“Pretty well, as a matter of fact. She thanked me for letting her know.”
“Well, great.”
“And now that we’re talking about telling the boys…” He hesitated because he wasn’t sure where to start.
“Just say it, Josh.”
He forged ahead. “I have Shane with me again on Saturday. I was thinking, how about we just go for it then? You tell Dillon, I’ll tell Shane. Then if that works out okay, and the boys want to talk about it with the four of us together, we could make that happen.”
“Sure.” She sipped her iced tea. “How about if you bring Shane to my house when the four of us get together?”
“Absolutely. I think we need to play it by ear, though, depending on how it all goes.”
“That works.” She smiled.
He loved that smile of hers. He loved…every damn thing about her. This was bad. He was going to get hurt—hell, he was hurting already.
But when she smiled at him like that, he didn’t give a damn how bad he got his heart broke. He just loved looking at her, loved that cloud of soft red hair, those wide-setsky-blue eyes, her heart-shaped face. He missed the taste of her mouth, and he longed to get her all to himself again. He wanted to have the right to spread his hand on her growing belly any time the mood struck…
Not going to happen, buddy, he reminded himself repeatedly.
Later, after he’d dropped her off at the hotel, he mentally ticked off all the reasons he needed to get straight with himself about this situation.
They were not lovers. Not anymore. He needed to stop having these unacceptable feelings when it came to her, needed to put all this hunger and yearning behind him.
Yeah. He should do that. He really should.
But who the hell did he think he was kidding? He knew what he felt. It was a lifetime sentence he was looking at here. He couldn’t escape it.
But he could hide from it.
And that was what he did. He avoided Riley for the rest of the week. It was just easier that way.
Saturday morning, he picked up Shane from Lenore’s and took him home. Shane went right upstairs to put his pack in his room. When he came back down, he dropped to the floor in the living room and rolled around with Roger for a while.
“Dad?” By then, Shane was stretched out on the floor with one arm thrown across Roger, who was sprawled on his side, his long, wet tongue hanging out. “Can Dillon come over?”
“We’ll see. But first, I have something to talk to you about.”
Shane rolled to his stomach and braced up on both elbows. “What?”
Josh sat on the sofa and patted the cushion beside him. “Come sit by me.”
Shane jumped up, scooted in behind the coffee table, clambered onto the sofa and plunked down next to Josh. Roger followed, sliding in close, propping his head on Shane’s knee. Shane petted the dog and grinned up at Josh. “Okay. Tell me.”
Josh had lain awake half the night planning what he would say. He’d worked out a whole speech that was thoughtful and sensitive, simple and clear.
Unfortunately, now that the moment of truth was upon him, his perfect little speech had flown clean out of his head.
He cleared his throat. “Well, uh…”
Shane petted the dog and stared up at Josh. “What’s wrong, Dad?”
“Nothing. Not a thing. Just…organizing my thoughts—and you know how we talked about when you were born?”
“Yeah, Dad. I remember what you told me, that I was in Mommy’s tummy and then I came out as your baby.”
Tummy?Was that the right word for it? Whatever. Josh forged on. “Yep. You were in Mommy’s tummy, and then you were born—and now you’re going to have a little sister.”
