it, Mommy. Mr. Jake is.”
“It’s far too long, baby.”
“He can do just a few pages.”
Nikki knew when she was beaten. She followed her daughter to the front part of the house where Jake was sprawled on the sofa resembling the dangerous male animal he was. He hadn’t bothered turning on the TV. Instead, he was staring at his cell screen.
When they walked into the room, he immediately dropped the phone. “Hey, there.”
Emma walked right up to him and handed over the book. “Will you read me a story? I picked this one for you,” she said, beaming. “Because you told me you liked zubzertories.”
Nikki shot Jake a puzzled glance.
He smiled. “Observatories. And I’d love to read this to Emma.”
“Ah. Well, twenty minutes, no more, please.” Nikki needed to get Jake out of her house before her resolve cracked.
Even when she left the room, Jake’s low, masculine voice carried in the small house. It was impossible to ignore him, impossible to pretend she didn’t react to him strongly.
Fifteen minutes later, Nikki returned to her daughter’s room. “Time for bed, Emma.”
“Just one more chapter, please, Mommy.”
Nikki had played this game far too many times. “Now means now. Tell Mr. Jake thank you.”
Emma slid off Jake’s lap. “Thank you, Mr. Jake,” she said, her expression doleful. The sad-little-girl act sometimes won her five extra minutes, but Nikki held firm this time.
Nikki managed a smile for Jake, though she was nervous and jittery. “There’s beer and wine in the fridge. Help yourself.”
He gave her a slow, sleepy smile. “I’m good. Take your time.”
Emma yawned. “Can Mr. Jake tuck me in?”
Nikki froze. She was pretty sure Jake did, too. It was one thing for a visitor to read a book. Tucking in was for family members. “Um, no, sweetheart. That’s for mommies and little girls.” She picked up her baby, who was getting almost too heavy to carry like this. “I’ll be back, Jake.”
Five
Jake stood and paced. Suddenly, this small house felt stifling. The home-cooked meal. The cute kid. The beautiful mother. All the things he had managed to avoid in his life.
In Atlantic City five years ago, Nikki had appeared as a sexy woman from his past. A chance to indulge in some hot and heavy no-strings sex. But now, Nikki had changed. She had moved on. She had grown up and matured. Or maybe she had already changed five years ago, and he hadn’t seen it.
Though Jake admired her for the life she had created despite her father’s deeds, he was wary. He’d been on the run for far too long to be seriously tempted by the idea of settling down. It would be unfair to let Nikki think that he might. Better to keep his distance and fight the sexual hunger that consumed him.
Maybe Nikki was right. He had no business playing “Daddy” unless he was ready to go all in. And he wasn’t.
Returning to Falling Brook had been hard enough.
This little blue-collar town where Nikki lived, Poplar Ridge, was less than an hour away from where she had grown up, but by every other measure, it might as well have been on a different planet. Jake had hung his hat in all kinds of communities over the years. He’d enjoyed luxury, and he had found meaning in testing himself with deprivation. But all the while, he had known he had a safety net. He always had money.
Even when he fled Falling Brook and the reporters that were hounding him, he’d had secret money saved from playing poker. Jake had used his skills in day-trading and gradually built his fortune.
But Nikki and her mother had been left with virtually nothing.
Roberta Reardon had come from a social background and a generation where trophy spouses entertained and visited the spa but weren’t employed. Nikki had been seventeen, almost eighteen, when her father disappeared. Not a child, but certainly not a full-grown adult. In the midst of grief, her whole world had imploded. At the time, Jake had insisted she was partly to blame. Even now, he regretted that.
He had lashed out at his teenage girlfriend, because the truth was too much to bear. Vernon and Everett had embezzled money and left their families behind. In search of what? If Everett Reardon hadn’t been killed, if he had joined his partner in the Bahamas, what were the two men hoping to accomplish?
That unanswered question had shaped Jake’s life. Bitterness and angry regret kept him on the run. Or maybe it was the memory of the