The kitchen door swung open and Sam walked in, blissfully unaware of the tension between the adults. “Abbie’s awake. She’s calling you, Daddy.”
“I’ll go get her.” He paused and looked at Jamie. “Don’t leave before I get back. Please,” he added, aware of how arrogant that might have sounded.
“Jamie’s staying for dinner,” Sam insisted quickly. “She’s making spaghetti. Remember, Jamie? You said.”
“Well, that was before I knew your daddy would be back so early,” Jamie reminded him.
Sam shook his head, his lip jutting out stubbornly. “You said you’d make spaghetti. Daddy likes spaghetti, too.”
“I love spaghetti,” Trevor agreed shamelessly.
The look Jamie gave him should have made him gulp. But then she nodded and he knew she would be staying a while longer. At the moment, that seemed to be all that mattered.
“I’ll start the dinner,” she said, turning toward the stove. “You go get your daughter.”
Your daughter. Her very deliberately chosen words echoed in his mind as he entered Abbie’s room. Abbie stood in her crib, bouncing and calling for him. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” He lifted her into his arms and snuggled her close, making her giggle in delight when he tickled her ribs.
His daughter, he thought, filled with a love for her so fierce it almost hurt. No pages from his late wife’s diary, no whispered speculation, no blood tests—nothing—could ever change that.
WITH SAM’S EAGER, if untrained, assistance, Jamie prepared salad, spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner, as she had planned to do before she’d known Trevor would be there to eat it. She tried to give her full concentration to the task, but it wasn’t easy, considering all the things he had said to her. She had so much to think about. And she needed time and solitude to do it.
Her thoughts kept bouncing between Trevor’s admission of love and his revelations about his wife. She couldn’t imagine what he must have gone through when he’d learned the truth about Melanie while still dealing with the shock of her death. To know that his acquaintances and colleagues in D.C. had already known the truth, and had been talking about it behind his back…. For a man with Trevor’s pride and family history with scandal, that must have been hell.
What kind of scars would an ordeal like that leave on a man’s heart and soul? And how much courage would it take to put himself at risk for anything like that again?
The questions nagged at her, making her frown and remind herself that she was the injured party, not Trevor. Even if she could sort of understand—at least a little—why he’d acted the way he had, that didn’t mean he deserved her forgiveness. He had broken her heart. Never mind that his own must have still been shattered.
She’d always been too softhearted, she thought with a scowl. Too prone to see the other side. Too quick to forgive. Too—
“Jamie? Are you mad about something?” Sam asked.
Realizing that she had been setting the table more forcefully than necessary, she stopped thumping glasses and slamming dishes, and turned to smile at the boy. “No, Sammy, I’m not mad. I’m just in a hurry to get everything ready so we can eat. I’m hungry, aren’t you?”
She wondered if she would even be able to choke down a bite.
Reassured, Sam nodded and grinned. “I’m so hungry my throat feels like my tummy’s been cut.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “Where did you hear that?”
“From Granddad.”
One of Caleb
’s good-old-country-lawyer expressions—which Sam had obviously turned around. Deciding not to correct him, Jamie said, “Why don’t you go tell your daddy that dinner’s ready?”
Trevor had been in the living room with Abbie. He carried her into the kitchen with a smile of pride. “She’s been walking for me. She took six steps without falling. She’s doing great, isn’t she?”
“She’ll be running marathons in no time,” Jamie replied without quite meeting his eyes.
“I’d better go through the house looking for hazards again. They’ve changed now that she’s about to become more ambulatory.”
Trevor put Abbie in her high chair and Jamie set a divided plastic dish holding cut-up pasta and bitesize pieces of cooked vegetables in front of her. Abbie dived in with both hands.
“Definitely have to work on table manners next,” Trevor murmured.
Jamie nodded and took her seat beside Sam. Excited to have his father home again, and eager to talk about everything he’d done while Trevor had been away, Sam talked almost ceaselessly during the meal, waving his arms to emphasize his comments. Trevor had to warn him twice to calm down a bit before he spilled his drink, but other than that, he listened attentively.
Jamie tried not to stare at Trevor, but she couldn’t seem to stop her eyes from turning in his direction. He was such a good father, she thought, watching him help Abbie take a sip from her cup of juice.