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He stared at her, then reached out and drew her close. “Hey.” He wiped her cheeks dry, then cupped them in his hands. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and bit her lip. Over Thomas’s shoulder, Michael stared down at them, holding a baby Katelyn in his arms. His blue eyes shone brightly with happiness, and his ruffled brown hair—that he’d passed down to Zach—was in desperate need of a trim. But he looked so happy. Who would have guessed that just a few months later, he’d be dead? Who would have thought he’d be nothing but a memory and Katelyn would move on enough to ask another man to be her daddy?
Her daughter needed a father, badly.
And Brianna needed someone, too. Someone to hold her up when she was ready to fall. Someone who could take on some of the burden of keeping this family together, so that some days she could walk away from work and say, I need to get home to my kids. She took care of them well enough, but sometimes she felt she still didn’t give them the actual care they needed. Being a working mom sucked on her own. She tried to be everything to them but she could only spread herself so far.
How long had it been since she’d sat down to tea with Katelyn? She couldn’t even remember. So why should she waste the time she could spend with her kids on this useless, empty dalliance without even knowing if he would stay in Vegas or not? She wasn’t interested in the long-distance relationship he had alluded to once. Her kids deserved better than an absentee stand-in of Michael. They deserved someone who would be there, day in and day out.
Michael had always volunteered for night duty with Katelyn. Every morning Brianna would find him on the couch with her, the tiny baby asleep on his chest, tucked in with her father. He would smile at her, his eyes sleepy, when she woke him up for work. He’d smile sleepily and ask her why he would want to go work in a crummy accounting office when he had a slice of heaven in his arms.
He’d been such a good father.
She bit back a sob. Her gaze latched onto the photo. “You should go now. It’s been a long day.”
He looked over his shoulder. His back stiffened. He looked back at Brianna, his face etched with hard lines. “He would have wanted you to move on, Brianna.”
“Don’t. You didn’t know him.” She backed away. “I…I need to be alone now. I’m sorry, but I need to think.”
“Okay.” Thomas’s mouth set in a hard line, but he dropped a tender kiss on her head as he passed. His hand squeezed hers, lingering. He walked away but didn’t release her hand completely until he was out of her reach. “I’ll call you tomorr
ow.”
He walked down the hallway, out of her sight. She didn’t know if she wanted to chase him down or push him away and tell him never to come back. Nor did she know if she wanted to cling to a memory, certain and safe—or take a risk on something new. Someone new. Someone whose loss could destroy her.
Just as much as Michael’s.
Chapter Eleven
If he ended up in front of her door like this one more time, Thomas was going to set up camp on the doorstep.
Five days of dead silence. Five days when she wouldn’t answer his calls, and he’d been ready to call it off. He’d only chase her so far before something had to give. He’d kept himself busy finalizing the details for the Golden Hand Casino marketing package but not so busy he hadn’t noticed that even her e-mails came from her assistant.
Not from her.
Maybe mixing business with pleasure really had been a bad idea.
He had been knee-deep in mid-week paperwork earlier today when she’d called him and invited him over for dinner. Her voice had been strange, deliberately glib. Why? And why had she even bothered to call him? He’d started to think they were over. She didn’t want him with her kids, trying to take their father’s place.
But he’d never try to replace Michael. Michael was their father. Thomas could be their friend and her support, but he didn’t know how to be a father. And it wasn’t his right to try.
But he didn’t know how to make Brianna understand that.
Hell, he didn’t even know how to talk to kids. For the past few days, he’d brooded over Katelyn’s tea set and those two empty places. She’d been waiting for him to come play with her. Was she upset that he hadn’t? He clenched his fists. Tonight, even if Brianna sent him packing, he would sit down and have a tea party with Katelyn. He wouldn’t break his promise to the little angel.
He raised his hand to the door, then stopped and let it fall. In the side yard, Zach was kicking a soccer ball, maneuvering it between and around two posts staked into the ground. The boy clearly didn’t like him, wanted nothing to do with him, but Thomas couldn’t help empathizing with him. Zach probably felt the weight of his father’s absence the most and felt the need to be the man of the household.
That was a lot of weight to carry on skinny thirteen-year-old shoulders. Thomas had tried to shoulder that weight himself once and had made a strange little family for Erica, Jeremy, and himself—until he’d been stupid enough to tear it apart with false accusations.
Thomas stepped off the porch and into the yard. The ball rolled to his feet. He stopped it with the toe of his boot, his heart thundering in his ears. “Hey. Think you can block me?”
Zach glowered, his mouth set tight, but he backed up across the expanse of the yard and positioned himself between the two posts. Thomas kicked the ball a few feet across the grass, then drew back and punted it hard. It whistled through the air, toward the two posts. Zach dove and smacked it away sharply. Not even the dim dusk could hide the surprised look Zach shot at Thomas.
“You kick all right for an ugly old dude.”
So he wanted to trash talk? Thomas could do that. “Which one are you again? Oh, right. Zach. Sorry, I didn’t recognize you with your pants up.”
Zach’s cheeks suffused with red. “You’d think by now you’d get the point and stop coming around,” Zach snapped. “But here you are. Back again.”
