Going Down Easy (Boys of the Big Easy #1)(30)

Bea gave her a soft smile. “I think that the chance of doing something you don’t think you want to do and having it turn out wonderful is worth taking. And I think even a few amazing moments that touch our hearts can overpower any fear.”

Addison had an almost melancholy look on her face. “Being afraid is a protective instinct. It keeps us safe.”

“Sometimes,” Bea agreed. “But while a fire can burn you, it’s also the best way to make toasted marshmallows. And you have to get pretty close to the flames to get the sweetness.”

Addison’s face relaxed, and she laughed lightly. And Gabe’s gut clenched with want.

And he suddenly realized that even if she didn’t like touching the metaphorical alligator in the end, he was going to make sure she at least gave it a try.





Chapter Five

“Hey, Stell Bell?” Addison asked two nights later.

“Yeah, Mommy?”

Stella was on her stomach on the living room floor, drawing with her markers, while Addison sat on the couch reading about—much to her chagrin—alligators.

“Did you know that alligators breathe like birds?”

Her nose scrunched in confusion, Stella looked up. “What does that mean?”

“They don’t breathe like other animals—air in and out from the same tubes—they breathe like birds. The air goes in one way and out another,” Addison told her. That was pretty interesting, she thought. “Kind of neat, right?”

Stella gave her a funny look. “I guess.”

Okay, so maybe she’d picked the wrong fact. Though she couldn’t help but wonder what Cooper would think of the breathing thing. “They lay eggs like birds, too,” she told Stella. “But they can lay thirty to fifty at a time.”

“Okay, Mommy,” Stella said, and went back to her drawing.

All right, so alligators weren’t really Stella’s thing. But . . . “We should go on a swamp-boat tour,” Addison said nonchalantly.

“What’s a swamp boat?” Stella asked, looking up.

Yeah, there was something about the word swamp that elicited all sorts of images. Maybe it wasn’t the sexiest thing, but there was something intriguing about the bayou for Addison. And Stella was all about things that went fast. Like boats. “Come here, I’ll show you,” she said, holding up her phone.

Stella scrambled up beside her, and Addison shifted to make room. So rarely did Stella sit on her lap or up against her, Addison actually stopped for a moment before wrapping her arm around her daughter. Stella just wasn’t a cuddler, and Addison didn’t want to scare her off. Looking into the big blue eyes that Stella had inherited from her father—but that made Addison think of another man altogether with a thump in her heart that startled her—Addison wondered if she’d turned her daughter off cuddling. Addison had never been big on physical displays of affection, but she hated the idea that maybe she’d somehow given Stella the idea that she didn’t want to hug and cuddle her. But Stella snuggled in close, and Addison took a breath. She was overreacting. After spending time with the single-parents group, she’d realized that there were all kinds of styles, and they were all good when they came from a place of love. Hers just wasn’t the warm, fuzzy style. Her parents hadn’t been warm and fuzzy, either. Addison saw herself as more of a teacher and a guide. She taught Stella good choices by talking and doing and by example. She comforted Stella when she was hurt or scared or sick, but Addison also tried to explain why something hurt or what was going on in Stella’s body when she was sick. That way she’d know that it would eventually go away and that it was normal. And when Stella was scared—as she was of storms—they talked about what made a storm and why thunder was loud and how to be safe, with the hopes that taking some of the mystery out of things would make them easier to handle.

It didn’t always work, but Addison felt it was harder to be scared of something that you understood completely.

And that thought sent her mind spinning to Gabe.

Again.

The entire reason she was looking up facts about alligators was because he’d said Cooper was newly obsessed with them. That had gotten her curious. What was so fascinating about alligators anyway? And if he knew all about them, didn’t that help with the fear factor?

But she couldn’t deny that when he’d been talking about how Cooper was interested in the idea of alligators but nervous about meeting one in person, Addison couldn’t help but think that Gabe could have been talking about her and relationships.

The idea of a relationship with Gabe was definitely fascinating, but facing the real thing was more than nerve-racking.

So she thought maybe approaching the relationship the way she approached scary things with Stella might be smart. Learn all she could, then break it down into smaller, more easily understandable parts and make it less intimidating. But learning about Gabe definitely meant learning about Cooper. And the only thing she really knew about Cooper was his alligator fascination.

So she was reading about gators. As if knowing how alligators breathed and laid eggs would make being with Gabe less intimidating.

Her stomach flipped at the idea of really being with Gabe, and she wondered if she was just crazy. Everything she’d told Gabe was true—she did not want any more kids, and she didn’t want a co-parent, not to mention a husband, and she didn’t want Stella getting attached to someone who wasn’t going to be around long. She’d always thought she might date again when Stella was older, maybe a teenager, and could understand that the relationships were just about companionship and fun and wouldn’t start automatically thinking about dads and brothers and sisters. But maybe at her age now, it would be easier.