“Did you ever see American Graffiti? There’s a part when Harrison Ford’s character says the other guy’s car is a cross between piss yellow and puke green.” He tapped the wall. “I think this might come under that banner.”
“Nana was more into frugality than style. At least everything still works.” She knocked on the door frame for luck. “Though you do have to jiggle the handle on the toilet sometimes.” She thought for a moment. “And the pipes bang when you first get in the shower, but that passes quickly. Other than that, you’re golden. If the fixtures looked as good as they work, it’d be great, but...”
He walked into the room, hands on hips, taking it all in. “I’ve seen worse.”
Oh, that was reassuring, considering he spent a good chunk of his time in villages without indoor plumbing.
“This will be the rainy-day project, I think.” He pointed from one element to the next. “New toilet. New vanity and sink. The tub...” He pulled back the shower curtain. “Oh, yeah. This is one of those old-fashioned ones. People love those. It can probably stay.” He moved in a slow circle. “It’s a nice room. Plenty of space. We’ll take down those god-awful shutters, put up some curtains, new fixtures, a coat of paint, and it’ll be—”
He came to a standstill, his gaze frozen on Jamie and his mouth gaping slightly.
She glanced down. At Jamie’s hand, curled around the neckline of her sweater. Which he had dragged halfway down her chest, revealing a whole lot of skin and a whole lot of bra. And even though no one in their right mind would ever describe a nursing bra as seductive, from the way Boone seemed to have been turned to stone, she was pretty sure he thought it was the best bit of satin he’d seen in ages.
Almost a year, to be exact.
“Oops.” She disengaged Jamie’s fingers and tugged, but the fabric was bunched beneath his wriggling little body. “Here.” And without thinking, she pulled the baby off her and held him out to Boone.
The expression on Boone’s face shifted from naked lust to stark terror in the space of a heartbeat.
“I...” His gaze bounced from her face, to her chest, to Jamie, then back to her face. “How do I...?”
Whoa. He had told her he didn’t have a lot of experience with babies, but given the tight lines in his face, she had a strong suspicion that he’d been underreporting.
“Have you never held a baby?”
His eyes closed. His lips thinned, like he was trying to hold in a grimace. “I have,” he said slowly. “But it’s been a long time.”
Time alone couldn’t account for the way his hands suddenly seemed plastered to his thighs.
Something inside Kate contracted in empathy.
Boone had never given her more than the basics about his childhood. She knew that the only thing his father had given him was twenty-three chromosomes and that it probably would have been better if his mother’s role had stopped about there, as well. She knew that there had been indifferent relatives and foster care and periodic reunions with his mother that seemed to always stop just short of physical abuse. She knew that as far as Boone was concerned, his life hadn’t really begun until he’d met up with the MacPhersons and gone to Peru.
None of that explained why the mention of holding a baby—holding their baby—left him looking like he’d been dropped into a pit of snakes.
Kate closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing for a second. Then she put Jamie on her hip, pulled her sweater into position—no point in adding another level of challenge to the situation—and marched over to Boone. “Stick out your arms.”
“Here?” He looked around, his gaze lingering once more on the tub, the sink, the tile floor. “Everything is solid. Hard. What if I drop him?”
“You won’t. I won’t let you,” she added when panic filled his eyes. She switched to teacher mode. “Come on. Arms out. That’s right, bent at the elbows. Now, I’m going to put him up against your shoulder. You’re going to put your left hand under his little bum. Your right hand goes across his back. Got it?”
He took a step back.
Oh, no. No way was she letting him run away from this.
“Boone. Whatever has you worried, you can forget about it. I’m right here. Don’t you want to hold your son?”
His nod was slow in coming, but at least he was affirming.
“He moves a lot, so you’ll need to keep your grip secure. But not too tight.”
“Are you sure this is a good—”
She pushed the baby toward him before he could get any more freaked out. As she’d expected, his arms closed around Jamie—tentatively at first, then tight enough that she felt good about letting go and stepping back.
“There,” she said softly. “Jameson Boone, meet Jackson Boone. But he thinks Jackson is a preppy name, so don’t call him that. Which you won’t anyway, because he’s your father.”
Jamie leaned back and stared at Boone. Boone stared rigidly back.
Too late, she wished she had her phone or a camera nearby. But since she didn’t—and there was no way she was going to ruin the moment by running off—she focused instead on soaking up every possible detail so she could carry them in her memory.
Two cleft chins. Two sets of wide-spaced blue eyes. Two slightly upturned noses and two heads of light brown hair and two matching expressions of misgiving.
Her throat tightened, swiftly and unexpectedly.
Daddy. I should have said, “He’s your daddy.”
At last, Boone cracked a smile. “Hey, buddy.”
Jamie’s response was to open his mouth and let out a wail that could have punched a hole in the ceiling.
Oh, no. “It’s okay,” she said to Boone, to Jamie, to herself as she reached and grabbed. “He just doesn’t know you, that’s all. Give him a couple of days to warm up and he’ll be fine.”
“Sure,” Boone said in a hollow sort of voice. “Totally understandable.”
“I’ll take him downstairs. Change his diaper while you have a shower.” A joke might help. “Don’t worry, we won’t have the diaper lesson until tomorrow.”
“Probably a good plan,” Boone said, and grabbed a towel from the closet.
Kate backed out of the bathroom and hurried down the stairs. She shouldn’t have pushed it. Damn it, she was an early childhood educator. She was well aware that even a father who had been present from a kid’s first breath could sometimes be rejected in favor of the mom, and vice versa. She should never have forced this, especially when it was so obvious that Boone had been on the edge about it.
“But I want him to love you,” she whispered to Jamie as she placed him on the changing table. “I want him to know that you are the most miraculous little thing on the whole planet. I want him to hate every minute he has to be away from you. I want
