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Sydney jumped from her chair and ran around the table and hugged her friend good and hard. “Whew. I didn’t want to pressure you, but I really was hoping you would come with us.”
Lani laughed. “Are you kidding? Miss the chance to live on the Mediterranean in the Prince’s Palace? I couldn’t pass it up.”
Even Joseph was smiling. “Good news,” he said and raised the glass of wine he’d hardly touched.
Lani said, “Life experience is everything for a novelist. Plus, well, what would I do without you?”
“Exactly.” Sydney hugged her again. “And how could we possibly get along without you?”
Deep in the night, Sydney woke suddenly from a sound sleep. It was after three and she had no idea what had wakened her.
And then she heard Trev crying. “Mama … Mama …”
Beside her, Rule woke, too. He sat up. “I’ll go …”
She kissed his beard-scratchy cheek and pushed him back down to the pillow. “No. I’ll do it.” She threw on a robe and went to see what was wrong.
Trev was fussy and feverish, his dark hair wet with sweat. He kept putting his hands to his cheeks and crying, “Hurt, Mama. Hurt …”
Lani came in, her hair every which way, a sleep mark on her cheek, belting her robe. “Can I do something?”
“It’s all right. I think he’s teething. Go back to bed. I’ve got him.”
“Come get me if you need me.”
“Will do.”
Yawning, Lani returned to her room.
Sydney took Trev’s temperature. It was marginally elevated. She gave him some children’s acetaminophen and took him downstairs to get one of the teething rings she kept in the freezer. She was back in his room, sitting in the rocker with him as he fussed and chewed on the teething ring when Rule appeared in the doorway to the upstairs hall, bare-chested in a pair of blue pajama bottoms.
“He’s not a happy camper,” she said. “I think it’s his teeth. I gave him a painkiller. It should take effect soon.”
Trev pushed away from Sydney. “Roo! Hurt. I have hurt …” He held out his chubby little arms.
Rule came for him, scooping him up out of Sydney’s lap without a word or a second’s hesitation. Trev wrapped his arms around his stepfather’s neck and held on, sticking the ring back in his mouth and burrowing his dark head against Rule’s chest. Rule began walking him, back and forth across the bedroom floor.
Sydney, still in the rocker, stared up at the man and the little boy, at their two dark heads so close together, and tried to get a grip on exactly what she was feeling.
Jealousy?
Maybe a little. Rule had become nothing short of proprietary about Trev—and Trev about him. In recent weeks, with Rule around day in and day out, Trev had grown to count on him, to expect him to be there, to demand his attention. Since Rule was only too happy to spend lots of time with Trev, and did, it was natural that a powerful bond had swiftly developed between them.
And wasn’t that bond a good thing? As a father figure, Rule had so far proved himself to be pretty much the ideal. So what was bothering her?
Did she want Rule to defer to her when it came to Trev, was that it? When he’d grabbed her son from her arms without so much as a do-you-mind, had that somehow threatened her, made her feel that her status as Trev’s parent was in jeopardy? Lani and Trev had a close relationship, but Lani always remembered that Sydney was the mom, that her claim on him came first.
Rule, though …
He didn’t defer to her anymore, if he ever had. He seemed to consider himself as much Trev’s dad as Sydney was his mom.
And what was wrong with that?
Wasn’t that what she’d been hoping for all along?
Ugh. Maybe it was guilt—scratch the “maybe.” Probably it was guilt. Her guilt, because she knew she’d never been around enough. She worked killer hours and a lot of days she didn’t see her son awake except early in the morning, when she kissed him goodbye on her way out the door.
No wonder he chose Rule over her when he needed comforting. Rule was more a consistent presence in his life than she was.
