Maybe he should have prepared the kids on his own.
Since this was his first time dating since Lara died, he didn't know the best way to handle things. It looked like some trial and error was going to happen. There was no going back now, he couldn’t reintroduce Ashlyn to his kids, and he had to hope his daughter was mature enough to understand that moving on didn't mean forgetting the past.
“I thought she seemed cool,” Kevin said from the table, making him smile.
“She is, Kev. She’s a nice woman and …”
“You want it to work out with her?”
“I do. But I also don’t want you guys to suffer.”
The conflicting emotions inside had him feeling nauseous. How was he supposed to handle this? He was an adult, the dad, and he deserved to have a life, date, fall in love, and be happy, after all, his kids weren't going to be kids forever. On the other hand, theywerestill kids, and his responsibility was to them and raising them.
“Let’s go talk to your sister, yeah?”
Kevin nodded and followed him up the stairs. Lindsay’s door was closed, and Grant knocked on it, waiting until she okayed it before opening it. While this was his house and his rules, and his kids knew that privacy was a privilege not a right, he tried to be respectful of them wherever possible.
“Good, she’s gone,” Lindsay said with a smug smile when she opened the door and saw it was just him and her brother standing there.
“I asked her to give me some time to talk to you guys, but I am calling her later, and I will be taking her out on a date,” he told his daughter. As much as he loved his kids, they were the only thing that kept him getting out of bed when it felt like grief was going to crush him, he couldn’t allow them to think they ran his life.
“Dad!” Lindsay growled. “We don’t need her.”
“Maybe we don’t need her, but I’d like to have her be part of my life, part of all of our lives.”
“Why?” Lindsay demanded. “It’s just been the three of us since mom died, we don’t have to change that.”
“Life is full of changes, Linds. It doesn’t always turn out the way we think it’s going to, the way we plan it out. You guys are getting older. In just a couple of years, you're going to be heading off to college, Kev won't be far behind.”
“You get lonely, Dad?” Kevin asked.
“Sometimes,” he answered honestly. Before he met Ashlyn, it had been easy to sweep the feelings away in a sea of busyness. But since the wedding, it was getting harder and harder to do that.
“And you're not going to like marry her right now, right?” Kevin asked.
“No, son. Nothing like that. Ashlyn and I would just like to get to know one another and see what happens, but nothing that drastic is happening that quickly.”
“I don’t want it to happen at all,” Lindsay said with a pout.
Kevin shrugged. “I don’t care if you date her.”
“Kevin!” Lindsay snarled. “You're supposed to be on my side. We don’t need a new mommy.”
“She said she didn't want to be our mom, just our friend,” Kevin said.
“That’s what she says now. But what happens when she gets her claws into Dad? Things will change. She’ll make us throwaway all our photos of Mom, all of Mom’s things. She’ll want the house to be hers, her rules, her stuff, her decisions. She’ll make Dad choose her over us. And what happens when they have a baby? That baby will get all the love and attention, and we’ll just be ignored.”
“Whoa, Linds,” he soothed. “That’s a lot of worries about stuff that isn’t happening any time soon. If or when Ashlyn and I get married, she would never expect us to get rid of photos of your mom, or special things of hers you guys have. She’d never take over and try to get me to choose her over you. And there are no new babies on the horizon.”
“How do you know, Dad? You said you only met her at Jessica’s wedding and then again yesterday. You don’t really know her at all. How do you know she won't do all the things I just said?” Lindsay asked, arching a brow at him as though she’d just scored several points as she dared him to disagree.
Problem was he couldn’t.
His daughter was right. He didn't know Ashlyn very well, and he was running on nothing but instincts.
Chapter
Nine
