“Then you should have loved that stuff.”
“It was fish.” Emma’s tone left little doubt about what she thought about fruits of the sea.
Joe and Lindsay looked at each other across the table and laughed. They’d done an awful lot of laughing over this dinner, which had started out tense at best. Mostly, they’d laughed about the antics of the three-year-old who sat in a booster seat so high that her knees bumped the table edge. Occasionally, though, they’d found something funny that one of the adults had said, as well.
“I guess that says it all when you’re three,” Joe said when the laughter died down.
“I should have known better than to cook fish for a child, anyway,” Lindsay said with a frown.
“Some kids like fish,” he said because she seemed to need some kind words.
“I don’t like it.” Emma made another face.
“Not that one, apparently.” Lindsay tilted her head to indicate the child who’d eaten only enough to survive, mostly pushing her food around on her plate to create little pink-and-green piles.
Not most of the kids he’d ever met, either, but Joe didn’t mention that. And asparagus was seldom a hit with the under-ten crowd. He kept that to himself, as well.
After Lindsay sent Emma upstairs to get her pajamas ready for her bath, she started stacking the dishes. “Dinner’s a daily battle around here.”
Joe carried several plates to the counter. “Have you ever considered making ‘kid-friendly’ meals like pizza, chicken fingers and mac and cheese?”
He was glad she hadn’t lifted her stack of serving dishes because as aghast as she looked, she would have dropped the whole thing on the floor.
“I don’t want to feed her that stuff. What kind of guardian would I—”
She stopped herself, but he got the gist of what she was saying. “Plenty of people give their children kid food. Do you think they’re all bad parents?”
“Of course not, but I …” She let her words trail away and shrugged.
“You’re awfully hard on yourself, aren’t you? My brother and I survived for a whole year on grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup after—well, we survived, anyway.”
Lindsay turned back from the dishwasher with curiosity in her eyes. “Why did you—”
“Never mind. It’s not that interesting a story.” He was sorry he’d mentioned it. Since when did he talk about his mother’s death and the lost years that had followed it? Rather than stand back and give Lindsay the chance to ask more questions, he helped her load the dishwasher.
“All I’m saying is, you should relax and give yourself a break. It’s okay for kids to have those things sometimes. It’s all about balance.”
He thought he’d been convincing, but Lindsay only started shaking her head.
“I have to get this right. To be the best guardian for Emma. I have to do it for her … and for Delia.” Immediately, her eyes filled, but Lindsay blinked back her tears. “I will get it right.”
“And I thought you were just worried about some deep-fried balls of processed chicken and globs of high-fat cheese mixed in with carbohydrate-filled pasta noodles.”
It wasn’t the best timing for a joke, but Joe either had to tell one or allow the emotion clogging his throat to really embarrass him. This all hit a little too close to home, to two little boys and the father who’d been forced to raise them alone.
“I was worried about those things, too.”
He couldn’t decide whether it was her smile or her determination that dazzled him, but he heard himself saying, “You’ll get it right. I know it.”
Lindsay stared back at him with wide eyes. Why did she find his statement of belief in her so surprising? He’d already said too much, yet he was tempted to say more, to tell her how impressed he was by her determination and her loyalty. That he’d thought those qualities were exclusive to people in uniform, not pretty redheads with the cutest freckles on their noses.
Okay, he wouldn’t have said that, but still he was grateful when the sound of a faucet from upstairs made sure he wouldn’t have the chance. A literal gift from above.
“Uh-oh.” Lindsay glanced up to the ceiling before starting for the stairs. “Emma, honey, please turn off the water until I get there.”
She seemed surprised when the faucet squeaked off again, as if she hadn’t expected the child to obey her.
“Well, I’d better get up there before she goes tub diving.” She started out of the kitchen, but then stopped and turned back to him. “Do you want to—”
“See myself out? Sure.” He hoped he didn’t sound as disappointed as he felt.
She blushed just like she had when he’d complimented her cooking. “Uh … I was going to ask if you wanted to wait here until I finish with Emma’s bath and her bedtime story, but if you need to get home—”
“I could stay,” he rushed to say. Yes, he could, but the question was whether he should. His sweaty hands and dry mouth suggested that answer was a big “no.”
“I’ll finish cleaning up the kitchen while you’re doing that.”
“You don’t have to.”
He waved off her refusal. “It will keep me occupied while I wait.”
“Okay, then.”
She appeared as nervous as she had two days before, when she’d shown up at the Brighton Post to dig around in a recent past that would have been better left undisturbed. He listened for her footfalls on the steps, and then the sound of running water upstairs, before collecting the pans on the stove and filling the sink to wash them.
But all he could think about as he scrubbed the pans and wiped down the counters was what he was still doing in Lindsay Collins’s condo when the child he was concerned about wouldn’t be around for the rest of the night. He was still helping out, right? He was here because he wanted to come to Lindsay’s aid to relieve his guilt over the accident and what he’d failed to tell her about it. Only those things.
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, buddy,” he said under his breath.
“Did you say something?”
Caught, Joe shut off the faucet and turned to face her. The running water, as he rinsed down the sink, must have been what kept him from noticing her approach. His senses were off with her. Until lately, he wouldn’t even have considered it possible that someone would be able to sneak up on him, and she’d done it without even trying.
Lindsay stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, her frustration obvious in the hard set of her jaw.
“It was nothing.” He cocked his head to the side. “Boy, that was a quick bath and story. What was it, a picture book?”
But Lindsay didn’t smile the way he’d hoped she would. If anything, her posture tightened.
“No book at all. Just a bath.”
“Oh, weren’t you planning to read—”
“I was. We read a book together every night. It’s one thing that she used to do with Delia that I’ve tried to continue every night she’s with me. It keeps away her nightmares. Usually.”
“Don’t feel as if you need to change your nighttime schedule just