Second Time's the Charm

“I’m not sure.” She was frowning. “The good news is that it was over almost as soon as it had begun. All of Abe’s instructors know to kneel in front of him to get his focus and then ask him to use his words. As soon as the movement instructor did that, he stopped crying and responded to her. He was fine afterward.”

“Did he play ring-around-the-rosy?”

“Yep. And he laughed like crazy when they all fell down.”

So, a minor setback. They weren’t out of the woods, but they could see the clearing. “I love that laugh,” Jon said, grinning. Who’d ever have thoug

ht such a little thing—his kid’s laugh—could make him feel so good?

“Don’t you ever get the least bit resentful of having to do it all alone?” Lillie’s gaze was clear, direct.

“Nope.” She could report anything he said or did....

Jon stopped himself.

She was his friend. And his answer was still the same.

Lillie’s face had cleared and she was staring at him again. In that way.

“Did Caroline ask about us today?” He didn’t know where the words had come from. He hadn’t been thinking about them in that moment. At least not consciously.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I told her that we were friends,” she said, like the topic was no big deal. But there was something slightly whimsical in her tone, too. Something he could barely capture but wanted to hold.

“Did she let it go at that?”

“Pretty much.” She licked her lips.

He slid his lightly covered hips a little bit farther under the table. “So we have nothing to worry about?”

Except that the news had traveled all the way to Mark Heber by lunchtime.

“I wasn’t worried to begin with.”

“These people are your friends.”

“I don’t ask them about their sex lives?” Eyes wide, mouth open, she broke off.

Jon leaned his elbows on the table. “Is that what we’re talking about? Our sex life?”

He was a man. With a woman who turned him on. And God knew, he wasn’t perfect.

“No! Of course not.”

Her face was red. And he was hotter than hell.

“Are we going to have one?”

“I...don’t know.”

“We need to find out what it’s like,” he said out loud. But not loudly. “Sex. Between us. To put an end to this constant wondering.”

She nodded.

“It’s just a physical thing.”