Okay, so maybe someone Up There wasn’t on his side after all.
Logan opened the door to the ice cream parlor for Angel, leaning back to keep from touching any part of her or that bag.
She’d picked out red lingerie.
He’d actually given the saleswoman carte blanche— and his credit card—to outfit his son’s new babysitter, and, between the two of them, a woman who was sup-posed to know fashion and another who had as many degrees as he did, they’d come up with red lingerie. It’d be ironically funny if Michael weren’t involved.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe he should have just given her the money, bought her a one-way bus ticket, and told Michael she’d had to go home. He wouldn’t have to worry about what she wore, what her favorite flavor was, how her hair felt on his skin… nor what it’d be like to kiss her.
Then Michael grabbed Angel’s hand and tugged her forward, his smile almost bigger than he was, and Logan knew he wasn’t going to ask her to leave. He couldn’t break Michael’s heart.
And hell, he was an adult. He could control himself. He’d proved it on the dock when he hadn’t kissed her. He’d been planning to stop long before Michael’s inter-ruption anyway.
“Come on!” Michael was bouncing again. Bouncing
was, apparently, a good thing in a six-year-old—as long as there was no trampoline, sawdust, or audience as there’d been when he was six.
Angel slid past him, laughing, the scent of the trop-ics and something else clinging to her skin—like Logan wanted to.
Jesus. Get a grip, Hardington—and not on Angel. He was in charge of millions of dollars at work—
hell, he had a problem with eight million of them facing him when they got back. He certainly could handle an attraction to the babysitter without resorting to sending her away.
“Hurry up!” Michael ran to the counter, dragging Angel with him.
His son would be devastated if she left.
Logan sighed. That settled it. Put his libido in check and deal with this attraction in the only feasible way: forget it.
“Should I get creamsicle, Angel? Or do you think I should go for Moose Trail? I saw a moose once. Rainbow took me to a zoo and I saw lions and tigers and a moose. Little monkeys, too. They were hopping all over their cage. I’d be sad to be in a cage, wouldn’t you?”
Angel slid her hand over Michael’s shoulders, then under his chin, which she tilted back so that he was looking up at her. Such an intimate gesture between the two of them, as natural as if they were related.
But they weren’t, and Logan, who was, couldn’t even hope for anything so ordinary between him and his son. How had she managed it in the space of half a morning?
Maybe Michael really missed Rainbow.
Wouldn’t that be a kick in the shins? The flake who’d all but dumped the kid and run was being pined for, while the father who was thrilled beyond belief to have his son live with him couldn’t even get a “Dad” out of him?
“I think you’re right, Michael,” Angel said. “Being in a cage would be horrible. You’d have to wait for someone to feed you and talk to you, and you’d be stuck with someone else directing your life. It must be awful. I don’t think I’d like to see those monkeys like that.”
“It made me sad, too, like when Rainbow was in jail. She was crying when I went to see her with the social worker.”
Logan’s entire body froze. He couldn’t have heard right. Rainb—Christine had gone to jail?
“When was this, Michael?” He worked very hard at keeping the anger from his voice.
Michael shrugged. “I dunno. It was only for a night and she bought me lots of tater chips and soda and ice cream before she went, so I didn’t mind. She did, though. That’s why she took me to the zoo. To show me what it was like and to tell me never to do anything bad so I wouldn’t be locked up like the animals. And I never did.”
Never. At six.
Christ. The kid had seen more of the bad side of life than Logan had at that age. Yet there Michael was, shrugging it off like water off his back. How much was bravado and how much was childhood ignorance? And how much was the futility inherent in being six?
“Well.” Angel’s voice was a bit too sharp, so at least she was with him on that subject. Good thing if she was going to watch his son—not that she could do a worse
job than the child’s own mother. He was appreciating her child studies degree more and more.
“Why don’t we decide what ice cream we’re all going to have? What flavor do you think I should get, Michael?”
It was almost as if she could read his mind. Not that it was too hard to figure out, but it boded well for her babysitting skills—which were obviously leagues be-yond Christine’s parenting ones.
Logan went through the mechanics of ordering and paying for the treat, even ate one of his own, but for the life of him couldn’t remember what flavor he’d ordered. Not that it mattered, because he didn’t even taste it.
With Michael and Angel discussing the merits of ice cream flavors as they strolled through the strip mall af-terwards, the only thing Logan could focus on was that Christine had gone to jail and left their child in the care of a social worker. He couldn’t believe it.
And he’d thought the circus had been a hell of a life for a kid. At least no one in his family had gone to jail, and no social worker had ever shown up. They’d also had more than potato chips and ice cream to eat—what the hell kind of meal was that for a child? Thank God Christine had come to her senses and left Michael with him. She obviously wasn’t cut out to be a parent, but he… he was going to give his son everything he’d need to lead a normal, lawful life.
And if that included a well-educated babysitter who’d shown up naked on his boat, well, the money he’d just spent on her clothes was nothing compared to the security in knowing he had someone capable looking after his son.
Red lingerie notwithstanding.