‘All right,’ he agreed, setting the bags down to pull his wallet from his pocket.
‘No, these are on me.’ Kat put her hand on his, a bolt of electricity shooting through him at the mere contact. She snatched her hand back, tellingly, which let him know she’d felt it too. ‘You’ve paid for everything else tonight.’
Then she was darting away with Jamie holding one hand before he could say anything, and he was glad because he wasn’t sure what he would have said.
It was strange, the things that made an impact of different people. For him, that simple gesture unlocked a slew of emotions from him. In three years with Sophia, she had never—not once—offered to pay for anything. She’d expected people to indulge her. Always. And they had, because she was pretty, and flirty, and exceptionally practised at being manipulative.
How had he fallen for it for so long?
Except that he already knew the answer. Mild PTSD, the army doctors had called it when they’d...encouraged him to leave after that final tour. Grief at the loss of his buddies.
He’d
thought Sophia had been his saviour. An outgoing, breezy, fun-loving girl to breathe air back into his dying life.
He’d realised too late that she was demanding, volatile and avaricious. Well, perhaps not too late, or else he wouldn’t have his incredible Jamie now. But certainly she hadn’t helped to pull him up from that dark pit he’d been in.
King Roberto had done that. Though the old man would say Logan had done it for himself in the end.
‘Right, here we go.’ Kat bounced back into sight with a deliriously happy Jamie, his little hand still firmly lodged in hers.
‘Okay, you get five tickets each and the categories are written on each of them. Come on, sweetheart, let’s read them together and then we’ll go and look at the trees. I’m sure I saw one with wellies all over it.’
‘Wellies?’ Jamie chortled into his hand in typical four-year-old fashion. ‘Not real wellies.’
‘Oh, yes. Real, bright red wellies,’ Kat assured him. ‘I think it was probably the coastguard’s Christmas tree. What do you think?’
‘I think that’s getting my...’ checking his tickets, Logan was determined to join in the fun ‘...quirkiest ticket.’
Kat beamed at him, and he couldn’t stop his chest from tightening at her approval.
‘Well, now, wait just a moment, we should see what else is out there first, don’t you agree, Jamie?’
‘No. Quirky wellies.’ Jamie grinned up at him, and his heart swelled with happiness.
Even as she waggled her finger, Kat laughed.
‘Oh, siding with your daddy, huh? I see how it is.’
For the next half-hour or so they wandered up and down, admiring the trees and choosing their winners, although the latter part became ultimately a matter of choosing one of any of the nearest trees as Jamie’s attention began to wane.
And once again Logan marvelled at how instinctively Kat picked up on Jamie’s mood changes a fraction ahead of him, and he was supposed to the parent.
‘Time to go home, champ?’ Logan asked, as Jamie wrapped his arms around his leg and nodded.
‘Do you want me to take the bags so that you can carry him?’
Another touching gesture that Sophia would never have made. Not that she’d have even stooped to come to somewhere like this in the first place. Not even for Jamie.
Not unless some VIPs were attending and it was an opportunity for her to network. Or, in simpler terms, social climb.
‘Thanks, but they’re pretty heavy,’ he declined, dragging himself back to the present. ‘But if you can lift him onto my shoulders I can carry him too.’
‘Yay! Shoulder ride.’ Jamie applauded, but for the first time all night it was slightly muted, his tiredness showing through.
Logan bent his knees and dipped his head as Kat lifted Jamie up.
‘I guess that’s me, then.’ She smiled as he stood up again with his son. ‘I’d better be heading home.’