There weren’t a lot of people who could get him to bend to their will, but this little thing could do it without trying. When he scooped her up, Heather’s head jerked upright. “Who? What? Where?”

Walker put a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you go back to bed?”

Heather got to her feet. “No, I’ve gotta dress Sammie and then run to Home Depot for stuff for the reception. Maze’s been working her ass off, so I offered to take her list and do the store run.”

“The list?”

Heather fumbled in her jeans pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

Walker took it, kissed her on the top of her head, and nudged her out of the kitchen. “Go back to bed,” he repeated. “I’ve got Sammie and we’ll go to Home Depot.”

“They don’t open until six A.M.”

“It’s six thirty.”

Heather blinked sleepily. “Oh . . .” She smiled, but it turned into a yawn. “Time flies when you have a kid. But I can’t let you do this, it’s too much.”

She looked so exhausted that he didn’t want her on the road. “It’s okay, I’ve got this.”

“You only think you’ve got this. Trust me, running errands with her is a nightmare.”

Maybe, and granted, he knew zip about having a kid. But he did know a little something about being one. His childhood was a blur of never belonging or being wanted. He knew Heather’s past wasn’t all that different. The fact that she was raising Sammie on her own gutted him, but he was trying to stay a presence in their lives, for Sammie’s sake as well as Heather’s. And his own, if he was being honest. Besides . . . “How hard can it be?”

Heather snorted. “You’ll see, and bless you. Oh, and pro tip? She’s more cooperative if you play the Frozen soundtrack on repeat. Do you have it on your Spotify?”

Walker gave her a blank look.

Heather shook her head. “Never mind. Take my car. It’s got her car seat anyway, and the CD’s already loaded.”

Five minutes later Walker had Heather’s keys and was trying to get Sammie into the car seat. But Sammie didn’t want to get in the car seat, and apparently her superpower was the inhuman ability to turn herself into a limp noodle while screaming bloody murder at the same time.

“What’s going on?”

Walker turned and found Maze standing behind him, looking cool and calm, sipping coffee and looking vastly amused.

“Having fun?” she asked over Sammie’s screaming.

“Heather was too tired to adult,” he said. “So I said I’d go to Home Depot and get the stuff you needed.”

“And you got conned into babysitting while you were at it?”

“More like bamboozled. I actually volunteered.”

She laughed out loud, and damn, she had a great laugh. She bent to look into the back seat at Sammie, who was still using her vocal cords to their full extent. “Hey, kiddo, I’ll make you a deal. You let me buckle you in and I’ll buy you something at the store.”

Sammie went from crying to smiling in a single heartbeat. “Toy!” she squealed in delight, and let Maze buckle her in.

Maze straightened and gave Walker a victory smile.

“Doesn’t count,” he said. “You bribed her.”

“Doesn’t matter how, what matters is it worked.” She got into the passenger seat.

He slid behind the wheel and gave her a look. “You’re coming along?”

“Don’t want to miss you getting your ass kicked by a two-and-a-half-year-old.”

“There’ll be no ass kicking. It’s about setting expectations and having rules.”

She laughed again. “This isn’t the military, Walk. She’s not your little soldier.”

“It’s about logic and common sense.”

Maze just shook her head. “You poor, ignorant man.”

He decided to overlook this. But he was having trouble overlooking her thin, lacy see-through sweater over a cami, both topping denim shorts that showed off her legs. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to concentrate on anything else, but then the Frozen CD started playing and Sammie began to sing. At high volume and off-key. He turned the music down, but she just got louder.

Halfway to Home Depot, while Walker’s ears were already starting to bleed, Sammie yelled, “Potty!”

“We’re almost there,” he told her.

“There’s a gas station on the corner,” Maze said. “Maybe you should stop.”

“I’m not taking her to a gas station bathroom,” Walker said.

“Potty!”

“We’re hurrying,” he said via the rearview mirror. “Two minutes.”

He pulled into the Home Depot parking lot. There was a light cool wind, but hell if he wasn’t sweating. He got out, pulled Sammie from her car seat and set her down. He stripped off his sweatshirt, and before he could toss it into the driver’s seat, he heard water splashing.

Sammie had hiked up her princess nightgown and spread her legs, and had her head bent, watching herself pee through her Wonder Woman undies.

In the parking lot.

A woman got out of the car across from them and tsked at him.

Maze was grinning. “Tried to tell you.” She crouched next to Sammie, they did some quick maneuvering, and then Maze was carrying Sammie toward the entrance.

Walker, who rarely, if ever, felt clueless and uncertain of his next move, but who felt both of those things now, strode after them. When he caught up, he looked at Maze. “How we doing?”

“Well, Sammie’s commando since her babysitter didn’t listen to her, and I need some more caffeine, but other than that, we’re both hanging in there.”

Three aisles in, Walker was holding Sammie in one arm, pushing the cart with his free hand, and trying to keep up with Maze, who was deep in her list and concentrating. Sammie was crying again because he wouldn’t let her have any of the mountain of bags of M&Ms they’d just passed, done up for Valentine’s Day.

“Ms!” Sammie sobbed, staring despondently over his shoulder with an arm outstretched dramatically as they passed them by.

“Bad for your teeth,” he said.

Sammie sobbed through three more rows until he caved and gave her a bag of M&Ms for each hand to keep her from ripping random shit off the shelves.

He could hear Maze, out in front of them, laughing her ass off. He set Sammie in the cart and came up behind a still-chortling Maze, where she was facing a row of unfinished frames. “What the hell is so funny?”

“Not supposed to swear around impressionable ears.”

“Trust me, she can’t hear me over her own inhaling of the M&Ms.”

“Maybe I meant me,” she said.

Now he laughed. “I’ve never made a single impression on you.”

“Wanna bet?”

He wanted to give some brainpower to that confusing response, but he was distracted because she’d reached up to a high shelf, her perfectly shaped ass about an inch from his—

“Ms!” Sammie yelled at him. “More!”

What felt like five lifetimes later, Maze finally had everything on her list. By the time they checked out and got a commando, chocolate-covered Sammie back to the car, Walker was also covered in chocolate and wanted to stab himself in the eye with a stick. Repeatedly.