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“Military tactics.” She sighed and settled back against him. “I’m starting to think he might need that. Without his father, discipline has been nearly impossible.”
“He probably needs to feel like you’re his friend. Not his mother.”
The odd note in his voice prompted her to look up at him. His face was closed, and he looked across the living room with darkened eyes.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean…when there’s only one parent, there’s no good cop, bad cop.” His voice was almost too quiet. “There’s only you and them against the world. He needs to feel like you’re on his side, because when you’re his enemy, there’s no other parent to turn to.”
She touched his cheek. “How do you know that?”
“My dad wasn’t around, either.” He seemed to snap from his trance, and looked down at her with a bitter quirk to his mouth. “He never had much of an excuse for his absence. Didn’t even bother to try.”
She wanted so much to kiss him until that hard set to his mouth softened and warmed, until the old, angry pain in his eyes eased—because she didn’t know what else to do. If she said anything, he’d only withdraw from her and shut off again.
The doorbell rang. They jerked apart. Thomas’s eyes cleared, blanking over with practiced ease, and he stood. “I’ll get it.”
Damn it all to hell. One of these days she’d get to the heart of this man without a million inconvenient interruptions.
She pried herself off the couch and hurried after him. “You’re not paying again. This one’s on me. You go play for a minute while I set up for dinner.”
“But I want to pay.”
She bit back a smile. He sounded like a petulant little boy. “So do I.”
“Well, since I don’t want to argue with you tonight…” He stepped aside. “I’ll go chase your kids until they’re too tired to run anymore.”
She chuckled. “Go for it.”
He nodded and slipped out the back door. She fished her wallet out of her purse and dug out a twenty. Michael’s face stared up at her from the wallet’s photo slot, his eyes serious.
She dropped it, her throat aching. What would Michael think of Thomas? Would he have liked him? Would he have wanted her to spend the rest of her life alone, or would he have wanted her to move on? To find happiness again?
She closed her purse, shutting her worries and fears inside. For now, the only thing she should be worrying about was pizza.
The kids were all upstairs.
It was the first time they’d been alone in hours. Thomas was in the kitchen putting away the dishes. Brianna hovered in the living room and watched him from the darkness. He’d rolled his sleeves up to his biceps and he moved with a grace and surety that made her long to touch him.
They’d said they’d take things slow, so she would. But she still burned to be in his arms. Burned to feel his lips on her skin.
“I can see you, you know,” he murmured. “I have amazing night vision.”
She chuckled and walked into the kitchen. “Do you wear a spandex costume, too?”
“Only in the bedroom. It turns me on.”
“There is something very damned wrong inside your mind.”
“Swear jar.”
She rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t count when they’re asleep.”
“Oh really?” He wiped his hands on a dishtowel and turned to face her. “Says who?”
“Says me. I’m the boss here.”
“Hmm.” He crossed the room, his gaze burning. “Is that so?”
