Yours Seductively

Chapter 12.4 (Part 1)

   With Tom's eager, if untrained, assistance, Jane prepared salad, spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner, as she had planned to do before she'd known that Tyler would be there to eat it. She tried to give her full concentration to the task, but it wasn't easy, considering all the things he had said to her. She had so much to think about. And she needed time and solitude to do it.

   Her thoughts kept bouncing between Tyler's admission of love and his revelations about his wife. She couldn't imagine what he just gave gone through when he'd learned the truth about Stephanie while still dealing with the shock of her death. To know that his acquaintances and colleagues in D.C. had already known the truth, and had been talking about it behind his back.... For a man with Tyler's pride and family history with scandal, that must have been hell.

   What kind of scars would an ordeal like that leave in a man'd heart and soul? How much courage would it take to put himself at risk for anything like that again?

   The questions nagged at her, making her frown and remind herself that she was the injured party, not Tyler. Even if she could sort of understand—at least a little—why he'd acted the way he had, that didn't mean he deserved her forgiveness. He had broken her heart. Never mind that his own must have still been shattered.

   She'd always been too softhearted, she thought with a scowl. Too prone to see the other side. Too quick to forgive. Too—

   "Jane? Are you mad about something?" Tom asked.

   Realizing that she had been setting the table more forcefully than necessary, she stopped thumping glasses and slamming dishes, and turned to smile at the boy. "No, Tommy, I'm not mad. I'm just in a hurry to get everything ready so we can eat. I'm hungry, aren't you?"

   She wondered if she would even be able to choke down a bite.

   Reassured, Tom nodded and grinned. "I'm so hungry my throat feels like my tummy's been cut."

   She couldn't help laughing. "Where did you hear that?"

   "From Granddad."

   One of Colton's good-old-country-lawyer expressions—which Tom has obviously turned around. Deciding not to correct him, Jane said, "Why don't you go tell your daddy that dinner's ready?"

   Tyler had been in the living room with Amy. He carried her into the kitchen with a smile of pride. "She's been walking for me. She took six steps without falling. She'd doing great, isn't she?"

   "She'll be running marathons in no time," Jane replied without quite meeting his eyes.

   "I'd better go through the house looking for hazards again. They've changed now that she's about to become more ambulatory."

   Tyler put Amy in her high chair and Jane set a divided plastic dish holding cut-up pasta and bite-size pieces of cooked vegetables in front of her. Any diced in with both hands.

   "Definitely have to work on table manners next," Tyler murmured.

   Jane nodded and took her seat beside Tom. Excited to have his father home again, and eager to talk about everything he'd done while Tyler had been away, Tom talked almost ceaselessly during the meal, waving his arms to emphasize his comments. Tyler had to warn him twice to calm down a bit before he spilled his drink, but other than that, he listened attentively.

   Jane tried not to stare at Tyler, but she couldn't seem to stop her eyes from turning in his direction. He was such a good father, she thought , watching him help Amy take sip from her cup of juice.