“All right. Then maybe after you show them around the toy hospital, you can teach me the finer points of having a tea party.”
His dry voice made her smile. He would do anything for his daughters. With sudden realization, she knew she’d do anything for him.
Yet once before she’d placed a man’s concerns before hers. Once before she’d let Richard’s ambition and desires supersede hers. And when she’d needed him—
When she was with Jared, she had to remember her failed marriage. Otherwise he could break her heart and she wouldn’t be able to patch it up again.
Jared could have kicked himself for inviting Emily along home with him. Yet she had been good for his girls. And she’d looked so sad after her phone call.
Still, what about what was good for him?
For the past two years, he really hadn’t thought about himself. Amy and Courtney had needed him day and night. His career demanded his time day and night.
He’d been lonely after his divorce. And after Valerie died…
He’d been confused and in turmoil because she hadn’t confided in him. What kind of man was he that she couldn’t tell him the truth about her illness?
Since then he’d denied physical needs and fallen into bed exhausted every night. Work and spending time with the twins was like a numbing drug. He worked more and tried to meet their every need so he didn’t have to think about a life he didn’t have.
Yet why would he want a woman in his life again? Why would he want to complicate it? Why take the chance on a relationship that might not work out? He’d be putting Amy and Courtney at risk, too.
Still, as he stood in the kitchen supposedly pouring milk for Courtney and Amy while surreptitiously watching them with Emily, he knew life demanded more of him than work and child care.
Would sex be a start? Would an affair lead him to a life again?
The wind whistled against the house as he listened in on Emily’s conversation. She was on the floor with the twins in the great room.
Courtney asked her, “Are there people in every room?”
“Yes, there are.”
Jared watched Emily settle one of the dolls into the tiny bed.
She asked Amy, “Would you like to turn on the TV for this patient?”
Amy solemnly nodded.
Courtney pushed the miniature wheelchair into the patient’s room. “The lady in the other bed needs this.”
“Would you like to give her a name?”
Courtney thought about that. “Mrs…” She looked around the room and her eyes fell on a vase with silk flowers. “Mrs. Flower.”
“I like that name,” Emily encouraged her. Then she picked up another doll dressed in a white uniform. “The nurse is coming in to give her medicine.”
“Here’s the doctor,” Amy said proudly, picking up the next play figure. “Just like Daddy.”
Jared had to smile. Hopefully Amy and Courtney could visit his mom without too many fears, without being scared by what they saw. Emily was so good with his daughters. And when he kissed her, he felt arousal that he hadn’t experienced since his days at Texas Tech.
He took the glasses to the table along with cups of pudding, but he didn’t call them yet. Rather he went over to the sofa where they were playing by the coffee table with Emily.
“What do you think of the hospital?” he asked them.
He could feel Emily’s gaze on him and to his surprise, he liked the idea of her looking at him. There was respect in her eyes, maybe even admiration. Something else, too. That something else that made him want to kiss her whenever their eyes met.
“The hospital is big,” Courtney decided.
In reality, it wasn’t that big, only four floors, but to his daughters, the building would seem immense.
“You don’t have to worry about getting lost or anything like that. When we go see Grandma, you can hold on to me,” he assured her.
“And Emily.”
He hadn’t thought about Emily visiting his mother.
“Oh, I don’t think I’ll be going,” Emily said, glancing at him, making sure she didn’t overstep their working relationship or their friendship.
Friendship. Had he ever been friends with a woman?
Courtney ran to him, wrapped her little arms around him and looked up at him with big green eyes. “Daddy? Can Emily come, too?”
How could anyone say no to this beautiful child who had formed a bond with this woman who was caring enough to be a mother? Courtney liked Chloie, but she never responded to his cousin the way she responded to Emily. Neither did Amy.
Emily’s cheeks were flushed as if she were embarrassed and didn’t know what to say or do.
Stooping down, he lifted Courtney into his arms. “Can you tell me why you want Emily to come along? I’m sure she has a very busy schedule, so it has to be an important reason.”
Courtney bit her lower lip as she thought about what he’d asked. “I won’t be scared.”
Jared had the feeling that sometimes when his daughters were with him, they thought he’d be called away and they’d be left alone. He didn’t know how to counteract that. Apparently they felt more solid with Emily. That was a shocker.
“Why don’t you two have your milk and play and I’ll talk to Emily about it? Okay?”
Courtney nodded again, leaned toward him to give him a kiss on his cheek. Every one of those kisses was precious.
He carried her over to the table and settled her in one of the chairs, lifting the lid from her pudding. Amy ran over and he did the same for her. He left them jabbering about the hospital and patients.
Emily had risen from the floor. Tendrils of curls had come loose from her ponytail and wisped around her face. Her color was still a little high. He couldn’t seem to get enough of looking at her face, her sweetly curved lips, her long eyelashes that fringed her dark brown eyes and emphasized them.
“I don’t have to go along. I certainly don’t want to intrude on your time with your mother.”
His time with his mother was always strained. With the girls around, less so. Truth be told, he wondered what his mother would think of Emily, and vice versa.
“The girls seem to find a certain level of comfort and safety when you’re with them. I wouldn’t want to take that away from them in a strange setting. Are you busy tomorrow evening?”
“No, I’m not busy,” she admitted, realizing she didn’t
