Free One Bright Star by Kate Sherwood Page B

about, but… he deserves to be taken care of a little. You’re going to do that?”
    Chris nodded. “I am,” he said seriously. “Absolutely.”
    “Okay, then. Merry Christmas. I’ll see you on Friday. Sometime in the evening, I think…”
    Chris shook his head and stepped away from the car, then took Ryan’s hand as they walked into the airport together.
    Dan watched them until they disappeared into the crowd. They seemed fine. Chris was being weird, but that wasn’t too unusual, really. They’d be okay. Everything would be okay. Dan forced his body to relax, just as he would if he were riding a skittish horse. But just as on a horse, it was easier to control his muscles than it was to control his brain. Everything seemed fine, but that didn’t necessarily mean that it was fine. He’d had unpleasant surprises before, after all.
    ***
    Anna’s car was already parked in the driveway by the time Dan got home, and Robyn was pulling up in front of the house just as Dan did.
    “Another Christmas at the grand manor,” she said in greeting. “I thought you guys were moving. Trying to make a home for all three of you, instead of living at Evan’s?”
    “We’re still looking,” Dan said defensively. “It’s not easy to find the right place.”
    “Not easy to find a place nicer than this, that’s for sure.” She grinned as she pulled a covered dish out of the back of her car. “Tell the truth, Danny. When’s the last time you guys even looked at a house?”
    It had been a while. Quite a while. Robyn was right, it was hard to find anywhere better than the Kaminski estate. And somehow the issue of actual home ownership had seemed a bit strange, once RJ had taken over the house the way he had. With baby paraphernalia spread over every square inch, it was hard to think of the place as a Kaminski preserve.
    “When’s the last time you were at your apartment?” she persisted. “Are all your clothes over here, now?”
    Well, that had just made sense. Evan had hired a team of experts to babyproof the house beyond any reasonable level of safety, and taking RJ from that to Dan’s apartment seemed almost reckless. And where the baby was, Dan was.
    “Has Robbie ever spent a single night at the apartment? Or at Jeff’s place?”
    “Okay, I get it.” He’d done the one thing he hadn’t wanted to do; he’d let himself become dependent on Evan’s generosity. He was a kept boy. It was scary how easily he’d let himself slip into the role, how horribly his instincts for self-preservation had let him down. Even now, with Robyn pointing things out in what she must have thought was a playful manner, Dan wasn’t really freaking out, even though he knew he should. He’d gotten complacent, somehow. He needed to do something about that. But first, he needed to get inside and see RJ.
    He refused to acknowledge Robyn’s smirk as he punched the code into the door panel and let them into the house; he wasn’t going to stand on the steps like an idiot waiting for someone to answer the door, just to prove a point. He led the way to the kitchen, where he knew everyone would be, and flopped down on the floor next to the crawling baby. “Hey, buddy! I was gone for more than two hours! What’d ya do? What’d ya learn?”
    “He can play the piano now,” Evan said seriously.
    “And ride. No jumping yet, but his flatwork is solid,” Jeff added.
    “Aw, damn, RJ.” Dan scooped up the baby and rolled over onto his back, holding RJ in the air above him. “I wanted to teach you to ride. Did Daddy Jeff do a good job?”
    “Is that what you’ve decided on?” Anna asked. “’Daddy Jeff’? ’Daddy Dan’ and ’Daddy Evan’ too?”
    “Mom, we can’t even figure out what his name is,” Jeff protested. “Robbie, RJ, Robert… I kind of like ’Bob,’ myself.”
    “We’re trying out the different dad names,” Evan said more seriously. “We were thinking about all being uncles, but then how do we distinguish between