Tender Loving Care Read Free Page B

I’ll be damned if I could live with myself if I turned them over to someone they didn’t know.”
    “I know,” she agreed unhappily. “Especially now, Rafe. I don’t think either child understands what’s happened yet. Aaron seems particularly confused. They need someone familiar in their lives, someone they already care about and trust, someone who had first-hand knowledge of their lives with Janet and Jonathan.”
    “So they go with one of us,” Rafe murmured, and turned to face her. His eyes glinted with a speculative light, and his tone was thoughtful. “Or both of us.”
    “Pardon?”
    “We don’t have to come up with a permanent solution this instant, just a temporary one. You feel you can’t handle the kids, and so do I, but we agree we’re not about to leave them with strangers.”
    “Yes…”
    “They’ve just had their world rocked to hell. They need two parents.”
    “Yes…” Why did she have the feeling that a slow-rolling rock was picking up momentum on its course down a darned long hill?
    “I don’t know how I can manage to get time off, but I will. If we took them to your place in Washington, you could keep your job, and I could watch over the boys. For a short time only, of course. But they’d have both of us there, and we’d have the chance to live with them, know them, get them through these rough first weeks without Janet and Jonathan. And in the meantime, we’d both be in a better position to make long-term decisions about what’s best for them.”
    “ Wait a minute,” Zoe said desperately. And Rafe obligingly waited while she struggled for something to say. “I don’t see…I mean, obviously we can’t…” She took a breath. “There’s no way that arrangement would work, and anyway, wherever you live has to be better for kids than where I live.”
    He shrugged. “ Where we go isn’t the point. Sticking together is, for the kids’ sake.” He climbed out of the car and then peered back in. “I can see from the look on your face what you think of the idea. You think I feel any different? But dammit, do we have any other choice?”

Chapter Two
    At three minutes past six the next morning, Rafe leaned against the open doorway to Zoe’s bedroom. He watched as thirty pounds climbed on her back, and then another thirty pounds tried hard, giggling, to climb on top of him.
    “Aren’t you awake yet, Snookums? Uncle Rafe is!”
    “Wonderful,” she murmured groggily.
    “Uncle Rafe said you’d tell us about the big jet we’re going on. Come on, Snookums! We let you sleep in forever!”
    “I can see that by the clock. Good heavens, what time did you wake up Uncle Rafe?” Carefully, she dislodged both of the imps.
    He didn’t mind that she hadn’t noticed him yet. Fresh from sleep, her skin had a rosy blush, and morning sunshine tossed gold in her tangled hair. She’d slept in a man’s baggy green T-shirt, so loose at the throat that it bared almost all of one slim white shoulder. Her lazy stretch made him smile…and also made him conscious of every lithe curve of her body.
    “So you already talked to your Uncle Rafe, did you?”
    “Does Parker have to go, or is it just me?” Aaron asked hopefully.
    “I’m going, too, you twirp. We’re going to Uncle Rafe’s house, right, Zoe?”
    “First,” she agreed sleepily. “First we’re going to spend a few weeks at Uncle Rafe’s house, and then a few weeks at my house. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
    He heard the effort she made to put enthusiasm in her voice. Last night, she’d done her best to talk him out of the idea. And last night, she hadn’t been as relaxed as she was now. Rolling on her stomach with her little rump in the air, she rested her chin in her hands as she talked to the urchins.
    Everything about her seemed to touch him. He couldn’t remember being moved by any other woman in the same way. To look at Zoe was to see a lover, a woman who spilled over with her own unique brand of feminine