Still he stood, looking out the dark window, sipping it black. The house was too quiet with Jack asleep. There were times, God knew, when the boy made so much noise, caused so much chaos, it seemed there would never be a moment of peace and quiet.

Then when he got it, Brody wanted the noise.

Parenting, he thought, had to be the damnedest business going.

But the problem now was restlessness. It was a feeling he hadn’t experienced for quite some time. With parenting, establishing a business, making a home, soliciting jobs, he hadn’t had much excess time.

Still don’t, he thought, and began to pace the kitchen while he drank his coffee.

There was enough work to be done on the house to keep him busy for…probably the rest of his life. Should have bought something smaller, he thought, and less needy. Something more practical—and he’d heard variations on those thoughts from his father since he’d dug up the down payment.

Trouble was, he’d fallen head over heels for the old place, and so had Jack. And it was working, he reminded himself, glancing around the completed kitchen with its glass-fronted cabinets and granite counters.

Still, work was the bottom line, and he really had to carve out the time to deal with the rooms he’d put off.

Hard to find time when there were only days left until Christmas.

Then, there was the job due to be completed the next afternoon. And on the heels of that came the school holiday. He should have lined up a baby-sitter—he’d meant to. But Jack disliked them so much, and the guilt was a slow burn.

He knew Beth Skully would take Jack at least part of the time. But after a while, it felt like imposing. In an emergency, he could call on his mother. But that was a tricky business. Whenever he passed Jack off in that direction, he felt like a failure.

He’d make it work. Jack could come along with him some of the time, go to his pal Rod’s some of the time. And in a pinch, he’d visit his grandmother.

And that wasn’t the problem at all, Brody admitted. That wasn’t the distraction, lodged like a splinter in his mind.

The splinter was Kate Kimball.

He didn’t have the time nor the inclination for her.

All right, damn it, he didn’t have the time. Whatever he did have for her was a hell of a ways up from inclination. He dragged a hand through his mass of sun-streaked hair and tried to ignore the sheer sexual frustration eating at his gut.

Had he ever felt this much pure physical hunger for a woman before? He must have. He just didn’t remember clearly, that was all. Didn’t remember being churned up this way.

And it really ticked him off.

It was only because it had been a long time. Because she was so openly provocative. So unbelievably beautiful.

But he wasn’t a kid anymore who could grab pretty toys without considering the consequences. He was no longer free to do whatever he liked, when he liked. And he wouldn’t want it any other way.