His Touch (11 page)

Kara Larsen crossed his path again.

Again
.

What were the odds? The fire house, the department store, the 911 call. Twelve people in his class and her assessment form is the one that gets screwed up?

She’d said
he
was the sign she’d been waiting for from her mother. What if she was a sign from Erin?

No. He would not go there. No, it was categorically insane to believe that. He was a mess. Emotionally shut off, according to Lynn. He was scarred and scared. He couldn’t help anybody. He especially couldn’t help anybody with a kid.

Help her,
his brother had said.

He tripped on a shoelace and nearly face-planted.
Get a grip, Bennett
. He crouched down, tied the lace and thought of Kyle. He didn’t believe in fortune-telling, and he never checked his horoscope. He didn’t believe in psychic mediums and ghosts. And even though he hadn’t been to a church in more years than he could count, he
did
believe in life after death. He didn’t give a crap who thought it was weird, it was the reason he visited the Memorial and talked to Kyle, and took comfort when he felt he could hear his brother speak back.

It was also the reason he never visited the cemetery where Erin was buried.

Lynn said he needed closure. He needed to see her grave, needed to accept that their daughter was dead.

Yeah, well he wasn’t
accepting
anything.

And never would.

*

The next morning,
Reid headed to a little cafe he liked, but Kara was there with her sister and two men. He recognized one from the hospital. The sister’s husband. But the second one was a stranger. The four of them laughed and took turns minding Nadia, who kept trying to escape from her high chair.

He watched for a moment and left when the hostess offered to seat him nearby.

He was working the day tour when a 911 call sent him to one of the downtown brokerage houses. He was administering CPR to an unconscious trader when a pair of very nice legs distracted him. He followed them up, up, up and found they belonged to Kara Larsen.

She gave him a tiny smile and disappeared into an office.

Which was a good thing because seeing her in her
dressed for success
clothes distracted him so much, he feared he’d kill his patient.

Every day, that’s how it went. Every damn day, everywhere he went, he either spotted her or ran right into her and then, had to endure one of those awkward silences when you wished a sinkhole would open under your feet and save you.

At the Memorial, he talked to his brother.

Maybe you should stop fighting it.

“Jeez, Kyle, you know I don’t believe in fate.”

Not fate, Reid. She’s a woman. You’re a man. Do the math.

He had. And the fact was she wasn’t just a woman, she was
a mother
. And he couldn’t be a father again.

He just couldn’t.

So why was he striding right up to her, a week after that kiss in the park, carrying an extra cup of coffee like he’d actually
planned
to meet her?

“Here.”

Her eyebrows shot up in stunned shock. “Thank you?”

“Hi!” Nadia said with a squeal and wrapped her arms around his leg.

“Hi to you, too!” He couldn’t resist leaning over and pressing her little button nose. “She learned a new word. That’s really great.” There was another awkward silence while he watched Nadia chase a bright red ball, trying to think of something else to say. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. With a sound of annoyance, he shifted his weight and spread his arms. “Okay. Let’s just get this over with.”

Kara swallowed a sip of coffee and walked away from him to catch Nadia’s ball before it rolled too far away.

Okay, so she was going to make him work for it. He followed her. Together, they kept a small perimeter around Nadia and the ball.

“I know you probably think I’m a dick for the way I ran away last week so go ahead and get it off your chest.”

Damn it. He said
chest
. Now he couldn’t help looking at hers. She wore a T-shirt with a pair of pink shorts or pants or whatever they called those things that ended at the knee and damn it, he wanted to kiss her again. With a sigh of disgust, he sank to the grass, put his cup beside him and stared at his hands, trying to find the right words. Nadia ran to him and dropped into his lap. He caught her just before she neutered him. She reached up a hand, rubbed the scruff on his face. When she puckered her lips and kissed his cheek with a loud “Mwah,” he almost wept.

He didn’t speak for a long moment. When he looked at Kara, she was staring at him with eyes as soft as melted chocolate. He nuzzled her daughter and sucked in a breath for courage. “Okay, here’s the thing. I like you and God knows why, but you obviously like me, too.”

He ignored her snort of derision. Nadia decided to pull off her shoes and play with her toes. He laughed. Couldn’t keep shoes and socks on Erin if you’d glued them to her feet. “The thing is I’m not looking for anything…long term. I, ah, just got out of a relationship and I’m not over her.” He didn’t bother explaining it was Erin he was talking about, not Lynn. He figured he was getting through to Kara because she finally sat on the grass next to him. “But I want to give this a shot, see where it takes us.”

Kara’s eyebrows quirked at the word
us
and Reid took that as a good sign.

She didn’t say anything immediately. When she finally did open her mouth, her words almost stopped his heart. “Tell me about your daughter.”

She might as well have shot him.

“How did you know?”

She took his hand, squeezed it. “Your partner. Gene? He told me when you flipped out during the CPR class.”

He wanted to launch himself off the ground and hit something. Anything. If he hadn’t been holding Nadia, he would have. It took him a few minutes to figure out how to respond. Finally, he met her gaze. “She’s dead,” he admitted flatly. “I don’t talk about it. About
her
. Ever.” So why did he suddenly feel this urge to spill his guts and tell her all of it, right down to every tear he’d been unable to shed?

“I’m sorry.”

Words he’d heard a hundred, maybe a million times since Erin’s death. They never helped. They never soothed.

Until Kara Larsen said them.

Abruptly, he realized he was clutching Kara’s hand like a lifeline. Deliberately, he relaxed his grip and pulled his hand away. “You really think I’m a sign from your mother?” He wasn’t a sign; he was a hot mess.

Kara bent over, retrieved her daughter’s discarded footwear and redressed Nadia’s chubby feet. “Yeah. I do. I get that you don’t want to get into something serious and we don’t have to. But you were a good dad, Reid. So show me how to be a good mom. That’s all I want.”

That’s all.

He thought about that image his brother had planted in his mind, the one of Kara’s mother reading to his daughter. The right thing to do would be to run fast and far. Instead, he nodded. He offered his hand back to her, felt that sizzle singe him all the way down to his toes, and for the first time since his daughter died, found himself wishing for more.

That he had more to give.

*

“So, uh, where
do we start?” Kara asked, strapping Nadia back into her stroller.

He scratched his jaw. “Well, would you like to hear my first impression of your daughter, that day in my CPR class?”

Kara waved a hand. “Oh, yes. Please enlighten me.”

“She’s bored.”

She blinked. Of all the things he could have said, she’d never expected that. “Bored,” she echoed, trying it on for size. “How so?”

“Look at her verbal skills. I’ve only heard Nadia say three or four actual words. Most of her communication is through shrieks and whines. And you come running whenever she does it, so she has no real need to form words.”

It stung, but yes. Reid made a good argument. A damn good argument. “So what do I do?”

“Read to her.”

“I do. I take her to the library’s story time. I read to her every night.”

“That’s great. Keep doing that. And expose her to new things. Maybe get her into daycare.”

“Daycare?” Kara frowned. “Absolutely not.” When Reid gave her the eye roll, she explained further. “Beth, my nanny, is fantastic with Nadia. Her mother’s sick, so she needed some time but—”

Reid held up his hand. “Kara, I’m sure your nanny is great, but Nadia’s not a newborn anymore. She needs to learn how to play with other kids her age. There’s a Montessori school not far from here where she can play and run around and exert all of this energy she’s got. You’ll find she’ll sleep better at night and won’t be so likely to Houdini on you.”

Houdini. Yeah, that was one way of putting it. Kara thought about it for a long while. Last week, when Al had taken Nadia out of her stroller and run around the park with her, the baby had fallen asleep on the way home—something she’d never done before—and slept straight through the night. Maybe there was something to this.

“Okay. Suppose I did enroll her in this program. What about communicable diseases and germs?”

“Everyone has to be vaccinated.”

“Okay, but what about the anti-vaxxers?”

“You make sure the program doesn’t have any before you leave her there.” Reid angled his head. “She won’t forget you.”

Kara nibbled a fingernail and fought back the stupid tears burning in the back of her throat. Nadia was a year and a half. She’d gotten her first tooth and taken her first steps. Maybe it was time to let someone else teach her new words and new skills.

“Okay.”

Reid’s eyes widened. “Really? You’ll consider it? Let’s go over right now so you can see what it’s like.”

With a sigh, Kara steered Nadia’s stroller in the direction Reid indicated. He was right. Rainbow Montessori wasn’t far. The director, a smart woman who introduced herself as Carol Hart, gave them a tour of the entire facility and introduced them to several teachers.

“Well, what do you think, Ms. Larsen?” Carol asked some time later.

Kara bit her lip and wished her mother were there. She’d know what to do. “I don’t know. It’s a lot to think about.”

“Can I make a suggestion?” Carol slid a look toward Nadia’s stroller where the baby was shouting and waving her hands at the toddlers in the classroom. “Unbuckle her. Let her join the children in this class and see how she likes it.”

Kara met Reid’s gaze and he gave her an encouraging nod. She hesitated a moment, but unbuckled Nadia and set her on her feet. Nadia instantly took off, running for the table where several toddlers were squishing some form of clay between fat little fingers. The teacher, Miss Jackie, was using cutters to punch shapes out of the dough.

“What’s this one, Madison?” she asked a little girl who was about Nadia’s size, but acted much older.

“That’s a ball.” She took it and tried to bounce it, but it just splatted on the table. The babies all laughed, including Nadia.

“And what’s this one?”

“A log.”

Kara’s eyes nearly fell from her head. A
log
? Was this child a savant of some kind?

“Let’s all make some logs.” Miss Jackie took a chunk of the dough and rolled it between her hands. “Here, Nadia. You try.”

Kara’s heart filled to near-bursting with pride as her daughter copied the teacher’s motions and made a log of her own.

“Yay, Nadia!” Miss Jackie applauded. “You made a log. What did you make?”

“La!”

Kara grabbed Reid’s hand. “Did you hear that? She said it. She said
log
.”

“Ms. Larsen, why don’t we leave Nadia here and return to my office?” Carol Hart suggested. “I can explain our policies and rates to you and your husband.”

“Oh, we’re—”

Reid squeezed her hand. “Good idea.”

Ninety minutes later, Kara was a bundle of raw nerves. She had so many misgivings about daycare, but Reid was all for it and Reid knew what he was talking about. The facility was clean and child proofed. The exits were controlled so that Houdinis like Nadia couldn’t escape without help and nobody could enter without proper ID. There was even a tiny natural playground out back that was entirely fenced in.