That trip had been different.
That trip had ended whatever it was that he’d had with Mara.
He hated Nashville.
Collin, Gran and Amanda came down the porch steps. Gran held on to Collin’s arm as they got into Collin’s truck. Collin waved as they passed, but James couldn’t make out his expression. Didn’t matter. James was going inside the house, and his best friend would have to deal with what had happened between James and his sister.
James was going to have to deal with it, too. He held no illusions about his friendship with Collin; it was strong, but family outweighed even the deepest of friendships.
He got out of the car and strode to the front door. Knocked. And forgot to breathe for a second when Mara answered.
She’d pulled her blond hair up into a ponytail that brushed the delicate line of her neck. She smiled at a little boy with hair the same color as James’s and eyes that had just a touch of green mixed in with the brown. “Hi,” she said, and the smile she’d been offering their son was turned on James.
She wore blue athletic shorts and a matching tank that showed off curves she hadn’t had before Zeke. Something fluttered low in his belly. Then his whole body seemed to heat. Had to be a weird trick of the weather. The temperatures still hovered around the ninety-degree mark.
“Hi,” he said. He focused on the little boy. “Hello,” James said, and the toddler turned his face into his mother’s neck.
“He’s shy with new people,” Mara said, motioning James inside. She closed the door behind him and took him into the living room. The same comfortable, overstuffed furniture he remembered. She handed him a goofy-looking stuffed purple dinosaur.
“What’s this for?”
“Playing,” Mara said, and sat on the floor with Zeke in her lap. She picked up another animal, this one with a long tail, and wiggled it in her hands. The boy grabbed at it and laughed.
James sat on the floor and wiggled the dinosaur around. The boy didn’t giggle at him. He just watched solemnly. Mara shoved her stuffed animal in the face of James’s stuffed animal, making the little boy giggle again.
“Zeke, this is your Daddy,” she said, her voice gentle despite the attacking motions of the stuffed animal in her hand. “You have to play back,” she told James, and he realized he was sitting on the floor, doing nothing.
He pushed his stuffed animal against hers, trying to ignore the brush of her fingertips against his and the jolt of electricity it sent through his body. Mara tossed her stuffed animal in the air. It landed on Zeke’s head, and he grabbed at it with his chubby hands. When it fell to the floor, she picked it up and twisted it gently against his face and neck.
Well, James could sit here and watch her play with their son, or he could join in. Zeke giggled and grabbed the stuffed animal from Mara’s hands. He pushed it toward her face, making giggly-growling noises. James pushed the purple dinosaur toward Mara, too, and tried to imitate the noises Zeke was making.
The little boy stopped playing and looked at James for a long moment, then dropped the stuffed animal and snuggled closer to Mara. James mimicked Mara’s earlier toss, but instead of grabbing at the dinosaur, Zeke just sat on Mara’s bent knee. Mara picked up the animal he dropped, but he didn’t play with her, either. He just watched as if trying to figure out what James was doing.
“I don’t think he enjoys our game,” James said, a bit intimidated by the little guy who obviously didn’t like him.
“I think he’s not used to anyone monster-attacking me except him,” Mara said. She put both stuffed animals on the floor in front of Zeke. He kicked at them with his feet but didn’t pick them up.
“You told him I was his father.”
“Well, you are, and at fourteen months, it isn’t exactly a trauma for him to learn he has one. The key is to present it naturally, not to overload him, and make this as normal as possible. He’s had a lot of introductions this week. Great-grandmother, uncle, aunt. Now dad.”
James picked up the purple dinosaur, tossing it absently from hand to hand. “It felt weird, you introducing me so nonchalantly.”
“You expected a presentation with slideshows and engraved cards?” she asked.
Zeke scooted his body toward her bent knee, edging closer to the stuffed animal on the floor.
“No, I... I’m not sure what I expected.”
Mara ran her hands over the little boy’s hair. “To be honest, I’ve been trying to figure out all day how to introduce you. Seeing you at the door, I decided just to be straightforward about it.”
“Thanks.” James couldn’t pinpoint exactly what the thanks was for—her introducing him normally or her introducing him at all. Either way, the word seemed inadequate. He tossed the dinosaur once more. “So, what happens now?”
“We have dinner. We play a little more, then put this guy to bed. Another night we do it all again, as often as you want.”
James nodded.
Zeke lunged for the dinosaur, startling James. The boy fell to his knees, clutching the dinosaur to his chest. James froze, unsure whether to offer comfort or not. Mara held her hand up, stopping him from reaching for Zeke. The little boy rolled over onto his back, the dinosaur still clutched to his chest, and made a roaring sound as he got to his feet. He grabbed the other stuffed animal and high-stepped his way toward the sofa, both animals faux-attacking one another as he crashed against the soft cushions.
James watched, mesmerized, as Zeke happily mounted some kind of attack with the stuffed animals against the sofa. He mumbled something James couldn’t quite understand. “What did he say?”
Mara shrugged. “I have no idea. The only two words he really has down are dog and ball, but he chatters a lot.”
“Is that normal?”
“All babies develop their words differently, but the books say his vocabulary will skyrocket over the next six months or so.”
“Books?”
“Baby books, development books. I think I’ve read every one printed in the past ten years. He has good hand-eye coordination, and he’s walking more and more. He’s in good shape.”
“Could I borrow one of those books?”
Mara nodded. “Of course.”
James couldn’t take his eyes off his son, playing attack-the-couch with the stuffed animals in his hands. “He’s amazing.”
“I think so,” she said, and her voice was soft. Mara turned to watch Zeke for a moment. “Zeke,” she said, and his head swiveled in her direction. “Are you hungry?” she asked, moving her hands as she spoke. Zeke mimicked the hand movement and started in their direction.
“What was that?”
“Baby sign. We do the signs for tired and hungry and more and full.” Mara stood, and Zeke wobbled closer. James stood, too. “It gives him a bit more autonomy, makes it simpler for me to understand him.”
“Can you teach me?”
“Definitely,” she said. “We’ll work on it at dinner. I’ll just run upstairs to grab that book for you.”
Before James could stop her, Mara had hurried up the stairs. He expected her to reappear a moment later, but there was no sound from upstairs. He looked at the baby, who looked back at him. James waited, but Mara didn’t return. There was no noise from the kitchen. The lack of familiar faces didn’t seem to bother Zeke, though, who turned to his stuffed animals and resumed his fake-attacking play.
Was it a test, then? James scooted a little closer to the couch, but Zeke stayed focused on his toys. The baby hadn’t liked it when James joined in the attack-mommy game a few minutes ago, so maybe he should try something else. There was a stack of blocks of different sizes near the recliner. James picked up a few and began building a tower, one of his favorite things to do as a kid.
He’d built entire cities with interlocking blocks and had practically lined his
room with models of log cabins, and once had managed to stack a bunch of blocks nearly to the ceiling before the structure came tumbling down. There were only five of these blocks, but he could do something with them.
He took his time stacking the blocks, making sure Zeke had a clear view. Largest on the bottom, smallest on the top. Zeke turned, watching him, the stuffed animals lying still on the couch. James waited, but the little boy only watched. Okay, new approach. Smallest to largest. Balancing the blocks took a bit of maneuvering, but James managed.
Zeke tilted his head, then put his hands in the air and kept bending as if trying to figure out what was going on with the blocks. He tumbled over onto his back and giggled. James held out his hand, and after a moment, Zeke put his pudgy baby hand in his. James couldn’t breathe for a second.
He didn’t think he had ever held anything so tiny and soft, and it made him wonder just how tiny and soft the little boy had been as an infant. He’d missed it. He’d missed the late-night feedings and the fifteen-times-a-day diaper changes and the first bath and... Pain hit his chest with the force of a sledgehammer, knocking the wind out of him.
He’d missed it, and he couldn’t completely blame it on Mara. Yes, she should have told him, but what about his personal responsibility? He’d been half in love with Mara Tyler in high school, and after the first time they ran into one another, in Jefferson City at that law enforcement workshop, that half-in-love feeling had put him in way over his head.
He’d kept seeing her, telling himself that it didn’t matter how he felt or how she felt. He’d been convinced that she might eventually come around, that she might feel about him the way he felt about her. But he’d never told her how he felt—not even in Nashville when she had been so different. She’d been softer, more vulnerable, had talked more about Slippery Rock. He could have told her then how he felt. And maybe if he had, things would have been different. Maybe she wouldn’t have run.
Or maybe she still would have run, but when she’d discovered she was pregnant, she would have at least called him.
There were a thousand maybes in his brain, and not a single one of them mattered more than holding his little boy’s hand.
Zeke stood on wobbly legs and high-stepped to the inverted tower of blocks. He poked one finger at the middle block, and the tower all came tumbling down around him. For the first time, he looked at James and smiled.
Whatever mistakes James had made with Mara, he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes now. Two years was long enough. He had a son and he had a town that depended on him. He wouldn’t let either of them down.
* * *
MARA SAT AT the head of the stairs, watching through the pickets while her son played with his father. She swiped away a tear as Zeke put his hand in James’s.
She had been so wrong to keep the two of them apart. So very, very wrong, and she had no idea how to make things right. She couldn’t turn back time, no matter how much she wished, at this moment, that she could.
Zeke began stacking the blocks, and when James added one to the new tower, Zeke knocked them over. He put his chubby hand over his mouth and giggled. Mara smiled in response. He was such a sweetheart. God, she had had no idea she could love someone as much as she loved her son.
James restacked Zeke’s uneven tower, explaining about sizing and connections as he moved each block into position. He was using his cop voice, which Mara found hilarious. Only James would talk to a fourteen-month-old baby building a tower as if he was a fifteen-year-old teen out on a joyride. The man was nuts. And possibly the sweetest person she had ever known. Mara put her hand over her heart and sighed. God, she could love a man who spoke to a child as if he were an equal. It was how Granddad always talked to Mara and her siblings when they were small.
She traced her fingers over the embossed lettering of the book next to her. This was her favorite parenting book because it was written tongue-in-cheek with real-world examples, compared with the dry books written by psychology professors that read like...well, textbooks. None of the books she had read, though, had prepared her for this moment.
When she’d left Tulsa for Slippery Rock, she’d thought she was ready. She had put whatever came over her in Nashville firmly in the past; she knew she and James weren’t good for one another in the long run. He wanted things she didn’t, such as a life in Slippery Rock. He came from a place she didn’t, with two parents who were steady and caring and could have been the poster family for those old sitcoms she’d devoured when she was home sick from school. She came from two adults who were so hell-bent on never being adults that they’d left their children alone for days on end while they partied, and who ultimately abandoned their children to their grandparents.
That was the one selfless thing Samson and Maddie had done, and for that one act, Mara refused to hate her parents. Looking at Zeke, she couldn’t begin to understand why they had done the things they had, but she couldn’t hate them.
The kitchen timer sounded. She jumped from her perch and descended the stairs.
“Dinner in five,” she called over her shoulder, putting as much breeziness in her voice as she could. James had restacked the blocks into a perfectly straight tower. Zeke reached for one of the middle blocks, and as she crossed into the kitchen, she heard the tower tumble down. Mara chuckled.
In the kitchen, she grabbed quilted pot holders with orange, green and purple foxes on them, then pulled the meat loaf and the vegetable casserole from the oven. She set the hot dishes on the built-in counter trivets to cool, filled a sippy cup for Zeke, and grabbed two more glasses as well as plates and flatware.
“This might be the most domestic thing you’ve ever done in your life, Mara Tyler,” she said to herself.
“You’re kind of cute when you’re being domestic,” James said from the doorway. Mara whirled, putting her hand to her chest.
“I didn’t realize you’d followed me in.” He crossed to the counter and picked up the plates. “I can do that.”
“I know how to set a table, although I’ve never actually done it.”
Mara wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she changed the subject. “Iced tea?”
“Real sugar, not one of those substitutes?”
She straightened her shoulders, cocked an eyebrow and put as much starch in her voice as she could muster. “Would any self-respecting Missouri girl put anything but real sugar in her iced tea?”
“Technically you’ve been living in Tulsa and a hundred other cities or states, but I’ll take that as a yes to the sugar, and you can take that as a yes to the glass. Thanks.”
Mara filled the glasses. “You were looking pretty comfortable out there.”
“So it was a test.” It wasn’t a question, and he’d used his überserious cop voice.
“Not a test, per se, just... I felt like the two of you might get along a little better without me for a minute.” She put the glasses on the table and picked up the flatware to finish the table settings. She had wanted—no—she had needed to see how the two of them would act together. Sooner or later, James would have visitation, and he would be alone with Zeke. She needed to know he wouldn’t tune the toddler out.
James was an only child, and while he’d always been nice to Amanda when they were kids, there was a big difference between being nice to a child and being a responsible adult and parent for a child.
“Also, I needed to get that book for you.” She pointed to the sideboard where she’d dropped the book when she entered the kitchen. “Why don’t you sit? I’ll grab the little man, and we can eat.”
He put his hand on her arm, stopping her. That familiar sizzle sped along her skin. “It was a test.”
Mara shook her head, then sighed. “You would have done it differently. You’d have done it perfectly.”
“Mara.” His voice was quiet, and the sound of her name on his li
ps made the sizzle burn a little hotter. She froze, needing to keep the heat between them under control, but wanting it to burst out like a wildfire. His mouth hit hers, but instead of the anger that had fueled that kiss outside the B and B, the contact was slow. Smooth. And it nearly undid her. His mouth was strong against hers, familiar, and yet it was as if he had never kissed her before.
Which was ridiculous because he’d kissed her at least a thousand times over the past five years. Kissed her and held her and made her scream in another thousand different ways. All of those ways were fast, urgent, and filled with pounding heartbeats and maybe a fumble or two because they were always on borrowed time. He had to leave or she did. His work called or hers did.
This was different, as if they had all the time in the world. As if nothing could interrupt them or stop them. As if there was nothing left to get in their way. No job that kept her on the road. No small town holding on to him. No checkered past, no teenage pranks.
His lips continued to move over hers in a light caress, teasing her lips apart. His hand slid to her nape as his tongue finally dipped into her mouth. Mara locked her hands behind his head, wanting to hold him in place, wanting the moment to continue. She’d missed him. Missed her best friend. Missed her lover. Even knowing he wasn’t right for her or, more accurately, she wasn’t right for him, she had missed how his body felt against hers. How he made her feel deep inside. As if she was loved.
As if she was lovable.
James’s hand caressed her neck, and her hunger kicked into a higher gear. When his fingers walked past her shoulder and over her ribs, she forgot to breathe, and when his hand cupped her breast, Mara’s knees buckled.
James. He was what she had been missing for the past two years. She’d kept herself busy with work, committed herself to the therapy sessions with her doctor and showered all the love she had on Zeke. But under all that busyness, she’d been hollow. Felt incomplete.
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