“Who their mother would be, for one thing. How far into the future we’re talking, for another. I’m thirty-six. I don’t want to be a senior citizen sending them off to college.”

“That’s a good point. You are getting kind of old.”

“Hey!”

Emma dissolved into laughter. “Sorry, that was a softball.”

“I had no idea you were so mean.”

“I feel your pain. I’m going to be thirty in March.”

“You feel my pain,” he said with a scoff. “You’re a baby compared to me. I’m probably way too old for a young girl like you.”

“You’re not too old. I was only kidding.”

“I know, babe. What about you? Do you want more kids?”

“I used to when Simone was younger. For years, I half expected to meet a single dad and blend our families so she wouldn’t have to grow up alone.”

“No single dads in the play group?”

“None I wanted to date.”

“Thank goodness for that,” he said with a meaningful look. “I’d have hated to find out you had someone else.”

“Me, too,” she said softly.

“So more kids? Yes or no?”

“I don’t know. I’ve already been a mom for ten years. If I have another one, I’ll be bringing up kids for thirty years. That’s a lot of years of parenthood.”

“You wouldn’t be doing it alone the next time.”

There went her heart doing backflips again as his meaning registered with her. “True.”

“Before I met you and Simone, I would’ve answered the kid question very differently.”

“How would you have answered it?”

“I would’ve said my life was fine the way it was, and I didn’t think kids were in the cards for me.”

Emma licked lips suddenly gone dry. “And now?”

“The cards have dealt me a whole new hand to play, and anything is possible.”

The way he looked at her, as if he could see everything with her, was unnerving to say the least. “Things like this…”

He picked up the piles of laundry and transferred them to the coffee table so he could move closer to her, putting his arm around her. “What, sweetheart?”

“This sort of thing doesn’t happen to me.”

With his finger on her chin, he compelled her to look at him. “It does now. You’ve turned my whole life upside down this week, Emma. I had a plan. And now… Now, I just want you—and Simone.”

Emma leaned in to kiss him.

“I’m afraid we’re going to get caught doing that,” he said, glancing toward Simone’s room.

“I don’t think she’d mind. She likes you as much as I do.”

“Maybe you should talk to her to make sure she doesn’t mind before she catches us.”

“I will.”