“I’ll help you with the meal. I’m not expecting you to cook it all by yourself, and I’m not expecting you to be by yourself either.”
“I don’t mind. I’ve never gotten to cook a Thanksgiving meal for a big family like that. I’ve actually always dreamed about having a big family on Christmas. So Thanksgiving is kind of a dream come true. Almost.”
He laughed. “I guess you could ask them if they’d like to come on Christmas too, just so they can make your dreams come true.”
“That’s really sweet.” She looked like she wanted to close the distance between them and put her arms around him, and he knew that if she did that, he wasn’t going to be able to step away from her. Because he was fighting the urge to do the same.
“All right, then we’ll try to work together, and spend time together, but not alone, and that’ll be easy because the kids have school off starting Wednesday and they’re off until Tuesday of next week.”
“All right. We won’t have to worry about anything until next Tuesday. And after that, maybe I’ll be working with my clients during the day.”
“And I can focus on doing some other repairs around the place. I noticed that the basement was starting to be finished, but it looked like someone stopped in the middle of it.”
“That’s where my mom ran out of money for the last time.”
“I have a little bit of extra, and maybe I’ll work on that. It’ll be a nice place for the kids to play in the winter when it’s not nice enough to go outside.”
“That sounds like a good idea. I’m sure they would enjoy that.”
“So, I guess I don’t need to point out to you that this old man comes with three kids.”
“You’re not an old man, and I think that’s an asset. Not a liability.”
“I think that’s what makes you special. Because most women wouldn’t see it that way.”
“I do. For sure.”
“Do you want children of your own?” he asked softly, knowing that it didn’t matter either way to him. Although, the more time he spent with her, the more he wouldn’t mind raising a child with her. One with her eyes and her heart-shaped face.
“I used to. But… I don’t want you to have to start all over. That maybe seems a little discouraging. And you’ve been at this raising kids thing for a while. Maybe you’re ready to be done.”
“I guess you can keep thinking about it. Because if you’d like kids, I’m fine with that, but I guess I’m not desperate to have more.”
She nodded, and he thought that she would be honest with him and tell him if she really felt strongly one way or the other. He had been absolutely honest in telling her that he didn’t care. Although, he supposed he was leaning a little bit more toward not. Which wasn’t very romantic, but she was right, he’d been doing it for a while, and he knew how much time small children took. He’d like to be able to just spend time with Summer and not have children between them.
“Maybe we can adopt,” Summer said suddenly as she bent to pick up the box of staples that she dropped.
“Yeah. I guess I never thought about that, but I’d be okay with that.”
“We could be foster parents. That way, we have children, but maybe not all the time, as they come and go in our house.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“I wouldn’t want your children to be put out, if we did that.”
“We could talk to them and see how they feel about it, but I kind of feel like they might be excited about sharing their home with other kids.”
“I thought that’s the way they’d feel too. They have such big hearts. Maybe that comes with losing their mom, but they’re very empathetic.”
“Thank you,” he said, bending over and picking up the board.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her, hadn’t meant to lose control of himself the way he had, but he thought that maybe it worked out. They’d set some boundaries, and if they could stick with them, maybe they could develop the kind of relationship that wasn’t based on physical attraction, although that was obviously between them, but based on biblical love and character. After all, he’d been married to someone who didn’t have that kind of character, and he didn’t want to make that mistake again. While he was almost certain he wasn’t going to be making it with Summer, she didn’t know for sureabout him. At least, he assumed she didn’t. Maybe she saw things that he didn’t know about.
As they walked slowly back to the house, he thought about those things but decided that maybe they should focus more on the practical stuff, and those other things would take care of themselves.
“Do you want me to do the grocery shopping for Thursday?”
“I can do it. Is there anything that your family always has that I need to make sure I get? Or is turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy—the traditional meal—what they’re expecting?”
