Lost in her own thoughts again, Grace didn’t reply.
Donovan and Bryan were walking through the lobby of a St. Louis hotel when Donovan was nearly slammed to the floor. It was only Bryan’s lightning reflexes that save him from an ignominious fall.
“Whoa, there, buddy.” Bryan scooped the runaway three-year-old into his arms only a moment before the child barreled into Donovan’s bum leg.
Grateful for the quick save, Donovan glanced around for the kid’s parents. There were a lot of people around, but he didn’t see anyone who seemed to be looking for the boy.
“Where’s your mom?” Bryan asked the child as he set him back on his feet.
The red-haired tot waved an arm vaguely in the direction of the gift shop. “Over there.”
“Let’s go find her, shall we?”
The boy took Bryan’s outstretched hand and nodded obligingly. “’Kay.”
It always amazed Donovan how quickly children took to Bryan. That notorious charm of his was as effective with the kids as it was with the ladies.
“I’ll be right back if you want to wait here,” Bryan said over his shoulder as the boy led him away.
Donovan nodded and moved to one of the deep sofas arranged invitingly around the big, airy lobby. He was sitting there when Bryan rejoined him a few minutes later.
Bryan was still smiling. “Cute kid,” he said, taking a chair near Donovan’s sofa. “His mother was going nuts looking for him in the gift shop. She says he’s worse than Houdini when it comes to making dramatic escapes.”
“She needs to put a leash on him. Anyone could have snatched him.” The thought of his own recent encounter with kidnappers was enough to make Donovan scowl.
“She said she would watch him more carefully from now on. She seemed like a good mother. She just got distracted for a minute.”
Donovan watched as Bryan looked toward the gift shop again, and something in his friend’s eyes made him ask, “You still want kids, don’t you?”
Bryan seemed startled by the question—which, admittedly, was more personal than Donovan usually got—but he answered candidly, “Yeah. I’ve always thought I’d make a pretty good father, even though my own was hardly a role model.”
“I think you would, too.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Donovan waited as long as he could before saying reluctantly, “Chloe would make a good mother.”
Again, Bryan’s eyebrows shot up in an expression of surprise, probably because Donovan had hardly mentioned Chloe’s name in the past month. “Ye
s, I thought she would, too. That was one of the reasons why I decided she and I would make a good match. Obviously, I was wrong about that part.”
“You didn’t fight for her very hard. When she broke it off, you just let her go.”
“And what was I supposed to do?” Bryan asked dryly. “Lock her up?”
“You should have been patient. You knew she was still suffering from shock when we came out of those woods, but you let her break it off only a few days later. If you’d hung in there, been there for her, comforted her, tried to make it all up to her, she would have come around.”
“I don’t think so.”
Donovan didn’t know why he was pushing this—hell, he should be glad he wouldn’t have to deal with watching Bryan and Chloe together—but for some reason he felt he had to say it.
He was very fond of both Bryan and Chloe, he told himself, feeling a bit noble for his unselfishness. He didn’t like the thought of either of them being alone, unsatisfied. “Maybe you should give it another try.”
Bryan sighed. “To be honest, I’m not sure I want to give it another try. I like and admire Chloe a great deal. I think she’s amazing—brave, resourceful, intelligent. I just don’t think I want to marry her.”
Donovan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Why the hell not?”
“I don’t know,” Bryan answered, a bit defensively now. “Maybe Grace was right. I was thinking about marrying Chloe for the wrong reasons. Respect and admiration aren’t synonymous with love.”