Yours for Christmas (Fool's Gold #15.5)(12)

“I did.” He passed Chloe the stuffing. “My mom worked for the State Department. We lived all around the world until I was twelve.”

“Did you miss your friends?” Chloe asked.

“I made new friends.”

Her eyes widened. “Was it hard?”

“Sometimes. Especially if I had to learn a new language. But I was used to it.” He looked at Bailey. “We moved back to the States when I was twelve. My parents wanted to settle in one place so my sisters and I could have continuity.”

“How many sisters?” she asked.

“Three. I’m in the middle.”

That must have been nice, she thought. She would have liked siblings. And for Chloe to have had at least one brother or sister. Although the odds of that were getting more unlikely by the year.

“I’d like a sister,” Chloe said. “I guess a brother would be okay, too. Daddy always told me...” Her voice trailed off as she stared at her plate.

“What, honey?” Bailey asked gently.

Chloe raised her gaze. “He said that no matter how many other kids you had, that I would always be his best girl. Because I was first.” She worried her lower lip. “I feel sad because I don’t remember him so much.”

Bailey reached across the table and touched her daughter’s hand. Before she could figure out what to say, Kenny spoke.

“It sounds like he really loved you.”

Chloe nodded.

“And you loved him.”

Another nod.

“Isn’t that the most important part? Knowing you loved each other?” He reached for the sweet potatoes.

Chloe looked to her for confirmation. Bailey nodded.

“He lives on in your heart. All the people we love do.”

“For always?” Chloe asked.

“For always,” Bailey promised.

* * *

AFTER THEY FINISHED DINNER, Bailey kept waiting for Kenny to leave. But he stuck with them through the second half of the football game and Chloe’s movie pick of the evening, The Muppet Christmas Carol. About eight-thirty, her daughter finally wound down from the excitement and zonked out on the sofa. Bailey tried not to let her heart get all twisty when Kenny carried Chloe to bed.

But there was something magical about a big, strong guy carrying a little girl. So it wasn’t completely her fault that she was both breathless and hopeful when they returned to the living room.

He was going to leave, she told herself. It was time for him to go. They were only friends, so she would be very, very foolish to expect anything other than a handshake. And while she didn’t expect more, she was willing to admit she wanted more.

But instead of leaving, Kenny returned to the sofa. Bailey settled on the opposite end and faced him.

“Your pie was delicious,” she said into the silence.

“Thanks. The whole meal was great. Thanks for inviting me.”

“We had fun. You’re good with Chloe.”

Instead of smiling, he stared past her, as if seeing something she couldn’t. “I like kids.”

“Do you have any?” she asked, realizing how little she knew about his past. She really had to spend some quality time on the internet, using Google to do some research on him.

“No,” he said firmly. “I did.”

She stared at him. “Oh, no. What happened? I’m sorry.”

He looked at her. “No one died. It wasn’t like that.”

She didn’t understand. If no one had died... She waited, not sure what to ask, or if she should. His expression was tight—both pained and angry, she thought.

“High school was easy,” he said with a shrug, his gaze once again looking past her. “I liked girls and they liked me. I was in and out of what I called love every couple of weeks.”

“Sounds like fun.”

He glanced at her and smiled. “Yeah. Fun is a good word for it.” The smile faded. “In college, I got a little more serious. The girlfriends lasted months instead of weeks. But no one stuck. Natalie was one of them. We dated for a few weeks. It was great and then it ended. When I ran into her the following spring, it was obvious that she was pregnant.”

Bailey stiffened. She hadn’t seen that coming.

“She’d never tried to get in touch with me, which pissed me off,” he continued. “I could count as well as the next guy. She was about five months along. The kid was mine. I proposed and she refused. She said she didn’t want to get married that way. So we moved in together.”

He shifted a little, then looked at Bailey. “I’d been drafted at that point. I was excited about graduating and starting my NFL career. I didn’t take as much time with Natalie as I should have. I wasn’t home much. I didn’t run around with other women, but there were a lot of things to do.”

She nodded, not sure what he wanted to hear. Or where the story was going.

“The baby—a boy—was born while I was playing. Natalie didn’t call to tell me she was in labor. I rushed home as soon as I found out, but Natalie wasn’t all that eager to keep me at home, so I went back to work. Time passed. We still weren’t married, but we had James and that was enough for me.”

He drew in a breath. “I spent all my free time with him. He was a great kid. Smart and loving. I was so damned proud. Things with Natalie were up and down, but I figured that’s what happened when you were in a serious relationship. When James was three, everything changed.”