Daddy Bombshell. Lisa Childs

      He had no hat, no gloves, not even a scarf, but he didn’t seem to care about the cold. The only thing he seemed preoccupied with was the street, as he kept glancing back at it.

      Was he expecting someone or was it just a habit for him to constantly survey his surroundings? He hadn’t seen that snowball coming.

      Just like she hadn’t seen his kiss coming. Or maybe she had but she’d wanted it too much to push him away. If Mark hadn’t interrupted them, she wouldn’t have stopped Thad. Being back in his arms, kissing him, had felt too good—too right. She touched her lips, which tingled yet from the contact with his. She could taste him, too, from when he’d slid his tongue between her lips deep into her mouth.

      But she’d meant what she’d told him. Not about being over him—that had been a lie that he’d easily disproved. But about not wanting a relationship with him.

      He was her son’s father, and that was all he would ever be to her. Not her lover. Not her boyfriend. Not even her friend.

      Because she couldn’t trust him. But she wouldn’t have been able to beat him, either, if she’d fought to keep him away from Mark. Now, seeing them chase each other around the yard, she was glad that she hadn’t tried. She’d worked hard the past three years to be both mother and father to her son, but the little boy needed more than she had been able to give him.

      He needed Thad.

      And, as Thad grinned and laughed, she began to wonder if Thad didn’t need Mark, too. Enough to stay?

      But then he glanced to the street again, his body tensing as if he’d identified a threat. To himself or to their son?

      She knew when he left St. Louis that Thad put himself in danger. But she hadn’t realized until now that he could be in danger in St. Louis, as well. He had killed his sister’s stalker, but maybe in doing so, he had picked up his own. Or he had brought danger back with him from one of those war-torn countries?

      She’d already had her doubts, but now she was certain that Thad Kendall was more than just a photojournalist.

      Whatever else he was, he was also a father now. Would he put their son in the danger that he had constantly put himself in?