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Maybe he’d meant it to be a light touch. A sweet goodbye to go with the endearment.
Maybe he hadn’t been thinking at all.
What Flint knew was that he couldn’t let go. Her lips on his... His world changed again and he moved his lips over hers. Exploring. Discovering. Exploding.
He felt for her tongue. Lifted his hand to the back of her head, guiding them more closely together. Felt her hand on his thigh.
Laughter sounded and it was a little too close
. An intrusion, shattering the moment. He pulled back.
“I’m not going to apologize for that,” he said, breathing hard. He glanced at Diamond, her stroller right there in front of them, the wheels lodged against his feet. The baby had been asleep for almost two hours. She’d be awake soon. Needing attention.
And Tamara...
She was looking at the stroller, too.
“I’m not going to run,” she said. Maybe that made more sense to her than it did to him.
“Okay.”
“There are a lot of things against us,” she continued. “And chances are they’ll win out eventually, but I’m not going to run away.”
If the park staff had chosen that exact second to light the huge tree across the way from them, Flint’s world wouldn’t have been any brighter. He could hear “A Country Christmas” coming from the live band onstage in the distance and, for the first time, understood what people meant when they talked about the magic of Christmas.
“I’m very glad you aren’t running away,” he said aloud.
* * *
“I want to hold her so badly it hurts.”
They were in the car on the way home. Tamara had tried to keep her mouth shut. There was no future for them; she had to let him go.
And couldn’t bear the thought of it. Of deserting him.
Of him being deserted again.
“I’ll help you try to hold her...”
She shook her head, arms wrapped tightly around her.
“We could start out easy,” he said. “Just fix a bottle for her. Nothing else. See where that leads us.”
Fix a bottle. She could do that. Maybe even do it without undue stress as long as she focused on something else while she completed the task. That wasn’t how she usually did things; she typically focused on whatever needed doing immediately. But that wasn’t what she needed here. She’d think about...what?
At the same time, she’d be paying attention to the amount of water to powder, of course.
“My dad bought Ryan a plastic baby fishing pole,” she said, when fighting the inevitable didn’t work. Babies always brought her to this place. “It’s blue plastic with a red reel, and it has a big plastic handle that really turns and makes noise.”
He glanced at her and then back at the highway.
Diamond had woken shortly after their kiss. He’d fed and changed her in the SUV while Tamara had wandered into a couple of nearby shops. After that, they decided to head out rather than wait for the big tree lighting.
“It’s in the back of my shed.” Still in its plastic wrapping.
“You never talk much about your parents.”
Understandably, given the situation.
