“Don’t thank me,” Gideon said softly, catching my eye over her head. “Thank your dad for bringing you here. He loves you an awful lot.”
“Yeah, I know,” Hazel said, pulling back in confusion. “He’s mydad. Healwaysloves me the most. Even when he makes meshower.”
I laughed, then pushed myself to my feet before I broke down and bawled like a baby. “Which is what you’ll be doing now,” I reminded her. “Door open, remember lotion after, and braid your hair or tomorrow-Hazel’s gonna travel back in time and kick ya.”
“’Kay.” She got to her feet and took a step toward the front hall and the stairs, but then impulsively turned and threw her arms around my waist. “Love you, Daddy.”
I ran a hand over her curls. “I love you too, Buglet.”
She skipped away.
Gideon and I looked at each other awkwardly. I couldn’t look at him without thinking about his hand on my wrist and my fingers on his leg, but the taking it further while Hazel was around—andawake—was impossible.
I grabbed a handful of dishes and mugs and walked quickly to the kitchen. “So, I guess no drive tonight, huh?” I called over my shoulder, turning on the water and letting the sink fill with hot suds. “Probably for the best. I had a long day, and I bet you did too. I don’t know if it’s because it’s Christmas or because people are still trying to play matchmaker, but if I could get half this number of clients back in Boston, I’d take up studio photography permanently. It’s not a thing I would have thought I’d like, but it turns out—”
Gideon came up right behind me and reached around to deposit the remaining dirty dishes into the sink. My thoughts scattered.
“It turns out?” he prompted.
“Huh?”
He grinned and I stared stupidly up at him. He was possibly the warmest person in the universe, and standing next to him was a lot like sitting by a fireplace—comforting and relaxing and potentially dangerous.
“Nothing. You know, I really did want to take you out, show you some of my favorite after-dark haunts, but I couldn’t ask Sam to stay when Hazel was so upset about burning toast earlier.” He lowered his voice and sounded remorseful. “Wasn’t a big deal at all, but it seems like I might have hit the whole ‘fire hazard’ thing a little hard before. Scared the shit out of her.”
I shut off the water. “Gideon, you’re fine.She’sfine. If youdidscare her, you definitely managed to reassure her, too.”
He nodded slowly, his brown eyes serious, and I wondered if he would kiss me, but instead, he took a giant step away, leaning against the counter. I went back to washing the dishes under his watchful eye, and I heard the water turn on in the shower upstairs.
“What?” I finally demanded. “Never seen a person wash dishes before?”
He shrugged. “Never seenyouwashingmydishes.”
Oh.
Before I could think of a suitable response to that, he continued, “Hazel mentioned having teacups at home. That her mom had left her.”
I paused in the act of rinsing a mug. “Yeah. My best friend Nora. She and her husband Jake were killed in a car accident.”
“So Hazel’snotyour daughter.”
I gave him a fierce look. “She is every inch my daughter.”
“Biologically?”
I shook my head.
Gideon folded his arms over his chest and leaned his head back against the cabinet like he required support.
“Did you think she was?”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t surewhatto think. Or if it was my business to think at all.”
This was the time when I could say that itwasn’this business. Which is exactly what I would have done a few days ago. But now, I figured maybe it was time to have a different kind of hard talk.
So I finished rinsing a mug, carefully put it in the dish drainer, and said, “Five years ago, the morning after we were… weremarried, I got a call from the Dallas police that there had been a car accident.” I glanced over at him. “You weren’t there.”
“I was out getting us coffee.” His voice was soft and remorseful, but there was no need for that.
