Free Charmed (Contemporary Romance) by Inés Saint Page B

laughing, and said, “I adore them and I enjoy them, but I can’t blame you for not wanting to start over after already seeing this through to college.” Nick tried to smile, but he still felt bad about that whole thing.
    The kids went outside again and Jamie offered him coffee. He sat on a stool in Jamie’s kitchen and looked around.
    A picture of Jamie and the kids in front of a townhouse hung by the door, and Nick noticed the front door in the picture was black. “Is that the townhouse you were talking about?” Jamie nodded. “I thought you said it had a bright red door.”
    “Well … Scott and I didn’t agree on the color. One day I came home and it was black.”
    Nick couldn’t help thinking he’d have let her paint the door fluorescent alien green if she’d wanted. But it was unfair to judge the late Scott Sullivan over something as silly as a door.
    He finished his coffee, set the mug down on the counter, and started to get up. But the boys came back in when they saw him walking toward the door and begged him to stay. Timmy whispered, “Mom didn’t see me surf down the slide ’cause she was talking to you.” Jamie caught it and bit back a smile.
    “She’ll stop the fun if you leave,” Michael warned.
    “Now, that is not true! I saw you. I just didn’t think it was dangerous.” Jamie laughed, and the boys giggled. They were a tight little trio. Jamie seemed to have eyes behind her head, always knowing what they were up to, and she really listened when they spoke.
    Nick ended up staying a lot longer than he’d originally planned. Jamie had dozens of questions about his trip around the world. It was almost as if she was looking forward to it as much as he was.
    Timmy brought out a map to pinpoint every place he was visiting — from Iguazu Falls in Argentina to the Forbidden City in China — and Michael lugged out an enormous atlas where Jamie helped him look up pictures of all the different places.
    Nick helped with dinner, and they made arroz con pollo . “This is Justin’s signature dish,” she told him.
    “Justin knows how to cook?”
    “We’re all big on cooking in my family. When my relatives visit from New York, we all end up in the kitchen.”
    Nick’s family consisted of Emma, so he didn’t have anything to add there.
    A few hours after dinner, Timmy and Michael had fallen asleep on the couch, and the sun had set behind the treetops out front, but he and Jamie continued to find things to talk and laugh about. “Did you ever think about a little brother or sister for Emma?” Jamie carefully ventured after he’d told her he’d often wished for a kid brother or sister growing up.
    “Susan, my ex-wife, is the one in a stable relationship, and she doesn’t want to put her body through pregnancy again. And me … ” Nick paused. Jamie was watching him with a quiet, thoughtful quality in her eyes, and he knew she’d understand. “I’m too afraid of feeling like things are out my control again. Some people think it has to do with regrets, but it really has nothing to do with that. I feel I owe to Emma to keep things under control.”
    “Well, I don’t agree with ‘some people.’ I can understand not wanting to start over once you’ve regained your sense of balance. I guess it’s different for everyone. I personally would love more children, but that would mean a relationship and that I can’t handle. That would throw everything off balance for me.”
    Nick bit his lip as if to say, yikes, more children! And Jamie laughed.
    He got what she meant, though. He couldn’t fathom what it had been like for her to have been told her young husband, the father of her two little boys, had died.
    Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a family portrait displayed over the fireplace, and he was instantly drawn to Scott Sullivan, wanting to know more about him, about what their life together had been like.
    “That was taken two and a half years ago.” Jamie followed his gaze. “He’d