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I didn’t believe him, but I wouldn’t argue. “Fine. Keep your secrets. One day, maybe, you can trust me with them.” My lips twitched as I fought my triumphant smile.
“Oh, it’s like that?”
“It is.”
“Okay, I like a challenge.”
I did too. And Rick had become a challenge, mostly of my own willpower. “Good. Maybe I can create one.”
“Oh, Kanan, uh, you already have. Believe me, Kanan. You have,” he spouted quickly then jogged off to the house and into the back door without a look back at me.
I was left to watch after him, my jaw hanging, of course. No matter what brazen thing I tried, he cut me off at the knees.
When Rick went off for his business dinner, I got to let loose with the kids. We had a game of hide and seek, where Chandler and I both pretended not to find Colby right away, even though he hid behind the couch every time it was his turn.
Miraculously, we found all the fixings for smores, and we made some in the firepit that Colby admitted he was afraid of. Chandler held him on his lap for a while, then I did as Chandler remembered the songs he’d learned at camp as a kid, so we sang them too. Colby hung onto me pitifully when he fell to sleep on my lap, and as I took him up the stairs to his room, he roused enough to say one word.
“Daddy.”
I’m not unreasonable. I’m not some idiot who fell to my knees and started wailing over it, thinking it was more than it was. It was a little boy that was asleep and, in that sleep, thought his daddy was carrying him.
Honest mistake, given his father’s arms was where the boy was most of the time. Rick took him everywhere, devoted to his son. Both of his sons held his heart.
The thing was, however, the word hit me in the heart and lodged there, warming it as it beat so slowly in my chest. I didn’t breathe for a long time, watching the sweet, sleepy little face of the child, his hands curling into fists to rub his eyes.
I put him to bed and made sure the nightlight was on and he was properly tucked into the covers. I met Chandler in the hall. “Cute little guy, isn’t he?”
“Very. He’s…special. You both are. Rick makes good kids.”
Chandler blushed a little and walked barefoot to his room, and I was left to descend the stairs, getting a glass, and pouring some white wine I found in the fridge. As I sipped it in the living room, I looked over Rick’s books that were plentiful on the shelf near one of the big windows.
He had every genre, from fiction to nonfiction, thrillers to organic chemistry. A well-rounded man, Rick was, and it just made me want him more.
Yes, I could finally admit it to myself. I wanted the man. The likely straight man who had a family, a career, and a thriving business would not be interested in me that way. Of course, I was disregarding the hints dropping from all over the home. Chandler and Rick both were giving me the impression that Rick might be interested.
And the way he looked at me…
I didn’t know the man well, so the gazes in my direction could be totally innocent. But they didn’t feel that way. Not in the least.
As I was looking through a photographic book on the area, one that captured incredible pictures of the mountains and valleys, Rick came home, groaning as soon as he saw me. “God, I envy your night, even if Colby painted the walls with mustard.”
“That bad?”
He fell back on the sofa beside me, smiling over to me tiredly. “I hate business dinners. Talking about numbers between bites of steak isn’t my thing. I am much better behind the scenes.”
“So, you run for mayor, the literal face of the town.”
“Right. Damn. I like that, by the way.”
“What?”
His eyes lit on me and suddenly, there was that heat again. “How you call out my bullshit.”
“Oh. Sorry, I’m not very diplomatic at times. Still, you’re good in front of people.”
“That shy kid I was rears his head a lot, I’m afraid.”
“Did you do a deal?”
