Leah brightened. “Much better,” she said. “Her fever broke this morning—I think around when you put her down—and she slept through until eleven or so. She woke up and ate and played for a little while, and then she went back down. I think when she gets up from this nap, she’ll be just fine.”
“That’s great,” Jeff said. “I can’t wait to see her happy again. And I’m glad you got a nap too.” He sat down on the bed next to Leah and pulled her into a hug. She was warm from sleep and felt soft and perfect in his arms. The scent of her hair surrounded him, and he inhaled and felt himself relax all over.
His mate.
“I was thinking,” he said into her hair. “If you wanted...”
“Hm?”
He could feel the vibrations of her voice. “You left home without much. It looked like you must have left some things behind.”
She nodded, and he felt her tense up a bit. “I didn’t plan ahead well enough. I thought my landlord was going to be more lenient, but he told me I had to leave, and so I packed up as quickly as I could. The big stuff had to stay behind.”
“Then maybe we could go get it. With the storm and everything, he probably hasn’t had the time to get rid of any furniture yet. I could borrow a trailer from one of the guys and we could go pick up some things and bring them back here.”
Leah sat up. “Oh.” She sounded quietly shocked. “I never thought...I didn’t think I’d be able to get any of that back. Emily’s crib...her stroller...I mean, maybe he’s gotten rid of it already; he could’ve wanted me out because he had someone else ready to move in right away.”
“Can’t hurt to check, though, can it?” Jeff asked.
“No,” she said, and started to smile. “Can we go today? It’s only a couple of hours away, and I’d rather do it as quickly as possible, just to have the best chance of things still being there.”
“Well, I don’t have any other plans,” said Jeff. “Check your calendar, and if you’re free, then we can go.”
Leah laughed. “Okay, as soon as Emily wakes up, then.”
Jeff smiled. “What will we do until then?”
“I don’t know.” Leah drew him down into a kiss. “I bet we can think of something.”
***
By the time they got back up, ready, and got Emily’s car seat securely installed in Jeff’s car, the baby was awake. Jeff came inside to see Leah just snapping her into a new onesie and putting tiny elastic-waisted baby jeans over the top of it. They were adorable.
“Hi, princess,” Jeff said, smiling at Emily. She smiled back at him and reached for him with both arms.
“Hey, someone’s got a new biggest fan,” Leah said, smiling as she handed the baby over.
“We bonded last night,” Jeff said. “Isn’t that right, honey?” He bounced her on his hip and she giggled.
“Ah ah ah ah ah,” she informed him.
“That sounds right,” he said seriously.
Leah pushed herself to her feet with the dirty diaper in one hand. “I’ll just toss this, and then we can go,” she said. “It is so much easier to do this with someone else.”
Jeff was struck once again by how much Leah must have struggled in the last ten months. She clearly still blamed herself for not holding everything together, but Jeff knew better. Being a single mom was the hardest job in the world.
Together they bundled Emily in the car and set off for the drive to Leah’s old place.
“So,” Jeff said as they pulled away, “we’ve been so busy since we met, I don’t even know what you like to do in your spare time. Not that you’ve had any recently, but before Emily was born, what sort of hobbies did you have?”
Leah’s face lit up. “Oh, I always loved working in the garden,” she said. “I had a job at the local nursery for a long time, actually.”
“Really?” He hadn’t known that, but when he thought about it, it seemed like exactly the sort of thing Leah would do. Something that took patience, and attention, and love. “What sort of things did you grow?”
For the rest of the drive, she talked about gardening, about plants, flowers, vegetables, fruit...how hard it could be to grow certain things in northern Montana, but how surprisingly easy others could be.
“I can’t wait to see Glacier in the springtime,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “The wildflowers, the trees, all of the plants that must be preserved there...it’ll be amazing.”