Hormones were undeniably stupid, but damn. They made a guy feel busting-high alive and full of himself—a sensation Jake hadn’t enjoyed in a blue moon and then some.
Temporarily his son diverted him from the view—primarily because he was doing something to torture both the gears and the brakes simultaneously. “Danny, what are you trying to do?”
Danny shot him an impatient look. “Parallel park, obviously.”
“Ah.” Perhaps it should have been obvious. They’d edged up the curb, down the curb, up on the stranger’s grass, down on the grass, several times now. Ahead of them was a freshly-washed SUV, behind them a satin-black Audi. In principle there was an ample ten feet between the cars. “Try not to go quite so close—”
“Well, this is hard,” Danny groused. “How the hell are you supposed to know where the back end of another car is if you can’t see it?”
But he could see her. Kasey, climbing out of the passenger seat, holding a small pink blanket. She hit him exactly the same way she had before—as if he were suffering the dizzying, stupefying effect of a stupid pill.
The darn woman wasn’t any prettier than she’d been the first time. No makeup. Her rusty-blond hair was wildly tousled. She was wearing some God-awful green print that overwhelmed her delicate features. But the details just didn’t matter.
The sound of her laughter pealed down the street. She didn’t laugh like a lady; she laughed as if her whole heart and belly were into it, joyful laughter, the kind of hopeless giggling that sucked in strangers passing by.
And the way she held the baby, it was damn obvious the kid was worth more than diamonds to her. As Graham crossed the car to her side, she climbed out, then surged up on tiptoe and kissed him. She looked up at him with a love so radiant and full that you’d think Graham was everything a woman ever dreamed of in a guy.
And there it was, Jake mused wryly. He got it, the reason he had such a hard time looking away from her. It was plain old jealousy.
He knew damn well no one had ever looked at him like that.
No one’s fault for that but him. He’d grown up a spoiled rich kid, raised to be selfish, to feel entitled, to take whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it. God knew his parents only meant to love him, but that upbringing had still skewed his perspective. It had taken his losing everything for Jake to figure out what mattered. He’d run out of time. Either he got around to developing some character, or he was going to end up lost for good.
An alcoholic—at least an alcoholic who was serious about recovering—discovered certain things about life. There were things you couldn’t do. Other people could. You couldn’t. Life was as simple and mean as that. No one else had your exact list, but Jake knew what was written on the forbidden side of his sheet. Being attracted to a married woman—a very, very married woman—was as off-limits as it got.
He understood Kasey’s tug on him. Something about her reminded him of what he once thought life could be—when he still believed in dreams, when he still believed in himself, when every moment of sunshine was a treasure. He understood—but he turned off the volume and the vision, promptly.
Danny had given up trying to parallel park. He took the first left turn, aiming back toward his mother’s house. He didn’t speed. His driving problems had never been about carelessness, but about having no natural sense for the stick shift and the car. The more impatient he got with himself, the more he tended to make mistakes. Jake tried to shut up. Time and experience were the answers, not carping. Besides, dads couldn’t die from nerves, could they?
Danny accidentally hit the gas, pulling into Paula’s driveway, tried to recover by slamming on the brakes, and then, of course, stalled. For the first time in almost two hours, the kid looked him straight in the eye.
“I suppose you don’t have time to do this again on Thursday,” he said disgustedly.
“I suppose I do.”
It probably hurt the kid like a sore, but hope surged in those broody blue eyes. “Same time? Four o’clock?”
“I may be a little late.”
“Yeah, so what’s new? The question is whether you’ll show at all, just because you say you will.”
Jake said easily, “Damn right. You think I don’t know how much I need to make up for, Sport, you’re mistaken. And in the meantime, if you also want to take on a drive on Saturday or Sunday—there’s less traffic early in the morning, so we could go for a longer trek.”
“You mean get up early?” Danny’s tone suggested that particular idea was as appealing as a snake bite.
“No sweat if you don’t want to. I just know you’re hot to get more driving hours in, and I can’t get here during the work week until after four. Weekend mornings could give us more time.”
Danny heaved out of the car. “I’ll think about it.”
“Okay.” Jake got out, too, and crossed to the other side, conscious that his son hadn’t used the word Dad, much less said anything as pleasant as “goodbye.” This lesson, though, had been significantly more peaceful than the last one. Danny hadn’t sworn at him. Hadn’t hit anything.
“Hey.” Danny stopped at the front door, key in the lock, turning back to offer one last belligerent look.
“Yeah?” Jake assumed the “hey” was meant as some kind of question.
“Thanks for taking me,” Danny said stiffly, and then promptly disappeared in the house and slammed the door.
Well, hell. Jake was stunned speechless. The kid had actually thanked him? Maybe, just maybe, father and son did have a chance to mend their fences. Of course, earning the kid’s respect was still an uphill battle.
CHAPTER 2
K asey pulled into her mother’s driveway, thankful she’d made it across town in record time. She had no time for a visit, not today, but she was too worried to postpone it.
Quickly she freed Tess from the car seat, then stole a few more moments to kiss her daughter’s cheek, then her forehead, then her chin. “How do you like the day, snookums? Feel the breeze? See the leaves just starting to change color?”
Once she scooped up Tess, she grabbed the five tons of baby paraphernalia it took to travel with a six-week-old infant. Mentally she was already scolding herself. How could anything be wrong on a fabulous day like this? The afternoon sun was brilliant. The wind had the tickle of fall. And assuming she did need advice, her mom—much as she loved her—was not usually a source of reassurance. Still, for the kind of worries she’d been plagued with, her mother was the only person she could turn to.
“Finally you’re here.”
Kasey jumped at the sound of her mother’s voice and whirled around. Ellen Markowitz clapped the screen door open and hustled down the porch steps, wiping her hands with a dish towel.
Kasey got the towel.
Grandma got the baby.
“I haven’t seen you in two whole weeks!” Ellen crooned to the baby. “But look at how she’s smothered you. Forty-seven blankets, and here it’s almost sixty degrees. And you’ve grown so much in two weeks! She knows I don’t like to drop by if Graham could be around. He’s so busy and I don’t want to be an interfering in-law, but you’d think my own daughter could find a minute to see me more often.”
“Mom…” It was probably useless trying to get a word in, but Kasey made a first try.
“Oh, yes. You.” Ellen turned around, smacked a fast kiss on her daughter’s cheek. “Come in, we’ll have tea—but we have to be quiet. Your dad’s home. He hurt his ankle yesterday. Right now he’s napping in the den and I’d just as soon not wake him up.”
Kasey