of her wanted to know what unconditional love felt like—how it felt to be supported, to have a backstop, a soft place to fall. Tate shoved her hands into her hair, frustrated with herself. These thoughts were dangerous and counterproductive. Besides, love’s favorite sport was to push her heart through a grinder.
“I handled that badly.”
Linc’s words danced over her skin, and her stomach quivered. As angry and hurt as she was, he still made her feel like she’d been plugged into a source of pure energy. Unable to face him, Tate sat down on the seat built into the window and watched the road below.
“I’m sorry. I was rude and dismissive and judgmental,” Linc stated.
Tate lifted her hand to rub the back of her neck and closed her eyes, wishing that he’d just go away. It would be so much easier if she could just wait for the cab in peace, if she could slip out of the door and avoid this confrontation. She realized that she’d hardly spent any time with him, but she was already so sick of him looking at her and seeing Kari.
Hell, he’d probably thought that he was kissing Kari. It was highly possible that his attraction to her had nothing to do with who she was and everything to do with him taking a walk down memory lane.
Out of the corner of her eye Tate watched as he walked past Ellie to sit beside her on the bench, lifting his ankle up onto his knee. “God, I’m exhausted.”
Tate felt his broad, warm hand on the back of her neck and turned her head to look at him. She wanted to pull away from his touch but his fingers pressing into the knots in her neck felt amazing. Not going anywhere, not going to pull away, her body told her stubborn brain.
“You must be exhausted, too.” Linc dug his fingers into the tight cords of her neck, and it took every ounce of determination she had not to moan from sheer pleasure. “Did you sleep last night?”
“Not much, no.”
“‘Me, either,” Linc admitted. “Let’s talk, Tate. And this time, let’s try not to kiss or yell at each other.”
They could try, but she didn’t know if they’d succeed. Because she still wanted that mouth on hers. If he tried to kiss her she didn’t think she could resist him. Embarrassingly, her brain had lost all control over her body...
“Okay.”
Linc dropped his hand and pulled his thigh up on the bench so that he could look at her. “I am sorry for earlier. As Jaeger pointed out after you left, I acted like an ass because I don’t like change.”
“And you don’t know me so you don’t feel comfortable leaving Shaw with me. It’s okay, I get it. It’s a big, bad world—I’ve seen most of it—and I’m thankful that you are a protective dad.”
“I appreciate that. It’s been just Shaw and me since Kari left.”
“Shaw and you and Jo,” Tate corrected.
Linc rolled his eyes. “At this moment she’s on my hit list, so I’m not talking about her. She did tell me, yesterday, that I should start looking for a new nanny, that she wanted to be a grandmother, not Shaw’s caregiver. I never thought that she’d pull this, though. Blackmailer.”
Tate heard the love under his frustration, but his anger was gone. Not sure what to say, she looked down at Ellie, who was babbling to a doll she’d found in the box of toys. “I’ve called a cab. It should be here soon. We’ll get out of your hair.”
“I think you should stay.”
Tate’s jerked, completely astonished. “You want me to stay?” She frowned. “To look after Shaw?”
Linc shrugged. “Maybe.” He held up his hand when she opened her mouth to protest. “Just listen, okay? I need a nanny and you need a place to stay. As you said, I don’t know you, and when it comes to Shaw, I’m very slow to trust. Your sister—”
“Messed with your head,” Tate finished his sentence for him. She shrugged. “I get it, she’s been messing with mine all my life. What else did she say about me?”
Tate saw his hesitation and waited for him to speak. “Nothing much more than what I already mentioned. She didn’t speak much about you except to say that you were jealous of her.”
Tate rolled her eyes. “As if.” She looked him in the eye, desperate to get her point across. “I am not my sister. I didn’t go to college, but, over the years, I managed to study part-time to get a degree in world history. I did miss many family events, but I also wasn’t invited to many. I like being free to do my own thing. That’s why having Ellie to look after is a shock. Kari was flat out lying when she said that I quit jobs and end relationships on a whim—I’ve had the same job for the past six years, and I haven’t had a significant relationship to quit, on a whim or not.”
Tate just stopped herself from telling him that keeping her distance and remaining independent were essential to her. Too much information, Harper.
“Oh, and my mom didn’t contact you because Kari told her that you threatened to have her arrested if any of her family tried to reach out. She convinced my mom that you had the power and money to do that.”
Linc gripped the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “God, she’s a piece of work. I did offer to let Kari have visitation rights with Shaw, but she wasn’t interested. But if your mom wanted to meet Shaw, I’d make that happen. Supervised, but it could happen.”
Tate’s heart bumped against her rib cage at his generosity. “Thank you, but she died a couple of years ago.”
Linc squeezed her knee. “I’m sorry, Tate. I wish I’d known...” His voice trailed off. “Anyway, I was wrong to judge you by your sister’s actions but she...” Linc rubbed the back of his head, looking uncomfortable. “She ripped the rug out from under me.”
“You really loved her,” she stated, the familiar mixture of regret, guilt and sadness rolling around in her belly.
“I loved what thought I was getting,” Linc gruffly admitted.
“Which was?”
“A complete family, my family within a family. She told me that she wanted to be a mom, a wife, my partner. I thought she would be the person I could come home to, normality after a crazy day.”
Tate raised her eyebrows. “You associated Kari with normality?”
Linc grimaced. “Very briefly. Anyway,” he said, moving the conversation off Kari and the past, “getting back to what we were discussing, you moving in...” He took a deep breath. “Stay for a week, and I’ll work from home. I’ll help you with Ellie, and you can spend some time with Shaw. If, at the end of the week, I feel comfortable handing Shaw over to you to look after, I’ll go back to work and we’ll do a trade. I’ll feed and house you and pay for the PI, if you look after Shaw until I find a full-time nanny.”
Tate considered his offer, quickly running through her options. It was a fair offer, she acknowledged, except for... “I want to see Shaw in the future, I don’t want to walk away and never see him again.”
Linc’s expression softened. “I can make that happen.”
Tate
