to walk with Linc, breathe in the snow-tinged air and clear her head.
“I’ll be fine, thanks.” Tate pulled her hands out of her pockets and wiggled her fingers. “But I do need to buy some gloves.”
He grabbed her hand and, winding her fingers through his, tugged it into the pocket of his leather-and-sheepskin jacket. Warmth from his hand flowed into hers, and she sighed as they walked shoulder to shoulder down the sidewalk. “Better?”
“Better,” Tate replied. “How’s she doing?”
“Fast asleep.”
Ellie, her curls covered by the hood of her snowsuit, rested her cheek against Linc’s black cashmere scarf, and her deep eyelashes were smudges against her caramel skin. She looked like a doll, Tate thought, lifting her free hand to gently rub the back of her knuckle across Ellie’s cheek. “She’s so beautiful, Linc.”
He nodded, dropping his head to look into Ellie’s face. “She really is,” he said, his voice tender. Tate wondered if any of his employees or business associates knew that the strong, powerful CEO of Ballantyne International could be brought to his knees by a sleeping baby. “It’s cold, Tate. We need to walk.”
Her hand still in his, Tate felt grateful when he shortened his long stride to accommodate her shorter legs. Feeling a lot warmer and almost content, Tate rested her head against Linc’s shoulder and tasted snow in the air.
What would Kari think if she knew that she was walking hand in hand with her ex-lover, the father of her son? Would she care? Would she think it one big joke? Or would she be jealous as hell? Tate recalled that Kari had never liked to share. When she’d moved in with them after her mother’s death, Tate’s room became hers, Tate’s clothes and toys became hers. Kari, and what she wanted and desired, came first.
No, her sister would definitely not like the idea of Tate cozying up to Linc.
Well, tough. It was her idea for Tate to go to Linc, her decision to abandon her daughter, just like she’d abandoned her son. Kari could shove her jealousy and her what’s-mine-is-mine-and-what’s-yours-is-mine attitude straight up her—
“Whoa, I can practically see steam coming out of your ears,” Linc said. “And you’re squeezing the hell out of my fingers.”
Tate winced and sent him an apologetic look. “Sorry. Thinking about my sister sends my blood pressure skyrocketing.”
“I can relate,” Linc stated bitterly.
She gave his fingers a gentle squeeze. “I really am sorry for what she did to you and Shaw, Linc. I was out of the country, but I was furious with her. Nothing I said could change her mind. I tried to talk some sense into her, I promise.”
Linc nodded his head, a fine mist on his dark hair. “I appreciate that. I can forgive her for leaving me, God knows that I’m not perfect, but leaving Shaw? Bailing on our son is what I can’t forgive. I can’t abide people who don’t, or won’t, shoulder their responsibilities.”
Tate heard a note in his voice that suggested Kari wasn’t the first person in his life who’d disappointed him. “Who else bailed on you?”
Surprise followed by annoyance flashed across Linc’s handsome face. Bingo, Tate thought. “You don’t have to answer the question if you don’t want to. I was just being nosy.”
“It was a long time ago, Tate. BC.”
“BC?”
“Before Connor.”
“That was a long time ago,” Tate commented. “It had to have been a hard knock because I can tell it still hurts.”
Tate fell quiet, not wanting to push him where he didn’t want to go. Not that she could push Linc Ballantyne. She didn’t have that much power over him.
Or any at all.“My dad walked out on my mom and me when I was five,” Linc said, staring straight ahead. His voice deepened when he was upset, Tate realized. Or when he was feeling emotional. “We’d been Christmas shopping. We bought him a pair of golfing gloves.” He choked out a small laugh. “Funny the things you remember.”
“You came home from Christmas shopping...” Tate prompted, wanting him to finish the story.
“And he was gone. He cleared out their joint bank account and his clothes and vanished. Never to be heard from again.”
Tate grimaced. “Your mom couldn’t track him down?”
“Tracking someone down takes money and, pre-Connor, there wasn’t that much floating around.”
He had so much, yet he still remembered how it felt to be poor, Tate thought, amazed. Needing to thank him for opening up, she decided to repay him by doing a little of the same. “I can, sort of, relate. My parents divorced, and my dad faded from my life, and he seemed to forget about me when his new wife got pregnant. After my half brother’s birth, I ceased to exist.”
Linc pulled his hand from hers to run it through his hair. “One hundred and one ways to screw up your kids.”
“You seem to be doing a great job with Shaw,” Tate murmured, blowing air into her hands. Linc noticed and pulled her hand back into his pocket.
“Thanks to Connor and Jo.”
His tone suggested that he was done with this conversation, so Tate decided to switch gears. “Getting back to Kari, she’s always been...” Tate hesitated.
“Selfish? Narcissistic? Self-involved?”
“All of the above,” Tate admitted. “I was eight when she came to live with us—”
“Because her mom died?” Linc interjected. He shrugged, and Ellie moved up and down his chest. “Kari didn’t talk about her past and would never discuss the future. It was one of the many things that drove me nuts.”
She and Kari were alike in that way. Tate rarely opened up about her childhood and torturous teenage years, and as for the future? She didn’t make plans beyond the next year or two. That was a Harper trait.
But Linc deserved an explanation. He needed to know who Kari really was, what drove her and why she acted like she did. One day he would have to explain to Shaw why his mom left him, and she never wanted Shaw or Linc to think that they were at fault.
Tate explained how Kari ended up with them and about her aunt’s death. “My mom and her twin were exceptionally close, and when she passed away my mom turned all her energy onto Kari, nursing her through her mom’s death.”
“And where were you in all this?” Linc asked gruffly. Tate jerked her head back, surprised that he’d asked. She’d told this story a few times and most people immediately and, rightfully so, empathized with Kari losing her parent at such a young age.
But Tate also lost her mother at the same time; she’d moved from being Tate’s mom to Kari’s.
“Lost,” Tate quietly admitted. “Kari lost Lauren and I lost Lane. Everything changed that autumn.”
Linc’s fingers tightened against hers, and in that small gesture she felt comfort and sympathy. It gave her the courage and strength she needed to continue. “My mom created a monster in Kari, something she would never admit. I had to toe the line, but Kari, because she’d lost her mom, was given a free pass. At eleven she was a brat, by thirteen she was uncontrollable and at sixteen, she dropped out of school and moved in with her twenty-four-year-old boyfriend.”
“I never knew any of that. I thought she went to college, studied art.” He shrugged, his eyes bleak. “I met her at an art gallery.”
Tate stopped to look up at Linc, and she felt the frown between her eyes. “Do me a favor? Whatever Kari told you, take it with a very small pinch of salt.”
“Did she travel to Europe? Spend some time modeling in Paris? Did she work in Hong Kong in the marketing department