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He growled again. “Ruff!”
“Look. I’m not here to make trouble, okay? I know you’ve been through a lot. Clearly everyone in this house has.”
“Winston is probably the most balanced of anyone under this roof.”
Startled at the sound of Dax’s voice, I turned so suddenly to face him that my arm hit the mug, causing it to crash to the floor and shatter.
Not again.
I covered my mouth. “Oh no.”
Dax held out his hands. “Stay back, Winston.” He walked around and led the dog out of the room.
I bent down to pick up the pieces.
A minute later, he returned to find me down on my hands and knees. “Stand up, Wren.”
Refusing to listen, I kept at it. “I’m so mortified right now.”
He spoke louder. “Stand up. I have the dustpan and brush. I’ll take care of it.”
I reluctantly stood and watched as Dax knelt in my place to pick up the pieces.
I paced. “This is déjà vu. How could this possibly have happened a second time?”
“It’s okay.” He glanced up at me. “Nobody died.”
His choice of words gave me pause. “Nobody died? Are you trying to be funny again?”
“Actually, I wasn’t. But now that you mention it, that could’ve been a dig at the last time this happened, huh?”
Oh great. So I’m the one making jokes about his dead wife’s ashes now.
Dax dumped the ceramic pieces in the trash. He went over the area with a small hand vacuum before mopping up the remaining tea. Then he put all of the supplies away in a utility closet off the kitchen.
“All set,” he said. He examined my face. “You don’t look so good.”
I wanted to crawl into a hole. “I’m not. I feel like I have PTSD or something from the first time I broke something here.” I let out a shaky breath.
He walked over and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Relax.”
Oh. My pulse reacted to the weight of his hands on me. His touch felt damn good, but I had to be crazy for getting a little aroused at a time like this. “You’re telling me to relax? Isn’t that somewhat ironic coming from you?”
He smiled, removing his hands from my shoulders—much to my dismay. “Come sit. I’ll make you another tea.”
I was about to tell him that wasn’t necessary, but he’d already turned on the kettle, so I let things be.
I sat in silence and watched as he prepared it, my eyes again falling to his derrière. Dax had broad shoulders, and you could make out the muscles of his back through the material of his cream-colored shirt. It was strange to be intimidated by someone who was also waiting on you. It wasn’t every day that a handsome man served me like this.
After the kettle went off, he poured my tea and walked over to hand it to me. He then poured the remaining hot water into his mug.
“Thank you.” I cleared my throat. “How is Rafe?”
Dax returned to his seat across from me. “He gets these chronic ear infections. I managed to find where Shannon put the ibuprofen she bought today. I’ll have to get him to the doctor tomorrow.” He let out a long breath. “Rafe is in a…silent stage right now. He prefers not to talk, so it’s hard to know the extent of his pain.”
“Okay, so he’s choosing not to talk. I wasn’t sure.”
Dax nodded. “Doctor says it’s a form of mutism.”
“I thought maybe he had a developmental delay.”
“No. He spoke perfectly fine before his mother passed. All of this came on after.”
Oh man. “How old is he?”
“Thirteen.”
“That’s a tough age. I can’t imagine how difficult losing her must have been for him.”
“Yeah. He was eleven at the time. And now he’s stuck with a guy he never liked to begin with, and who certainly wasn’t cut out to be a parent.”
“I’m sure you’re doing the best you can.”
“How do you know that?” he asked, almost defensively.
“Well, I was raised by my dad. As I mentioned, my mother, Eileen, died in a car accident when I was five. My dad and I are very close. But I understand how hard it is, because I know how much my dad struggled with being a single father. Still, he did a damn good job.”
“So, you assume I must be like him? Worthy of the responsibility of a child? I’m not. I didn’t choose to adopt Rafe. That was all Maren long before I came along. When she and I got married, I made it clear that I wasn’t ready to be a father to her son. And she said that didn’t matter because Rafe was hers. She said I could choose the role I wanted to have in his life. The problem is, we never figured that out, nor did we discuss what the hell would happen if she wasn’t around anymore.” His voice was strained. “I can run my company and provide investment expertise until kingdom come. But when it comes to that boy? I basically know shit. And he won’t talk to me on top of everything. So that makes it harder.” He let out a long breath.
