Kristina Knight - The Daughter He Wanted

His friend said something and his laugh cracked across the backyard, sending the butterflies in her belly into overdrive. It was a good laugh. A solid, confident laugh.

He turned and his intense gaze settled on her, pushing the butterflies to full-on panic mode. Alex smiled and tipped the bottle toward her before taking a drink. He turned his gaze back to his friend Tucker, but Paige had the unsettling feeling his focus was still on the deck.

On her.

It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Made her sit a little straighter in her chair. Cross her legs.

God. She was not, repeat not, interested in the man as a...

Shoot. Yes, she was.

She needed to cap that feeling the way she capped the tubes of paint in her studio: tightly. Not just for her own sanity, either. Alison wasn’t wrong about Paige’s past romances.

She sighed. Men who either couldn’t or wouldn’t treat her as anything more than an accessory. Something to put on and take off as the mood suited them.

Paige never doubted her decision to have Kaylie as a single parent.

Not until the gorgeous man sitting under her best friend’s tree had shown up on her doorstep. Well, curb.

Please, don’t let him treat Kaylie like an accessory.

Alex pointed and Paige looked in that direction in time to see Kaylie climb up the rungs of the ladder and hurl herself toward the metal trapeze frame hanging from one end of the swing set. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment that seemed to take too long. Kaylie sailed through the short space, tawny hair flying behind her, until her little hands caught the bottom rung and held fast. Her legs swung once more, twice.

Kaylie giggled as the trapeze swung crazily to the side. And then she fell, hard, down to the ground.

Paige was out of her chair like a shot and so was Alex. They started toward Kaylie but she got up, dusted off her rump and turned toward the house.

“Didja see me, Mama? I flew! I really flew!” She high-fived herself. “Good job, Kaylie, good job!” An enormous grin split her face and she turned to the ladder. “I’m’a go again. Watch this time,” she ordered.

Paige stopped short of the swing set, Alex beside her, and watched as Kaylie climbed back up the four-rung ladder. She settled her feet, holding on to the sides of the swing set as she twisted her mouth to the side and looked intently at the barely moving trapeze.

“She’ll be okay. She’ll be okay.” Paige whispered the words like a prayer. “Be okay. It’s only three feet off the ground. Be okay.”

Alex joined in, his deep, whispering voice combining with hers in the she’ll-be-okay chant.

Finally, Kaylie pushed off the step and jumped toward the trapeze once more. Her hands slipped and she tumbled to the soft earth beneath the swings.

“Oh, no,” Paige said, stepping forward. But Alex’s hand on her wrist stopped her.

“Wait.”

Who was he to tell her to wait? She couldn’t wait. Her baby just fell three feet to the hard ground.

Kaylie stood up again, dusted off her behind and shoved her hair away from her face. She looked up at the trapeze as if it betrayed her and then stomped away from the swing set toward them. She beetled her brows, mumbling to herself and looking back to the swings.

Paige caught her daughter in her arms. “You okay, baby?”

“It wasn’t supposed to move.”

“What wasn’t supposed to move?” Alex knelt beside them in the grass.

“The hand swinger. It was s’posed to stay still.” She wriggled out of Paige’s too-tight grasp. “I told it I’d come back later but only if it promises to stay still.” Kaylie shot another glance toward the trapeze, swinging lightly in the breeze. “Only if it stays still,” she enunciated each word in her angry, four-year-old voice and continued to Alison’s deck. “I need juice,” she called and pushed open the sliding glass door to the kitchen.

Paige put her hand to her heart. “She’s okay. I thought I might have lost about a year off my life there for a second.”

Alex chuckled beside her. “If you lost one, I think I lost five.” He angled his head toward the deck. “Can I buy you a glass of tea for your nerves?” he joked.

Paige shook her head. “I need more than tea after that.”

“Anything for Supergirl’s mom.”

“Princess Amidala, thank you very much.”

Alex put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. Paige couldn’t resist a lean-in, just for a second. A hint of sandalwood that she recognized as him tickled her nose and she forced herself away before she could turn her head into his chest and take a deep breath. They weren’t friends, not yet. And even if they became friends, that was all this could be. She wouldn’t jeopardize Kaylie’s relationship with her father by starting her own relationship with the man. Alex’s next words made her squeeze her eyes closed to repeat that promise to herself once more. Twice.

“And she’s way more than okay. She’s just about perfect.”

Still, his words echoed in her mind.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I FORGOT TO call them.” Alison closed the sliding door softly behind her, apology written all over her face. “And it was such a perfect excuse, too.”

“They’re here?” Paige took a step away from Alex, who was suddenly way too close for comfort. The butterflies took up residence in her belly again, but this time for an entirely different reason.

Her parents stepped through the door holding hands with Kaylie, who was chattering about her leap to the trapeze.

Angry with her choice at first, Hank and Dot Kenner were trying to build a solid relationship with Kaylie. They came to the Sunday barbecues, school events and birthday parties. Conversations centered around Kaylie, and most of the time Paige could forget that for the first twenty-four years of her life they were either absent or controlling her every move.

They were trying with Kaylie, Paige reminded herself, and that meant something.

Hank was tall and overdressed for a backyard barbecue, but then when was he not? Even during summer break from the university in St. Louis he wore the same checked shirts, bow ties and tweed sport coats that he wore to teach constitutional law to second-year candidates. Paige’s mother, Dot, wore a geometric print dress with deep reds and oranges as the base colors. She focused her attention on Kaylie as she told the story of her leap from the swings. Afterward, Dot turned an accusing gaze toward Paige, who forced herself to unclench her hands.

“You let this child jump from a swing set to a trapeze?” She said the words as if Kaylie had been BASE jumping from the St. Louis Arch without a parachute.

Paige indicated the small swing set in the next yard. “No broken bones. Kids jump—”

Dot interrupted, gripping Kaylie’s little hand tighter. “She could have—” her gaze dropped to Kaylie “— B-R-O-K-E-N her neck.” She spelled out the offending word.

Kaylie squinted her eyes at her grandmother. “ B is for bat . And ball . And bunches of grapes,” she said, pulling her hand from Dot’s grasp. She plucked her juice cup from Dot’s other hand and wandered off, chattering about more B words. “And bear . And bling . And br-r-ring me a cookie,” she said, giggling at herself.

Paige watched as Kaylie climbed onto one of the lawn chairs, crossed her legs at the ankle and sipped her drink. She really was the best kid.

“She didn’t break anything, Mother,” Paige said, keeping her voice calm. Level.

“It was irresponsible.”

“It was childhood,” Paige insisted despite the fact she’d had nearly the same reaction as her mother when Kaylie was midflight. But thinking something was different from wrapping her daughter up in bubble wrap for the next five years or insisting that she never swing or climb on a jungle gym.