposed to stick to them one hundred percent.” He smirked. “He needs to learn to have some fun again. He’s always been more serious than me, but he wasn’t always this serious. It’s frustrating sometimes.”