“I... Wow... That’s cool.” She’d been about to say something else.
He could, too. With very little provocation. Talking about the dogs and cats and occasional bird that ended up at the shelter came easily to him. But he was supposed to have just bought a condo in her complex. He couldn’t be living in the little house on several acres he’d bought when he’d brought Mari home to grow up surrounded by family. He stood. “I have to get back to my unpacking,” he said. “But it’s been... I’m Michael Edison, by the way.”
“Sara Havens.”
“I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you.” The truth of his words gave them the power he needed them to have. And maybe there was a bit too much warmth in his gaze to pass for playacting as he added, “About that dinner. I’ll need some way to contact you...”
“I’d give you my number, but I don’t have a pen.” She didn’t offer her unit number. Or ask for his.
“I have a good memory.”
She rattled off her phone number. It hadn’t been listed.
He thanked her.
And tried to forget the smile on her face as he strode the long way from the pool through the complex—to make it look as if he was going back to his unit—and headed to his black SUV, which was sitting in the parking lot closest to the pool.
SARA SPENT A couple of hours at the pool. Feeling decadent, she slathered herself with oil and enjoyed the way her skin tingled beneath the sun’s warm touch. She closed her eyes but didn’t sleep. Her mind kept jumping between Nicole Kramer and the lithe, muscled man she’d just met whose eyes held secrets.
And sadness.
She didn’t expect him to call.
But kind of hoped he would.
Like Nicole, he was different. He’d caught her attention at a time when she’d needed the distraction.
Stepping into the tiled double walk-in shower in her master bath later that afternoon, Sara pictured him there, as well. He was standing at the slightly taller showerhead next to the one she used, water sluicing over his broad chest...
Sara’s eyes flew open as her phone rang.
On the second peal she dashed for a towel, embarrassed that she’d been having such thoughts...
What if it was him calling?
Every ounce of desire fled as she recognized the number.
With her towel held up to her chest, covering her to just above the knees, she leaned back against the bathroom counter and pushed the answer button. “What do you want, Jason?”
“It’s not for me,” he said quickly. As though that made a difference. Or was any different. “It’s for Bessie.” It always was.
“How much?”
“Three hundred. The art program we sent her to this summer has an after-school program and she really wants to go.”
By “we” he better have meant the two of them. Not him and whatever stripper he had living with him.
“I’m coaching full-time this year, so she’ll have to go to an after-school program of some kind, but I can send her to the free one if you’d rather...”
“I didn’t get my July pictures.”
“I know. I...well...I thought someone had mailed them.”
“And this...someone... She can’t mail pictures but you trust her to take care of a five-year-old child?” She couldn’t say “our” daughter. Because technically, Bessie wasn’t Sara’s. She’d raised her as her own from the second she was born. Her ex-husband had said he’d do the necessary paperwork for Sara to be able to adopt his biological child so they could be a fully legal family, so Sara would have the same parental rights he did.
The adoption was just another thing he’d lied about.
“She’s...not with Bessie and me anymore.” He always spoke faster when he was saying something he knew made him look bad in her eyes. It was how she knew when he was lying to her.
Pathetic, really.
“I’m sending over scans and pics of some of her projects. And July’s photos, too, right now, as we speak,” he said. “She’s got real spatial aptitude. And you know I wouldn’t ask if I had the money to pay for this myself. But being a single father...”
He was a good father. It was the only reason Sara had spent the past three years biting her tongue and sending her money. The alimony she had no choice but to pay. She came from a wealthy family. And had made a poor marriage choice.
Bessie wasn’t at fault for that. And for the first two years of the little girl’s life, Sara had been the little girl’s only mother. She’d thought she would be her forever mother.
“I know the ropes, Jason. You don’t have to repeat your victim’s tale every time we speak.” Yes, she’d left him, drastically downsizing his lifestyle.
But only after she’d caught him cheating on her. More than once.
“It’s wrong that you don’t let me see her.”
“You’re the one who chose to leave us. I don’t want her to get confused with various mothers coming in and out of her life. Or having to choose loyalties...”
He was afraid that if Sara was in Bessie’s life the day would come when Bessie would choose to come to live with Sara.
“When she’s eighteen, she’ll be able to make her own choice,” Sara reminded him.
“She was two when you left. I hardly think she’ll remember you.” The man was stupid, hurting her while asking her for money.
Stupid and smart enough to win, too. He had her over a barrel and he knew it. Her love for Bessie was as unconditional as any mother’s love. She’d give the little girl whatever she needed.
“Just don’t be late with my pictures again,” she said. They were the only way she could watch her little girl grow up.
“I won’t. I am sorry about that,” he said. And she knew he meant it. Just as she knew that every dime she sent for Bessie’s care was spent exactly as she meant it to be spent.
Jason wasn’t going to screw up a good thing. Not for himself, and not for Bessie, either. He truly doted on the little girl.
He didn’t call Sara for the basics. The general child-care things he handled on his own. Just as, while he’d fought for alimony, he’d never asked for child support during their divorce settlement. He was savvy, the jerk she’d married. If he’d made an agreement to accept child support from Sara, she’d have had grounds to argue her right to see the girl.
