With five speculative faces looking on—plus Jason’s sullen one—dinner was an uncomfortable affair. Hank did try his best to make everything seem perfectly normal. She had to give him that. She felt suddenly tongue-tied, while he asked all the right questions about school, doled out all the right bits of praise, saw that the after-dinner cleanup was organized. For a man who only weeks ago had been frozen solid at the mere thought of dealing with a bunch of children, he was doing awfully well. In fact, he was a natural. They might actually make a pretty good team.
“Hey, Mom,” David said, drawing her attention away from her own chaotic thoughts. “Is what Hank said right? Are we all going to Miami next weekend?”
She blinked and stared at him. Where had that idea come from? She looked at Hank, who seemed particularly pleased with himself.
“We’ll have to talk about it,” she said evasively.
“I think it’d be really neat,” Tracy said. “Just think of all the stores and movies to choose from.”
“And the Miami Heat,” Paul said of the basketball team. “Maybe they’ll have a game. Could we go to that, Hank?”
“If Ann agrees,” he said with unexpected and untimely deference.
She glared at him. While she’d been woolgathering, he’d gotten their hopes up. Now he’d tossed the ball into her court. The tactics were unfair, but effective. She’d been neatly trapped.
“If Hank doesn’t mind taking all of you,” she began, but he deftly put a stop to her one hope for a reprieve before she could even voice it.
“We’ll all go,” he said, watching her pointedly. “We can’t go off and leave you here alone.” It sounded very noble.
“Yeah, Mom,” David concurred. “You need a vacation, too.”
“Come on, Ann. It’ll be better than a zillion miles of running,” Tracy said. “You’re always saying that even a little break is good for reducing stress.”
Ann sighed in the face of all that well-calculated concern. She was even having her own advice thrown back at her. She supposed she ought to feel flattered that Tracy had even heard her. “We’ll see. We’ll have to check everybody’s schedules to see when it would work out.”
She glimpsed the triumphant look on Hank’s face just as David said, “Oh, my gosh.”
“What?” Ann said.
“The schedule. I almost forgot to tell you. There’s a parents’ night at school.” He avoided looking directly at her when he asked, “Will you come?”
“Jeez, why do you care about a dumb old parents’ night?” Jason said with derision. “All it is is a chance for the teachers to shoot off their mouths.”
“Jason,” Hank warned in a low voice.
Ann scowled at Jason as well. “If it’s important to David, that’s all that matters.”
“Well, excuse me,” Jason said, glaring at Hank and ignoring Ann. He took off without another word, knocking his chair into the counter in the process.
Hank looked ready to explode, but she managed to silence him with a slight shake of the head. For once, he actually listened to her. Ann vowed to have a talk with Jason later. In the meantime, though, she needed to reassure David, who was shifting in his chair, his expression embarrassed. He considered Jason to be the big brother he’d never had. Jason’s criticism had obviously hurt. He looked as though he wished he’d never made the request.
“Never mind him. I’ll be there,” she promised, reaching for the family calendar she kept posted on the refrigerator. “When is it?”
“Day after tomorrow,” he said, the enthusiasm gone from his voice.
“David!”
“I’m sorry. I forgot.”
Ann knew better. He’d probably been afraid to bring it up before now. Although David had been with her a year now, he’d been shuttled through so many foster homes that he expected this one to be short-term as well. Despite her reassurances, he still wasn’t convinced he had a permanent place in her heart. She ruffled his hair. “It’s okay, sport. It’s not a problem.”
Hank stood. “Okay, guys, everybody scoot. You all have homework, I’m sure.”
The kids scattered, but not before Tracy shot a knowing look at the two of them. Ann caught the thumbs-up signal she directed at Hank as she left.
“Nicely done,” Ann said with an unmistakable edge of sarcasm.
He grinned unrepentantly. “Do you think they suspected I wanted to be alone with you?”
“Tracy certainly did. The others were probably just grateful that you let them off from doing the dishes.”
He stared at the messy table in dismay. “Whoops. I knew there was something I’d forgotten.” He stood and dropped a kiss on her cheek.
It was casual, she told herself. Perfectly meaningless.
It set off fireworks deep inside her.
“Don’t worry,” Hank was saying as she tried unsuccessfully to ignore the sparks he’d just ignited. “I’ll get this parenthood stuff down before too long.”
“Hank, we need to talk about this.”
“About what?” he said with apparent innocence.
“Parenting,” she said determinedly. “You and me. Trips to Miami.”
“What about it?” he inquired as he ran water into the sink.
“Hank, will you pay attention to me, please?”
He gave her a wicked grin and swept her up and into his arms before she realized his intentions. “I’m delighted you finally asked.”
“Hank!” she protested, trying to bite back a laugh.
“Yes?” he said, his tongue touching the shell of her ear and sending bolts of electricity shooting straight through her. Suddenly she no longer felt any desire to laugh.
“Are you ever serious?” she said with forced levity, trying to wriggle out of his embrace. If she gave in now, she had a feeling she’d be lost, that she’d never recapture her control of the situation.
“I am now,” he murmured, demonstrating with a very serious, breath-stealing kiss. His lips were velvet fire against hers, persuasive. Her control slipped another notch.
“And I was this morning,” he added.
She clung tenaciously to reality. “You were not. Now listen to me,” she said, gasping when she
