Free Caitlin's Choice by Kat Attalla

Perhaps if he tried to bring them together, she would warm up to him. Of course, he had no idea how to find her family. Andrew’s mind started racing. Here was something he knew how to do: set an objective, do research, and mount an attack. He certainly had nothing to lose by trying.
    * * * *
    When Caitlin returned to the living room, she found Andrew stretched out on the sofa with Tyler lying comfortably on his bare chest. Andrew rubbed his hand in circles over his son’s back, winning a gurgling sigh of appreciation. She sat in the chair across from them and watched enviously. Did babies know instinctively who their parents were, she wondered. Tyler had taken to Andrew instantly.
    But then, so had she, Caitlin reminded herself, and look where that got her.
    “I think he likes me,” Andrew whispered warily, as if the admission might break some invisible spell.
    “If you were rubbing my back, I’d like you, too,” she said without thinking.
    Andrew laughed. “Is that a fact? I’ll keep that in mind for when I’m done here.”
    “Don’t be so literal.”
    “Caitlin, I know you’re a bit angry with me right now . . .”
    “A bit?” she repeated, mocking his flair for understatement. “That doesn’t come close to what I’m feeling toward you.”
    “Then what was this evening about?” he challenged.
    She shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    He sat up, snuggling Tyler in his strong arms. “Yes, you do. You didn’t leave Tyler with me to punish me. You knew I was hanging by a thread and you also knew that having to entertain Tyler would take my mind off my problems.”
    “You’re crediting me with amazing insight.”
    “Why won’t you admit you care? You agreed to come live with me when you knew very well I never could have won a case in court”
    She twisted her fingers together in her lap. “That’s not the point. I didn’t have enough money to fight you.”
    “A first-year law student could have won that case. Unless you have a secret past as a felon, of course.”
    She didn’t meet his grin with one of her own.
    “So what about it Caitlin? You didn’t really think that even the most liberal judge would have taken an infant away from his mother?”
    “What’s the difference? Tyler is entitled to have his father, if that’s what you choose to be for him. I’ll save some money. When this is over, I can find a small house for us. But not around here.”
    He clenched his jaw. “What does that mean?”
    “A lot of rich ladies would have to drape their bodies in my fabrics before I could afford a house in this town.”
    “Oh,” he muttered on an exhale. “This is nothing. You should have seen the house I grew up in. That neighborhood was filthy rich. This one is only slightly dirty.”
    Although his tone was light, she heard an underlying trace of resentment. She had never known anyone to complain about being rich.
    “Where was that?”
    “Outside of Dallas.”
    “Dallas?” She hadn’t detected a hint of a Texas accent in any of the family. “What happened to that house?”
    A flicker of emotion flashed in his eyes, or perhaps the light was playing tricks on her. She couldn’t be sure. “My brother managed to lose it, along with most of the family inheritance.”
    “Erik?” she squeaked out.
    “No, my older brother, Garret.”
    Caitlin couldn’t hide her surprise. No one had mentioned another brother. Of course, her own family denied her existence, too.  “I didn’t realize you had an older brother.”
    His eyes were hooded in sadness. “He died about four years ago in a car accident. He’d read somewhere that an Italian sports car could go two hundred miles an hour, and he decided to test it out.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Andrew shook his head. “He died the way he lived. Too fast, too drunk, and taking stupid chances.”
    “Did he gamble? Is that what happened to the money?”
    “In a manner of speaking. I was over twenty-one when my father passed away, so I