He sounded like those clichéd films, but what else was he supposed to say to a seven-year-old kid? He could hardly go into detail, could he?
Brady eyed him critically, his small brow furrowing into tight lines.
‘Because she got bitten by a snake?’
Jake hesitated. He hadn’t thought Brady had known, but he supposed it was too much to think that he hadn’t been talking about it with Julianna and Marcie. Typical of Brady to keep it inside all this time, though.
‘That’s part of it,’ he acknowledged at last.
‘Were you frightened she might die? Like Mummy?’
God, the kid is too astute for his own good sometimes.
It took him a while to answer.
‘Yes, mate. I was.’
‘Me, too,’ Brady whispered.
Without warning, the boy took a step forward and threw his arms around Jake’s waist. Startled, it took Jake a moment to react, but when he did, it felt like the last obstacles between them were starting to crumble away.
And Flávia was somehow at the centre of it all again.
‘That’s why I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back out there,’ Jake said after he’d carried the boy downstairs and settled him on the couch.
Maybe it was time to do what Flávia had kept suggesting, and talk.
‘Why?’ Brady pressed, and Jake drew in a steadying breath.
‘Well, what if we did? What if we had Flávia in our lives and she got bitten again? And what if she didn’t get better this time?’
‘You mean, what if she died?’ Brady looked at him solemnly.
The thought was sickening, but Jake forced himself to answer.
‘Yeah, mate. What if she did?’
His nephew continued to gaze at him, solemn and unblinking.
‘What if she didn’t?’ he asked at last. ‘But, what if we stayed here and then you got sick, like Mummy, and you died. Who would look after me then? I don’t want to live with Grandma and Granddad. I know I’m not supposed to say it, but I don’t like them.’
‘Is that what you think about?’ Jake demanded.
It made sense, he supposed, given all that the kid had been through. But he hated that he hadn’t realised Brady feared it. Hadn’t thought about it.
No doubt Flávia had. That was yet another reason why she had been so good for them.
Still, doing it for Brady wasn’t a good enough reason to go out to Brazil. If he was going to fight for Flávia, then he’d better be damned sure he was doing it for the right reasons.
And the simple truth was that he was.
Brady was right, of course. He could use Flávia’s career as an excuse for anything if it suited him, and it had, because he’d been afraid of the way he felt about her. He’d spent so many years detaching himself from feeling anything that he’d refused to admit what had been staring him in the face.
She’d broken defences he hadn’t even known he’d had, and she’d helped him connect with his nephew in a way he would never have managed left to his own devices. She’d mellowed him. More than that, she’d thawed him.
And it had taken Brady’s boldness to stop him from being so scared of admitting it.
Carefully, thoughtfully, Jake turned the paper slowly around and looked at it. A frog?