“I’ll have a serious heart-to-heart with him, Scout’s honor. We’ll do the whole boundaries deal.” By that time, Daniel had swung the kid up on his shoulders and the kitchen rang with Landon’s giggles of delight.
Something about the sight melted Kimberly’s heart. Maybe it was because she’d never had anyone do that for Marissa. Maybe any handsome guy with any cute kid would have made any single mom’s insides quiver.
Or maybe it was the way he held her gaze just a tenth of a second longer and added in an offhand manner, “I’ll keep an eye out for Marissa, too.”
Whatever it was, Kimberly had to remind herself that the only reason they were here, in the midst of everything she couldn’t give Marissa, was that Daniel, handsome or not, was holding out about Marissa’s birth mom.
And that didn’t square with the man strolling out the back door, a little boy securely on his shoulders.
THE LAST DISH was washed, the grill cleaned, the scraps fed to Rufus and even Landon and Logan were splayed out on the floor asleep in the living room. Daniel looked around for Kimberly, sure she’d want to head home.
Maegan caught his gaze and whispered over the sleeping baby in her arms, “I think she went to check on Taylor and Marissa.”
Daniel couldn’t help but reach out to stroke baby Sophie’s plump cheek. Just as his fingers drew closer, Maegan swatted him away. “Don’t even think about it. It took me a half hour to get my niece asleep, and if you wake her up, she can be your niece again.”
“She is my niece.”
“Funny, ha-ha, you always seem to forget that when she’s cranky and crying, big brother.” But there was no real reproach in Maegan’s voice, just her usual teasing.
“I guess I’d better see if Kimberly is ready to go. I got sidetracked with the dynamic duo...” He trailed off and pivoted toward the back of the house.
“Hey, Daniel...I really like her,” Maegan called after him in a hoarse whisper.
“Sophie?” he asked.
“No, you big lug. Kimberly. And Marissa. I’m glad you brought them out here.”
Daniel nodded, but he wasn’t convinced that it had been his smartest move. He’d viewed it as a consolation prize, a way to give them something when he couldn’t break the promise he’d made so many years ago. Now he worried that it would be harder than ever to keep that promise.
He found Kimberly standing stock-still in front of a bedroom door, the door slightly ajar. Tweenage-girl voices came filtering through it. When Kimberly spotted him, she blushed but held up a finger to her lips.
“—and I thought I had it bad,” Marissa was saying. “You mean you never get to eat a Big Mac?”
“Nope. High fructose corn syrup in the ketchup and the bun. But I get to drink the coffee, so whenever I go with friends, I get me a coffee and sip on it.”
“Wow! You get coffee? My mom would never let me drink coffee. It’s always, ‘Marissa, remember your bleeding disorder,’ or ‘Be careful, Marissa,’ or...I dunno. She doesn’t mean to be a pain, but man, is she ever a helicopter mom. That could be her motto, you know? I am Helicopter Mom. Feel my rotor wash.”
“But you’ve got that cool medical ID bracelet... Wow! I’ve got to get my mom to order one like that. Where’d you say you got it? Mine’s all clunky, like something a fifty-year-old man would wear with pants up to his armpits and a sweater vest,” Taylor declared.
That, along with the rotor-wash comment, was the last straw for Daniel. He felt a mix of laughter and shame at eavesdropping pulse through him, and he tugged Kimberly by the arm and headed down the hall and out the door to the side porch.
“Do you do that a lot?” he asked. “Listen in at keyholes?”
“No. And I got my just desserts, let me tell you. Feel my rotor wash?” She laughed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“You know, the two of us are smack-dab in the middle of middle-aged, if those girls think fifty is ancient.” Daniel sank down into the swing and let out a belly laugh.
Kimberly collapsed beside him, closer than she’d been all night. He could feel the silky strands of her hair brush against his arm, smell the scent of strawberries clinging to her as she chuckled along with him.
She lolled her head back on the swing and stared up at the porch ceiling. Her laughter petered out into a rueful sigh.
“I only want to keep her safe, you know? Safe and healthy. But...if I make sure she survives to be a grown-up, will her love for me survive, too?” Kimberly’s words vibrated with a regret and uncertainty that pulled at Daniel. With a team under his command, and the memory of the awful fire that had claimed his father and critically injured several other firefighters, he understood Kimberly’s dilemma perfectly.
He didn’t even realize that he’d clasped her hand in his until he felt her twine her fingers more tightly into his grip. But he couldn’t pull away. Her hand in his fit too neatly, too right.
“It’s a tough job. I’m sort of in the same boat, what with keeping my guys fit and healthy and safe. They don’t see the need for the exercise program I’ve insisted on, or the regular home-cooked meals. You know the number one killer of firefighters in the line of duty? Heart attacks. Not burns, not smoke inhalation, not heat stroke. Heart attacks. Every time I see a fast-food sack in one of my guys’ hands, I can almost picture him keeling over in the middle of a structure fire.”
“But they respect you. I could tell that. Today. They listened to you, they didn’t argue.” Something in the way Kimberly said it made Daniel sure that she didn’t enjoy the same rapport with Marissa. “So how do you keep them safe and not make them hate you?”
“Ultimately it’s easier with guys who need a paycheck,” Daniel admitted. “With kids... Honestly? I don’t know. When I was Taylor and Marissa’s age, I thought I was ten feet tall and bulletproof, too. Still, even with kids... I mean, she’s almost twelve, right? So you can ease up. She knows, Kimberly. She gets it, even if you don’t think so. I see that in Taylor. She may carp and complain, but when someone offers her something to eat, she’s the first one to say, ‘No label? No, thank you.’”
Kimberly snuggled deeper into the cushions of the swing—and tighter against Daniel—as she slipped off her shoes and tucked one foot under her. Daniel’s breath caught in his throat as he noticed the petite perfection of that foot, with the pale pink polish on the toes. Inwardly, he shook himself.
This woman would be gone by tomorrow. What they had here was some sort of fake chemistry, some tenuous bond because of their link to Marissa. It wasn’t real. And even if it was...
Kimberly yawned. In a drowsy, distracted way, she said, “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that Marissa is just four years younger than her birth mother when she gave birth to her?”
Daniel’s body stiffened. It was as if a page to a fire had sounded, her words zapping through him and setting every nerve on high alert. How to answer that? Was this Kimberly’s sneaky way of worming more information out of him?
“What do you know about her birth mother?” Daniel asked in way of a reply.
“Well...not much,” Kimberly said. “I have a copy of the police report. And when DFCS gave me custody of Marissa, they provided me with their own incident report. Maybe the social worker shouldn’t have, I don’t know, but it gave me the bare outlines of the events. Although...I didn’t know Marissa was actually born at the fire station until you told me.”
Again, Daniel was taken back to that day, to that