He must have let a groan slip from his throat because she stopped, leaned back and looked up at him.
“Are you okay?”
“Not really,” he said tightly, focusing now on the baby who was slapping the water with both hands and chortling over the splashes he made.
“Simon—”
“Forget it, Tula. Let’s just concentrate on surviving bath time, okay?”
She sat back on her heels and looked up at him. “Now who’s pretending it didn’t happen?”
He laughed—a short, sharp sound. “Trust me when I say that’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then why—”
Giving her a hard look, he said, “Unless you’re willing to finish what we started, drop it, Tula.”
She snapped her mouth closed and nodded. “Right. Then I’ll just go get Nathan’s jammies ready while you finish. Are you good on your own?”
Good question.
He always had been.
Before.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
“We’ll be fine. Just go.”
She scooted out of the bathroom a moment later and Nathan drew his first easy breath since bath time had started. He looked down into the baby’s eyes and said, “Remember this, Nathan. Women are nothing but trouble.”
The tiny boy laughed and slapped the water hard enough to send a small wave into his father’s face.
“Traitor,” Simon whispered.
Six
A few nights later, Simon had had enough of slipping through his own house like a damn ghost. Ever since the kiss he had shared with Tula, he’d kept his distance, staying away not only from her, but from the baby as well. He wondered where in the hell the paternity test results were and asked himself how he was supposed to keep his mind on anything else when memories of a too brief kiss kept intruding.
Hell, it wasn’t just the kiss. It was Tula herself and that was an irritation he hadn’t expected. She was in his mind all the time. Moving through his thoughts like a shadow, never really leaving, always haunting.
She walked into the room and he felt a hard slam of desire pulse through him. His body was hard and his hands itched to touch her. But she seemed blissfully unaware of what she was doing to him, so damned if he’d let her know.
“Maybe we should talk about how this is going to work,” he said when Tula walked into the living room.
Lamplight shone on her blond hair and glittered in her eyes so that it almost looked as if stars were in their depths, winking at him. She was nothing like the women he was usually drawn to. And she was everything he wanted. God, knowing that she was there, in his house, right down the hall from his own bedroom, was making for some long, sleepless nights.
Oblivious of his thoughts, she smiled at him, crossed the room and dropped into a wingback chair on his right. Curling her feet up beneath her, she said, “Yes, the baby went right to sleep as soon as I laid him down. Thanks for asking.”
He frowned to himself and silently admitted that, no, he hadn’t been thinking about the baby. Hardly his fault when she was so near. He dared any man to be able to keep his mind off Tula Barrons for long. “I assumed he was sleeping since he’s not with you and I can’t hear him crying.”
She studied him for a thoughtful moment. “Don’t you think you should start being a part of the whole putting-Nathan-to-bed routine?”
“When I get the results of the paternity test, I will.”
Until then, he was going to hang back. Taking part in bath time a few nights ago had taught him that he was too damn vulnerable where that baby was concerned. He had actually thought of himself as the boy’s father.
What if he found out Nathan wasn’t his?
No, better to protect himself until he knew for sure.
“Simon, Nathan is your son and pretending he isn’t won’t change that.”
“That’s what we need to talk about,” he said, standing to walk to the wet bar across the room. “Do you want a drink?”
“White wine if you’ve got it.”
“I do.” He took care of the drinks then sat down again opposite her. Outside, night was crouched at the glass. A fire burned in the hearth and the snap and hiss of the flames was the only sound for a few minutes. Naturally, Tula couldn’t keep quiet for long.
“Okay, what did you want to talk about?”
“This,” he said, sweeping one hand out as if to encompass the house and everything in it.
“Well, that narrows it down,” Tula mused, taking a sip of wine. “Look, I get that you’re a little freaked by the whole ‘instant parenthood’ thing, but we can’t change that, right?”
“I didn’t say—”
“And I’ve closed up my house and moved here to help you settle in—”
“Yes, but—”
“You’ll get to know the baby. I’ll help as much as I can, but a lot of this is going to come down on you. He’s your son.”
“We don’t know that for sure yet and I think—”
She ran right over him again and Simon was beginning to think that he’d never get the chance to have any input in this conversation. Normally, when he spoke, people listened. No one interrupted him. No one talked over him. Except Tula. And as annoying as it was to admit, even to himself, he liked that about her. She wasn’t hesitant. Not afraid to stand up for herself or Nathan. And not the least bit concerned about telling him exactly what she thought.
Still, he was forced to grind his teeth and fight for patience as she continued.
She waved her glass of wine and sloshed a bit onto her denim-covered leg. She hardly noticed.
“So basically,” she said, “I’m thinking a man like you would feel better with a clear-cut schedule.”
That got his attention. “A man like me?”
She smiled, damn it and his temperature climbed a bit in response.
“Come on, Simon,” she teased. “We both know that you’ve got a set routine in your life and the baby and I have disrupted it.”
This conversation was not going the way he’d planned. He was supposed to be the one taking charge. Telling Tula how things would go from here. Instead, the tiny woman had taken the reins from his hands without him even noticing. Simon took a sip of the aged scotch and let the liquor burn its way down his throat. It sat like a ball of fire in the pit of his stomach
