“Hey, Mom!” He grinned up at her, the dimple on the left side of his mouth and the thick fall of dark hair across his forehead foreshadowing the lady-killer he would no doubt be one day. Just like his father. “You came home early,” Ian said.
“Not to stay, I’m afraid.” She hugged him and smoothed the hair out of his eyes. But his attention had already shifted to Jack. Ian ducked his head behind her leg and peeked out.
Jack squatted in front of the boy—it had to be an awkward movement, considering his injuries, but a slight wince was the only sign of difficulty he gave. “Hello, Ian,” he said. “My name is Jack.”
“Mr. Prescott,” Andrea corrected. She nudged her son. “Say hello, Ian.”
“Hello.” The words came out muffled against her leg, but Ian’s eyes remained fixed on Jack, bright with interest.
“What’s your favorite food, Ian?” Jack asked.
Ian looked up at his mom. “You can answer him,” she said.
“Grilled cheese sandwiches,” Ian said.
Chelsea laughed. “He would eat grilled cheese every meal if his mother and I would let him.”
“I like grilled cheese, too,” Jack said.
“I’ll just get my keys.” Andrea slipped inside and went to the drawer in her bedroom where she kept her spare set. She paused to study the photo on her dresser, of her and Preston and eighteen-month-old Ian on her lap. Ian liked to hold the picture and ask questions about his father, but one day pictures and her memories weren’t going to be enough. A boy needed a father to help him learn to be a man.
She returned to the porch to find Jack and Ian in the driveway, studying something on the tricycle. “What’s going on?” she asked Chelsea.
“Guy talk.” Chelsea dismissed the two males with a wave of her hand. “What’s this about your purse being stolen?” she asked.
“A purse snatcher. Jack chased him, but the guy was too fast.” She jingled her keys. “I’ll have to call when I get to my office and cancel my credit cards and see about getting a new driver’s license.”
Chelsea sidled closer and lowered her voice. “Jack is definitely a hottie,” she said. “How long have you two been an item?”
Andrea flushed. “Oh, no, it’s not like that. I mean, we just met.”
“You don’t act like two people who just met.” Chelsea grinned.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You can’t take your eyes off him. And he feels the same way.”
Andrea glanced at Jack, something she realized now she had been doing every few seconds since she had returned to the porch. He was kneeling beside the trike, listening while Ian gave some long explanation about something. Just then Jack looked up and his eyes met hers, and she felt a jolt of pleasure course through her.
Jack stood and patted Ian’s shoulder. Then the two rejoined the women on the porch. “Ian was telling me about the pedals sticking on his ride,” he said. “I’ll bring some oil over sometime and fix the problem for him.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she protested. Jack was a client. They were supposed to have one casual lunch and some conversation. Now he was getting involved in her personal life.
“I’m going to help Jack fix my bike,” Ian said.
“Mr. Prescott.” Her voice sounded faint, even to her, as she made the automatic correction.
“It’s no trouble,” Jack said.
Arguing about it, especially in front of Ian and Chelsea, seemed a waste of breath. “All right.” She knelt and hugged her son. “I have to give a speech tonight for a police-officer spouse group, so I won’t be home until late,” she said. “But Chelsea has a special treat for you.”
“Pizza and a movie.” Chelsea put a hand on the boy’s head.
“And root beer?” Ian asked.
Chelsea looked to Andrea. “All right. You may have one glass of root beer with your pizza,” Andrea said.
“A big glass,” Ian said.
Jack laughed. “You’re quite the negotiator, pal,” he said.
Ian beamed at the praise. Butterflies battered at Andrea’s chest. This wasn’t good. She didn’t want Ian so focused on a man she hardly knew. Especially a man like Jack, with a dangerous job and a reckless attitude. “We’d better go,” she said. “I have clients to see this afternoon.”
“I like your truck,” Ian said to Jack.
“Maybe I’ll give you a ride sometime,” Jack said.
Andrea waited until they were in the vehicle and driving away before she spoke, choosing her words carefully. “You shouldn’t have said that, about giving him a ride in your truck,” she said.
“I would want you to come along, too,” he said.
“Saying you’ll take him for a ride promises some kind of ongoing relationship.”
His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, the only sign of any emotion. “Would that be so bad?”
She turned toward him, her hands fisted in her lap. “You’re my client. I hardly know you.”
“I had a good time today,” he said. “I’d like to see you again. You and Ian.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“It just...wouldn’t.”
“Because of the client thing? What if I decided not to see you in a professional capacity anymore?”
“It wouldn’t matter.” She looked out the window, at the passing lines of shops crowded along the highway in Durango’s downtown area. Evergreen garlands, wreaths and hundreds of tiny white lights decorated the Victorian buildings, making the scene look right out of a Christmas card. People filled the sidewalks, hands full of shopping bags, or carrying skis or snowboards, fresh from a day at Durango Mountain Resort.
“Is there someone else?” he asked. “Do you have a boyfriend? I didn’t get that vibe from you.”
What kind of vibe would that be? But she wasn’t going to go there. “I’m busy with my job and raising my son,” she said. “I don’t have time to date.”
“You don’t have time to date a cop.”
His perceptiveness momentarily silenced her. She stared at him.
“I’m not a trained therapist, but if your husband was killed in the line of duty, it doesn’t take a degree to figure out you might not want to repeat the experience.” He glanced at her, then back at traffic. “But even civilians can get hit by buses or fall off of mountains or have a heart attack while mowing the lawn.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to date you, Jack.”
“Fine. But I will have to see you again.”
“Why is that?”
“I’m going to try to find out more about the guy who snatched your purse. I’m going to try to find him.”
“Don’t worry about it. Everything in there can be replaced.”
“Maybe. But I don’t think he was in that café this afternoon for the sole purpose of stealing a random stranger’s purse. He was watching us—watching me—for a while before he made his move. I want to find out why.”
“I