Holding the bread beneath her arm, she tapped on Lynette’s door, expecting Lynette or Emma to open it.
She did not expect to see Tate on the other side of the door.
He smiled easily at her, though his eyes focused on her face with more than usual intensity. “Hi, Kim. Come on in.”
Had Lynette deliberately forgotten to mention that her brother would be here this evening? And if so, why?
“Hi, Tate.”
Seeing the familiar face, Daryn grinned and shook Mr. Jingles at him.
“Hey, Daryn. How’s it going, kiddo?”
She babbled a response, making Tate chuckle. “Yeah, okay. Whatever you say.”
Lynette rushed forward to take the bread and greet Kim with a hug and Daryn with a smacking kiss. “I can’t wait to hear your stories,” she teased Kim. “Tate wouldn’t tell us a thing. He said since it’s your family, you’re the one who gets to decide which stories get told.”
Emma reached out her hands to Daryn, who dove willingly into the welcoming arms, always amenable to extra attention. Kim set the diaper bag on the floor at the end of the couch, greeting Evan, who had risen when she’d entered.
“Tate won’t even tell me whether I won the bet,” Evan complained. “He keeps saying it’s a draw, so no money will be changing hands. That doesn’t even make sense.”
“He just doesn’t want to take your money,” Kim said without looking at Tate. Smiling brightly, she added, “He won the bet, fair and square. No one in my family had any reason to doubt that he was exactly who my mother said he was.”
Lynette hooted victoriously. “I told you he could do it,” she bragged to Evan and Emma. “Tate’s a great actor.”
“I didn’t have to do a thing,” Tate corrected her, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable. “No one even questioned it. We simply visited Kim’s family for a few hours, then headed back home. Piece of cake. Hardly worth a hundred-dollar payoff.”
“Okay, fine. Lunch is on me Wednesday,” Evan said. “For everyone.”
“You’re on,” Lynette said quickly, as if to accept before he could change his mind.
Evan laughed. “Deal.”
Lynette headed toward the kitchen. “Okay, I’m putting this bread in to brown and then you two can tell us everything while we eat.”
Kim glanced toward Tate, then looked away quickly. They wouldn’t be telling everything, of course. Which didn’t mean she wouldn’t be thinking of those things while they shared their carefully edited version of their adventure. She was sure Tate would be thinking of those things, too, which would make her even more self-conscious when she met his eyes.
She had hoped for a few days’ break from him, a chance to pack away her memories of their lovemaking along with some of her other treasured moments, to regain her equilibrium around him so she could think of him again as nothing more than a very good friend. Today her feelings were still too raw, those memories still too close to the surface. She wasn’t sure Wednesday would be far enough away for her to get her emotions entirely under control, but at least she’d have had a few extra days to work on it.
She called on all the acting skills she had barely needed at the family reunion to get through dinner with her friends without revealing her i
nner turmoil. Apparently she succeeded well enough. Laughter reigned around the table. Sitting in a high chair borrowed from Lynette’s next door neighbor—an older woman who frequently babysat her small grandchildren—Daryn contributed to the general frivolity with happy crows and bangs of the wooden spoon Lynette had found for her.
“I don’t know why I buy toys for her,” Kim observed after one particularly enthusiastic episode of tray-top drumming. “All she needs to make her happy is a wooden spoon.”
“Well, that and this monkey,” Tate added, scooping the toy from the floor yet again and handing it back to Daryn with a wink that made her crow and kick.
“You and the kid seem to be getting along well enough,” Evan observed.
“You could say we have an understanding. She throws the monkey, I retrieve it for her, she laughs and then we both go back to what we were doing.”
So far all the anecdotes they had shared had been humorous ones, but Kim thought Tate deserved credit for his act of heroism yesterday. As for herself, she would always be grateful to him. “It’s a little more than that. Tate saved Daryn’s life yesterday.”
“What?” Emma gasped.
“Are you kidding?” Evan asked doubtfully, looking from Kim to Tate and back again.
“Tell,” Lynette demanded.