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Right before dinner, the Kauffmans sidled up to them. A bubbly young couple who owned a PR firm that Suminski Stuff had used a time or two, and who had just had their first child, Pete and Belinda were more his age than most of the attendees.
After Dean introduced Kristen, she said, “We’d love to see a picture of your son. Wouldn’t we, Dean?”
Trusting her, he said, “Sure.”
The Kauffmans whipped out their phones. Belinda was the first to get her pictures up for viewing, and she handed her phone to Dean. On the screen was the oddest face he had ever seen. Bald head, bugging eyes, spit bubbles in the corners of the little boy’s lips.
He honestly wanted to say something nice but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Kristen smoothly said, “Oh, he’s adorable! Such big eyes!”
Following her lead, Dean said, “Yes, big eyes.” But ten minutes later, when the new parents were finally out of earshot, he turned to Kristen. “You deserve some kind of an award for keeping a straight face while looking at that kid.”
She laughed. “He was adorable.”
“No. He wasn’t.”
“Sure he was. All babies are cute in their own way.”
“If you say so.”
“Oh, Dean, life isn’t about symmetry or perfection. It’s about what makes a person unique, and that little boy’s eyes were spectacular.”
He said, “I guess,” but what she’d said made real sense. Not just because the baby with the big eyes and bald head did look happy, but because he’d met all kinds in his world. Superstitious programmers who had lucky T-shirts. Marketing people who wore the latest fashions, and accountants who were never out of their suits. It took all of them to make Suminski Stuff successful. In spite of her naïvety, Kristen Anderson was pretty smart.
Relaxing another notch, he motioned her in the direction of their table, but she didn’t make a move to walk toward it. She peered at him. “You haven’t spent a lot of time around kids, have you?”
“No. And I plan to keep it that way.”
“Really? You don’t want to have kids of your own someday?”
“I wouldn’t know the first thing about being a father.”
“I’ve heard it comes naturally.”
He gestured again for her to walk. “Not when you didn’t have one to be an example.”
Her face filled with sympathy. Apology filled her green eyes. “I’m so sorry. I forgot your parents were killed.”
“It’s fine.”
She shook her head. “No. It’s not fine. I should have thought that through before I made such a careless comment.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s hard to remember every little detail of somebody’s bio.”
“But that’s an important one.”
“Not really. I’m over it.”
She held his gaze, her sympathetic eyes sending an odd feeling through him, a knowing that if he’d talk about this with her she’d understand.
“You’re not over it or you wouldn’t be so sure you don’t want to have kids.”
He laughed to ease the pressure of the knot in his chest, the one that nudged him to say something honest when he couldn’t be honest. He’d never told anyone anything but the bare-bones facts of his childhood. And one woman with pretty eyes—no matter how much she seemed to be able to get him to relax—wouldn’t change that.
He stuck with the rhetoric that had served him well for the ten years he’d guided Suminski Stuff. “Being over it has little to do with the decision not to have kids. I don’t just lack parenting skills, I also have an unusual job. In the past twenty-four hours I’ve been in two countries, crossed an ocean. There’s no place in my life for a wife, let alone kids.”
She caught his gaze and gave him the most puzzling look for about ten seconds, and then she finally said, “You know, that just makes you all the more a challenge.”
“A challenge?”
“Sure.” Her smile broadened, a bubble of laughter escaped. “Every woman wants to be the one who tames the confirmed bachelor and turns him into a family man.”
She said it in jest. Her laugh clearly indicated she was teasing. But he could picture them in the master bedroom of his Albany estate, white curtains billowing in the breeze from open French doors. White comforter on a king-size bed. Her leaning on pillows plumped against a tufted headboard. Holding a baby.
