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“At least let me hold on to your arm, Ty.”
“No, Dad.” The boy sounded impatient now.
Kara moved a few steps ahead of him and then she deliberately tripped in a hole and fell.
“Kara!” Jimmy was beside her in an instant, leaning over her, his face full of concern. “You okay?”
“I don’t know. I hurt my ankle. Darn.” She looked up at him, and with her face hidden from Tyler’s, she winked. “Maybe I’m the one who needs to hold someone’s hand out here, before I really get hurt.”
She let Jimmy help her to her feet. Then she turned to Tyler. “Would it be okay if I held on to you, Ty?”
Tyler smiled. Dimples appeared in his cheeks and his eyes twinkled. “Sure. But maybe you better hold my dad’s hand, too. I’m not for sure if I could catch you all by myself if you fall again.”
She reached down and closed a hand around his upper arm. “Thank you, Tyler. You’re a real hero.”
Her gaze was tugged away from the boy’s, though, when she felt Jimmy take her free hand. He met her eyes, and there was something tender in his. He squeezed her hand, gave her a nearly imperceptible nod of thanks. She smiled, and together they moved across the back lawn.
“See that big apple tree right there, Ty?” he asked his son.
Tyler nodded.
“That’s where I used to have my tire swing. And over there, in that maple, that’s where I had my tree house.”
“You had a tree house?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Wow!”
“Come here, there’s something else about this tree—let me see if it’s still here... yep, there it is,” he said, leading his son closer to the tree. He pointed and Tyler looked.
Kara looked, too.
“What’s it say, Dad?”
Jimmy traced the heart-shaped carving with a forefinger. “It says J.C. plus question mark.”
“Huh?”
“Your dad had so many girlfriends in high school,” Kara said, “he probably didn’t know whose initials to carve.”
“Really?”
Jimmy sent Kara a smirk. And then Tyler said, “You went to school here, too, didn’t you Kara? Wereyouever my dad’s girlfriend?”
Jimmy’s eyes held hers for a long moment. She looked away first. “No, Tyler, I wasn’t.”
“How come?”
She smiled down at him. “Did you ever hear the story of the ugly duckling, Ty?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m going to tell it to you one of these days and then you’ll understand. But in the meantime, why don’t we go inside, see how you like the place, okay?”
“Okay!” He turned and started hobbling over the ground again but soon mounted the fieldstone patio that led right up to the back door, so the going was a bit easier for him.
Kara started forward, but Jimmy stopped her with a hand on her arm, and she turned to look up at him, half smiling at Ty and his silly questions. But her smile died when she saw the intensity in his eyes.
