Thankfully, something happened on the playing field and for a moment, everyone’s attention focused on the game. The Mustangs were up by three now, with fifteen minutes left in the game. The championship match seemed within their grasp.
He glanced at Kate again. Connie was practically in Kate’s lap now, completely enamored of this fancy new person who wore pretty skirts. Kate leaned over, putting her at eye level with Connie. She had a big smile on her face and she clapped when Connie spun for her.
Something in his chest tightened. Kate was going to be an amazing mother. But he knew how hard it was to be a single parent. He didn’t want that for her, damn it all. But aside from throwing two commissions her way, he didn’t know how to help.
Kate caught his eye and gave Seth a tight smile. Then, as if by mutual agreement, they both looked away.
When Seth turned his attention back to his family, he found himself squarely in the crosshairs of his father. Billy threw an arm around Seth’s shoulders and hauled him off to the side. “You’re telling me,” Billy began with no other introduction, “that you hired the runaway bride to be your real estate agent on purpose?”
Seth had had his disagreements with his adoptive father over the years. Billy was a hard man who did things his way. He wasn’t afraid of a fight, either.
But for all that, he was a remarkably fair man. From the very beginning, he had treated Seth as if he were an equal. Seth wouldn’t be half the man he was today if it weren’t for his father. And he hated disappointing his father.
But he could tell that Billy was disappointed in him.
“She jilted her fiancé and he kept the house they had together. Her family didn’t back her up and she had to quit their real estate office. I’m just helping her out. She needs the commissions.”
All of which was true. Or at least, it had been a month ago. Now?
Billy gave him a hard look, one that had Seth standing up straighter. “Women are not to be trifled with, son.”
“I am not trifling with her,” he defended quickly. He’d made no promises to Kate beyond the next month or so. He was not leading her on with talks of love and marriage. There was no discussion of forever or happily-ever-after. No allusions to a future that existed past the new year. Ergo, it was not trifling.
“We’re sending you to Shanghai,” his father said in the kind of voice that Seth had seen make grown men damn near wet their pants with terror. “In the new year. Bobby thinks it could be six, eight months there, with a possibility of Mumbai afterward.”
So it’d been decided? Good. Great. He loved it when a plan came together. So why was he filled with a crushing sort of disappointment? “And I’ll be ready.”
“Does she know that?”
“Of course she does. She knows my job is everything.”
His father gave him a long look. “And yet you brought her to your sister’s soccer game.”
It was not a question. “I don’t know how many times I have to say this,” Seth ground out, pulling away from his father’s embrace. “I’m not leading her on. We have a business relationship. We understand each other perfectly, damn it. And we were in the neighborhood.”
Billy was not buying any of this. “If you get her pregnant,” he said, as if he were Kate’s father instead of Seth’s, “your mother and I will expect you to do the right thing.”
“I am not going to get her pregnant,” Seth retorted. It was impossible to get her pregnant again. “Even if there was something going on between us—which there is not—I would never casually risk her health and well-being and you, of all men, should know that.” For a moment, his dad looked almost chastised. Seth forced his shoulders to relax. “Now. Are you done threatening me so we can watch Julie play?”
He expected his father to glower or maybe even yell. So when Billy Bolton cracked a rare smile, Seth was completely caught off guard. “Make sure you’re doing the right thing, son,” he said, giving Seth a slap on the back that was hard enough to send Seth stumbling. Billy stepped around Seth and went to watch his daughter outplay the other team.
Seth glowered at his father’s back. Of course he was doing the right thing. He was helping out a single soon-to-be mother. He was ensuring that she would have enough money to live on for the next year, if she wanted to. And he was helping her get over Roger. By the time Seth left for Shanghai, Kate would be financially secure and ready to move on with her life. Without him.
How was that not the right damn thing?
* * *
The garage doors shut behind them, sealing her and Seth off from the rest of the world. The afternoon had passed in a blur of legal documents and signatures, but the end result was now official—the home on Bitter Root was Seth’s.
She wasn’t going to be sad about that. She was just going to be happy for him, and happy that he was willing to share this home with her, even for a little while.
He opened her car door and held out his hand, just like he always did. “I must say,” he said, as she slipped her palm against his and let him help her from the car, “this has been one of the stranger days of my life.”
“Buying a home is often very strange,” she agreed. But that’s not what made today strange for her.
The whole day had been a glimpse into a life she desperately wanted but would never get to have. This house was perfect for her and the family she was going to raise—but she couldn’t afford it, not in this life or the next.
Just like Seth’s family—aunts and uncles, grandparents and siblings, all coming together for something as mundane as a child’s soccer game because they cared. They put family first.
Of course she knew that there were kind, loving, supportive families in the world. And hers was certainly not the worst, by far. But seeing the way that Seth’s family had lined up to protect him from an outsider—her? And then there’d been that moment where, apparently by some unspoken agreement, she hadn’t been on the outside looking in. She’d been made welcome and fed and, okay, so maybe his mom’s questions about Seth’s new house had really been thinly veiled questions about Seth and Kate’s relationship. But there was no mistaking the fact that Seth’s family would do anything for him—for any member of the Bolton family.
She wanted that unconditional love and support for her child. She wanted that for herself, but she was used to doing without.
Holding her hand, Seth unlocked the garage door. He pulled her inside and then let go long enough to find a light switch. While he did so, she pushed aside her melancholy feelings. There was no point in moping over what she couldn’t have. She needed to focus on what she did have—a gorgeous, caring, wealthy man who, for reasons she still didn’t fully understand, was more than happy to give her almost everything she wanted.
“Welcome home, Mr. Bolton,” she said when he found the light switch. He really was too handsome, she thought when he turned back to her. She tried to strike a sultry pose.
Seth’s eyes darkened dangerously. “It’s good to be home, Ms. Burroughs.” He prowled toward her, the energy that made him so good in bed vibrating off him. “I feel like
