Picket Fence Surprise. Kris Fletcher

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СКАЧАТЬ me a part of parenting that is.”

      At that, she laughed, though not with her usual abandon. He crouched and adjusted his focus. There was a tiny dandelion poking through the sticks, a flash of yellow he would have missed if he hadn’t changed angles.

      “How do you manage it?” she asked. “Sharing Cady must be hard.”

      “Do you mean, like, the timing? The logistics?”

      “For a start.”

      “It takes a lot of communication. But you probably know that already.”

      “Right.”

      “If you want, I can give you a copy of the schedule we use. You couldn’t do the same times, not with school and all, but it would give you someplace to start.” And maybe she could accept it with more grace than he could. For while Xander understood the need for a schedule and was blown away every time he realized how close he had come to missing out on the miracle of Cady, a part of him still ached at the reality of needing a spreadsheet to mark his time with his daughter.

      “That would be wonderful. Thank you.” She crouched beside him and tugged on one of the sticks, tumbling the pile into a new arrangement. The dandelion vanished from his view. “Of course, I’m probably jumping the gun. Hank—”

      She stopped. He raised the camera, using it as a shield so he had to watch out of the corner of his eye as the emotions played across her face. Hope, wistfulness, some kind of longing that made him feel he should reach over and squeeze her hand...

      He hadn’t known Heather when she was married to Ian’s brother Hank, but he’d known about her, and them. He remembered Ian telling him about Heather’s abrupt departure from the marriage and Comeback Cove, and even during that self-absorbed point in his own life, he had wondered how a mother could willingly leave her child.

      These days, knowing Heather, seeing how she glowed whenever she was with Millie, he wondered all the more.

      “Anyway—” Heather clapped her hands as if dismissing the topic “—the other big issue would be work.”

      “Isn’t Millie a bit young to have to think about a job?”

      Yeah, it was a lousy joke. But Heather was the pacesetter here.

      “You do know that when you’re all hunched over like that, it would only take one little push for me to send you over. Right?”

      On the other hand, maybe he should take a stronger lead in the conversation.

      “Sorry. Whatever. Why is work a problem?”

      She adjusted her position so she was sitting on the ground. Guess her thighs weren’t up to the test.

      Not that he was going to think about her thighs.

      “The job itself isn’t the trouble. It’s the hours. Which are totally reasonable until you tack on the megacommute every day.”

      “Gotcha. So you’re gone from, what? Eight to six?”

      “More like seven thirty until about seven.”

      He whistled. “Busting ass to impress the boss?”

      “Busting ass to get the work done.” Her head swiveled. “And to let me leave early on Wednesdays, so I’m home when Millie finishes school.”

      He didn’t have to follow her line of vision to know she was checking on the kid in question.

      “You’re right. That doesn’t leave much time for anything, let alone having time with a kid.”

      “I know.”

      It was the way she watched Millie that caught him in the gut. Like she didn’t dare miss one action or one giggle, in case she might never get the chance again.

      “What about getting a new job?”

      This time when she laughed, it was like he’d said the silliest thing she’d ever heard.

      “Right. Because Comeback Cove is overflowing with jobs.”

      He bit his tongue to keep from reminding her that there were a lot more options for her than there were for someone who had, oh, a criminal record to add to the list of references.

      No regrets, Xander.

      Instead, he waved a hand toward the river and said, “I hear the town is looking for someone to help sell all this.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “They’re creating a new position. Tourism director, or something like that. There was an article about it in the Comeback Cove Chronicle last week.”

      She did a double take. “You read the Chronicle? I thought their only subscribers were the people who work at town hall. And maybe the folks who advertise in it.”

      “Of course I do. I’m a concerned, involved citizen.” Who also happened to be trolling the community calendar for events where he might meet someone looking for a guy with an adorable daughter, a steady job and a slightly checkered past.

      “You’re about twelve steps ahead of me, then. But...tourism? It’s a nice thought, but I don’t have any experience in that.”

      He raised the camera to his eye and focused in on Cady, now spinning in circles with Millie. “You’re in marketing.”

      “Sure, but—”

      “Would it cost you anything to apply?”

      “No.”

      “If you got it, would it make things easier for you to have more time with Millie?”

      This time, her silence went on long enough that he had to check to be sure she was still sitting in place.

      “Yo, Earth to Heather.”

      “Sorry. I was thinking.”

      “I’ve heard that can be dangerous.”

      She shook her head, seeming to cast off some spell that had gripped her. “What does that mean?”

      “It means that there’s a time to think and a time to do. Take a chance. Go with your gut.”

      Her head swiveled. Her gaze locked on Millie.

      “My gut is the last thing I need to listen to.”

      He had never understood people who didn’t trust their own instincts. How was a person supposed to navigate all the noise of the world without having some core sense of what to do and where to go?

      Though on the other hand, refusing to listen to your gut was probably a lot safer than his specialty of acknowledging and then ignoring the truth he didn’t want to see.

      “But,” she continued, “there is a certain logic to СКАЧАТЬ