“No, it’s okay. I think it’s probably pretty normal. We’re her caregivers. Wanting to see us that way is searching for a kind of stability, I imagine.” Reed remembered having those same wants as a child with every new man his mother brought home. After a while, he’d gotten numb to those wants and eventually, started dreading each new encounter because it was always the beginning of the end.
Gina’s expression changed from light and open to concerned as she spread out the blanket and arranged the bags and basket just so. “Do you think she feels like her life is unstable?”
If he were more of a bastard, he could use this moment to pounce, to give himself the upper hand for further negotiations. But he didn’t want Gina to feel unsure of her choices. He knew that she’d done the best she could. Once he got past his own issues, he could see that.
“No. An unstable child wouldn’t ask for what they want like she does. She expects all of her needs to be met because they have been. You’ve done a great job, Gina.”
He didn’t expect her to melt into him the way she did, for her arms to lock around his waist and for her to bury her face in his neck. Reed embraced her carefully and tried not to think about how good she felt wrapped in his arms.
How good this whole day was turning out to be, despite having murdered Bostwick the garden gnome.
“I’m sorry, I just...I’ve tried so hard. I wanted her to have better than we did.”
“And she does. You’re a good mother.”
She broke away from him and everything in him wanted to reach out and pull her back against him. “But I’m not her mother.”
“You are in all ways that matter. You’ve been a good father, too. You’ve been everything. But you’re not alone now.”
Gina’s eyes fluttered closed. “You know, when I took her after Crystal died, I told them they couldn’t just give me a child. What was wrong with child services that they could just hand this child over to me?”
“I would’ve felt the same way, but I would’ve been right in my case. She’s happy, healthy, smart and kind. What more can you do?”
“I guess keep doing what I’ve been doing.” She looked away from him to scan the ball pit and then back at him. “So this is really happening, right? We’re getting married?”
“Yeah. If you say yes.”
“I think there are some things we need to talk about that weren’t addressed in the agreement.” She took a deep breath. “Are you dating?”
That was the last question he expected from her. “What?”
“Dating. Seeing someone. Hittin’ and quittin’...” She used their old high school slang for one-night stands.
“Uh, no, Gina. None of that.”
“Me, either. I don’t want a string of people in and out of her life.”
Her answer unknotted something tight in his chest. “I don’t really date at all. So that’s not a problem.”
“Why not?” She cocked her head to the side and looked up at him.
Her eyes were so clear, like the cloudless sky, and her bow mouth was pursed waiting for his answer. The distance between them began to disappear slowly but surely as he leaned in, perhaps to tell her a secret.
He hadn’t intended to kiss her, but he found himself leaning forward, anyway.
“Daddy! Come play with me,” Amanda Jane yelled.
Her voice startled Reed out of whatever spell had drifted over him and he launched himself to his feet and went to go play with his daughter.
HAD REED BEEN about to kiss her? Gina wondered.
The more important question was, would she have let him?
This kind of complication was the very last thing she needed.
She pressed her fingers to her lips, imagining just what she would do if he did kiss her. After kissing him back, of course. The part of her that wanted to know what it was like to kiss Reed Hollingsworth hadn’t grown out of it, perhaps never would.
She’d spent much of her teen years wondering what it would be like if he ever turned to her, if he ever leaned over ever so slowly, what it would be like. Would her world explode or dry up until it was nothing but dust?
Would his kiss be like a man’s or a boy’s?
She’d been infatuated with him as a girl, but now that she was a woman, all of those thoughts and feelings came rushing back tenfold.
But for him, she wondered if it was part and parcel to playing house with her. He suddenly had this ready-made family and maybe he figured she was just part of the deal. Take her, keep her happy, or maybe it wasn’t even that blatant.
Gina flopped back onto the blanket and stared up at the bright, endless ocean of sky. A gentle breeze played over her hair.
She’d spent so long trying to make sure any prospective boyfriends understood that Amanda Jane was part of the package, she forgot that she wanted someone else to want her for herself, too. She’d always kind of assumed that was a given.
Nothing could ever be so easy with Reed. He made her doubt herself on all fronts without even trying. In fact, he’d been nothing but encouraging and she found that she desperately wanted his approval.
She’d never worried about anyone’s approval but her own.
Until now.
Now her stupid brain wouldn’t do anything but think about why he’d almost kissed her, and what would’ve happened if he had, and if it was a sign from the universe that Amanda Jane had called out to him when she did.
Didn’t she have enough on her plate?
Apparently not.
She watched father and daughter play in the ball pit. The easy affection that had blossomed so quickly between them. Gina decided that maybe he’d be a great father, if he’d let himself.
Then Gina decided that she might be the most horrible person on the planet.
It was always in the back of her mind, sometimes the front, that Amanda Jane was her niece. Crystal had been her mother. Gina’s poor, tragic sister. It hadn’t had to end like it had, if only she’d fought more, done more...
But thinking about Crystal having this with Reed...days like today. Moments like the last one where he’d almost kissed her, it made her jealous. As jealous as she’d been when they were in high school and she kept waiting for Reed to notice that she was pretty, too. That she was smart. That she was the one who really wanted to be with him.
For the first time, Gina thought that Crystal hadn’t deserved these moments.
Who was she to judge? She knew Crystal’d had her own demons to exorcise and she knew there were things that lived in the shadows of memory that had always had a tight fist around her sister’s throat. She wouldn’t trade places with her for anything in the world.
And she couldn’t build her dreams on the hopes of her sister’s pain and suffering.
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