by Gina Wilkins
“Prepare?” Kim eyed her mother warily. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know. Just chat.” Her mother smiled blandly at Tate. “My mother and sister are…shall we say, rather difficult. I’m sure they’ll love you, you’re such a charming young man. But you should be on your guard tomorrow, anyway. If I could make just a few tiny suggestions…”
“Tate doesn’t need your suggestions, Mom,” Kim asserted flatly.
“Only a few little things. Like with Daryn, for example.”
Tate raised an eyebrow, holding up a hand toward Kim to signal that he could take this one. “What about Daryn?”
“I haven’t even seen you hold her, dear. Perhaps you could put a little more effort into your parenting.”
Kim gasped in outrage. “You haven’t even held Daryn, yourself, since we arrived! How dare you criticize Tate.”
“You fed her, then took her for a walk, then played with her while I prepared dinner, and then you put her straight to bed. When would I have held her?”
“Don’t give me that. You know you could have—”
“Besides, she doesn’t even know me.” Her mother’s voice held an affecting little quiver now. “It would break my heart if I tried to take her and she cried.”
Tate, at least, seemed to fall for the performance, even if Kim remained cynical. “I wouldn’t worry about that. I’m sure Daryn would love being held by you. She’s an easygoing little thing, doesn’t seem at all shy.”
Betsy smiled at him tremulously. “Thank you, dear. Perhaps she’ll let me play with her for a few minutes in the morning, if Kim will allow me a little time.”
Rolling her eyes, Kim murmured, “You’re welcome to play with her anytime you want.”
“Thank you, dear. Now, about tomorrow, Tate…”
“That’s enough, Mom. We don’t plan to stay that long tomorrow, anyway. I’d like to see Grandma for a few minutes and introduce her to Daryn, but that was my only goal for this weekend. The sole reason I dragged poor Tate along was because you insisted I would ruin your life if I exposed the shenanigans you’ve been pulling with them. So don’t tell him what to do tomorrow. You should be grateful to him for being here at all, not critical of anything he does while he’s here.”
“Well, of course I’m grateful. As you should be, of course. You’re very fortunate to have such a good friend to help you when you need him.”
“When I need him?”
“Well, yes. So you don’t have to confess to your grandmother and aunt that you’re—” Betsy paused to look around, then continued in a whisper “—an unwed mother.”
“Oh, for—”
“Um, Kim, why don’t we—”
Whatever hasty distraction Tate was going to suggest was interrupted when Bob came back outside. Perhaps sensing the tension in the garden, Bob looked quickly from his wife to their guests before saying, “The Cardinals game is getting pretty exciting in there. Julian’s watching now. We thought you might like to join us for the final innings, Tate.”
“Sure, I’m a Cards fan.”
“So am I,” Kim said, reaching for the baby monitor. “I’ll join you.”
The truth was, she couldn’t care less about baseball, but she’d had enough of her mother’s nonsense for now. At least in the den, she could pretend to be engrossed in the game, which would save her the effort of making more stilted conversation until it was a reasonable time to turn in.
Not that bedtime would be any easier, considering who she would be sharing a room with that night.
Deciding it would be less awkward if they didn’t try to get ready at the same time, Kim slipped out of the living room fairly early to prepare for bed. She washed her face and changed in the guest bath across the hall from the bedroom. Remembering that her mother tended to keep the air conditioner turned down quite cool, she’d brought a pair of navy pajamas with a button-up top and loose, elastic-waist long pants. She couldn’t have been dressed more modestly if she’d worn a turtleneck and overalls, she decided, appraising herself in the mirror. Which was exactly her intention.
She left the nightlight burning so that Tate had no trouble getting around in the room when he tiptoed stealthily in after she was in bed. Like her, he was basically fully dressed in a gray T-shirt and sleep pants striped in dark and light gray. She didn’t try to pretend to be asleep when he stood awkwardly beside the bed, looking as though he didn’t quite know what to do.
“I could curl up on the floor,” he said, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb the still-sleeping baby.
“Don’t be silly, there’s not room even if you could be comfortable there. Just don’t hog the covers, and we’ll get along fine tonight.”
She’d spoken lightly, treating the situation as no big deal. As if she were in the habit of sharing a bed platonically with male friends. She doubted Tate was fooled, but he seemed to relax a little in response to her easy tone.
He climbed into the bed, staying far to his side as he stretched out. “I don’t hog the covers and I don’t snore,” he assured her. “But I have been known to break into show tunes in my sleep.”
She lifted her head off the pillow. “Um—”
Chuckling, he rolled away from her. “Kidding. Good night, Kim.”
Laughing softly, she twisted to her other side so that they lay back-to-back. “Good night, Tate.”
* * *
Kim must have been very tired, or as a single mother she had learned to sleep when she could. Maybe both. As far as Tate could tell from his side of the bed, she was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
He wished he could say the same for himself. Though he remained very quiet and still so as not to disturb Kim, he lay awake for a long time, watching numbers scroll past on the digital clock on the nightstand.
Even though they weren’t touching, he was aware of every inch of Kim beside him. He was wryly aware that the pajamas she wore were modest enough to satisfy a nun, but that didn’t stop him from finding her appealing in her jammies. He had no intention of doing anything about that attraction, of course—despite the urgings of certain parts of him. He was a healthy young male, after all, even if he was trying to be a gentleman during this often-awkward adventure.
To distract himself from thoughts of the sexy lady in bed with him, he focused his attention toward the crib. At first he went on alert whenever the baby squirmed or made a sound, but Kim slept on, and the baby quieted almost immediately each time. Normal nighttime noises, he decided. He guessed parents got used to them.
And then he found himself waiting for those noises, worrying when the baby was too quiet. Was she okay? She was still breathing over there, right? Scary stories drifted through his mind and he held his breath until he heard her sigh and wiggle again.
He thought of Kim’s comment that she was somewhat sensitive about her parenting because the full responsibility for Daryn fell on her shoulders. Must be terrifying. He couldn’t imagine having to make daily decisions about food and day care and medical choices for an infant. How did one decide about the best nutrition for a nine-month-old when there were so many conflicting opinions? How did she know the safest place for her child to stay during the weekday hours when Kim had to work to support them? How did she know when a sniffle was just a sniffle or a sign of something more serious? When a whimper in the night was something to respond to immediately or to let pass by?
This was exactly why he’d so far avoided parenthood. Even at thirty, he didn’t feel qualified for that responsibility. He hadn’t been around babies much, hadn’t even held one in almost longer than he could remember and he’d been in no hurry to change that status. He’d had an unspoken rule against dating single mothers. Even really cute ones with pretty whiskey eyes and enchanting freckles.
Still, it
felt a little too nice to have Kim lying beside him, snuggled into her pillow, her breathing slow and even. Should his ego be stung that she had found it so easy to ignore him and fall asleep? He thought it might be, at least a little.
He must have fallen asleep at some point, because he was jerked awake before dawn by a shriek from the crib. Startled and disoriented, he nearly leaped from the bed, his heart pounding in his chest, his eyes wide and blurry. “What?”
Softly illuminated by the bluish night light, Kim was already at the crib, patting her daughter and making soothing sounds.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice. “I guess she woke up and didn’t know where she was.”
“I know the feeling.” Pushing a hand through his tousled hair, Tate sank back onto his pillow, drawing a deep breath to steady his pulse. “She’s okay?”
“She’s fine.” Tentatively, Kim raised her hand and stepped back from the crib. Daryn gave a little sigh, but lay still, already asleep again.
Kim returned to the bed, sitting on her side and swinging her legs up before lying on her pillow again, carefully avoiding physical contact with him.
The way his body responded to having her beside him again, she might as well have wrapped herself around him. He shifted uncomfortably on the mattress. Stupid male hormones, he chided himself.
“I wasn’t sure she’d go back to sleep,” she whispered. “Sometimes when she wakes up like that she decides it’s time for breakfast. But now she’ll probably sleep another hour or so.”
Forcing his attention to the conversation, Tate checked the time, seeing that it was just before 5:00 a.m. “Is she always awake by 6:00?”
“Usually. But she’s been sleeping through the night since she was four months old, so I’m not complaining about her early rising.”
She shifted on the mattress, and her foot just barely brushed his. She drew back quickly, but not before he felt the little shock of response from the contact. “I’m sorry she woke you. I hope you can go back to sleep.”
He shrugged, accepting that as a lost cause. “I tend to be an early bird, myself. Comes from working outside in the South in summer—best to get out early before the heat sets in.”
“I worked in the gardening center of a home improvement store the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. My job was to keep the displayed plants tidy and watered. I remember how hot those afternoons got here in Missouri. This has been such a brutal summer in Arkansas, I can’t help but feel sorry about anyone trying to work outside on those hundred-plus-degree days.”
He rolled on his side, propping his head on one arm. “You never told me you worked in a gardening center.”
“Only for one summer,” she reminded him, one hand beneath her cheek as she lay facing him. “My gardening experience hardly seemed worth mentioning compared to your and Evan’s horticulture degrees.”
“Did I ever mention that I thought about being a physical therapist? That was sort of my plan during high school, until I got a summer job with a landscaper and realized how much I liked working outdoors. I’ve always suspected Lynette was influenced by my talk of therapy careers to look into occupational therapy.”
She sounded intrigued by his confession. “I didn’t know you were ever interested in therapy. Funny, as much as we’ve talked during our lunches, there’s still quite a bit we don’t know about each other, isn’t there?”
Despite the very dim light in the predawn room, he could see her easy smile, which looked more natural than any smile he’d seen from her since they had arrived in Springfield. He couldn’t say whether it was because they were away from her family, or because the quiet, shadowy room and the sleeping baby nearby relaxed her innate guardedness or just because she was growing more comfortable with him again. Maybe all of the above, but he didn’t want to waste any more time sleeping when they could be enjoying their time together.
“There are still a lot of things I’d like to learn about you,” he said, still in that low, for-her-ears-only voice. “What made you decide to go into occupational therapy, for example?”
She chuckled. “Well, after that summer, I knew I wanted an indoor, air-conditioned job.”
He smiled, but prodded, “I’m sure there was more to it than that.”
She shrugged against her pillow. “My stepfather—the last stepfather before Bob,” she added with a wry twist in her voice. “The rancher?”
He nodded to indicate he remembered the hasty background she’d recited for him when they’d arrived in Springfield. “Stan, wasn’t it?”
“Right. Good memory. Anyway, the summer before my junior year in high school, Stan broke several bones in his left hand in a ranch accident. He had to have surgery, followed by a few weeks of therapy. I was only working part-time in a fast-food job that summer, so I drove him to therapy a few times and hung around to watch his sessions. After that, I just knew it was what I wanted to do.”
“You still like it, don’t you?”
“I love it,” she answered simply. “I enjoyed rotating through pediatric OT, but I’m at my best with adults.”
“Lynette enjoys her work, too. She talks about it all the time when we get together—though she’s careful to remember privacy guidelines for her patients,” he added quickly. “We enjoy hearing some of her stories during family dinners. She doesn’t give personal details, but she tells us about some of her most rewarding cases.”
Kim nodded. “We all cherish our personal victories, when we feel like we’ve really made a difference in someone’s life. Whether it’s something relatively minor, like recovering from hand surgery, or learning to eat and dress and perform other activities of daily living after a stroke or brain injury, there’s always a sense of satisfaction in helping someone regain at least part of what they’d lost.”
“There must be plenty of frustration, as well.”
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “When there’s little more we can do, or when we know more progress could be made if the client would exert a little more effort or when financial limitations interfere with potential progress. But any job has its frustrations.”
“True. I have to confess, it always surprises me that Lynette has the patience for the job. She’s always so rushed and so impulsive outside of work.”
Kim laughed softly. “Yes, but she’s a wonderful therapist. Her clients love her. She’s especially good in the inpatient setting, with patients who are still reeling from their injuries and loss. She has quite a knack for encouraging them and lifting their spirits.”
“She has high praise for you, too. She said you’re the most patient, most unrufflable of any therapist she’s worked with.”
“That’s nice of her.” Kim sounded a little self-conscious about the praise when she teased, “But unrufflable? Is that even a word?”
He grinned. “You know how Lynette likes to coin her own vocabulary.”
“Yes, she does. I’ve grown very fond of your sister in the past six months of working with her. I consider her one of my best friends. Emma, too. We all meshed very well from the start.”
“Lynette feels the same way. She has told me she’s very glad you came to work in her department.” Without thinking, he reached out to brush a wayward curl from Kim’s sleep-softened face. “I’m glad, too. I’ve very much enjoyed getting to know you during our Wednesday lunches.”
“I’ve enjoyed it, too,” she murmured, her gaze locking with his.
Because she hadn’t immediately drawn away from his impulsive touch, and because it felt so very good to do so, he drew his fingertips down the line of her jaw to the very faint indention in her chin. “We did kind of hit it off from the start, didn’t we?”
He regretted speaking so unguardedly when he sensed the invisible wall immediately go up between them again. Kim s
eemed to draw into herself before murmuring in a much more stilted tone, “Yes, I’ve come to consider you and Evan good friends, too.”
Tate noted that she had been careful to link his name and Evan’s on an equal basis. Which reminded him of the way she had parted from Evan, a memory that still rather annoyed him. Looking at Kim’s soft, unpainted mouth, he didn’t like knowing that Evan’s lips had touched hers since his had. The unexpected surge of possessiveness caught him by surprise, but also provoked him into a very unwise move. Without giving himself time to think about it, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Kim’s.
He was absolutely sure he felt her start to respond. Her lips moved just slightly beneath his, softening, warming. Being kissed by her in front of their friends had been surprisingly stimulating. Kissing her in the intimacy of a rumpled bed in the predawn shadows rocked him all the way to his bare toes.
Kim pulled back suddenly with a little gasp, nearly falling off the edge of the bed behind her. She caught herself before he could, then shoved herself upright. “What was that for?”
“Just giving my wife a good morning kiss,” he said, hearing the slightly husky edge to his low voice.
“Save the acting for an audience,” she advised sternly, swinging her feet to the floor. “We’ve already agreed kissing isn’t a part of this charade.”
“Did we? Pity.”
Studiously ignoring him, she dug into her suitcase.
“I’m not going to be able to go back to sleep,” she said with a glance at the still-snoozing baby. “I’ll go take a quick shower before Daryn wakes up for breakfast. I don’t think she’ll stir before I get back, but if she does, you can just pat her back to let her know someone is here with her.”
“Um—” He looked warily at the crib, frankly nervous about being left alone with the baby for even that short time. What if she took one look at him and screamed? He wouldn’t have a clue how to shush her before she roused the entire household.
“She’ll be fine. Try to go back to sleep yourself, if you want.”