Page 95 of Jay Bird

“Tomorrow.”

“Dolphin?”

Willow looked at the stuffed dolphin currently wedged beneath one of Lily’s arms while Ellie, her beloved elephant, occupied the other.

“You already have the dolphin.”

Lily looked down as though this was brand-new information.

Willow pressed her lips together to keep from laughing.

It had been an exhausting day. After spending the morning shopping with Riley, she had come home to find Jay Bird back from training a day early, discovered that the team had helped Jay Bird transform the spare bedroom into Lily’s dream room, and then spent the afternoon planting enough flowers to make Jay Bird accuse her of single-handedly trying to lower the average masculinity level of his property.

Lily was filthy by the time they finished, and Jay Bird was just as dirty.

Willow had managed to escape with considerably less dirt, mostly because she had supervised.

Jay Bird called it cheating, but Willow called it management.

Now the house was quiet, Lily was clean, and Willow sat on the edge of her daughter’s new bed, running her fingers through her soft brown hair.

“Momma?”

“Hmm?”

“Jay home.”

Willow smiled. “Yes. Jay’s home.”

“No go?”

The question squeezed something inside her chest. “He has to go to work sometimes, baby.”

Lily frowned as though she found employment highly inconvenient.

“But he comes home.”

“Jay home,” Lily repeated sleepily.

“Yes.”

Willow leaned down and kissed her forehead.

“Momma’s going to be right across the house with Jay tonight, okay?”

That earned her another sleepy blink.

“If you need me, you call for me. I’ll hear you.”

Willow picked up the monitor from the nightstand and showed it to her.

“See? Mommy can hear everything.”

Lily stared at the monitor, then looked back at Willow.

“Night, Momma.”

Willow almost laughed. Apparently, she was the only one concerned about this major change in their sleeping arrangements.