Jessica was not really sure if it was Jamie’s presence, or her own growing confidence, but things went far better than she had anticipated. Though they could not replace her passport immediately, they would treat her case as urgent, and contact her through Jamie as soon as they had temporary documents available so she could travel.
Unfortunately, until they had completely verified her identity, they could not give a photo ID.
Which meant she still could not get a hotel. It meant she would be staying with Jamie one more night, at least. She was appalled at how thrilled she was by that!
After that, the rest of the day was a whirl of delight: the Russian Tea Room for champagne high tea, a stroll through Central Park, where they paused and watched little boys—and one little girl—race remote control boats on the reservoir. The little girl kept ramming the boats around her, and then giggling fiendishly.
“Was that you as a little girl?” Jamie asked.
“No, I’m afraid I’ve always been the good girl.” Then she realized how it sounded and she blushed.
He took in her blush, and the smallest smile, just a touch wicked, crossed his features, as if he were having wayward thoughts about rectifying that.
It occurred to her she would let him!
“What were you like as a little boy?” she said, to ease some of the sudden tense awareness of each other that tinged the warm summer air around them.
“Pick one,” he said, nodding toward the boys.
She studied them for a moment, and then pointed to a solemn-looking boy who appeared to be dismantling his boat to diagnose a problem. Jamie laughed. He was one of those men who threw back his head to laugh. A light came on in his face, making him—impossibly—even more attractive. His laughter was so deep and rich and genuine, that Jessica noticed it brought smiles to the faces of those passing by, New Yorkers generally famous for being oblivious to one another.
“Maybe more like that one,” he said, pointing to a lad whose hair was going every which way, and who had his pants rolled up and was in the water up to his ankles. “If he catches a frog, tomorrow it’s going in the desk of the girl he secretly loves.”
The thought of Jamie secretly loving someone sent tingles up and down her spine. “You don’t seem like that at all,” she said hastily, not sure if she was talking about the little boy, or the ability to secretly love someone. She remembered when they had looked at that expensive ring together she had wondered if he had a secret romantic side. It was dangerous—and thrilling—to be thinking of him in such a personal way.
“Like most boys, I’ve outgrown my desire to put frogs in girl’s drawers.”
The way he said drawers made her think of her sexy new underwear, and from the wicked look on his face, that was exactly what he intended. Jessica was fairly certain that the only part of that equation he had lost interest in was the frog part.
“My mother claims every gray hair on her head was caused by my shenanigans—her word not mine—between the ages of two and eighteen.”
“Ha! I think gray hair may be hereditary in your family.” He rewarded her with a smile, but then she remembered what he had told her last night. “The shenanigans stopped at eighteen because of the death of your father, didn’t they?”
He hesitated, and looked off into the distance. “I was suddenly the man of the family. It was a role nothing in my life, to that point, had prepared me for.”
Unlike her, shrinking away from life when Devon had died, she had a feeling he had handled it differently.
“You rose to it, didn’t you?” she asked softly.
She laid her fingertips on his forearm, where his shirt was rolled up. She thought he might pull away, but he didn’t. If anything, the touch connected them at a deeper level.
“I think I pretty much sucked at it,” he said, some emotion in the sudden hoarseness of his voice.
“I don’t believe that,” she said firmly.
He looked at her, deeply, as if there was something in those simple words he wanted to hang on to. “It was just a tough time. Along with the shock of sudden loss—he had a heart attack—I was suddenly plunged into the world of adult responsibility. He left some insurance and savings, but for a while I wondered if I could find a way for my mom to have a home again and let my sister go to college as she had always dreamed.”
“You did find a way?”
“I did,” he said.
“You don’t sound as proud of yourself as you should.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I managed the things that they needed. But I couldn’t take the pain away.”
“You’re very hard on yourself,” she said softly.
“I had a sense of failing them almost every day.”
She could tell a man like him would not like anything he perceived as failure. She knew it was probably uncharacteristic for him to reveal something like this of himself, and she could feel his trust in her trickle warmly down her spine.
“I think you held yourself to an impossible standard.”
“Do you, now?” he asked softly.
She nodded, and he seemed to take that in, before he shrugged it off, as if it was absolution he felt he was undeserving of.
“If you ask my sister, it soured me.”
“You don’t seem sour!” She finally, reluctantly, took her hand away from his arm.
He smiled at her. “Thanks. Sarah thinks everyone should be happily married and producing children, like her, otherwise it is not a life well lived. She says all that shouldering the family responsibility so young killed that for me.”
“And did it?” Jessica whispered.
“Oh, yeah. She has gone as far as to call me hedonistic.”
“That seems mean. After all you’ve done for her.”
“We like to tease each other. I call her DD for
