family they had built over the past year was almost a small village in itself. And none of them would be here, now, if not for the others.
If Xander hadn’t decided to spend a few weeks crashing with his old university roomie Ian...if Ian hadn’t been renting a garage apartment from Darcy...if Ian hadn’t been out of town the weekend Darcy’s rat bastard ex-boyfriend dumped her, leaving her in need of a shoulder, a stiff drink and some unexpected comfort...
None of it had been planned. Not him and Darcy ending up drunk. Or horizontal. Or—as he found out when he came back two years later—parents.
“One...two...” Darcy guided Cady forward.
Change any one of those factors, and none of them would be here. Because without that perfect storm of events and timing, Cady would never have been born. And Darcy would never have turned to Ian for help that became friendship that turned into something so real that they were getting married in a couple of months.
“Three!”
And if Darcy and Ian hadn’t been the understanding and forgiving people they were, Xander would never have walked out of a jail cell and into this family.
“Make a wish!” someone called. Xander checked on Cady, now clapping her hands while leaning against Darcy, and was pretty sure that his daughter had absolutely everything she could want at this moment.
But birthday wishes weren’t to be wasted. So as Ian reached across Darcy to bop Cady’s nose and the three of them laughed together, Xander closed his eyes and sent up his own wish.
That, please. I want something like that.
* * *
ONCE THE CAKE had been cut and the gifts opened, Xander prowled the edges of the party with his camera, gathering trash with one hand while sneaking in some candid shots of the birthday girl and her guests. Cleaning, preserving memories and casually working his way toward Heather, all at once. Who said men couldn’t multitask? Add in the way he managed to sneak a few peeks at Heather’s shorts—or, more precisely, what they covered—and he felt positively superhuman.
Well, except for the fact that Heather’s shorts—and, more precisely, what was in them—were strictly off-limits.
She was a damned fine looking woman who made him laugh. More than that, when he was with her, he felt he could relax more than with most folks. Maybe because she understood how it felt to be on the outside looking in. Maybe because she, like he, knew all about duct-taping a life back together after throwing it in the toilet.
Heather was a friend. And while Xander wanted someone to build a life with, these days he needed friends. So yeah. Off-limits.
But off-limits didn’t mean he couldn’t be a buddy. So when Heather finished saying something to Millie and sent the child off with a laugh, he raised his camera.
“Say cheese!”
He’d expected her to squeal and whirl away from him. Instead, she raised her hands to her head so they resembled antlers, wiggling her fingers while scrunching up her face.
He lowered the camera. “Seriously? You want me to take your picture when you look like a moose that ate a lemon?”
“It got you to stop, didn’t it?”
That was another reason why he needed to stay away from Heather. She would outfox him.
“Good one.” He scanned the area, saw that they were relatively alone and wandered closer. “That’s an interesting pile of sticks by your feet.”
“Sticks?” She glanced from him to the ground and back again, confusion evident on her face. “What’s in your lemonade, Xander?”
“Nothing. But if I act like I’m taking pictures and make a show of having the camera out, people are going to stay away while I ask if you’re okay.” He pulled the camera from his face for a second to meet her gaze. “After Millie’s question, I mean.”
“Oh.”
He waited, focusing in on the sticks as if he really cared about them. Patience had never been his favorite virtue, but he had learned to appreciate it during his time in jail. Proof that there was a silver lining to everything.
At last, Heather spoke, her words quiet—though not, he suspected, from fear of being overheard.
“She caught me by surprise.”
“I figured.”
“I’m not sure...” She sighed. “It’s not as simple as Millie believes.”
“Tell me a part of parenting that is.”
At that, she laughed, though not with her usual abandon. He crouched and adjusted his focus. There was a tiny dandelion poking through the sticks, a flash of yellow he would have missed if he hadn’t changed angles.
“How do you manage it?” she asked. “Sharing Cady must be hard.”
“Do you mean, like, the timing? The logistics?”
“For a start.”
“It takes a lot of communication. But you probably know that already.”
“Right.”
“If you want, I can give you a copy of the schedule we use. You couldn’t do the same times, not with school and all, but it would give you someplace to start.” And maybe she could accept it with more grace than he could. For while Xander understood the need for a schedule and was blown away every time he realized how close he had come to missing out on the miracle of Cady, a part of him still ached at the reality of needing a spreadsheet to mark his time with his daughter.
“That would be wonderful. Thank you.” She crouched beside him and tugged on one of the sticks, tumbling the pile into a new arrangement. The dandelion vanished from his view. “Of course, I’m probably jumping the gun. Hank—”
She stopped. He raised the camera, using it as a shield so he had to watch out of the corner of his eye as the emotions played across her face. Hope, wistfulness, some kind of longing that made him feel he should reach over and squeeze her hand...
He hadn’t known Heather when she was married to Ian’s brother Hank, but he’d known about her, and them. He remembered Ian telling him about Heather’s abrupt departure from the marriage and Comeback Cove, and even during that self-absorbed point in his own life, he had wondered how a mother could willingly leave her child.
These days, knowing Heather, seeing how she glowed whenever she was with Millie, he wondered all the more.
“Anyway—” Heather clapped her hands as if dismissing the topic “—the other big issue would be work.”
“Isn’t Millie a bit young to have to think about a job?”
Yeah, it was a lousy joke. But Heather was the pacesetter here.
“You do know that when you’re all hunched over like that, it would only take one little push for me to send you over. Right?”
On the other hand, maybe he should take a stronger lead in the conversation.
“Sorry. Whatever. Why is work a problem?”
She adjusted her position so she was sitting on the ground. Guess her thighs weren’t up to the test.
Not that he was going to think about her thighs.
“The job itself isn’t the trouble. It’s the hours. Which are totally reasonable until you tack on the megacommute every day.”
“Gotcha. So you’re gone from, what? Eight to six?”
“More like seven thirty until about seven.”
He whistled. “Busting ass to impress the boss?”
“Busting ass to get the work done.” Her head swiveled. “And to let me leave early on Wednesdays, so