He lowered himself into the chair and waited. Kate came close and burst out laughing.
“You look like you’re waiting for me to draw blood or something!”
“That good, eh?” Maybe if he distracted himself, kept her talking, it would get him through this. Not so distracted that he wouldn’t be able to keep his focus on what he was doing. Just enough to take the edge off his nerves.
He breathed in, held out his hands and waited. “So, what happened?”
“What happened when?” She lowered Jamie onto his lap. Boone held his breath and slowly closed his hands around his son’s warmth. For a second he couldn’t think of anything but the placement of his hands and the distance to the floor and the odds of Kate staying precisely where she was, crouching in front of him.
Purely because he wanted her there to catch Jamie if anything happened, of course.
Talk, Boone. You can do this.
“What, uh, happened with your father?” Boone risked a fast glance toward Kate. Her face could have been carved from stone. Because of him holding Jamie? Or because...
“Nothing.”
The part of Boone that wasn’t actively trying to slow his heart rate and relax into the feel of Jamie on his lap was pretty sure Kate was hiding something.
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“That’s it.” She shrugged. “Mom gave me his name. I tracked him down.”
“And?” Jamie’s eyes were getting big. Boone was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign.
“And, he had his lawyer send my mother a check.”
Boone’s hands tightened around Jamie. “That was it?”
“Not quite.” She took a small step back, straightened, clasped her hands in front of her. “There were also instructions. If Mom and I refrained from any further contact with him, there would be another check on my eighteenth birthday, for double the child support he should have been paying all these years. If we didn’t stay quiet, the lawyers would make sure Mom would have to jump through a boatload of legal hoops to get more. They promised it would end up costing far more than she could ever get out of him.”
“They thought she was just—”
“After his money. Right.” Her mouth twisted. “It seemed he was getting ready to run for office and he didn’t want an illegitimate child upending all his plans.”
Boone stared down at the whorls of Jamie’s hair. It was so fine. So perfect. Had Kate’s been like that?
“So he wanted nothing to do with you.”
“Not a thing.” Again she shrugged, not that he believed her casual air. “Apparently he’d grown up to be just as awful as his parents after all.”
Home, family. Whish. Thrown to the wind.
Much as he hated to admit it, Boone was starting to understand Maggie’s antipathy toward him.
Jamie whimpered. Boone looked to Kate.
“I think he needs you again.”
“He’s okay,” she replied, but there was no denying the relief that rushed through Boone when she took Jamie back. Relief, but also an undeniable feeling of loss.
According to Boone’s mother, his father had no idea he existed. That was bad enough. But for Kate’s father to have made it clear she wasn’t worth anything more than a check?
“No wonder your mother thinks I’m the scum of the earth.”
“She doesn’t think that.” Kate bit her lip. “At least, not precisely.”
“I’ll have to knock myself out to prove that I’m one of the good guys.”
“Oh, please. Change my mother’s mind? We’re talking Jedi master level accomplishment.”
He laughed along with her, because she was right. But he had to try. Not that he cared what Maggie thought of him, but he could see it bothered Kate. She shouldn’t have to spend her days defending him to her mother.
He needed to find a way to prove to Maggie that he was nothing like Kate’s father. That even though he might not be a traditional kind of dad, he did love his son. And Kate had not made the worst mistake of her life when she hooked up with him.
As he remembered Maggie’s comments about wanting to keep the house in the family...and the longing in Kate’s voice when she said it wasn’t practical...he got a pretty good idea about how he could pull it off.
AFTER A LONG and exhausting day planning repairs, guiding Jamie toward Boone and revealing way too much about her past, Kate was more than ready for bed once Jamie was down for the night. She grabbed a book about restoring older homes, climbed under the covers, and fell asleep reading about crown molding. At least, she thought that was the part where she passed out, given that she had a wild dream in which Boone was really Prince Harry, but she was the only one who saw it.
She woke up to the sound of snuffles right before she was going to meet the Queen.
“Damn it,” she grumbled as she hauled Jamie’s sleep-warm body close and crawled back into bed. “All that practice curtseying for nothing.”
With the morning well and truly begun, she made her plan. Feed Jamie. Get him changed and dressed. Hop into the shower and... Ooh. Did she dare leave Boone in charge of the baby while she had a shower?
“I think you could handle it,” she said to the tiny head working so studiously. “But your dad might pass out.”
As if he agreed, Jamie ceased gulping to gaze up at her, swat her chin with his palm, and gurgle something that sounded like uh-huh. Kate burst out laughing and cuddled him closer, tickling his tummy with her hair until he giggled.
Boone should be here.
The thought hit her fast and hard, making her hands shake as she went through the pat, burp, resettle routine. What would it be like to have Boone in the bed right now? To lean against his bare chest and laugh softly together over their son’s antics...to look up and back for a quick kiss...to have him reach around her so they were all wrapped together in one embrace...
No. She couldn’t let herself think that way. Not when she knew it was nothing but an exercise in self-torture.
“I know he had a crappy childhood,” she whispered to Jamie. “But you would think that would make him want all the family he could get, not the other way around.”
Though she knew that wasn’t always true. Boone didn’t like to talk about his childhood, but the parts he did let slip set a whole armada of red flags flying in her educator’s brain. She knew the kinds of lingering effects a childhood such as his could have on future relationships.
