“I didn’t mean to grab you that way.”

“Really.” She held out her glass. “Which way did you mean to grab me?”

“Not.” With a shrug he took the wine from her hand, sampled it. “You can see this is already getting complicated and jumbled up. The job, you, me. Sex.”

“I’m very good at organizing and compartmentalizing. Some consider it one of my best—and most annoying—skills.”

“Yeah, I bet.” He handed her back the glass. “Kate.”

She smiled. “Brody.”

He laughed a little, and with his hands back in his pockets, roamed the room. “I’ve done a lot of screwing up in my life. With Connie—my wife—and Jack. I worked really hard to change that. Jack’s only six. I’m all he’s got. I can’t put anything ahead of that.”

“If you could, I’d think a great deal less of you. If you could, I wouldn’t be attracted to you.”

He turned back, studying her face. “I can’t figure you.”

“Maybe you should see if you can organize your schedule, so you can spend a little time on that problem?”

“Maybe we should just rent a motel room on Route 81 some afternoon and pretend there isn’t a problem.”

To his surprise, she laughed. “Well, that’s another alternative. Personally, I’d like to do both. Why don’t I leave it up to you, for the moment, as to which part of the solution we approach first?”

“Why don’t we…” He glanced at the clock on the stove, swore. “I’ve got to go pick up Jack. Maybe you could come down to the job tomorrow lunchtime. I’ll buy you a sandwich and show you what we’re doing.”

“I’ll do that.” She tilted her head. “Want to kiss me goodbye?”

He glanced at the kitchen table, back at her. “Better not. Your father might have a weapon in the house you don’t know about.”

Spencer Kimball wasn’t loading a shotgun. Kate found him in his studio going over his lesson plans for the current semester. He’d been going over the same page for the last ten minutes.

She crossed to where he sat at his desk looking out the window. She set a cup of coffee at his elbow, then wrapped her arms around him and propped her chin on his shoulder. “Hi.”

“Hi. Thanks.”

She rubbed her cheek against his and studied his view of their pretty backyard. She would ask her mother to help her plan the gardens for the school.

“Brody seems to be concerned you may shoot him.”

“I don’t have a gun.”

“That’s what I said. I also told him that my father knows I’ve kissed men. You do know that, don’t you, Daddy?”

She only called him Daddy when she was trying to charm him. They both knew it. “What I know intellectually is a far cry from walking in on… He had his hands on your…” Spencer set his teeth. “He had his hands on my little girl.”

“Your little girl had her hands on him, too.” She scooted around, wiggled into her father’s lap.