He left the room, taking her somewhere in another part of the house. Probably to give Tamara space. She could still hear the crying.
She couldn’t just sit there, doing nothing. Poor Flint had to be getting tense. Frustrated. Especially with her there. Maybe she should leave and watch the movie another day. It wasn’t as if her father had to have his answers within the next few hours.
Or that she was going to find them there that day.
The crying went on. She paced the room. Looking at bookshelves. Reading titles of DVDs. Noticing the lack of any family photos. Or personal mementoes.
Diamond Rose finally stopped crying and Tamara’s entire torso seemed to settle. Until then she hadn’t realized that her breathing was becoming shallow, the way it did at the onset of a panic attack. Hadn’t felt herself tense.
And almost immediately the crying started again. She grabbed her purse. Had her keys and was at the door before she remembered she had to tell Flint she’d take a rain check on the movie. She couldn’t just him let come out and find her gone.
Following the sounds of the baby in distress, she traveled a hallway he hadn’t showed her yet, passing two rooms—a bathroom, the master suite—and eventually found him in a small back bedroom with a Jack and Jill bathroom leading into one of the rooms she’d passed.
Opening her mouth to tell him she was leaving, she caught sight of his face. He looked scared. Honest-to-goodness scared.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “Nothing’s working. She doesn’t feel feverish, but maybe I should take her in.”
His gaze moving from the purse on her shoulder to the keys in her hand, he nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said, giving her a smile that seemed all for her, in spite of his crying infant, and went back to trying to comfort the child in his arms.
“Put her up on your shoulder,” she said. “Pat her back. She might have gas.”
He tried. It didn’t work.
Tamara felt like crying herself. “Try rubbing her back.”
That didn’t work, either. Tamara had to get out of there. But she couldn’t just leave him. His problems weren’t hers, but he was trying so hard and she couldn’t simply walk out.
“Do you have a rocking chair?”
He nodded, left the room, and she followed him. Into another room filled with baby furniture and paraphernalia. There was a mobile over the crib, but nothing on the walls. No color. No stimulation. Just...stuff.
A massive amount of stuff to have collected in less than a week.
Sitting in the rocker, he held the baby to his chest and rocked. Cradled her in his arms and rocked. She’d settle for a second or two and then start right back up again.
“Lay her on your lap,” Tamara said. “On her stomach.” Her purse was still on her shoulder. Her hand hurt, and looking down, she saw imprints of her keys in the flesh of her palm.
Flint pulled a blanket off the arm of the chair and did as Tamara said, settling Diamond Rose across his lap, continuing to rock gently.
“Rub her back,” she suggested again.
The crying calmed for a second. Then another second. The baby burped, formula pooled on the blanket, and all was quiet.
Shaking, Tamara started to cry.
She had to get out of there.
* * *
In spite of the warmth seeping through the right leg of his jeans, Flint rocked gently, rubbing Diamond’s back, while he wiped her mouth and pulled the soiled part of the blanket away from her. Her eyes closed, she sighed deeply and his entire being changed.
Irrevocably.
Almost weak with the infusion of love that swamped him, he knew he was never going to be the same. She was his.
He was hers.
Watching her breathe, he loved her more fiercely than he’d known it was possible to love.