So much for needing the protection he kept trying to assure himself he was giving her. Truth was, maybe he needed to give it to her more than she needed to get it from him.
“I just hope she uses it,” Miranda said, and then smiled at him. “This is nice,” she added. “Being friends.”
“You want to have a friendly dinner sometime this week? Maybe give me another shot at becoming a zookeeper your son can’t easily obliterate?”
She hesitated, and he fell a little flat. “Or not.”
“No.” Miranda sat up straighter, took a visible deep breath. “I mean, yes, let’s talk about that. I... I’m pretty odd about my house,” she said. “I...don’t invite people over. I know, it’s weird, but being a single mom , you never know who you can trust, and I’ve always kept our home a safe place. You know, where it’s just the two of us.”
He remembered the way she’d rushed him through to the backyard on Saturday.
“I could invite you to my apartment,” he told her. “It’s not much, but there’s a kitchen and a TV where we could hook up the game.”
“No. I’m just being...”
Paranoid?
“Maybe it’s time to open up Ethan’s world a bit more. To expose us both to a society that’s been good to us. Let me check my schedule and get back to you with a night. Would that work?”
Let me think about it, he translated.
“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “I’m available.”
“Do you like baked spaghetti?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“It’s one of Ethan’s favorites. I’m off early on Thursday because I work Saturday this week. We could do it Thursday night.”
“Does this mean you’ve already checked your schedule?” He grinned at her.
She grinned back. “Smart-ass.”
Miranda had to go back to work, and he wanted to get in a workout at the gym before heading over to Danny’s school for his afternoon watch. He walked Miranda to her car, moved on down to his own, but didn’t unlock it until he’d watched her drive out of the parking lot and out of sight.
He’d never admired a woman, wanted a woman, as much as he did her. For the first time since his sister was murdered, something mattered to Tad more than getting the bad guys off the streets.
Suddenly, seeing a woman—and her young son—happy was what mattered more.
Marie and Danny’s safety mattered most, certainly. Absolutely.
They had an entire team of people helping them. He was proud to be among them.
But his mission was much more personal, too.
It was time for Miranda Blake to be free to become Dana O’Connor again. To return to the father who adored her. The life she’d been forced to leave behind.
To be free from the past that clearly still haunted her.
She’d won her battle; now it was time to come home from the war.
Chapter 8
Miranda waited until Wednesday night to tell Ethan that Tad would be coming for dinner on Thursday. Purely for self-preservation. She needed to have her own thoughts securely in place before dealing with her son’s barrage.
Was she doing the right thing? Could she have someone in their home without somehow revealing any piece of their past that might help someone find them?
Would someone approach Tad in town, someone he thought she knew, and ask him some innocuous question? He might well answer, unknowingly, with something that could expose her. Her father’s superhuman ways opened any possibility.