for him to realize it was the exact wrong tactic. Her eyes narrowed, and while her face flushed a little, it looked more angry than aroused. "Throwing that...that...purely physical response in my face is not helping matters."
"Damn it," he said, disgusted with himself. "You know I'm no good at this kind of thing. I was never the charming ladies'-man type and I don't know why I'd think I'd start being that way now. You should have married one of those guys in your acting classes if you wanted smoothly scripted lines."
"Just start being honest!" she said. "You talk about time going by fast, about four lifetimes. I don't know what you mean by it."
"I don't mean anything. I was being nostalgic, Tess." Or an idiot, because she didn't appear placated. "I was thinking about the fact that I'm the father of four. I never saw - "
"You never saw yourself as being stuck with them, I get it. Well, Rebecca and Russell you can claim were oops babies, but you wanted Duncan and Oliver. You were a completely active and informed participant in the conception of them both."
He couldn't believe she was seriously going down this route, so he tried taking the emotion down a notch or two with a small smile. "And really, Tess, what were we thinking? I'm not sure they're actually human children. Have you seen them feeding themselves Cheetos with their toes?"
Amused or appalled. Those were the two emotions he'd been going for. Instead she just stared at him, all expression leaving her face. "That's the answer, then. You wish we didn't have the children."
"No!" Christ, he didn't wish them away. That wasn't it at all. "Tess, you've got to believe me. The kids..." His tongue was the size and consistency of one of those loofahs she used to smooth her skin in the shower.
"You got a vasectomy without telling me."
"I..." His stomach knotted. More cold sweat broke over his skin. Fuck, he could see her point about that. "In my defense, I really thought we had agreed that four was our limit."
"I have to know..." Her voice went very quiet. "I have to know if you're fine with having those four."
Oh, Tess. She was killing him here. "Of course. Good God, of course."
She stood up, her gaze steady on his face. "It's me, then. You don't want me."
"No!" He stood too, reaching out for her as she rushed to the steps, but he stumbled over Duncan and Oliver's soccer paraphernalia, his foot catching in a loop of a shin guard's stretchy strap. Before he could get himself untangled, she was running off down the sand.
Frustrated, he watched her retreating figure. What was he going to do now? How could he get her back without losing her by telling the truth? How would he get them all back without being crushed by the weight of loving them?
* * *
YESTERDAY, FOLLOWING their return from L.A., Jane had spent the rest of the afternoon with Tess and her kids. By tacit agreement, she and Griffin had put off getting down to work until the following morning. She'd even managed to convince Rebecca to delay her request of his help on her history project, not wanting to immerse him in thoughts of Afghanistan too soon. But it had to be done today. Stalling was over.
She'd been up since five, finally giving up on rest when all her dreams took her back to the night before. That single night she should be putting from her mind. He'd yet to stir from his bedroom, and it was closing in on eight. When she heard his door pop open, she wiped her hands on her jeans and gave a quick glance around the office. The manila envelope that Frank had passed to Griffin held a few more surprises that she'd arranged in readiness for him.
She heard him in the kitchen getting coffee. Next, his footsteps sounded in the hallway. Outside the beach house, the surf was up, because its shush shush shush was loud in her ears. Or maybe it was just the triple-timing beat of her heart, expressing the nervousness she felt about how she'd find his temperament today. The anxiety was ridiculous, really. She'd seen him in so many moods already: grim, gruff, teasing, kind. Dispassionate. Passionate. The whole gamut, actually.
More than she'd experienced with any other man, she thought. She was beginning to know Griffin very well.
So her apprehension was probably because this was her first real day on