And damned if he was going to worry about the subterranean reasons behind the determination he felt to look out for this woman and boy.
* * *
“I’LL PROBABLY GET DETENTION,” Jake grumbled.
Laura poured pancake batter onto the griddle. “You probably will.” She refrained from adding, And you deserve to.
After she woke him up, he’d dragged himself into the kitchen this morning wearing pajama bottoms that hung low on his hips and carrying a T-shirt he pulled over his head as she watched. His chest and rib cage were ridiculously pale and skinny. Anyone looking at him would think she was starving him.
“Get the juice out of the fridge, will you?” she asked.
His bare feet were silent on the vinyl floor. Not until she turned her head did she see he had the orange juice carton tipped up and was drinking right out of it.
“Jacob Vennetti!” With her free hand, she grabbed a dish towel and snapped it at him.
He dodged it effortlessly. His grin made her heart hurt. He couldn’t smile like that if he was really troubled, could he?
She flipped pancakes. “Grab the margarine and syrup, too.”
He complied. He was enthusiastic about meals.
And guns.
How could that be?
She plopped a plate holding the first stack in front of him before turning back to make more.
Behind her, he whined, “If I have to stay home this weekend, what am I supposed to do?”
“I’m sure I can think of something.” They’d been talking about scraping the several coats of peeling paint off the back deck and repainting. This was day three of dry weather, and they ought to take advantage of it, she reflected. April was a rainy month in Portland. As were...well, most months. Even in July, you took a chance planning something like an outdoor wedding around here.
Unfortunately, she was working today, as she did one or two Saturdays a month, and didn’t have time to find what he’d need to start and give him instructions.
He stuffed his mouth full as she set down a platter with more pancakes in the middle of the table and pulled out a chair herself.
“I wish I was playing Little League,” he grumbled.
“In February, you didn’t want to sign up.”
He shrugged discontentedly. She’d supported his decision, mostly because neither of them liked his coach last year and he’d have been on the same team this year. Maybe that was part of his problem, she thought, buttering her pancakes and adding a dollop of maple syrup. Maybe he had too much time on his hands. A couple of his better friends were playing baseball, which ate up a lot of their spare time.
“There are summer camps,” she pointed out. “Baseball and basketball.”
“I could do both,” he said hopefully.
Laura barely hesitated. She’d worry about the money later. Camps weren’t cheap, and she knew he’d need new basketball shoes and new cleats for baseball. All those calories he was packing in were being used for growing. “I don’t know why not,” she said. “See what Ron and Justin plan to do.”
He bent his head and didn’t say anything. Laura’s eyes narrowed. He hadn’t mentioned Ron recently. And...when had either boy last called? She ached to ask if something was wrong, but wanted to preserve this morning’s tentative peace.
“How come you won’t tell me what Detective Winter said about me?” he burst out.
She swallowed a bite. Pancakes would go straight to her butt and she shouldn’t be eating them at all, but it was really hard to cook stuff like this and not eat it.
“You’re ignoring me,” he declared indignantly.
She met his eyes. “I’m refusing to repeat myself, that’s all. But since you insist, one more time—I doubt he said anything to me that he didn’t to you.”
He looked sulky. “You talked to him for ages.”
She didn’t even want to think about her conversation with Detective Ethan Winter. Not when it included them holding hands. Not when she had imagined what it would feel like to have his arms around her. To lean against him, lay her head on his very broad shoulder. Feel his lips—
No, she hadn’t imagined that until later, after Jake was in bed and she was alone. That fleeting fantasy had been especially vivid. It had horrified her to the point where she’d resolved not to think about him at all. If she ever got involved with a man again, he wouldn’t be in law enforcement. He wouldn’t carry a gun as casually as she did her purse.
Ethan Winter was off-limits, even assuming he’d been interested and not just...kind. Concerned about Jake. If his gaze had drifted from her face to her breasts, it was probably because he wasn’t being straight with her and didn’t want to meet her eyes.
Only, she didn’t quite believe that, either.
“He said I could call him if I ever need him,” her son said.
Jolted from her silent lecture to herself, she gaped at Jake. “He asked you to call?”
His face was set in stubborn lines. “He said I could if I want.”
“Why did he think you’d want to?”
He shrugged.
“Are there things you’d say to him that you don’t want to say to me?” She was proud of how calm she sounded.
“Maybe,” he muttered. He stole a peek at her. “’Cuz he’s a guy.”
“So is Uncle Brian. And you like some of your friend’s dads.”
“Yeah, but they’re not—you know.”
Cops. They weren’t cops. They didn’t carry guns. Not a one of them even owned a gun. She hoped. She knew her sister’s husband didn’t.
“You know we can talk about your dad whenever you want.”
He sneered. There was no other word for it. “You hate it when I ask about his job!”
“It’s not that.” Yes, it was. No, it wasn’t, not entirely anyway. “Your father didn’t like to talk about what he did,” she said, although that wasn’t quite right, either. He did like to brag, but he’d never talk about things going wrong, and she always knew when he was especially closed off that he’d seen something awful. He’d go out to a bar instead, to hang with his cop friends. Sometimes every night for days on end, stumbling home drunk, until she’d been forced to confront how peripheral her role in his life was.
Some of that, he couldn’t help, she knew, given his upbringing. He’d been...old-fashioned, believing women were to be protected.
