In his frustration, he ran his hand across his forehead. When had his fascination for her unorthodox behavior turned into a grudging but growing attraction? And where in the hell was it going to get him in the long run, anyway?
He took Jake’s hand and started toward a large, wooded fenced-off area that surely housed Charlie’s zoo. At least the animals would take Jake’s mind off lunch. A meat-and-potato man himself, he wistfully wished for a hamburger. Not the best of choices for Jake, but he doubted anyone would be offering Jake’s current choice of food; peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
His stomach growled. Thank God he had his mother to help keep an eye on Jake and to feed him during the week. If it had been left up to him, the kid would have lived on fast food hamburgers and French fried potatoes. Unfortunately, his mother, who would have known to bring food to a do-it-yourself picnic, was off visiting a close friend for a few days. Thus the care and feeding of Jake this weekend was up to him. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to be doing a good job of it.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Jake hollered as he jumped up and down and pointed to the sky. The red balloon Mike had tied to Jake’s wrist had broken loose and was slowly floating away in the breeze. Before he could stop him, Jake ran after the balloon with Mike hard at his heels shouting for him to wait up.
The breeze grew stronger. The balloon picked up speed and sailed straight toward where Charlie was unpacking a picnic basket. To Mike’s surprise, she leapt to her feet and managed to catch the balloon before it sailed over her head.
Jake crowed happily and, before Mike could grab him, made a mad dash for the balloon—and Charlie.
Charlie laughed when a little boy ran into her and grabbed her around her knees. Amused, she handed him the errant balloon and, to her delight, was rewarded by a kiss and a hug.
Her smile faded when Mike Wheeler skidded to a stop in front of her.
“Thanks,” Mike said as he retied the balloon to Jake’s wrist. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t have caught it in time.”
Charlie’s eyes widened as she glanced down at the laughing little boy. To her surprise, he was a miniature duplicate of Mike, complete with golden-brown hair, blue eyes and a child-sized killer smile.
“Yours?”
“Mine. His name is Jake.” He looked down at the little boy. “Jake, this is Miss Charlie Norris. How about thanking her for saving your balloon?”
Wheels began to turn in Charlie’s head. Had Mike ever mentioned he was married? Or that he had a child? For that matter, when had he ever said anything about his private life? Never. So where did the kid come in?
She searched over Mike’s shoulder. “Where’s your wife?”
“She died a year ago,” he answered, his hands on Jake’s shoulders to keep him from darting away again. “There’s just me and Jake.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, itching to know what had happened to the late Mrs. Wheeler but too embarrassed to ask. The tight look around Mike’s eyes would have stopped her, anyway. She’d already guessed he was a man who kept his off-duty life private.
“Thanks again for your help,” Mike repeated. He took his son’s hand in his and started off across the lawn.
Charlie nodded and headed back to her blanket. Regardless of having worked in close proximity to Mike Wheeler at Blair House for the past year, she didn’t know him any better than he knew her.
Looking back over her shoulder, she saw the ever-watchful Mike lounging against an apple tree with his hands across his chest, never taking his eyes off Jake who’d stopped to investigate a rock. The expression on his face and the soft look in his eyes as he gazed at the boy told her how much the boy meant to him. She found herself smiling. Contrary to her earlier impression, maybe Mike was a man with a heart.
Gone were the traditional Secret Service black suit, white shirt and black tie that enabled him to fade into a background. In khaki slacks and jacket, a gray polo shirt and casual leather loafers, he looked like a new and different man. If the old one had attracted her, this new one had her full attention. He certainly didn’t resemble the all-business man he’d appeared to be ever since they’d first met. Today she was seeing a side of him he seldom showed to anyone.
Judging from the way he behaved with his son, Mike Wheeler was strong on the outside yet tender beneath the surface. He could be protective and nurturing, she thought as she gazed at him. But not with her.
To her secret regret, almost every man she met treated her like a sister or a friend. They even laughed at her carefree attitude and the oddball ideas she came up with.
Most of the men she met never saw her as a desirable woman.
The look in Mike’s eyes when he thought she wasn’t noticing told her that, in spite of himself, he thought she was hot. And, to her growing surprise, his interest made her feel womanly.
The long and the short of it was that, even though she was thirty-five and had successfully established her independence years ago, Mike made her yearn for someone of her own to watch over her.
But Mike by profession was a lawman. She had vowed never to fall for a lawman and, like her own mother, take the chance that someday she would have her heart broken.
“Daddy!” Jake ran back to his father. “I’m still hungry!”
Charlie heard Jake complain. It didn’t look as if Mike had brought lunch with him. She bit her lip, made up her mind to put her musings aside and went to join him. It was only a friendly gesture she had in mind. What could happen? “Can I help?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t think to bring anything for lunch,” Mike said with a helpless shrug. “I guess I thought I’d find a food vendor here. I’ll have to take Jake back into town.”
“But Daddy, there’s the zoo!”
Mike tried to connect a zoo with lunch and came up empty. “What about the zoo?”
“You said there’s a zoo here, Daddy.”
Charlie rushed to explain. “I was planning on taking anyone who’s interested to visit my zoo later this afternoon. The animals aren’t as frisky as they are in the morning.”
Jake’s eyes lit up. “I want to go to the zoo now!”
Mike held Jake by an arm before he could start off by himself again. “You actually have a zoo of your own?”
Charlie looked offended. “You still didn’t believe me?”
Left unsaid was the implication he should have known she was telling the truth. Even if the truth in this case was something most people would never have believed anyway. But then, Charlie wasn’t most people.
“Right,” he answered dryly. “Face it. A zoo isn’t the sort of thing most people have in their backyard.”
Charlie silently gestured to the mutinous expression on Jake’s face. “Now that you’re here, it would be a shame to miss the tour.”
“Guess so,” Mike muttered. “But if there’s a choice between the zoo and Jake’s lunch…”
“How about a hamburger and some veggies?” She pointed to the picnic basket. “I have enough for all of us.”
“Jake?”
“No peanut and jelly sandwiches?”
“No, I’m sorry.” Charlie answered with a proper sad look on her face. “But I do have celery sticks filled with peanut butter.”
“Cool!” Jake grinned happily.
Charlie