Two of a Kind (Fool's Gold #11)(59)

“For ten seconds.”

“That’s all it takes for disaster to strike.”

He lightly touched her cheek. “Don’t you think you’re being a little irrational?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “I feel guilt. I’m overcompensating to distract myself from the guilt, which makes me uncomfortable. I do know that Carter is perfectly capable of taking care of himself for several hours at a time. While having a sexual encounter in the middle of the day in an open kitchen would be wrong, our kissing wouldn’t be detrimental to him.”

His gaze was steady. “But?”

“But I still feel guilty.”

“Welcome to how the other half lives.”

“You feel guilty?” she asked, surprised.

“Everyone does. We’re not doing enough, we’re doing too much. Hell, I feel guilty for not spending more time with Carter.”

“So why don’t you spend more time with him?”

When he just looked at her instead of answering, she understood. The fear. For what was taken and what had been left. For the kind of man he’d become. For all the things he thought he couldn’t do and those he didn’t want to do. Fear bred guilt which caused Gideon to withdraw.

“I feel guilty about you, too,” he admitted.

That surprised her. “Why?”

“You’re doing so much. I really appreciate how you’ve stepped in to handle a lot of this.”

“I want to. I like him.”

“He likes you, too.”

Words that pleased her. “We should watch the movie,” she said.

Gideon shook his head. “You go ahead. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Which meant he was leaving. “Why? You were just laughing. We kissed. It was nice.”

Something flashed through his dark eyes. Whatever he was experiencing emotionally, it wasn’t pleasant.

“I’ll be out on the deck,” he told her, and then he was gone.

Felicia made her way down to the media room. Carter was reading one of Gideon’s car magazines. He looked at the Blu-ray case in her hand.

“What are we watching?” he asked.

She showed him.

He groaned. “A cartoon.”

“It’s animated. There’s a difference.”

“Can we see something with car chases and bad guys and stuff?”

Which was almost exactly what Gideon had said. “This is better.”

Carter grumbled something under his breath, but he turned on the TV and Blu-ray player and slipped the disc in place. Then he joined Felicia on the sofa as Despicable Me began.

She hadn’t been sure she would enjoy the animated feature very much. Sometimes children’s movies were too simplistic for her tastes. But the story of a man inadvertently discovering what it means to love and to create a family touched her more than she expected.

Partway through, she paused the movie to go get the brownies she’d baked earlier. Carter followed her up to the kitchen.

“Gideon left?” he asked.

“He’s outside. He needs to be alone right now. He’ll come back before his shift at the radio station.” She paused, wanting to say Gideon wasn’t avoiding him on purpose, only he was. She didn’t like lying and felt it served no purpose. Carter would easily guess the truth.

She put brownies onto a plate. “Do you want a glass of milk?” she asked.

“I’ll get it.”

While he poured milk for himself, she put ice in a glass and then filled it with tea. They carried everything back down to the media room.

They sat next to each other on the sectional. Carter reached for the remote, but instead of resuming the movie, he turned to her.

“Why don’t you have kids?” he asked.

The question surprised her. “I haven’t been in a serious relationship,” she admitted. “I understand that it’s not technically necessary to be married to have a child, but I had hoped to follow that traditional path.”

“Had hoped?”

“I still want to fall in love and get married.” She nodded as an unexpected truth made itself known. “Either way, I want to have children. I want a family.”

“You’ll be a good mom,” Carter told her.

She was less sure. “I don’t know very much about raising a child. I don’t have the advantage of having learned things from my own parents.”

He reached for a brownie. “You have good instincts. You remind me of my mom, a little. She told me how things were. She didn’t lie ’cause I was a kid. We were a team, you know? You’d be like that.”

Felicia swallowed, her throat tight. “Thank you for the compliment. It’s very meaningful.”

He shrugged. “Having me show up like I did wasn’t easy. But you’ve been right here the whole time. Not everyone would have done that.” He picked up the remote. “The movie’s pretty good. I like Gru, and the minions rock. I wish we could build some robots.”

“They’re not robots,” she said. “They’re life-forms. Ignoring the moral implications, ownership of life-forms destined to servitude fundamentally weakens a society.”

Carter’s eyes twinkled. “You’re saying it’s wrong.”