"Well, Uncle Seth also told you that pizza helps, so we'll make a pizza for supper and finish your homework then. Okay?"
"Pizza gives me a stomachache." She inched her glasses up with a prissy sniff. "Last time I ate it, I thought I had a 'pendicitis."
Sighing, Paige glanced skyward for patience with Kirstie and her own very likely unreasonable fears. Bo and Vic were late.
They were only an hour delayed—not that they'd bothered to call—although it probably had more to do with the sick cow and shooting the breeze than anything else. Her nerves were just edgy because of the latest letter from her lawyer, which made her think of Kurt, which made her think of that horrible, horrible night he 'd been late.
And arrested.
Oh, God. She grabbed her stomach. She was going to hurl, and then Kirstie would be certain her mama was dying of SARS.
Paige tipped her head back farther and gulped in air to dispel the spots dancing in front of her eyes. And yes, yes, yes, one of those dots got bigger until it took the shape of an airplane, coming closer, landing.
Now she really felt dizzy.
Flattening a hand to the blanket, she hung her head in relief for six shaky seconds, then tossed back her hair she'd left down out of silly vanity because Bo's eyes lingered on it one morning when she'd stepped out of her bedroom. "Come on, kiddo. Let's forget about fractions for a while and go say hi to your Uncle Vic."
And Bo.
"No fractions? Wahoo!" Kirstie pitched aside her workbook and sprang to her feet.
Sprinting ahead, she turned a clean cartwheel.
Her first in a year. Melancholy tinged happiness a pale blue over all the lost cartwheels and smiles.
Kirstie raced across the field and threw her arms around her uncle's waist until her tiny arms shook from the strain. Was it so much to ask that her daughter feel secure?
Paige met her brother at the nose of the plane. "Where have you been?"
"Whoa." Vic yanked a lock of her hair. "What crawled in your gut and died?">She traced a thumb along his neck, gently rasping a fingernail over his late-day beard.
"Where would we go?"
"What?" He blinked twice to clear the throbbing need from one innocent touch.
"Where would we go on the second date?" Her hand fell away and she wrapped her arms tighter around her waist again, burrowing her chin into the collar of his jacket as if sinking into the fantasy date along with him.
"For a second date I would ask if it's okay to include your daughter on the outing. If you said yes—"
"—I would."
"—then we would spend the day at the water with my jet ski and some other friends." In Charleston, back where bad memories waited for her. In a world so different from where she'd chosen to rebuild her life. "Not a bar pickup, one-night-stand sort of start."
"No, it's not." Her head rocked along the back of the swing until she looked at him with pensive eyes. "I didn't expect you to be like this."
He wasn't sure what she meant, and thought maybe he didn't recognize himself right now, either. "I'm only trying to make things easier for you."
"And yet somehow everything just gets tougher."
They stared without speaking for...he didn't know how long, until lights clicked on in the clinic, blaring through the windows into the yard and stealing some of their privacy. For the best, because soon he'd be spinning that fantasy date out to more dangerous territory for both of them.
Self-respect and honor were everything to him, especially after the way his father had lived his life. Bo frowned as the thought shuffled in his head. Maybe that was a big part of why he'd chosen the military with its rigid structure and clear-cut rules of behavior to keep his rebel side in check. An odd insight he wouldn't have considered before meeting Paige, who seemed to have a way of clarifying things.
He followed the new notion through and found it fit. Interesting too he'd chosen a career lifestyle not unlike his orphanage upbringing, predominantly male with a tight brotherhood. Which brought him right back to the looming deadline for deciding whether to stay in the Air Force, and still he couldn't form a clean picture of what else he could do with his life.
He did know one thing, clear as day. Hurting this woman would be beyond dishonorable.
Paige glanced over toward the lights streaking across the patchy yard. "I guess that's my brother's not-so-subtle way of announcing he's around." Rising from the swing with a jolt, she shrugged out of his leather jacket and draped it over the back of the swing.