The Daughter He Wanted
“You didn’t!” Alison’s eyes widened to quarter size.
“Nope, she totally inferred it.”
“You let her.” Alison put her hands on her hips. “And after I cooked your favorite chicken for lunch.”
“I couldn’t let her think I was dating Alex, could I?”
“Uh, ladies, we kind of like being talked about, but not when we’re actually in the room.” Tuck spoke up from the kitchen counter. “And if we’re dating, Alison, you should probably know my name isn’t Joe. It’s Tucker.”
Alison blushed a bright red that clashed completely with her auburn hair. Tuck grinned at her and wrapped a strand around his finger.
“But you can call me Tuck.”
“Back to the issue at hand.” Alex spoke up from the doorway, where his gaze shot from the people on the porch to the little girl in the yard. “What do we tell them about me?”
“Nothing,” Paige finally said after weighing her words. “You’re a friend here for a barbecue. That’s all anyone needs to know.”
* * *
THE PANICKED LOOK on Paige’s face made Alex want to march out onto the deck to order Hank and Dot to stop treating their daughter as if she were five, or an unwanted annoyance. But that wouldn’t solve anything. He’d never gotten to fix the strained relationship he’d had with his parents because they’d died in a car accident when he was in college. Then Deanna had come along with her boisterous family and a home filled with love and encouragement. Knowing her family helped him make peace about his own.
Alex had no idea how to give the same peace to Paige and that made his stomach clench in a weird way.
Why did he want to tell them anything? Part of him wanted to scream from the rooftop that he was Kaylie’s father. Watching her in the backyard had been a treat and after only an hour, she had already wound her way into his cold heart. But part of him wanted to keep his relationship with Kaylie a secret. Let it grow naturally without any preconceived notions or ideas. He had a feeling that if Hank and Dot knew he was Kaylie’s father, Kaylie would also know before the day was out. He didn’t have to have read a million parenting books to know this was not the way to spring a new relationship on a kid. Although he had read one. A long one Dee had picked out before she got sick; the author insisted children needed structure, unconditional love and encouragement. Mostly structure and authority, though. Nowhere did the book say a child’s sperm donor should swoop into her life acting like Daddy Dearest within a thirty-minute time span.
“So we’re just friends, for now, and leave the dating to Joe and Alison over there,” he finally said. “Works for me.”
Alex was tasked with carrying the additional place settings to the table while Tuck was given chicken duty. Paige and Alison filled glasses while Hank and Dot ignored the goings-on entirely. He might not have a romantic relationship with Paige, but he wanted to kick her parents in the shins to make them straighten up.
From what he could see Paige was the perfect daughter. He’d done some checking and learned she volunteered making receiving blankets for a charity hospital in St. Louis. She was a teacher and she was raising an amazing kid! How could her parents not see all the wonderful things about her?
She brushed against him as she took the last of the glasses to the table and a hot zing of pleasure rocketed from the light contact at his shoulder to his groin.
Eventually his body would get the message that his brain already knew: Paige was the mother of his child. She might become his friend. She was not going to be his girlfriend.
The table was quiet as they passed plates of food around.
“My friend at the gallery wants to know when you might have another piece for him,” Dot said, her gaze intent on Paige. “There is a big show for local artists coming up at the end of the month, you know.”
Paige took a bite of her salad and chewed slowly. “I’m focused on school during the year, you know that. My students need all of my attention.”
“Paige, these offers aren’t made lightly, dear, and they won’t be made for long if you keep turning them all down.”
“Is the painting in your living room for school?” Alex interrupted, sensing Dot was about to go on a tangent. “The white daisy?”
She shook her head. “That one is for Kaylie, actually. She wanted something pretty in her room. Didn’t you?”
Kaylie nodded, her wavy hair bouncing around her shoulders. “I wanted something warm so when the snow comes after Christmas my room won’t be so cold.”
“The painting was beautiful. I don’t know a lot about art, but I liked it.” He had. It wasn’t finished and he’d only caught a glimpse but the pretty garden in the painting reminded him of Paige. Her home. Herself. Pretty and interesting.
“Thank you.” She mouthed the words across the table and Alex lifted his shoulder. Paige grinned and finished her salad.
“So you are painting, then?” Dot was like a dog with a bone and Paige rolled her shoulders, as if relieving tension. He could only imagine how her mother’s nagging affected her but ordered himself to focus on the chicken, not the woman. “You have the chance to really make something of yourself, Paige. Teaching painting to uneducated children who don’t understand Impressionism much less the Renaissance isn’t using the talents you were blessed with—”
* * *
“I LIKE MY JOB, MOTHER,” Paige interrupted before her mother could really get going. This was the same argument they’d been having since before Kaylie was born, and unlike when she was a child, Paige didn’t need her parent telling her she was wasting her talents. As much as she liked painting she was no van Gogh. Besides, she liked teaching, and she had told her mother so. For the millionth time. “I like educating the children about art history, and I can see how their work changes with that knowledge throughout the year. Some of them are really good.”
“But, sweetheart—”
“Mommy’s paintings are the best in the school. I seen them in the library.” Kaylie enunciated the last word. She had barbecue sauce all over her face and she turned a megawatt smile to Paige. Dot shot an annoyed look at Kaylie.
Alison scraped her chair back. “Who wants dessert? I know I’d love some chocolate cake.” She looked around the table at the still-half-full plates. “Okay, chocolate cake it is. Kaylie, why don’t you help me cut a few slices?” She held out her hand and Kaylie jumped up from the table.
“Can we cut them in shapes?”
“Sure, kiddo,” Alison said as she slid the glass doors open. “We’ll make cutout cake slices.”
Their voices trailed off as she slid the door closed behind them. She refused to have the rest of this conversation before virtual strangers so Paige turned to the other side of the table.
“Tuck, Alex, could you give us a few minutes?” Paige asked and waited until the men closed the door.
“It’s nice, dear, that you enjoy the school work,” said Dot, a patronizing note in her voice that was the opposite of the slightly uncomfortable expression on her face. She seemed to bite her tongue for a moment.
“I like my job, Mother—”
Dot cut her off. “But the fact remains that your talent is above decorating school libraries or a child’s bedroom. We only want what’s best for you.” She pressed her fingers to her temple again. “So stressful, wanting the best for children who don’t listen. Hank?”
He nodded and stood, not saying a word.
“Think about what I said, dear. Your work could be hanging in a real gallery if you would only apply yourself.”
Paige didn’t trust herself to reply with the calm she’d perfected over the past few years. So she focused her attention on gathering the plates left at the table. A few minutes later, Dot and Hank were gone. The door slid open.
“And I thought my parents were disappointed when I decided to hike for a living,” Tuck said. His flippant words had the desired effect. The ice chilling the backyard thawed and talk turned to football and Alison’s work at a local winery.
Kaylie skipped onto the deck and finished her juice before running back to the swing set, certain the trapeze was ready for her this time. Alison gathered two serving bowls and started for the kitchen; Tuck followed with the platters of chicken, leaving Paige and Alex alone on the porch.
“I really did think your painting was good.”
“Thanks.” Her word was a whisper, and when she caught sympathy in his gaze she knew a hint of pain still shone through her green eyes. “I’m sorry about that. Alison was supposed to call them to cancel but she forgot.” Paige tossed her napkin on her plate. “I should have been the one to call, but somehow they can still make me feel so small.” She folded her arms over her chest.
“I’ve seen worse.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“I changed my major from accounting to natural sciences my sophomore year. My dad was an accountant. His dad. My mother’s brother. My parents thought I was turning into a hippie or something.”
“Really?” Paige finally looked at him. Alex nodded. “I keep telling myself I won’t do that to Kaylie. I want to be her support, her encouragement. Not a stumbling block to her happiness.”
“Then you will be.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“You’re doing a great job, from what I’ve seen, so far.”
Paige felt herself glow at the compliment. “Thank you.”
Alex shrugged. He was quiet for a long moment, watching the little girl across the yard. He could see this becoming a normal part of his life. He’d always wanted family, kids. And, yeah, he thought that was over when Dee died, but maybe...
Kaylie climbed to the top of the ladder and squinted her eyes at the trapeze swinging lightly in the breeze.
Alex held his breath when she flexed her knees, still studying the handrail. Then she reached forward and jumped. Caught the handle, swung forward and back a few times, giggling madly across the yard. When the trapeze slowed, she dropped to the ground and circled back to the ladder.
“Good job, sweetpea,” Paige called across the yard, clapping for the little girl.
Paige was right. The two of them were a unit. They didn’t need him, not the way he suddenly seemed to need them.
“Would you like to go to dinner sometime? Just us?” The words escaped before he could pull them back. Paige turned, green eyes wide. She swallowed and put her hand to her throat.
“Why? What?” Paige asked, her voice unsteady.
Even if he could, Alex didn’t want to take the words back. He wanted more days like this one.
Maybe Paige and Kaylie were his second chance. Different from what he’d imagined, but second chances didn’t come along every day.
Maybe moving fast was worth the risk. So he repeated himself.
“Do you want to go to dinner sometime? Just the two of us?”
CHAPTER SIX
PAIGE REACHED FOR her glass, took a slow sip of tea. Have dinner?
No, that was a bad idea, with a capital B and I for emphasis.
They were supposed to keep this friendly, get to know one another.
Still, her heart had leaped in her chest at his words, and she knew they were so much more than friendly.
Her reaction was similar to the ones she’d had toward her crushes in high school. The flying feeling that accompanied her wild trip to Texas over spring break; the excitement at seeing how her father’s face practically glowed when he learned she was dating one of his students. Every single one of those situations had ended with a loud implosion and weeks of Paige picking herself up and putting herself back together.
Dinner was an exceptionally bad idea.
She finished her glass and, because her hands wanted to fidget, she set the glass away from her and then folded them primly in her lap. Squeezed her fingers until her knuckles turned white as a reminder to remain calm. Poised. Fidgeting was a sign of weakness according to Dot; weakness was not tolerated.
“Are you asking me out on a date?” She wished the words back but it was too late.
Alex slipped his finger around the middle of his glass, making a gap in the condensation on the outside. “Yeah, I am.”
Paige looked through the sliding glass doors, but Alison was nowhere to be seen. For that matter neither was Tuck, and Kaylie was across the yard at the sandbox, having given up on swinging from the trapeze. No one to come to her rescue. No one to interrupt what was going to be a very uncomfortable conversation.
She cleared her throat. “Why?”
“Because you interest me. No one has interested me in...well, a long time.” He squinted as he looked into the bright afternoon sunshine. “I want to get to know you. Dinner seems like a good option.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. We barely know each other.”
“That’s how dating usually starts—with two people who don’t really know each other but who want to get to know one another.” He finished his tea. “I think it would be good if I knew Kaylie’s mom a little better.”
Kaylie was the perfect excuse to turn him down, Paige decided. “I don’t date, not really. I especially don’t date men who have a connection to my daughter. She’s just a little girl, she can’t understand the emotions that go into dating—or stopping dating, for that matter.”
“It’s only dinner. A chance for me to get to know Paige, not just Kaylie’s mom. A chance for you to understand Alex rather than the anonymous number on the sperm-donor sheet.”
“We did that already. Coffee last Friday, remember? You know I’m a schoolteacher, I know you’re a park ranger and we’ve already agreed that you’ll start out as Kaylie’s friend before we move to the more serious stuff.” She had to remain firm on this. For Kaylie.
Maybe a little bit for herself. Because look how interested she was in him now and she’d only known him for a few days.
“One coffee date, and we never touched on your actual art. Your plans for the future. Mine, for that matter.” Alex pushed away from the table. “I like what I know of Paige-the-Woman. I’d like to get to know more about her.”
Oh, so dangerous. Getting to know the real Paige. Would that be the Paige who helped to plastic-wrap the police cruiser the night of the big ice storm? Or would that be the Paige who scored exceptionally high on her SATs only to choose art school over an Ivy League education?
Or maybe he’d like to know the Paige who used men as a means of getting her parents’ attention. She’d been living down Fun Paige’s reputation for almost five years, since the night she broke things off with the law student and decided to change the direction of her life.
Most people didn’t mention all the hell she’d raised as a kid. Most of them, even Mrs. Purcell, welcomed her back to the quiet community in the Missouri countryside just before Kaylie was born. She was grateful for the welcome. For their acceptance of her and of Kaylie. She would not jeopardize any of that for a date with Alex Ryan.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want Alex to live down her reputation. But she didn’t want to see his face when he learned the kind of person she used to be. That she apparently still was, because the voice in her head telling her to go out on a date with Alex was Fun Paige. The Paige who acted first and thought about the consequences later. The Paige she’d promised herself she wouldn’t be when she had her own family.
She couldn’t afford to be that woman, not again.
Paige loosened her hands in her lap. It wasn’t even that she thought her reputation would smear Alex’s.
The problem was she didn’t want him to know, period. She liked knowing that when he looked at her he only saw the woman she was now. There was no shadow of the girl she used to be. No past for him to dredge up and use against her. For Alex there was only Paige-the-Mom or Paige-the-Teacher.
She wanted to keep it that way.
It was smarter that way. Smarter for her. Definitely smarter for Kaylie.
This was not the time to act impulsively but to come up with a plan and stick to that exact path.
Having a path and a plan was absolutely smarter.
Why did she keep repeating that to herself?
Paige tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked anywhere but at Alex, who leaned against the deck railing, feet crossed at the ankle, thumbs tucked into his back pockets. T-shirt taut over what had to be the best-looking set of pecs she had yet to see.
Nope, she was definitely not looking at him.
She had a plan: let Alex be Kaylie’s friend, watch him like a hawk—not in that way, in a motherly way—and assign him to the “friends without benefits” category she assigned nearly every man she knew.
“Paige-the-Woman stays up too late, hates washing her car and is probably a little too indulgent with her daughter.” She picked up Kaylie’s plate, still filled with veggies but with barely a smear of barbecue sauce left, and gestured at it for emphasis. “This is about Kaylie, remember? Getting to know her, building a relationship with her.”
“I’m not sure getting to know Kaylie precludes getting to know you. And, if you’re worried about veggie intake, you could always make vegetables a game.”
Paige laughed. “You read a parenting book, didn’t you?”
Alex blushed, which made Paige giggle harder. He was cute when he blushed. And he crinkled his nose when he laughed along with her.
“I might have read one, but it had some good ideas.” He followed her into the kitchen, carrying their empty glasses in his big hands. “You know, count the stalks of broccoli as the kid puts them in her mouth—”
“And wait for her to throw them up when she can’t chew all seven at once?”
“Okay, that might work better on peas. But there’s always the reward system.”
Paige rinsed the plates, holding in the urge to shake her head or dissolve into another laughing fit. Alex didn’t deserve that. He was trying. And parenting books weren’t bad, per se, it was more that living with a toddler in the real world meant being a little more creative. “So you’d have me bribe my daughter with M&M’s or a video game each time she eats her vegetables?”
“Reward, there’s a difference.”
“Tomato, to-mah-to.” She finished rinsing the dishes and stacked them in Alison’s dishwasher. “So, Kaylie eats her vegetables because she gets chocolate or something as a reward. To get her to finish her homework—”
“She has homework in preschool?” Alex asked incredulously.
“In theory.” Paige scrunched her brows together. What was her point again? Right, the reward system. “To get her to put her dirty clothes in the hamper—better reference?”
He nodded and motioned for her to continue.
“—the reward is an extra fifteen minutes of television, and then she expects that same return with everything. But life isn’t like that. We don’t all get the fluffy unicorn at the checkout counter just because we put strawberries and apples in our shopping cart rather than chocolate-chip cookies and potato chips.”
“She’s only four, and it’s only a way to get her to try something new.”
“And then she’s fourteen and then twenty-four, and then she’s still living at home when she’s thirty-four because she’s never learned that there are things you do—like hold down a job and pay rent and buy groceries—even though you don’t like those things.” Paige huffed out a breath. “I’m not saying I have meaningful conversations about the benefits of vegetable consumption every night after dinner, and I have wavered when we’re in the grocery store and she won’t be quiet about a new package of cookies. But you’re the new person. You have to be careful or she’ll figure out the reward system starts and stops with you.”
Alex scowled and then his expression softened. “I didn’t think of it like that. I just read the book and it made sense.”
“The books always make sense until you’re in the middle of a meltdown because your child was good walking through the aisles and wants one of those little plastic dolls at the checkout. And you say no.” Paige shrugged. “Sometimes ‘eat your vegetables’ or ‘no’ or ‘don’t pick your nose’ just have to be enough.”
“And she’ll eat her vegetables when she’s ready?”
Paige nodded. “Or I’ll make her a smoothie later with all her least favorite veggies juiced into it.”
“Sneaky.”
She pointed her thumb at her chest. “Mom. There’s a difference.”
“So about dinner—”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Alex cocked an eyebrow and that smooth smile spread across his face, pulling the scar at his mouth until it disappeared. “If you have dinner with me I’ll wash your car.”
Paige laughed. “I already told you the reward method doesn’t work.” But she was tempted. Oh so tempted, and that was definitely a bad thing. Temptation had a way of wrecking her life.
“You said it doesn’t work on four-year-olds. You’re not four.”
This time Paige blushed. The intimate tone of Alex’s voice and the dark look that came into his eyes when he said the words were too much. Too interested.
Too daring.
He reached his hand toward her face and Paige backed up, her hip hitting the corner of the counter.
“No, I’m not four and—”
A crash from the pantry interrupted Paige’s train of thought. She hurried across the kitchen, pulled open the door and gasped.
Alison and Tuck were wrapped around each other, kissing. Her hands were under his shirt, her ball cap on the floor and his hands forked through her thick, auburn hair. A couple of soup cans fell from the shelf when Tuck backed Alison up another step, joining the collection of canned green beans and packages of dried pasta already on the floor.
Alison opened her eyes and pushed against Tuck’s broad shoulders.
“Um, hi,” she said, putting an inch of space between them. “We were, uh...”
“Checking the expiration dates?” Alex’s voice was filled with laughter at the twin expressions of embarrassment on Alison’s and Tuck’s faces. “Having a little dessert?”
Tuck took Alison’s hand and led her into the kitchen. “Getting to know one another better,” he said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
Paige had seen plenty of kisses and she had talked about the dirty details of even more, most of the time with Alison. Something about this kiss was different. Maybe because Alex seemed to want to test the boundaries they’d agreed on just a couple of days before. Seeing Alison wrapped around the handsome ranger tied Paige’s stomach into a knot. Made her clench her hands and take another step away from Alex.
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