The perfect reason to stay?

Kate Hebert’s fling with Jackson Boone wasn’t supposed to be anything more than good fun. When she got pregnant, they married to please her dying grandmother, and Boone headed home to Peru. Now he’s in Comeback Cove to arrange their divorce and meet his baby son. But when Kate injures her ankle, Boone is forced to stick around—and step up his dad game.

A little hands-on healing makes Kate realize how great a real marriage with Boone could be. But family had never been Boone’s priority, and as far as he’s concerned, Kate deserves the life she’s always dreamed of. Seems they’ve done everything backward, and now Boone faces the toughest choice he’s ever made...

KRIS FLETCHER would like you to believe that her children’s science-fair volcanoes were all perfectly sculpted from papier-mâché, but the truth is that the mashed-potato episode of this book just might have a basis in fact. Ahem.

Kris grew up in Southern Ontario, went to school in Nova Scotia, married a man from Maine and now lives in central New York. She shares her very messy home with her husband, some of their many kids, two Facebook-fodder cats and a growing population of dust bunnies.

Books by Kris Fletcher

Comeback Cove, Canada

A Better Father

Now You See Me

Dating a Single Dad

A Family Come True

Picket Fence Surprise

Other titles by this author available in ebook format.

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

First Came Baby

Kris Fletcher

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08110-8

FIRST CAME BABY

© 2018 Christine Fletcher

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Piya Campana. For five years, you soothed my nerves, calmed my fears and guided my thoughts and words to the place where I became proud to share them with the world. Most of all, you made me laugh, always in the very best of ways. I was truly blessed to begin my career with such a gifted and compassionate editor, and will forever raise my Iced Capp in your honor.

“I wasn’t trying to get away from you.”

It took Boone a second. It wasn’t until he let that slightly emphasized you sink in that he got the message. And even then, he didn’t want to believe it.

Kate shifted on the sofa, digging into her pocket. “Jamie’s sleeping longer than I thought,” she said, pulling out her phone. “Why don’t you peek on him. I’ll see if Allie can come...”

Her voice trailed off.

He reached for her phone and plucked it from her fingers. She made a sound of protest, but her grip didn’t tighten.

“Boone,” she whispered. “This isn’t a good idea.”

She was right. Totally and completely right.

But that didn’t stop him from sliding off the footstool and onto the sofa. Once he was at her side, hip bumping against hip, he wondered why the hell he had resisted before. Because nothing felt as right as being close to Kate.

Except, maybe, being closer.

Dear Reader,

Building a family is always a challenge. Imagine, though, trying to build one when the baby was a surprise...and Daddy isn’t sure he can be the kind of parent his child deserves...and by the way, Mommy and Daddy live on separate continents. That’s the situation Kate and Boone find themselves facing in this story. Believe me, it was a challenge and then, ultimately, the greatest treat to be able to face this dilemma with them!

By the way, if you missed the story of Kate’s younger sister Allie, Best Man Takes a Bride, you can find it on www.Harlequin.com. I do hope you’ll have the chance to check it out.

It’s been a privilege to spend the last five years visiting Comeback Cove with you. Whenever I visit the real-world town of Morrisburg, Ontario, which was the inspiration for Comeback Cove, I half expect to turn the corner and find myself at the Flip Flop Fudge Shop, or to walk into a store and buy ice cream made by the Northstar Dairy. If you should ever find yourself there—perhaps to visit Upper Canada Village—I hope that you will feel the same way.

Yours,

Kris

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Dear Reader

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

Extract

CHAPTER ONE

KATE HEBERT HAD always prided herself on being able to multitask. But even she was amazed when she realized she was painting a wall with her right hand while cradling her five-month-old in her left arm—and that she was doing both while breastfeeding.

“Check it out,” she said to her sister, Allie. She raised the paint roller and wiggled little Jamie. “Call me vain, but I’m feeling seriously badass at this moment.”

Allie started laughing. “Wonder Woman has nothing on you.”

“We should write our own comic book. Super Mom. Instead of bracelets that can deflect bullets, she would have a nursing bra that bounces insults back at rude people.”

Allie snickered. “Didn’t Wonder Woman have a fancy lasso for making bad guys tell the truth? Maybe instead of that, Super Mom could shoot guilt trips with her eyes.” She pitched her voice slightly lower in an imitation of their mother. “You want to tell me exactly what you’re doing? And don’t bother saying it’s nothing, because I can see by the look in your eyes that it’s definitely something.”

Kate laughed hard enough that she had to put the paint roller into the tray or risk ending up with a polka-dot floor. Probably the wisest course, since the purpose of this work was to make the place marketable, not marked up.

“Good idea.” Allie nodded toward the dormant roller. “In fact, you should sit down for a few minutes.”

“I’m fine.”

“I know you are. Now. But in about two or three minutes you’re going to realize that you haven’t had anything to drink in a couple of hours, and you’re going to get suddenly and horribly overcome with thirst and exhaustion. Then I’m going to remember that I promised Mom I wouldn’t let you overdo it, and I’m going to feel guilty and run off to get you some water. And when I come back you’re going to be half-asleep in the chair. So then I’ll have to burp Jamie, which means I have to get him off your boob, which kind of grosses me out. And then, he’ll probably spit up on the clothes I have to wear until this room is done. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather bypass the drama. So. Sit.” She pointed at the ancient wingback Kate had dragged into the room. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Kate had a fleeting notion to argue, then decided it would be easier to go along. Because though she hated to admit it, she did feel a little thirsty. “Okay.” She lowered herself into the chair slowly, so as not to interrupt mealtime—though these days Jamie was more likely to be distracted by new sights and sounds than by movement—and settled in.

Oh. That felt good.

“Bring me a cheese stick, too, will you?” she called in the direction of the footsteps echoing down the stairs. Allie’s answer came not in words but in a snort of laughter that Kate easily recognized as code for told you so.

As alone as it was possible to be with someone doing the vacuum cleaner thing at her breast, Kate closed her eyes and breathed out tension. Not that she had been working too hard. Far from it. She was still new-mama tired, but she hadn’t made it to the ripe old age of thirty without learning how to pace herself. Nor did the tightness in her shoulders have anything to do with painting. She’d been doing plenty of that over the past months as she brought Nana’s house back to life. Well, as much as she could do on her own.

No, it wasn’t exhaustion or painting that had her wound so tight. It was the reason behind them.

Jamie was slowing down a little, the space between his swallows growing longer. Time for a burp. She broke the suction, raised him to her shoulder and patted his back while rocking in the chair and talking over his wails.

“I know, I know. You don’t like to stop. But we do this every time, buddy. You might want to learn that pattern.”

His little head smashed against her shoulder. Hard.

“Ow! Don’t get violent, okay? You’ll get more in a minute. But then you have to give me time to really paint, because the room has to be done this afternoon. We need to get it ready for—” she lowered her voice “—for your daddy.”

So much for relaxation.

She patted some more, focusing on the April-fresh air coming through the window she’d cracked open, trying to soothe the anxiety that gripped her every time she thought of Boone coming home. Not that he had ever lived here, in either this house or Comeback Cove. Not that he even thought of Canada as home anymore.

But in two days, he would be here, whether she was ready or not. And painting was the least of her worries.

Allie bounded up the stairs, her footsteps eliciting the usual symphony of creaks and protests from the aging stairs. Jamie’s loud burp was just one more note in the song. By the time Allie sailed in, Kate had Jamie settled on the other side, leaving her free to cross her legs, sit back and gratefully accept her sister’s offerings.

“Ooh. That’s not a cheese stick.” Kate drank deeply before tucking the bottle of water at her side and diving into the plate of cheddar, crackers and apple slices with gusto.

“Yeah, well, I figure I’m allowed to pamper you once in a while. Though seriously, when are you going to learn to set an alarm on your phone to remind you to drink?” Allie mock scowled before grinning and gesturing toward the wall in front of her, where hints of faded wallpaper still peeked out from the first coat of robin’s-egg-blue paint. “I still don’t know if it was a good idea to paint right over this.”

“In a perfect world, I would have scraped off all seven layers and made a fresh start. But there’s a limit. Besides, this place is so old that the wallpaper might be the only thing holding it up.”

“You love it and you know it.”

“Well, yeah. But love doesn’t always make you blind to faults.” She grinned. “If it did, Mom would have run out of things to say to us years ago.”

“True that.” Allie grabbed her roller and attacked the wall once more. “So, Katydid, not that I don’t adore spending a gorgeous Sunday helping you paint instead of hanging out with Cash the Wonder Boyfriend, but how about you tell me the real reason this needed to be done so quickly? I mean, it was one thing when we had to get the first floor ready in record time. Things had to be perfect for Prince Jameson.” She curtsied to the baby. “But you said you weren’t going to put this place up for sale until he was a year old or so, and honestly, there’s lots of other work that’s more pressing than making this room look decent. So, what’s the rush?”

Kate let her head fall back against the chair. She had known this talk was coming. She simply hadn’t thought of the right way to handle it yet.

“Boone is coming.”

Oops. She should have waited until Allie had finished reloading her roller. That might have helped prevent the blue streak now decorating the floor.

“Son of a...” Allie grabbed a rag from the bucket of water and swiped at the wayward paint. “He’s finally making an appearance?”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“And why not? I mean, I know you guys only got married so Nana wouldn’t freak when she found out you were pregnant, but still. He’s been gone a year.”

“Ten months.”

Allie waved the words away. “Details. The point is, he has a beautiful baby who is five months old, growing every minute practically, and Boone hasn’t bothered to even meet him? Excuse me if I’m not feeling incredibly gracious.” She frowned at the half-painted wall. “Or if I suddenly don’t feel like busting my butt on this.”

“Allie, come on. You know he wanted to come back sooner, but it’s not like you can easily do a long weekend run from Peru to here. And with his partners gone, it’s been up to him to keep Project Sonqo running.”

“I know. I know.” Water splashed as Allie tossed the rag back into the bucket. “Look, I have lots of respect for what he’s doing there. The way he and the MacPhersons started Project Sonqo, the way they’re connecting the crafters with new markets and teaching the women how to see themselves as small businesses... It’s all good. Great, really. And I know that Boone had to step up when—what’s his name—Mr. MacPherson—”

“Craig. Craig and Jill.” Jamie was falling asleep, his swallows slacking off and his eyes closing in the classic milk-drunk pose. Kate gave him a gentle jiggle. She had no problem with him nursing himself to sleep, but she wanted to be sure he’d had enough. She didn’t want to lay him in his crib and get herself put back together only to have him wake up in fifteen minutes because he decided he needed more.

“Right. I understand that Boone had to take over when Craig got sick. I mean, look, cancer is bad enough when you’re dealing with it here. I can’t imagine what it must be like in that part of Peru, living so far from hospitals and everything. So, total sympathy, okay? But...” Allie scowled. “There must have been somebody Boone could have brought in to run things. Some way he could have been here when his own son was born.”

Kate held her tongue. Allie was well aware that Jamie’s arrival a couple of weeks ahead of schedule had complicated everyone’s plans. If he had been born on time, or even late—as everyone had assured her was usually the case with first babies—Boone could well have been on hand for the big event.

At least, that was what she told herself.

“Allie, I know you’re not happy about the way things turned out. But—”

“Don’t tell me to let it go. Because you know that if the positions were reversed, you wouldn’t.”

There was some truth to that. Anyone who hurt Allie had to be prepared to face the wrath of Kate, and if that happened, they ended up counting their blessings, because it meant that Kate got to them before her mother did.

But this was different. Boone had been nothing but honest from the start. Ten minutes after meeting him at a fan convention in Ottawa, she had known that he was going to be around for only a few months, that even though he was still Canadian he considered Peru his home, that there was no chance of anything long-term or forever between them. He wasn’t a family man. Kate, on the rebound from a bad breakup, had been fine with that. She’d definitely wanted permanence and a family someday, but at that moment, short-term and fun and intense had been just what she’d needed.

That was, until a perfect storm of chances and failures had led to the perfect baby sleeping in her arms.

“The point is,” she said, easing Jamie upright, “Craig and Jill are running things again, and as soon as they were caught up, Boone booked a flight. He’ll be here Tuesday. Call me sentimental, but I didn’t want to put him in a room that had faded flamingo wallpaper on one wall and giant chrysanthemums on the others. So we’re painting.”

Allie’s grunt was all the proof Kate needed that her sister didn’t approve of any of this. No surprise there. What was surprising was that Allie hadn’t yet mentioned that they were prepping a second-story room for Boone, when Kate and Jamie were already established in Nana’s old room on the first floor.

Any minute now...

“Hang on.”

Kate lifted her chin. She could wait for Allie to say it, or she could get the hardest part out of the way.

“That’s right,” she said as evenly as possible. “He’s sleeping up here.”

“You’re putting your husband—the man you haven’t seen in ten months, the guy who almost made you commit an act of public indecency on the beach that day—in a separate room?”

“That’s right. And no, before you ask, I’m not moving my stuff up here.” Kate rose from the chair with all the grace of a lame giraffe. “He’s not coming just to meet Jamie, Allie. Or to help me get the place fixed up so I can sell it. He’s also coming home so we can get a divorce.”

* * *

JACKSON BOONE’S FEET slowed as he approached the door leading from the secure area of the Ottawa airport to the public space. Once he stepped through that door, everything was going to change.

God, he hoped he was ready.

His head knew that the real change had happened months ago, when Jamie was born. Or when he and Kate had decided to get married so her grandmother—set in her ways until the end, as Kate had said—could die in peace, knowing her first great-grandchild wouldn’t be born out of wedlock.

Though really, everything had changed when he’d opted to leave his work in Peru for a few months to do some advanced study in nonprofit leadership in Ottawa. Or, more accurately, when he’d let a classmate drag him to a Star Wars fan gathering and he’d spied Kate across the crowded convention hall. One look at the purple streaks in her Princess Leia hair and his entire world had shifted.

Still, that had all been fun and games and some of the best times he had ever known. This, though. This was his kid. His son.

Boone had been a lot of things in his life. Student. Builder. Foster kid. The relative that had to be taken in. But in all his life, he had never really felt like a son. And he had no idea how he was supposed to be a father.

Think about Kate, he ordered himself yet again. You’re here to make things easier for her. That’s what matters.

Right. As long as he came out of this having helped Kate in whatever way he could, the rest would fall into line.

With that in mind, he hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder, braced himself and walked through the doors.

It took him a moment to find her in the crowd. He scanned the faces in front of him, looking for the thick brown hair and the glowing smile that had first drawn him to her. Winding his way through the reunions taking place on either side, he peered, ducked and—

There. She was over by the window, sitting on a bench tucked into an alcove.

Heat raced through him. They had talked regularly these past months, Skyping at least once a week, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen her since he left. He knew that she had cut her hair, and that the purple streaks were long gone. He had watched her jiggle little Jamie and pat his back and rock back and forth—probably without even knowing what she was doing, because if they gave out extra years for instinctive nurturing, Kate would have a lifespan stretching into the triple digits.

But it was one thing to watch all that happen from thousands of miles away and the safety of a computer screen. It was another to know that she was in front of him, to drink in the sight of her while voices bounced off the high ceilings and people laughed and cried on either side and folks brushed past him as they headed for the baggage area.

She hadn’t spied him yet. She was curled over—well, he assumed it was Jamie. From this angle, all he could see was a gray lump, a pack of some sort, from which dangled a miniature leg and an impossibly tiny foot, wiggling back and forth like it was waving hello to him.

I helped make that foot.

His mother, during the rare times he had spent with her, had assured him regularly that he wasn’t the type to have any success at making things. But as Boone stared at that tiny foot holding his attention as securely as if it were a hypnotist’s watch, he knew that in this, at least, his mother had been dead wrong.

Kate finished fussing with the pack, gave a little pat to the front of it, and kissed the top of Jamie’s head. The foot swung faster.

A loud wail pierced the roar of voices. Boone flinched and hurried forward. He’d heard Jamie cry over the phone many times. Intellectually, he understood when Kate laughed it off and assured him that cries were simply the way babies communicated, and that while there was always a reason, the reason was rarely the end of the world.

But this sounded different. More demanding. Maybe it was simply because it wasn’t coming to him via satellite or whatever, but this cry went straight to Boone’s gut.

Mierda.

Kate stood, her arms below the pack, swaying and jiggling. She raised her head and scanned the area, her hazel eyes squinting, then widening as she spotted him.

He wasn’t sure what kind of welcome he had expected. A hug? Maybe. A kiss? No. Kate had made things very clear when they’d last talked. Their marriage was over, exactly as they’d planned. No hard feelings. They were both adults. They both knew this had been only temporary, and now that her grandmother was dead, well... But since they weren’t planning a future together, she felt it was best if they kept things platonic while he was in town. Easier on everybody, she had said. And since the one thing Boone wanted most in this visit was to give Kate what she needed, he had agreed. He understood.

That didn’t mean he liked it.

Whatever reunion he might have hoped for, it was washed away by Jamie’s cries, which were becoming both stronger and more panicked. Kate hurried toward him and stopped a few inches away.

“Hey.” Her smile was tired and strained, but he caught a hint of the glow that had first washed over him all those months ago. She raised a hand, and for a second he let himself think it was the prelude to an awkward hug, a quick brush of her lips to his cheek or mouth, but no. She simply cupped his cheek and patted it. The way she would one of the kids in the day care she would return to directing once her maternity leave ended.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d been hoping she didn’t mean the whole platonic thing until that moment.

“Hi.” His voice sounded rough and strained to his own ears. Probably because he hadn’t said anything more than, “Coffee, please,” to anyone since leaving Ollanta yesterday. His hand hovered near the kicking, squirming pile of frantic that was Jamie. Would it make things worse if Boone touched him? All the books he’d read about babies assured him that they needed and were soothed by touch, but there was a hell of a difference between theory and practice.

“Sorry about the warm greeting.” Kate rolled her eyes. “We had a bad night. I think he’s cutting his first tooth.”

A memory surfaced from when he’d lived with... Was it his aunt Carol? No, it might have been one of his foster mothers. Gayle? She had been one of the younger ones. There had been a baby. There had been teething. There had been cold canned spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and lunch.

He had thought he couldn’t admire Kate more than he already did. He’d been wrong.

“Let’s get your bags before he breaks everyone’s eardrums,” she said, and headed for the escalator. Boone hurried behind her, glad to be upright and stretching his legs again. Once they reached the main floor, he aimed for the baggage carousel but stopped when he felt a tug on his sleeve.

“You get your things,” she said over the baby’s cries. “I’ll take him outside. The change of scenery might calm him down a bit. I’ll meet you right by the door.”

Before he could answer, she zipped away. The usual airport cacophony sounded almost peaceful once the doors slid closed behind her.

He’d spent much of his travel time assuring himself that he was ready for this. He felt like every moment of the last few months that hadn’t been devoted to work had been spent teaching himself how to be a father. He’d read everything about childcare that he could get his hands on. He’d played with the kids who came to the Project Sonqo office with their parents, perfecting his peekaboo skills. He’d even worked up the nerve to visit some websites for people who had grown up the way he had but who wanted to break that cycle with their own kids.

It had all seemed so possible when he was in Peru. So manageable. Now, with the echo of Jamie’s cries rattling inside him, he had to work hard to convince himself this was a good idea.

Ten minutes later, his ancient suitcase rolling crookedly behind him, Boone exited the terminal into the welcome coolness of early spring. Not that Ollanta had been hot. In the mountains, it rarely grew more than pleasantly warm. But after four flights’ worth of stale air, it felt good to breathe deep and not get a lungful of other people.

Kate waited by a bench. She was doing that bouncing jiggly thing again. Jamie had stopped crying, at least loudly, but as Boone approached he could see that the wriggling hadn’t slowed.

“Is he really chewing on his hand?” he asked.

“Yep. He’s hungry.” She set off across the parking lot at such a brisk speed that he was glad his legs were long enough to keep up. No cramped-plane stiffness for her. They hustled in silence—well, silent other than the snuffling noises coming from the baby—until they reached the little red Mazda he recognized.

Kate hit the button to unlock the doors and pop the trunk, then handed the keys to Boone. “Go ahead and stow your stuff. Then maybe you could start the car so it can warm up a bit? I need to hang out in the back seat with little Mr. Piggy for a few minutes.”

“Sure.” Good God. People always talked about culture shock when traveling from one country to another. No one had ever warned him that parenthood was the biggest culture shock he would ever know, but so far that was the case.

And he’d been here only fifteen minutes.

Once he’d deposited his things and got the car started, he screwed up his courage and twisted in the driver’s seat to take in the scene behind him. Kate had tossed her coat across the car seat. He had a great view of her pink sweater and the snorting, squirming baby in her arms.

“Doesn’t he ever stop moving?” Even as Boone spoke, that hypnotic foot started thrusting rhythmically once more.

“Sure. When he’s asleep.”

Jamie made a strange sound, like a cry mixed with a snort, then seemed to attack. Kate winced.

“Whoa. Are you okay?” Boone hadn’t expected that. Kate had nursed the baby many times when they were Skyping, but again, yeah. Different continent, whole different experience.

“Like I said, he’s cutting a tooth. His mouth hurts. When he nurses, that increases the pressure, so it hurts him more. So he stops earlier, but then he’s still hungry, so he has to eat again sooner than he usually would.” She brushed Jamie’s cheek with her finger. “Plus he’s kind of stuffed up, which often happens when they’re teething, so it’s hard for him to breathe and eat at the same time.”

How the hell did anyone ever make it past infancy?

“So.” She smiled, though with a little more force than he had ever seen before. “How were your flights?”

“I survived.”

“I see that.” The corners of her mouth twitched. Some of the stiffness seemed to be fading. “What do you need most? Shower, food or sleep?”

You.

He pushed the thought away before it could show in his face. Platonic. Separate bedrooms. All for the best.

He got it. He really did. But it had been a lot easier to agree when she wasn’t sitting a few inches away from him with Jamie weaving tiny fingers through her hair and her sweater hiked up so that everything essential was hidden from his eyes but most definitely not from his memory.

He stared down at his fingers, pretending he was inspecting them for grime. “A shower would probably be a good idea. It would help me stay awake, too.” He smiled and risked a glance her way. “But after that, yeah. Something other than airline food would be great.”

“Good. We can take care of all of that once Little Mister here decides he’s done.” As she spoke, she did a complicated maneuver with her hand and the baby’s face that looked as smooth and practiced as a magician’s performance. He wasn’t sure precisely what was happening. One minute everyone was happy. The next, Jamie was crying and she was tugging her sweater down, and he was pretty sure he’d glimpsed something he shouldn’t be glimpsing if he wanted to get through these next weeks with any semblance of sanity.

“Burp time,” she sang out, undoubtedly for his benefit. She glanced from Jamie to him. “You want to try?”

He froze. “That... I mean, uh...”

“Don’t freak, Boone.” Another hint of the laughing woman he remembered peeked around the fatigue. “I’m just messing with you. No one’s first time holding their baby should involve gas and spit-up.”

Part of him tried to absorb her words, but he was distracted by the bright, trusting eyes of his son soaking in the world around him. It was a good thing he was going to be around for only a few weeks. Because while Kate made this all look so possible, he knew it was anything but. Knew, too, that no matter how much he read or practiced, the odds were high that he could never be the kind of father he wanted to be.

CHAPTER TWO

BOONE HOPPED OUT OF the car as soon as it came to a halt, eager to be vertical once again. The drive from the airport to Kate’s little hometown on the Saint Lawrence River might have been the most comfortable hour of his journey, but it had been the one that most sent him out of whack. He needed to enjoy some sunshine and refresh himself and then get busy. Once his hands and his brain were occupied, he would be more grounded. More confident.

More able to stop thinking about all the ways he wasn’t anywhere near as ready to be a father as he’d convinced himself he was.

The trunk was already popped. He grabbed his bags, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and, while Kate was freeing Jamie from his restraints, let himself take in the house.

Boone had never been here. Kate had been living and working in Ottawa when they met. In their few months together last year, he had made only one trip to Comeback Cove with her, and that had been when they’d driven down to get married in her mother’s living room. That was as far as her grandmother had been able to travel by that point. They had offered to hold the ceremony by her bedside, but she’d been a tough old bugger who’d insisted that she was not going to sit in bed wearing her nightgown as she watched her oldest granddaughter get married. She had made it to the ceremony in full wedding regalia—flowered dress, floppy hat and all. She had been the happiest person in the room.

Not difficult, since he and Kate had both still been in shock, and her mother and sister had spent the whole ceremony giving him the evil eye.

Nana had died a month after he’d left. He was glad he’d had the chance to meet her and quietly satisfied that he’d been able to contribute to an easy passing for her.

But as he took in the house, he couldn’t help but think that Kate inheriting it might not have been the blessing she’d deemed it.

Kate, Jamie on her shoulder, came to stand beside him.

“It used to be amazing,” she said softly.

He could see that. The wraparound porch, deep enough to shade rocking chairs; the strong Queen Anne lines; the turret on the right all gave the house character. Charm. Potential.

It also needed a new roof and new windows in the turret and a new railing on the porch. And that was just the work he could spy with a casual glance.

Well, the good news was that fixing this place would leave him so wiped there’d be no question of insomnia.

“Nana couldn’t keep up with it. She tried, but it was too much. We told her she should sell and move in with Mom, but she always said this was the house that welcomed her as a bride and gave her the happiest years of her life, and she had no intention of leaving until she had to be carried out. Which is exactly what happened.”

Boone, who had never lived more than six months in the same place until the end of high school, couldn’t begin to comprehend what it must have been like to spend almost an entire life in one house.

“Come on.” She headed for the steps. “Careful on the porch. The chairs are strategically placed to cover the spots where the boards need to be replaced.”

He did as instructed, trying not to wince at the number of chairs to be skirted, then followed her into the house, braced for water marks and sagging floors and God only knew what else. So it was a pleasant surprise to walk through the ornately carved front door, through the tiny, sunlight-filled vestibule, and into a cheery yellow room filled with the cushy furniture he recognized from her old place. Sun catchers in the bay window sent prisms dancing over every surface, adding to the feelings of warmth and welcome.

“This is better than I expected.” He kicked off his sneakers and flexed his toes. “Oh, man, that feels good. I’ve been wearing those shoes for about thirty-six hours.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I can tell.”

Her grin told him she was teasing. Which shouldn’t have been as much of a relief as it was.

She nodded toward the doorway into the next room. “Come on. I’m going to see if I can get Jamie into his crib. Then I’ll give you the grand tour.”

He kept his eyes firmly glued on the walls and the ceiling as he followed her. For one thing, it gave him a chance to assess the structure. For another, it was safer than watching the sway of her hips as she padded in stocking feet across the plank floors. Or the brush of her hair against her neck. Or the curve of her shoulder where he used to bury his face and inhale her and...

The floors. Right. Think about the floors. They would need to be sanded and refinished before the place went on the market.

“You lived here for a while when you were a kid, right?”

“Right. Just long enough to make it the first home I can remember.”

As soon as they passed into the kitchen, his heart sank. Someone had obviously painted in here—the walls were a great shade of green, not too minty, just fresh and vibrant—but the cupboards needed a total face-lift, if not a complete gutting. The linoleum on the floor was cracked and peeling. And the window above the sink bore a long strip of...

“Duct tape?” He glanced from the glass to Kate.

She seemed embarrassed. “That just cracked last week,” she said. “We had a windstorm. A nasty one. We lost power overnight and had to stay with my mom. When I came back, I found that. I called the glass guys, but as you can imagine, they’ve been pretty busy. I’m on the list for next week.”

“Cancel them. I can have that fixed in a day or two.” He measured the window with his eyes. “Okay, maybe a little longer, depending on whether the glass is a standard size. But I can definitely do that.”

“Okay.” She lifted the lid on a slow cooker, releasing a rich aroma he hadn’t smelled in too long.

“Chili?” he asked.

“Mmm-hmm. I figured that would be a good one for tonight. If your flight was delayed, it would only get better.” She replaced the lid and kept moving.

Boone was getting a good hint about which one of them had given Jamie the gene that kept that foot swinging all the time.

He shook his head and followed her into the next room. It held only a rocking chair—strategically placed in front of a truly massive stone fireplace, complete with rock mantel—a computer desk, a bookshelf, and something that he was pretty sure was a changing table. At least, it looked like the pictures that had come up on the Google searches he’d conducted before Jamie’s birth, when Kate would talk to him about baby equipment. Changing tables and bassinets, bottle brushes and onesies, diaper pails and breast pumps.

He shuddered. Yeah. He’d probably spent a good ten minutes staring at the pump thing, trying to figure out how it worked and why it wasn’t prohibited as an instrument of torture.

“When I was little, Nana and Poppy used this as a dining room,” Kate said as she sailed through. “But I don’t have a big table, and it’s kind of silly to have a separate place to eat when it’s just me. So I turned it into a home office. I was going to move Jamie’s crib in here, but then he started cutting this tooth and waking up at night again, and it’s just easier to have him in with me.”

“Where’s that?”

She swayed ever so slightly, as if she’d thought about stopping and decided against it at the last second. Too late, he realized how his question could have come off.

Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have asked right away. But he would be here for six weeks. If he was going to spend time with his son, he needed to know where to find the crib. It was only logical.

Yeah, you can talk circles around anybody you want, whispered his mother’s voice in the back of his head. But since when did that do anybody any good?

Kate smiled brightly. “This way,” she said, and led him through a small hallway that held a dresser against one wall, past a door that she said led to the basement, and into a tiny room that was almost completely filled with the bed he remembered so well.

Now he was the one swaying.

“It’s small, I know,” she said, gently laying Jamie on the bed and working the zippers on his coat while he made noises that had Boone suspecting the nap was over. “I had to take the doors off the closet to make enough room for the crib. That’s another reason I have to move it. If I wait much longer, he’s going to figure out he’s sleeping in a closet and then he’s going to develop claustrophobia or something.”

She spoke so casually that Boone would have thought she wasn’t remotely affected by the fact that he was in her room and they were standing mere breaths apart in front of the bed where they had most likely made Jamie.

Then he caught the pinkness in her cheeks and the way she kept her focus firmly on the zippers. On their squirming, protesting son.

Probably an excellent strategy.

* * *

KATE GAVE THANKS that Jamie seemed happier when he woke up. She doubted the tooth had come through yet, but it seemed things had subsided, at least for the moment. And this way she didn’t have to sit down and nurse him again right away.

It wasn’t that she was shy about feeding the baby in front of Boone. She’d had plenty of practice during their Skype calls, though that had mostly been in the early days, when Jamie’s schedule could best be described as All Chaos, All The Time. Now things were far more settled, which was just the way she liked it. Easier to predict. Easier to work around.

But it had felt different when they were in the car. The confined space had made her far too aware of Boone’s presence, his blue eyes darting everywhere, his shoulders filling her little front seat, his breath apparently stealing all the oxygen.

It hadn’t been the breath itself that got to her, though. More like the way it had hitched a little when she’d adjusted her clothing. And, undoubtedly, flashed him the tiniest bit.

With Jamie on her hip, she led the way to the stairs. Boone had been very understanding when she’d said there would be separate bedrooms on this visit, but even though she didn’t know him as well as a so-called wife should know her husband, there were some areas in which they were oh-so-intimately acquainted. Boone was no monk. And before he returned to Peru, he had told her that even though their marriage wasn’t what anyone would call typical, he planned to honor his vows while they were separated. There would be no other women while he was gone.

Since one of the other things she knew about him was that he was a man of his word, she’d had no cause to doubt him. Which meant that she would spend the next six weeks with a very deprived man who was probably feeling the memories as much as she was.

“Grab your things,” she said when they reached the front door again. “I’ll show you where to drop them.”

Because yeah. Boone wasn’t the only one who had been deprived. Somehow, when she’d told him to stay here, she had assumed that fatigue and common sense would be enough to guard herself against wayward thoughts and urges.

Wrong.

“This banister needs work.” Boone gave it a wiggle.

“I know. It’s on the list.”

He made a sound that could have been a groan or a snort. “I’m starting to wonder if six weeks is going to be enough.”

“Whatever we can’t get done, I’ll hire someone to finish. Or if we even get to the point of the cosmetic stuff, painting and such, I’ll be good. Allie can help me.” She reached the landing and brushed her fingers across the chunk of driftwood nestled on the deep windowsill. “Cash is pretty handy, too. He might be able to tackle some odds and ends.”

“Cash? Who... Oh. Right. Allie’s new boyfriend.” Boone gave the upper banister a shake. “Guess those flights took more out of me than I thought. I forgot his name for a minute there.”

“Not to worry. Everything was such a whirlwind, with Allie getting engaged and then almost married...”

“Did the Mounties really storm the wedding and haul the groom away in handcuffs?”

Kate shuddered as she remembered how close her baby sister had come to marrying a man who had a thing for identity fraud. “Yep. Good thing, too. Otherwise, she might have gone through with it, and then she would be stuck with the wrong guy. Anyway, the fiancé is history. She realized that it was really Cash she wanted, and they are wandering around town like the two most dazed lovebirds you ever saw. So if you blanked on his name, don’t feel bad. There are times when I still have to stop and remind myself who’s in and who’s out.” She gestured to the open door. “Here you go.”

Boone brushed past her, suitcase hefted, into the room that had seemed so airy until he entered. What was it about him? No matter where he went, he seemed to fill the space. Not in a bad way. More like once he was there, the emptiness was gone. Like he wasn’t sucking up the space but was filling a hole.

She shook her head. Filling a hole? Good Lord, a teenager couldn’t have been more snigger worthy. Time to move on. Fast.

“There’s extra blankets in that closet.” She pointed from the doorway. No way was she going into the room with Boone. “And the bathroom is right down here.”

“Is that a water stain?” Boone’s voice pulled her around to where he stared up at the ceiling.

“I think so. It’s old, though. It was there before I moved in, and it hasn’t gotten any bigger.” She squinted. “At least, I don’t think it has. I, um, don’t come up here very much.”

The look he shot her was carefully blank.

“I’ll add it to the list.”

She pulled Jamie’s hand from the neckline of her sweater, which he seemed determined to yank down. “I’d better warn you that this entire bathroom is on the list, too.”

She opened the door to the room in question and braced herself. Boone’s long, low whistle only confirmed her fears.

“What color is that?” he asked.

She didn’t need to look over his shoulder to remember the hideous greenish-brown shade that covered the walls. “I think it’s something Nana got on sale. Or maybe she had a couple of half cans that she combined.”

Boone shook his head. “Did you ever see American Graffiti? There’s a part when Harrison Ford’s character says the other guy’s car is a cross between piss yellow and puke green.” He tapped the wall. “I think this might come under that banner.”

“Nana was more into frugality than style. At least everything still works.” She knocked on the door frame for luck. “Though you do have to jiggle the handle on the toilet sometimes.” She thought for a moment. “And the pipes bang when you first get in the shower, but that passes quickly. Other than that, you’re golden. If the fixtures looked as good as they work, it’d be great, but...”

He walked into the room, hands on hips, taking it all in. “I’ve seen worse.”

Oh, that was reassuring, considering he spent a good chunk of his time in villages without indoor plumbing.

“This will be the rainy-day project, I think.” He pointed from one element to the next. “New toilet. New vanity and sink. The tub...” He pulled back the shower curtain. “Oh, yeah. This is one of those old-fashioned ones. People love those. It can probably stay.” He moved in a slow circle. “It’s a nice room. Plenty of space. We’ll take down those god-awful shutters, put up some curtains, new fixtures, a coat of paint, and it’ll be—”

He came to a standstill, his gaze frozen on Jamie and his mouth gaping slightly.

She glanced down. At Jamie’s hand, curled around the neckline of her sweater. Which he had dragged halfway down her chest, revealing a whole lot of skin and a whole lot of bra. And even though no one in their right mind would ever describe a nursing bra as seductive, from the way Boone seemed to have been turned to stone, she was pretty sure he thought it was the best bit of satin he’d seen in ages.

Almost a year, to be exact.

“Oops.” She disengaged Jamie’s fingers and tugged, but the fabric was bunched beneath his wriggling little body. “Here.” And without thinking, she pulled the baby off her and held him out to Boone.

The expression on Boone’s face shifted from naked lust to stark terror in the space of a heartbeat.

“I...” His gaze bounced from her face, to her chest, to Jamie, then back to her face. “How do I...?”

Whoa. He had told her he didn’t have a lot of experience with babies, but given the tight lines in his face, she had a strong suspicion that he’d been underreporting.

“Have you never held a baby?”

His eyes closed. His lips thinned, like he was trying to hold in a grimace. “I have,” he said slowly. “But it’s been a long time.”

Time alone couldn’t account for the way his hands suddenly seemed plastered to his thighs.

Something inside Kate contracted in empathy.

Boone had never given her more than the basics about his childhood. She knew that the only thing his father had given him was twenty-three chromosomes and that it probably would have been better if his mother’s role had stopped about there, as well. She knew that there had been indifferent relatives and foster care and periodic reunions with his mother that seemed to always stop just short of physical abuse. She knew that as far as Boone was concerned, his life hadn’t really begun until he’d met up with the MacPhersons and gone to Peru.

None of that explained why the mention of holding a baby—holding their baby—left him looking like he’d been dropped into a pit of snakes.

Kate closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing for a second. Then she put Jamie on her hip, pulled her sweater into position—no point in adding another level of challenge to the situation—and marched over to Boone. “Stick out your arms.”

“Here?” He looked around, his gaze lingering once more on the tub, the sink, the tile floor. “Everything is solid. Hard. What if I drop him?”

“You won’t. I won’t let you,” she added when panic filled his eyes. She switched to teacher mode. “Come on. Arms out. That’s right, bent at the elbows. Now, I’m going to put him up against your shoulder. You’re going to put your left hand under his little bum. Your right hand goes across his back. Got it?”

He took a step back.

Oh, no. No way was she letting him run away from this.

“Boone. Whatever has you worried, you can forget about it. I’m right here. Don’t you want to hold your son?”

His nod was slow in coming, but at least he was affirming.

“He moves a lot, so you’ll need to keep your grip secure. But not too tight.”

“Are you sure this is a good—”

She pushed the baby toward him before he could get any more freaked out. As she’d expected, his arms closed around Jamie—tentatively at first, then tight enough that she felt good about letting go and stepping back.

“There,” she said softly. “Jameson Boone, meet Jackson Boone. But he thinks Jackson is a preppy name, so don’t call him that. Which you won’t anyway, because he’s your father.”

Jamie leaned back and stared at Boone. Boone stared rigidly back.

Too late, she wished she had her phone or a camera nearby. But since she didn’t—and there was no way she was going to ruin the moment by running off—she focused instead on soaking up every possible detail so she could carry them in her memory.

Two cleft chins. Two sets of wide-spaced blue eyes. Two slightly upturned noses and two heads of light brown hair and two matching expressions of misgiving.

Her throat tightened, swiftly and unexpectedly.

Daddy. I should have said, “He’s your daddy.”

At last, Boone cracked a smile. “Hey, buddy.”

Jamie’s response was to open his mouth and let out a wail that could have punched a hole in the ceiling.

Oh, no. “It’s okay,” she said to Boone, to Jamie, to herself as she reached and grabbed. “He just doesn’t know you, that’s all. Give him a couple of days to warm up and he’ll be fine.”

“Sure,” Boone said in a hollow sort of voice. “Totally understandable.”

“I’ll take him downstairs. Change his diaper while you have a shower.” A joke might help. “Don’t worry, we won’t have the diaper lesson until tomorrow.”

“Probably a good plan,” Boone said, and grabbed a towel from the closet.

Kate backed out of the bathroom and hurried down the stairs. She shouldn’t have pushed it. Damn it, she was an early childhood educator. She was well aware that even a father who had been present from a kid’s first breath could sometimes be rejected in favor of the mom, and vice versa. She should never have forced this, especially when it was so obvious that Boone had been on the edge about it.

“But I want him to love you,” she whispered to Jamie as she placed him on the changing table. “I want him to know that you are the most miraculous little thing on the whole planet. I want him to hate every minute he has to be away from you. I want him to be in your life. Not because he has to be, but because he wants to be.”

It didn’t feel like too much to ask. And it wasn’t. Not from anyone else.

She just didn’t know if Boone could do it.

CHAPTER THREE

BOONE WOKE THE next morning to the smell of coffee and the sound of music.

He fumbled for his phone, squinted at the time and fell back against the pillow. It was barely five thirty. How the hell could Kate be doing the Julie Andrews thing at this hour?

But even as he lay there, he admitted that even though it was early, it wasn’t all bad. He’d almost fallen asleep over dinner last night. Thirty-six hours of travel with no more than a nap did tend to take a toll.

It wasn’t until just now, waking up a lot more refreshed and a lot less cramped, that he realized Kate had probably pulled off a similar marathon of wakefulness more than once since Jamie’s birth.

God, Boone, could you be any more clueless?

As soon as the words crossed his mind he stopped himself from piling on any more guilt. Not because it wasn’t true. He was clueless sometimes. But the words in his head had been a straight echo of his mother’s voice. He’d learned a long time ago that anything that sounded like her wasn’t something that should be indulged.

“Go downstairs,” he ordered himself. “Ask how you can help. And for the love of God, don’t freak if Jamie doesn’t want anything to do with you. You read the books. It’s just gonna take time.”

Time, and a whole lot of guts he wasn’t sure he had. Which Kate had probably figured out the moment he froze at the mention of holding Jamie.

He’d thought he was ready. After all the time he’d spent giving himself pep talks, he’d thought he’d convinced himself the mistakes he’d made as a kid were simply that, and not a guarantee history would be repeated. But when Kate had pushed Jamie toward him, all he could see was the unrelenting surfaces of porcelain and tile. All he could feel was little limbs slipping from his grasp. All he could hear was cries of pain.

He wanted to be a good father. He might not be an always-around one, but he still could be a dad who tickled his kid and changed diapers with ease and even tossed him in the air. But it was obviously going to take a lot more determination than he’d expected.

Remembering that one second when Jamie had first settled in his arms and looked up at him told him that it would be worth it.

Remembering the confusion on Kate’s face told him that he needed to let her know why this was gonna take work.

With his marching orders clear, he pulled on sweatpants and followed his nose to the kitchen.

Kate sat at the kitchen table with Jamie on her lap. He squealed and bobbed and dove like a prize fighter. The spoon in her hand hovered just out of Jamie’s grasp, like she was waiting for the perfect moment to swoop in and shove food in his mouth. Or maybe she was waiting for the right moment in the song she was singing—something about wheels and a bus and beep, beep, beep. Boone was torn between fear that Jamie would slide right off the slippery little robe Kate wore, and admiration at how easy she made it look.

She glanced his way with a faint smile. “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

He could say the same. Except for her, even with her hair askew and glasses instead of contacts, it would be true.

“Hope we didn’t wake you,” she continued. “Somebody decided that five was the new eight.”

“I guarantee you, he didn’t inherit that from me.”

She waved toward the counter. “Coffee’s ready. Help yourself.”

A couple of minutes later, coffee appropriately doctored and that first life-altering sip working its way down his throat, he pulled out a chair on the other side of Jamie. “Safe to sit here?”

“Should be. We haven’t started finger food yet, so he doesn’t have anything to throw.”

Boone peered into the bowl that sat on the table just out of Jamie’s reach, assessing the contents while wondering how to start the conversation he knew was needed. “Do I want to know what that is?”

“Rice cereal. This is his first solid food, so we’re still figuring it out.” As she spoke, she slipped the minuscule spoon between Jamie’s lips.

“It looks like there’s more coming out of him than staying in.”

“That’s okay. He’s getting the hang of it, aren’t you, Jamiekins?” She buried a yawn in her upraised arm. “Sorry. Rough night.”

The guilt devil shoved a pitchfork in Boone’s conscience. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Some. I’ve had worse.”

Jab, jab.

She spooned up more slop and took aim, but stopped before the spoon made it to Jamie’s mouth. She sat a little straighter, took a deep breath, then turned to Boone with the spoon extended.

“Here you go, Daddy. Your turn.”

It was so obvious she was forcing herself to do this that his gut twisted.

Mierda.

He took the spoon and set it gently on the table, then leaned forward in his chair, arms braced along his thighs, hands clasped. “Kate, I need to explain something.”

She tipped her head but stayed silent.

“Last night, when I was so...weird...about holding Jamie, it wasn’t anything to do with him, okay? It’s because...” Damn. This was harder than he’d expected. “When I was twelve, I was in a foster home with a bunch of other kids. There was a baby. Tristan. He was...maybe a year old? I can’t remember exactly, though I know he was older than Jamie.”

Actually, what he remembered the most was the weight of Tristan in his arms, more solid and bulky than Jamie. Though since Boone had still been just a preadolescent himself at the time, it was hard to compare.

“Anyway, one night Tristan was sick. I don’t know what was wrong exactly. I just remember I was the only other kid home, and the mom was out of medicine and Tristan was asleep, so she asked me to keep an eye on him while she ran to the store. Ten minutes, tops.”

Which had been true. What had turned out to be false was the assurance that Tristan would sleep through her entire absence.

“As soon as she was out of the driveway and around the corner, he woke up. And I could tell something was wrong. He was shaking. Hard. His arms and legs were jerking and he kept tossing his head back and forth while he made this weird sound.”

Kate lowered her free hand, which she had cupped over her mouth as soon as he launched into the description. “A febrile seizure?” she whispered.

He wasn’t at all surprised that she knew what had happened even without seeing it. “Yeah. That’s what it was. The thing is, I had no idea what the hell was happening. For a minute there I thought...well... You can imagine all the things I figured might be happening.”

“Boone, you were twelve. Nobody would expect you to—”

“I know. The thing was, I also didn’t know what to do about it. And so instead of leaving him in his crib and calling for help, I picked him up and tried to hold him.”

Kate’s quick inhalation told him that she’d figured out what had happened faster even than it had played out in real life.

“It was so fast. One minute I was putting him up on my shoulder, and then he twisted and threw himself backward.” Boone glanced up at the ceiling to steady himself. Even now, twenty years later, he could still feel his hands trying to grip Tristan as he arched and flew back. “He, um, hit the floor. Hard.”

Kate probably had no idea that she was clutching Jamie tight to her chest. “Oh, God. Boone. You... He... What...”

“Broken leg. Concussion. Hairline fracture of the collarbone.”

Kate’s death grip on Jamie eased slightly. “Oh, that poor sweet bunny. But at least... I mean, those are all things that can be fixed.”

“Yeah.” Not that that had been much consolation at the time. Boone would never forget the cold rush of panic that had raced through him when Tristan’s moans had become high-pitched howls of pain.

“I guess that explains why you were a little freaked at the thought of holding Jamie.”

Kate’s soft words pulled Boone back from the past trap. He focused on Jamie’s wary eyes, the hideous cupboards, the hum of the refrigerator. Here. Now. This was what mattered. History was just that. He couldn’t change it but he could learn from it.

And he could damned well make sure it didn’t ruin the moment.

“So. I guess we kept Jamie waiting long enough.” He made himself smile as he reached for the spoon. “Shall I?”

It was ridiculous to be so warmed by the pride in Kate’s eyes, but there it was.

“Absolutely.” She pushed the bowl in his direction. “Just put a little on there, and slip it in gently.”

He could do this. He would do this.

Jamie’s eyes followed his movements as Boone scooped up a hummingbird-sized portion of slop and aimed for the target. But his son was no dummy. At the last second, he turned his face so the food ended up smeared across his cheek.

“Crap.” Boone caught Kate’s eye. “Wait. Am I allowed to say that in front of him?”

She tapped her finger against the end of her nose. “Well,” she said after a moment, “the other day, I dropped a hammer on my foot and let loose with some words that I’m pretty sure were never spoken in Nana’s house before. So trust me. He’s heard far worse.”

That was a relief.

“And by the way,” she added softly, “the first time I gave him cereal, I made it too thick and gave him too much and he choked on it. For a few seconds I thought I was going to have to do the baby Heimlich on him.”

Boone was pretty sure she’d told him about that for his benefit far more than from any need to confess.

Did that make him any less appreciative? Oh, hell, no.

“Go on,” she urged softly. “Try again.”

Boone loaded his spoon once more and leveled his gaze on Jamie, now rocking back and forth on Kate’s lap. His little arms windmilled at his sides.

“Is he trying to take off?”

“Hope not,” she said. “He doesn’t have a passport yet.”

Babies needed passports?

“That’s something I thought maybe we could take care of while you’re here,” she said. “Not that I’m planning any major adventures for the next while. I’m probably going to stick close to home for the near future.”

The satisfaction in her voice told him she didn’t have any problem with that.

“But my great-aunt Donna is in the States, in Vermont, and I know Mom would like us to visit before I go back to work in November.”

“Oh. Sure, whatever you need.” Boone squinted at Jamie. “Okay, kid. We’re going to do this. My job is to get the spoon to your mouth. Your job is to open up. Got it?”

Jamie stopped baby break-dancing and stared at Boone. It was almost possible to see him making the mental leap. Big guy...not Mom...doesn’t know how to hold me...

His mouth opened. Probably to cry, but one thing Boone knew was how to take advantage of an opportunity. Praying he wouldn’t hit something, he popped the spoon into the opening and deposited the food.

“There you go!” Kate all but applauded. It was ridiculous. Though not as ridiculous as how pleased he felt about it himself.

Jamie, of course, chose that moment to let loose with the wail that had been brewing. Kate picked him up and put him on her shoulder.

“Don’t be so fussy,” she said. “This is your daddy. And you are very, very lucky to have him.”

* * *

AN HOUR LATER, Kate zipped Jamie into his front pack, grabbed a clipboard, and headed outside to survey the property with Boone.

He was already out on the porch, walking slowly from one end to the other, carefully putting his weight on each board as he stepped.

“How’s it look?” She handed him the clipboard.

“Other than those spots you already know about, the floor is solid. A half a dozen new boards, a fresh coat of stain or paint, and it should be good. We’ll need to replace some of the railings, too.” He scribbled something on the paper. “You said you got estimates on these repairs already?”

“Right. I thought the best strategy would be to figure out what needs to be done, then balance what you and I can do ourselves against the cost of everything, and go from there.”

“Prioritize. Right.” He nodded, started to write something, then stopped and looked down at Jamie. “Sorry, buddy. I forgot to get your input.”

Jamie shoved his hand in his mouth and gnawed, but he didn’t start crying.

It was a good sign, but Kate opted against saying anything. She didn’t want Boone to feel that she was watching his every move, or judging his interactions with Jamie, especially after the mealtime revelation.

She shivered. Dear Lord, what else was Boone keeping bottled up inside him?

No, it was definitely best to let things unfold naturally. All Boone and Jamie needed was some time and togetherness.

She refused to dwell on the thought that time and togetherness were the most limited factors in this relationship.

Instead, she laughed. “You want proof that you can take a guy out of Canada but you can’t take the Canadian out of the guy? You just apologized to a baby. For something he can’t even understand yet.”

Boone’s grin was slow to appear, but when it did—in full surprised delight—it was well worth the wait. “I guess some things are too ingrained to forget.”

Kate was inclined to agree. Especially when Boone gave his jacket a tug and a pat, and she remembered the way he always did that when he got dressed. A final tug. A final pat. And then, usually, a final kiss before he headed out the door.

How many times had that last kiss turned into something more?

And how many times would she be fool enough to torture herself with memories such as that before she—

Boone looked past her to the road. “Looks like you have company.”

Kate turned. One glance at the little white hatchback turning into her driveway and her heart sank.

“Oh, God,” she said bleakly. “It’s my mother.”

Boone flinched. “She still pissed at me?”

“Yes.” There was no point in sugarcoating the truth, especially when Boone was well aware that he was high on Maggie Hebert’s hit list. “I meant to warn you, but I thought she’d give us at least a full day.”

“And lose the element of surprise?”

At least he didn’t sound too worried.

“There’s one thing in your favor. Allie’s former fiancé moved into the Number One Scum spot when the Mounties showed up. You, at least, tried to do the right thing.” Kate waved at her mother, now walking toward them. “If we can get her talking about that, it’ll remind her that you’re a prince in comparison.”

“I’m not holding my breath,” he said, then waved as cheerfully as if Kate hadn’t just given him the equivalent of a battle plan. “Hello, Maggie!”

Kate winced. “It’s Mrs. Hebert to you,” she reminded him, but it was too late. Maggie was already scowling as she climbed the steps.

“Good morning, Katie. Good morning, sweet little Jamie.” She looked past them. “Boone.”

Kate closed her eyes against the whirlwind generated by being dragged abruptly back into adolescent embarrassment over her mother.

“Mom. Be nice.”

“I’m always nice.”

Right. According to Maggie, the fact that Boone still had testicles was proof of her magnanimity.

“What can we do for you, Mom?”

Maggie sent a cold look in Boone’s direction before turning to focus on Jamie. “Well,” she said in a much milder tone as she grabbed the tiny foot, “I came by to invite you to dinner on Sunday.” She sighed and glanced up at Boone. “All of you.”

Oh, joy.

“You could have called,” Kate said.

“I’m well aware of that, Katherine. But I was out running errands already, and I saw you outside, and this way I got to have a minute with the sweetest little guy in the whole wide world. Right, Jamiekins?”

Kate was never quite sure how her mother managed to adore everything about Jamie while claiming to be plotting revenge against the man who had fathered him. But then, there were many things about Maggie Hebert that had never made sense.

“I don’t know,” she began, only to be interrupted.

“Allie and Cash are coming, too, and there’s no one booked for the bed and breakfast that night. I thought we could have a real family meal.”

Dear Lord. If the sarcasm were any thicker, they could spread it on toast in place of peanut butter.

Something warm landed on Kate’s shoulder. Boone’s hand. He squeezed, gentle but heartening, and she got the message. They were going to have to do this eventually, and if Allie and Cash were present, there might be a buffer zone.

“Okay. We’ll be there.”

Maggie grabbed Jamie’s hands and pulled them together in an imitation of applause. “Yay! Can you say yay, sweetie? You’ll be talking soon, you smart boy.”

“Mom. He’s not going to say anything like that for a while.”

“She is such an unbeliever, isn’t she?” Maggie made a sourpuss face, drawing a giggle from Jamie. “That’s right. You know it’s the truth, don’t you, sweetheart?”

“Very kind of you to invite us,” Boone said, and Kate marveled at the evenness of his voice. “What time should we get there?”

“Oh, the usual. Kate knows.”

Yes, Kate knew. She knew many things. Like how her mother had the ability to convey about twelve different messages with two tiny words.

They were going to have to talk. Soon.

“So, not to be rude, Mom, but we have a lot to get through today, and since we’re going to see you soon anyway...”

Maggie straightened and gave the house a brisk once-over. “You told him about the roof, right?”

Kate opened her mouth to answer but Boone beat her to it. “I’m going up there after we look around from the ground, but my suspicion is that it will need to be completely reshingled.”

“It will. The porch needs to be fixed first, though, before Katie goes through it.”

“Hello?” Kate waved her hand in front of Maggie’s face. “Standing right here in front of you?”

“It’s on the list.” Boone gave her shoulder another squeeze. Purely to help her stay calm, Kate knew, but at the same time, oh, it felt so good. All that heat and strength. All that promise.

All that heartache, Kate.

“Make sure you check out the basement. Katie says it’s good, but I think there’s some water seeping in at the back wall. The upstairs bathroom needs to be completely gutted. The kitchen could use an overhaul, too, but—”

“Mom.” Kate had to put an end to this. “We’ve got this, okay?”

Maggie looked between them, searching, though for what, Kate wasn’t sure. The only certainty was that when she spied Boone’s hand, she snapped to rigid uprightness so fast that it was like someone had replaced her spine with a titanium rod.

Boone left his palm exactly where it was. Which was a good thing. It kept Kate from turning and walking away in disgust.

“That’s right,” Maggie said. “You’ve got this.” And she tickled Jamie’s stomach.

God, Kate thought, please help me remember this when someone breaks Jamie’s heart someday.

“Well, it’s good to know that the place will get the makeover it needs.” Maggie shielded her eyes as she looked over the house again, this time with her face softening. “It’s a good, sturdy home. It’s a shame to think that it will finally get the attention it deserves only to be let go, but—” she shot daggers at Boone “—I guess these things happen.”

“Mom. We’ve talked about this. I love this place, too, but it’s too big and too expensive. The heating bills alone would put me in the poorhouse. Add in the village taxes and the furnace on its last legs and—”

“I know. You’re right, of course. I just hate to see how easily people let go of things these days. Like they don’t matter. Home, family. Whish. Thrown to the wind.”

Okay, that did it. “I think Jamie needs a diaper change. We’d better take care of that. Don’t want him to get a rash, right, Mom?” She leaned forward and dropped a fast, totally unauthentic kiss on Maggie’s cheek. “See you Sunday. Come on, Boone.”

She turned quickly, and then, just to piss off her mother, reached back and grabbed Boone’s hand. Probably a mistake, given the rush of memories that flooded her at the small bit of contact—not to mention the sea of hormones that threatened to swamp her—but hey. Maggie needed to know she and Boone were a team. An unconventional one, to be sure, but a team nonetheless.

Of course, that was assuming her mother hadn’t terrified Boone to the point of bumping up his return flight by, oh, five weeks and change.

* * *

BOONE KNEW THAT Kate had taken his hand only to annoy her mother, and maybe to ensure that he followed her into the house. Not that he had needed any assistance on that score. Kate’s mom took the whole mother bear image to new heights.

But no matter the reason, he was grateful. He and Kate had been all about the physical in their months together. Being with her without that set him off-center, left him uncertain how to act and what to say.

Not that they had been in it only for the sex. He had liked hanging out with her. He still did. They had been able to laugh and understand each other in a way that had surprised him, given how little they had in common. There had been a lot more between them than just fun in the sack, and if circumstances had been different and he didn’t have the history he did, he could have easily seen them building something long-term.

But he was who he was, and life was what it was. And if he had to be an idiot over something, well, there were far worse things than the feel of Kate’s hand in his.

Like the almost-visible clouds of steam coming off her head.

“I can’t believe that she...argh!” Kate shook her hand loose, much to his dismay, and jerked at the zippers on the front of Jamie’s pack. “There are times when I could cheerfully toss my mother in the river.”

“I don’t have a lot of experience, but I think your mom was just doing what good mothers are supposed to do. You know.” He grinned at her and thought of every TV mom he’d ever seen. “Defend her kid.”

“I know. I get that. And honestly, truthfully, I know it’s because she loves me and wants the best for me and Allie and Jamie, and that she wants me to have an easier life than she had. But still.” She tugged at the second zipper. “She refuses to believe that there’s a world of difference between her situation and mine, and... Damn, why isn’t this thing unfastening?”

Boone squinted at the offending zipper, then bent for a closer look. “I think there’s a piece of cloth caught in it. Let me...” He reached forward gingerly. Jamie was such a squirmer that Boone wasn’t sure he could fix this without making it worse.

Which was kind of the story of his life, but right now he needed focus, not a trip down memory lane.

He held his breath and pulled at the fabric. “Yeah, that’s the problem. The pant leg got caught. Give me a second...” He worked the zipper while pulling gently on the gray corduroy. “Here we go...almost got it...”

The zipper gave way. The hand holding the fabric jerked up. And for one moment, his fingers slid off the pack and onto a part of Kate’s anatomy where they had no business going anymore.

He wasn’t sure which one of them stepped back first. Maybe they did it together. All he knew was that her cheeks were red and her eyes were wide and his hand was a lot happier than it had been in almost a year.

“Well. Thank you.” She sounded more than a little flustered, which made two of them. “So. Right. I’m sorry about Mom.” She lifted Jamie out of the pack and headed through the kitchen into the office.

Kate continued speaking as she set Jamie on the changing table. “I would tell you that you don’t have to join us, but she would probably drive over here and drag you there by the ear.”

“So you’re saying I should just resign myself to a night of misery?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“What did you mean when you said that your situation is different from hers?”

“Oh. Well.” Kate reached for a fresh diaper and flipped open the box of wipes, all while keeping one hand on a squirming tummy. Once again, Boone marveled at the way she handled everything so easily. So...gracefully. “I told you that my biological father was never in the picture, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, I didn’t tell you the whole story. All Mom ever said when I was growing up was that my bio father was a summer guy, and that she didn’t know how to get hold of him when she found out she was pregnant. It was one of those things you just accept, right? Because why wouldn’t your mother tell you the truth about something as basic as your father?”

Having grown up knowing that anything his mother said was more likely a lie than the truth, Boone stayed silent.

“But after Neil—my stepfather—after he died, I started to think more about it. I was almost thirteen then, and I knew things weren’t adding up. So I started bugging her.” She shot him a quick grin that had him remembering a whole lot of mischief. “Let me tell you, Mom had cause to regret all those lectures about standing my ground and never letting up when I wanted something.”

Oh, to have been a fly on that wall.

“She finally caved and told me a little bit about him. Not much. Just his name, and that his parents had absolutely not approved of her. It was the classic story—rich boy getting ready to go to university, not-rich girl who spent her summers cleaning rooms at her parents’ motel, a hot and heavy summer romance. She didn’t find out she was pregnant until he was gone.” Kate’s voice faltered. “And then, she said, she spent a couple of months in denial, hoping that...that something would happen so she wouldn’t have to make any decisions.”

Boone spared a moment of sympathy for the scared kid Maggie must have been.

“Anyway, the whole romance had been such a secret that Nana and Poppy didn’t know about it. Well, she said they had suspicions, but nothing definite. And by the time she knew she had to tell them, Mom had made up her mind that she wasn’t going to let anyone know the truth. My father’s family lived near Windsor. He was going to school in London.”

“Which London?”

“The Ontario one.” Kate dropped wipes into the trash. “Mom said she knew that if she named him, she could get child support, but she would also have to share me. And, her being the stubborn type—”

Boone coughed.

“Quiet. She said she didn’t want me spending extended periods of time with any of them. She thought he was the only decent one in the whole family.” She lifted Jamie and nuzzled his stomach, then nodded toward the rocking chair in front of the fireplace. “Sit. You’re going to hold him again.”

He noticed she didn’t bother asking.

He also noticed that she had chosen a well-padded place for him to try again. Definitely a woman who knew how to adapt to her audience.

He lowered himself into the chair and waited. Kate came close and burst out laughing.

“You look like you’re waiting for me to draw blood or something!”

“That good, eh?” Maybe if he distracted himself, kept her talking, it would get him through this. Not so distracted that he wouldn’t be able to keep his focus on what he was doing. Just enough to take the edge off his nerves.

He breathed in, held out his hands and waited. “So, what happened?”

“What happened when?” She lowered Jamie onto his lap. Boone held his breath and slowly closed his hands around his son’s warmth. For a second he couldn’t think of anything but the placement of his hands and the distance to the floor and the odds of Kate staying precisely where she was, crouching in front of him.

Purely because he wanted her there to catch Jamie if anything happened, of course.

Talk, Boone. You can do this.

“What, uh, happened with your father?” Boone risked a fast glance toward Kate. Her face could have been carved from stone. Because of him holding Jamie? Or because...

“Nothing.”

The part of Boone that wasn’t actively trying to slow his heart rate and relax into the feel of Jamie on his lap was pretty sure Kate was hiding something.

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“That’s it.” She shrugged. “Mom gave me his name. I tracked him down.”

“And?” Jamie’s eyes were getting big. Boone was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign.

“And, he had his lawyer send my mother a check.”

Boone’s hands tightened around Jamie. “That was it?”

“Not quite.” She took a small step back, straightened, clasped her hands in front of her. “There were also instructions. If Mom and I refrained from any further contact with him, there would be another check on my eighteenth birthday, for double the child support he should have been paying all these years. If we didn’t stay quiet, the lawyers would make sure Mom would have to jump through a boatload of legal hoops to get more. They promised it would end up costing far more than she could ever get out of him.”

“They thought she was just—”

“After his money. Right.” Her mouth twisted. “It seemed he was getting ready to run for office and he didn’t want an illegitimate child upending all his plans.”

Boone stared down at the whorls of Jamie’s hair. It was so fine. So perfect. Had Kate’s been like that?

“So he wanted nothing to do with you.”

“Not a thing.” Again she shrugged, not that he believed her casual air. “Apparently he’d grown up to be just as awful as his parents after all.”

Home, family. Whish. Thrown to the wind.

Much as he hated to admit it, Boone was starting to understand Maggie’s antipathy toward him.

Jamie whimpered. Boone looked to Kate.

“I think he needs you again.”

“He’s okay,” she replied, but there was no denying the relief that rushed through Boone when she took Jamie back. Relief, but also an undeniable feeling of loss.

According to Boone’s mother, his father had no idea he existed. That was bad enough. But for Kate’s father to have made it clear she wasn’t worth anything more than a check?

“No wonder your mother thinks I’m the scum of the earth.”

“She doesn’t think that.” Kate bit her lip. “At least, not precisely.”

“I’ll have to knock myself out to prove that I’m one of the good guys.”

“Oh, please. Change my mother’s mind? We’re talking Jedi master level accomplishment.”

He laughed along with her, because she was right. But he had to try. Not that he cared what Maggie thought of him, but he could see it bothered Kate. She shouldn’t have to spend her days defending him to her mother.

He needed to find a way to prove to Maggie that he was nothing like Kate’s father. That even though he might not be a traditional kind of dad, he did love his son. And Kate had not made the worst mistake of her life when she hooked up with him.

As he remembered Maggie’s comments about wanting to keep the house in the family...and the longing in Kate’s voice when she said it wasn’t practical...he got a pretty good idea about how he could pull it off.

CHAPTER FOUR

AFTER A LONG and exhausting day planning repairs, guiding Jamie toward Boone and revealing way too much about her past, Kate was more than ready for bed once Jamie was down for the night. She grabbed a book about restoring older homes, climbed under the covers, and fell asleep reading about crown molding. At least, she thought that was the part where she passed out, given that she had a wild dream in which Boone was really Prince Harry, but she was the only one who saw it.

She woke up to the sound of snuffles right before she was going to meet the Queen.

“Damn it,” she grumbled as she hauled Jamie’s sleep-warm body close and crawled back into bed. “All that practice curtseying for nothing.”

With the morning well and truly begun, she made her plan. Feed Jamie. Get him changed and dressed. Hop into the shower and... Ooh. Did she dare leave Boone in charge of the baby while she had a shower?

“I think you could handle it,” she said to the tiny head working so studiously. “But your dad might pass out.”

As if he agreed, Jamie ceased gulping to gaze up at her, swat her chin with his palm, and gurgle something that sounded like uh-huh. Kate burst out laughing and cuddled him closer, tickling his tummy with her hair until he giggled.

Boone should be here.

The thought hit her fast and hard, making her hands shake as she went through the pat, burp, resettle routine. What would it be like to have Boone in the bed right now? To lean against his bare chest and laugh softly together over their son’s antics...to look up and back for a quick kiss...to have him reach around her so they were all wrapped together in one embrace...

No. She couldn’t let herself think that way. Not when she knew it was nothing but an exercise in self-torture.

“I know he had a crappy childhood,” she whispered to Jamie. “But you would think that would make him want all the family he could get, not the other way around.”

Though she knew that wasn’t always true. Boone didn’t like to talk about his childhood, but the parts he did let slip set a whole armada of red flags flying in her educator’s brain. She knew the kinds of lingering effects a childhood such as his could have on future relationships. Given his insistence right from the start that he wasn’t a family guy, she had a pretty strong hunch that those long-ago traumas still had their claws sunk into him.

“I want him in your life, Jamiekins. I want you to know that you have an awesome and amazing dad who is making the world a better place for a lot of people.” Her voice dropped. “But I want you to have brothers and sisters, too. And I don’t want to be alone all my life.”

She’d hidden behind house repairs and getting reacquainted for two days. It was time to talk about the divorce.

* * *

BOONE HAD SET his alarm for five thirty, hoping that would give him enough lead time to jump in the shower and have the coffee going for Kate when she got up. But he woke on his own a few minutes after four, jerked out of sleep by the need to escape a bad dream. He couldn’t remember the details. There had been slamming doors and a child crying and a sense of deep loss that still clung to him. And cold. So, so cold.

He pulled the quilt higher, paying careful attention to the soft rub of the flannel sheets against his skin, the slightly floral scent of the fabric softener, the comforting weight of the blankets over his body. Tiny details. All those things that tied him to the moment.

What’s done is done. What’s ahead is unknown. But right now, you’re fine.

He distracted himself by carefully examining the decision he’d made the previous day, the one he didn’t dare reveal to Kate until he was certain he could pull it off. Logic said it was impossible. But if there was one thing he’d learned after years of writing grants for a cash-strapped nonprofit, it was that when it came to finances, logic didn’t always have the last word.

Kate wanted to stay in this house. She was putting a good face on the need to repair and sell, but he knew her. She was all about history and tradition and family.

Family.

He sent a mental scowl toward the bastard who had fathered her. To be rejected like that, sight unseen, would have been a killer for any kid. For Kate, who had just lost the only father she’d known, who had grown up steeped in family history, it must have been devastating.

He couldn’t make up for that. But he could damned well find a way to keep her in this house where her grandmother had lived and died, to get it fixed up to the point that she wouldn’t have to worry about falling through the frickin’ floor every time she crossed the porch.

He was going to need a second job. Or a loan.

Or, probably, both.

He had no idea how to make that happen. But if nothing else, mentally calculating interest rates and updating his résumé made it possible for him to fall asleep again.

Which was good—except he slept through the alarm.

Which was also good—until he woke up and heard Kate singing.

“Que huevon,” he said as he threw back the covers. Yeah. He definitely wasn’t acclimated if he was still relying on Peruvian slang to call himself a lazy ass.

Half an hour later, showered and dressed, he made it downstairs only to find Kate eating toast at the computer. Jamie lay tummy-down on a blanket by her side, staring at the stuffed alpaca Boone had brought for him. Jamie made a sound, and Kate stretched out one enticingly bare foot and tapped his back with her toes.

“Coffee’s ready,” she sang out without looking up.

“All this and coffee, too?” Boone let out a low whistle. “God, you’re amazing.”

He knew he shouldn’t have said it as soon as the words slipped out. It was the kind of thing he would have said last year.

Did he still mean it? More than ever. But now he couldn’t think of a single way it could sound anything but wrong.

Kate stopped chewing for a second, stopped tapping on the keyboard.

Then, with a deep breath, she turned to him with a smile.

“Yep, that’s me. Kate Hebert, semisingle mom, day care director, able to push those buttons and start that coffee like nobody’s business.”

Retreat seemed the best option.

He took his time doctoring his cup, giving them both a few minutes to find their equilibrium before he tried again, sitting in the rocking chair and focusing on Jamie.

“Morning, squirt.”

Jaime squealed and waved his arms in a swimming motion. Boone risked a glance at Kate.

“Is this how Michael Phelps started?”

“That, I can’t answer. But it’s good that he’s doing that. It helps with his bilateral coordination. Also, God help me, it’s a precursor to crawling.”

“Of course. I knew that.” He bent down and mock whispered in Jamie’s direction. “Here’s a hint, kid. Don’t give your mother an opening before you’re really awake.”

Kate huffed and hit the keyboard a bit harder.

“Do you need the car this morning? I should run to the hardware store.” And the bank, but he wasn’t going to mention that.

“Be my guest.” She leaned closer to the computer monitor, peering so intently that Boone wondered if the prime minister had been photographed shirtless in public again. “I need some things, too. You can be my lackey.”

He mock bowed in his chair. “Your wish is my command.”

Too late, he remembered another time he had said that. In a very different location. With a lot fewer clothes.

Would he ever learn?

“Here.” She grabbed a paper from the printer, made a couple of marks on it with a pen, then handed the printout to him. “You’re going to need this. Not today, but, soon. Ish.”

He read over the list of names and addresses, first in confusion, then with the sense of inevitability he hadn’t felt since he was a kid.

“Divorce lawyers?” It shouldn’t have been so hard to ask. He’d known this was coming. Hell, he had been the one who’d followed “You know, we could get married” with an almost-immediate “Temporarily, of course.”

With a start he realized his hand had gone to his throat, searching for the fake rabbit’s foot he used to wear when he was a kid. Good God. He hadn’t thought about that in years.

She cleared her throat. “Yes. Right.”

Sure. That was why he was here.

“I... Look, of course you’ll want to choose your own lawyer, but I thought it might be easier if I pulled together some names for you. A starting point, since I know who is most convenient.”

He ran a finger down the list, lingering over the names she’d starred, buying time. “It’s not like either of us is fighting this.” At least, not legally. “I don’t see why we need to pay two lawyers when we’re in agreement already.”

“Conflict of interest. Legal ethics.”

“Lawyers have ethics?”

Her head snapped up. For the first time since he walked in, she smiled.

“Crazy as it might seem, it’s true.”

She had what appeared to be a death grip on her pen. If it had been a pencil, he would have expected it to snap in half by now. He wanted to walk across the room, place his hand over hers and give it a squeeze. Remind her that they were in this together, the way they had been all along.

Well, as much as possible.

But the rules were clear. No physical contact. Maybe someday they could reach the point when a squeeze of a hand or a tap on the shoulder would be seen as no more than a gesture of support, but right now, there was too much else floating between them to risk it.

“We’ve done the hardest part already,” she said softly. “Figuring out support and custody. I mean, we’ll each need the legal eagles to give it their pricey approval, but as long as we’re in agreement, it should be smooth sailing.” She hesitated. “Unless, of course, you want to make any changes.”

“No. I’m good. Kate, we both know that there won’t be any every-other-weekend thing with us. Jamie’s life will be here, with you.”

She pulled the pen in close to her chest. It was almost like she was guarding it. Or cradling it?

Her actions perplexed him. Shouldn’t she be happy about this? He knew all too well how it felt to be traded from home to home. That wasn’t what he wanted for Jamie. He had no intention of swooping in like the Big Bad Wolf and disrupting their lives.

And yet Kate maintained her death grip on the pen.

“Is that a problem?”

She said nothing. Which worried him more than anything she could have said, because he had never known Kate to be at a loss for words.

“Hmm? Oh, no. No. I just thought... I mean, I want him here with me. Obviously. But I don’t want him to miss out.” She took a deep breath. “It’s fine.”

Boone might not be a family man, but that didn’t mean he was clueless when it came to family dynamics. On the contrary. He had learned fast and early how to read a situation and know when someone was telling the truth and when they were lying through their teeth—or through a smile. He didn’t always know what to do about it, but he could tell when there was a problem.

And right now, every instinct he had was telling him Kate was most certainly not fine.

I don’t want him to miss out.

“Kate.” Again, he stopped himself from reaching for her hand. “If we want any chance of making this work, we have to be honest. Even when we think the other person won’t like what we have to say.” He spread his palms wide open. “Cards on the table, okay?”

She stared at his hands. Silently. Like she was weighing her options. Which surprised him, because it all seemed pretty straightforward to him.

Then she said in a rush, “I want him to know that you want him.”

Her words sent him rocking back in his chair. Or was it the way she’d said it—low and desperate, like she wasn’t sure she had the right to ask but needed to anyway?

Did she think he didn’t love his son?

“Kate.” The hell with restrictions. He left the chair to kneel in front of her, tipping her chin up with one finger, steeling himself against the flood of remembered pleasure at the brief brush of skin on skin. “Kate, I know that what I feel for Jamie doesn’t come close to what you have with him, and it never will. I’m okay with that. But don’t ever doubt for a minute... I mean, it’s true I don’t know a lot about babies, and I’m still terrified I’ll do something wrong and hurt him.”

Some of the worry in her face was pushed aside by a slight smile. “I hate to burst your bubble, but I already figured that out.”

Ah. There was the Kate he knew.

He let his hand drop back down to his side. “We got caught by surprise. Things are more complicated than either of us expected. But complicated can still be amazing.”

“And wanted?”

“Wanted. And very much loved.”

This time, when she ducked her head, he was pretty sure it was to hold back the flash of moisture he saw in her eyes.

“I want to know Jamie.” If he had to spell it out, he would. “I want to talk to him as much as he would like, and come here to hang out with him every year, and maybe, soon, start having him spend some time in Peru. With you, of course,” he said when her head snapped up. “But I’m okay with leaving the details of when we take each step kind of fluid.”

“Fluid.” She said the word slowly, as if trying it on for size. After a moment, she nodded. “Okay. I see what you mean. As long as we both agree on what the next step should be, I’m good with leaving the timing loose.”

Down on the floor, Jamie grabbed a squeaky toy and smashed it on the blanket.

“Rock on, dude.” Boone cocked his head toward the baby but spoke to Kate. “Maybe he’ll be a drummer.”

“Oh, no. No wishing drums on him when you’ll be on another continent.” She reached behind her, grabbed a paper and squinted at it. “Okay, since His Highness is still happy down there, let’s talk about some things we haven’t covered yet. Like guardians.” She frowned before looking at him. “Right now, I have Allie listed. It made the most sense, since she’s here and he knows her. But do you want to leave it that way? Or if something were to happen to me...”

Boone’s mind went blank. He couldn’t help it. The thought of Kate not being alive drove all capacity for thought from his mind.

“Would you want to...” She carried on, totally oblivious that parts of him had frozen at the thought of her dying. “I mean, I think it would be easier on Jamie if he were to stay with people and places he knows, but you’re his father. It would be up to you.”

Oh, God. She expected him to answer.

The floor was hard against his knee as he pushed back upright. The chair was solid beneath him as he sat down once more, the wood of the armrests smooth and slightly warm against his palms as he gripped them.

He could handle this. If she had the guts to sit there and calmly talk about what would happen if she were to die, then surely he could manage something coherent.

“I...uh...I haven’t thought about that.” Start with the facts. Buy himself time. “I, uh, need to think about it, but my feeling is, yeah. Having Allie take over would undoubtedly be easiest on Jamie. As long as she’s okay with me still being in the picture.”

Kate smirked. “There’s a reason I asked her and not my mother, and let me give you a hint—it had nothing to do with age.”

Damn, it felt good to laugh. The tightness in his chest eased and lightness filled him.

“But while we’re on the subject,” she said, “we probably should think about what we would like to do when and if either of us remarries.”

“That’s not going to happen.” The words were out of his mouth before he processed them. He wasn’t even sure who he was talking about. Him, definitely. But her?

Though judging from the way she was watching him, as if he had suddenly sprouted alien antennae, he had a feeling that maybe he should have waited to speak.

“Kate, come on. We both know I’m not going to...that is, if not for Jamie...”

Oh, God. She was clutching the pen.

When she looked up again, her face was set in a resolve he’d seen only a couple of times before. When she’d told him that no matter what, she was keeping their baby. When she told Maggie that no matter what, they were getting married.

When she had taken him to the airport for his flight back to Peru. And why hadn’t he put that together until just now?

“I know that you don’t see yourself as a family man, Boone, and that’s...well, it is what it is. It’s part of you. But as we both know, things happen.”

She had a point. Maybe he should look into getting a vasectomy while he was here.

“But I’m not you. I want to have more kids. I would like to have them with someone I can build a life with.”

She wants to be with someone else.

Once, when he was helping build the expansion on the project’s office, the guy carrying the other end of a board had slipped and Boone had taken a solid chunk of wood to the torso. Kate’s words made him feel like he was doubled over in the yard once again, struggling to breathe through a chest that had forgotten how to move.

“I...guess that’s another thing I hadn’t thought about.”

Maybe because it was impossible for him to think about her being with someone else and still see straight.

And then he had to know. “Is there someone?”

“What, do you mean, like, am I taking applications?” She started at him blankly before bursting into laughter.

“No. No, Kate, I’m not...”

Her laughter faded into a bemused smile. “I’ve been kind of busy, you know?”

Yeah. He knew.

“Sorry.” He attempted a smile. “You caught me by surprise.”

“Obviously.” Her gaze slid sideways, though he doubted she was really seeing Jamie chewing on the alpaca. “I mean, it would be one thing if you thought that maybe, someday...”

His breath caught in his throat. She shook her head.

“But you’re there, and I’m here. And if it turns out this is the only life Jamie ever knows, then that’ll be his normal and it will be wonderful.” She stretched her foot out again to straighten the corner of the blanket. “I only remember a little from the years when it was just me and Mom, living here with Nana and Poppy, but I know it was good. Then she married Neil, and then Allie came along, and things just felt so different. Like we’d found something we never knew was missing.” Her voice dropped. “Someday, I would like to have that for Jamie.”

“And for you?”

He shouldn’t have asked. He had no right. Yes, she was his wife, but that was only a matter of time. She would always be the mother of his son, but that didn’t give him any say over who was in her life, or her heart, or her bed.

Jamie. Keep it focused on Jamie.

“As long as this future potential...person...is good to Jamie, I don’t see how I would have any input.”

“Well, you wouldn’t, really. But I want you to think about it. If someone else was in our lives, day in, day out, he would become the father figure. You would still be Daddy, but things would be...different.”

Different. Yeah, that was one way to describe it.

He was pretty sure he was okay with things being different. Change was good. But he was also pretty sure that Kate would prefer the version she had laid out.

That, he wasn’t so certain he could handle.

But he also knew that he had no choice.

CHAPTER FIVE

KATE HAD PLANNED to spend the morning prepping the bedroom beside Boone’s. She sent him off with lists, directions and a hand-drawn map. Then she carried Jamie and her supplies up the stairs and down the hall, steadfastly resisting the temptation to peek in Boone’s room. Nope. Not looking. Even though the door was wide-open and the ladder-back chair was right there and his jacket was tossed over it and...

Okay. So she peeked for a second. But she didn’t stick her head into the room and inhale, no matter how much she wanted to.

Just as she finished getting Jamie settled and her equipment set up, Kate heard a car outside. Huh. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and Boone hadn’t been gone long enough to get through his list.

“Think Daddy forgot something?” she asked Jamie, but he was too busy trying to pull off his socks to answer. She peeked out the window and spied not her own little red Mazda but a sporty hatchback painted with the familiar logo of Allie’s restaurant, Bits and Pizzas.

“Woo-hoo, Jamie! Aunt Allie is here!” Kate put her mouth to the window she’d cracked open just enough to let in a hint of spring warmth. “Come on in! We’re upstairs!”

Soon enough, Allie was in the room, cuddling Jamie and offering explanations.

“I saw Boone walking around downtown while I was running errands. So I thought, well, this might be my only chance. You know.” Allie winked. “To find out how well that whole separate bedrooms thing is working.”

Heaven save her from her sister. “Very well, thank you. Now keep your nephew happy. I have wallpaper to scrape.”

“I thought you were a fan of the paint-over-it school.”

“Sometimes you have to. But this room has only two layers, and it’s been coming off pretty easy so far.”

“Plus it’s great exercise. Especially if you have to, oh—” Allie batted her eyes rapidly. “—work off some frustration.”

Kate leveled the scraper in Allie’s direction. “Don’t you give me the innocent puppy-dog look. You’re not getting a rise out of me.”

“Ah, but the question is, are you getting one out of Boone?”

Kate sagged against the wall, her energy spent. “Al...”

Thank goodness, the message seemed to sink in. “Sorry. None of my business. I’ll shut up now.”

“You don’t have to shut up. Just—”

“Don’t harass you about your love life. Got it. Cash wants me to move in with him.”

Whoa.

“He wants what?” Kate shook her head, trying to clear the onslaught of questions. “Um, did he forget that you guys have only been together together for a couple of months?”

“No. He knows, and not just because it’s the first thing I said when he came out with this.” Allie’s ponytail swung out behind her as she whirled Jamie in slow circles. “But my lease is up at the end of May, and my landlady is pushing me to sign up for another two years. She said if I do it, she won’t raise the rent at all and she’ll let me get a cat, even though I’m not supposed to have pets, because she hates hunting for new tenants and she wants me to stay, basically forever.”

“Oh, that’s not fair. I mean, it is, but—”

“I know.” Allie giggled along with Jamie as they dipped and turned. “I love living there. It’s a great apartment, walking distance to work, with parking, which doesn’t matter most of the time but hello, when tourist season rolls around I start singing glory hallelujah. Also, all the stained glass? And the funky stairs? It’s like I’m back at Mom’s place, but without the upkeep.”

“Or Mom.”

“You nailed it. But...”

“But Cash?”

“But Cash.” She sighed and shifted Jamie to her shoulder. “I love him, Katie, okay? No second thoughts about that. I can’t believe how wonderful life is with him. And when I think about how close I came to missing out on this, I get the shakes. I want to be with him. In so many ways it would make sense to jump in right now and say, sure, why wait when we both know this is where we’re headed? But on the other hand...”

Kate was pretty sure she knew exactly what was bothering Allie, but the words needed to come straight from the source. So she shoved her scraper under a particularly stubborn piece of wallpaper and forced herself to wait.

“It’s a big step. A major step. And the past few months have been such a whirlwind that I don’t... I need time to catch my breath. Luke and I... That all happened so fast. In less than a year I’ve gone from having two guys as best friends to having one tell me he loved me, to getting engaged, to planning the wedding, to having the Mounties crash the wedding—”

“Because they always have to get their man.”

A hint of a smile. “Right. And then, boom. Now I’m with my other best friend. Very happily so, I remind you, without any of the doubts I kept telling myself were just wedding jitters. But I... No one else knows this, okay? And you can’t tell anyone because it sounds so stupid and ridiculous, but the thing is, I figured out I loved Cash that night.”

“Which night?” Kate pushed the scraper and hit a ridge. “Not the night of your wedding?”

“The night of my nonwedding. Yes.” Allie grimaced. “It makes me sound like such a flake.”

“Yeah, not gonna lie, I can see why you want to keep that one close to your chest.”

“I know, right? It’s bad enough that people have already figured out I’m with Cash now. You wouldn’t believe some of the comments I get at work. And I know that will all fade. And it’s not like I really care about what people say, because it’s nobody else’s business. On the other hand, I think I’m entitled to some adjustment time.”

“You just don’t know if you want two years’ worth.”

“Exactly.”

Out of nowhere, a totally unexpected sense of jealousy surged through Kate. What must it be like to be so wanted, so loved, that a man would be ready to turn his entire life around after just a few short months?

Stop it, Kate. Allie needs you. You’re fine.

“Could you sublet?”

“It’s not allowed now. And yeah, if I needed to I could probably buy my way out of the lease, or whatever, but I’m still paying off the wedding that didn’t happen.”

And probably trying to save for one that would take place, Kate suspected. But there was no way she was going to say that at this point.

“What about selling the lot that Nana left you?”

Allie was shaking her head almost before the question was finished. “That would be the very last resort. I have plans for that space.”

“Oh?” Kate pictured the wooded chunk of riverfront. “I don’t suppose those plans include a house and a mini Cash or two.”

“Log cabin. Complete with a front porch and matching rocking chairs. So cute it’ll make you hurl.”

The churning in Kate’s stomach had nothing to do with anticipated cuteness.

“Well,” she said briskly as she attacked the wall with her scraper. “How long do you have before you need to... Whoa, what’s this?”

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