“Why don’t you get along with him?” She could tell that her question wasn’t one he’d been expecting or that he wanted to answer. The struggle intensified.
“Because he’s a wealthy businessman who thinks he can control everyone and everything if he waves around enough money.”
“Can he?”
“What?”
“Control everyone and everything with money?”
Trace shrugged. “Just about.”
“But not you?”
“No.”
A lot of things began to click in her mind. “He’s why you went overseas?”
“No,” he immediately denied.
But she knew the real reason was probably yes.
They sat in silence a moment.
“What are your intentions, Trace?”
“Regarding you? I have no intentions. I don’t do relationships or marriage.”
“Not in regards to me.” Why would he think she was even asking that? Because of his off-the-wall comment in the wading pool? “In regards to Joss. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to stay with him tomorrow to watch him while you go to work.”
She fought grimacing. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. My mother is planning to watch him. She said she’d come here about ten—that way you could still spend time with Joss, but she’d be here to help.”
She had called her mother and told her only the basics. When she’d begun asking questions, Chrissie had promised she’d call her at break the following day and fill her in.
“I do think it’s a good idea. He and I need time to bond.”
Which came back to that shared power over their son. There she went thinking she got final say, rather than sharing the responsibility with Trace. Guilt and remorse were powerful motivators, but she still couldn’t agree with him.
“Do you think you’re ready to be alone with Joss all day? There’s a lot to taking care of him, Trace.”
“I’ve been with him for four days, Chrissie. I won’t claim to have your vast experience with parenting, but I’m a grown man, lived in war-torn countries, and a medical doctor. I think I’ll survive a day alone with my three-year-old son. I don’t need your mother to babysit us both.”
His barb regarding her having excluded him from gaining parenting experience wasn’t lost.
She grabbed a sofa pillow and hugged it to her. “Yeah, it’s not you I was worried about.”
His gaze narrowed. “You think I’d hurt my son?”
“Not intentionally.”
“Which means what?
“That I think you want him to like you so much that it blinds you to being able to think logically around him like a real parent.”
She regretted her word choice the moment it left her mouth, but couldn’t take the “real” back no matter how much she wished she could.
His face darkened to an angry red. “I’d say it’s normal for a father to want his son to like him, to be his friend.”