"Don't worry." The automatic light under the eaves brightened with a click. "I just turned on the outside light. If you have to get over there, you won't have to wait for the motion sensor to see you."
"I'm..." He was about to say that he wasn't worried but that would be a lie.
From the moment he'd felt Katie moving in her mother's stomach he felt a crazy kind of responsibility toward his little girl.
It wasn't any different now that she was a teen.
And barely that.
He stepped inside and turned around to see Ruth watching him with a smile. "Sorry, I just-"
She reached out and touched his shoulder. "There's no 'just' about how you feel about Katie. Anyone could tell how much you love her.
"It's in every look and every word you say to her or about her."
Nick could hear it in her voice. She did understand how he felt about his daughter.
"What... what would you like to drink?"
He smiled at the way she gestured toward the kitchen unsure.
"What would you pick to drink?"
Nick saw her hesitant for a moment. "I'm not going to judge you."
She tilted her head and gave him a look that said she wasn't quite sure she could believe it. "I'm not exactly an experienced drinker. I think the first alcoholic drink I had was a cooking wine and it was not nice to me."
He held up his hands between them. "I really don't drink at home. And I don't drink while we're out. On the off chance that I'm out with some friends, I'll take a glass of whatever beer is on tap and that's my limit."
He followed her to the kitchen island and leaned against the counter a couple of feet away from her.
"So, surprise me."
The look in her eyes held a little bit of impish humor.
"Okay." She turned away from the island and went to the fridge against the wall. It was huge and Nick couldn't remember if he'd seen just how big it was when he'd visited with Katie.
Probably not because he's been focused on the woman.
He was still, but since she was standing in front of a fridge that looked like it belonged in a professional kitchen, he had no choice but to notice both.
When she opened the door it looked like heaven behind her, an almost blinding light met his gaze, and he could barely see more than her silhouette.
And what a silhouette it was.
Most of the times that he'd seen Ruth, her hair was usually piled up on her head in a loose bun that reminded him of a modern version of Gibson Girl portraits.
Now, after a long day, it looked like pieces of it had escaped the bun and were curling down the back of her head, visible only as wisps and smudges in the light, but it was enough to turn her into a goddess. Like a modern-day Marilyn Monroe, or a version of Christina Hendricks without the armed underwear they poured her into on Mad Men.
He'd love to get his hands... and other things on her hourglass figure.
His palms practically itched to-
"Okay," he heard her smiling before she turned back around, a bottle in her hands. "This is my own personal choice of wine."
She paused halfway between the fridge and where he was standing.
"I don't think I have wine glasses."
