Free A Mother's Secret by Janice Kay Johnson Page B

to back away, his expression so closed she couldn’t imagine what she’d thought she had seen.
    “I’ll aim for five, five-thirty.”
    “Yes. Okay.”
    He nodded and left. Rebecca closed the door behind him and wondered how much else he remembered.

CHAPTER FIVE

    D ANIEL DROVE BY THE TURNOFF to Cabrillo Heights without even slowing. He hadn’t lied to Rebecca; he’d intended to come down today to check out the progress at the work site. But he’d gotten stuck in the office dealing with unexpected resistance to the San Rafael subdivision from neighbors, and it wasn’t as if he was needed in El Granada. He could have called Rebecca and said, “Let’s reschedule.” She’d likely have been thrilled to be able to put him off for another week.
    But he hadn’t called. Had never even considered canceling. In fact, he was going to be early.
    The truth was, he’d been mentally crossing off the days ever since Saturday. Damn it, he was living to see Malcolm again.
    Malcolm, and Rebecca.
    Going home at night these past two weeks, Daniel had been unusually conscious of how quiet his house was. He found himself remembering his satisfaction when Rebecca stayed over during their year together. Even when he’d had to work, he would look up, and there she’d be, sitting at the end of the sofa with her feet tucked under her, usually reading. Somehow she’d always sense his break in attention and lift her head to smile at him. Whatever she believed, Daniel had put in fewer hours when she was around. Bedtime had been a great motivator to shut down the laptop.
    He wondered what the boy—his son—would think of his house. Daniel found himself relieved that Rebecca’s delaying tactics had given him time to ease into his fatherhood thing. Spending a couple of hours with a kid that age was one thing, being responsible for him for an entire weekend was another. As bold as Malcolm had been, that was in the company of his mother. There, he felt supremely confident. Daniel had a really bad feeling that Malcolm wouldn’t happily go off to bed upstairs in this strange house shared only with the near stranger who was his father.
    The highway between El Granada and Half Moon Bay was congested with commuters on their way home from work. Being stuck in the line of traffic made Daniel irritable and impatient, even as he knew he had more than enough time. He didn’t want to look too eager.
    At last he turned off into Half Moon Bay and a minute later pulled up in front of Rebecca’s cottage. It was a crappy little place that should probably be razed, but he couldn’t deny that she’d made it feel homey. That was another thing she had a gift for. She’d pick up some odd piece of junk at a flea market she had dragged him to, and the next time he was in her condo he’d see that, yeah, it looked perfect on the kitchen counter with mugs hanging from it, or that it had a sculptural quality against a white wall in her hall. He had once suggested that she could have been an interior designer if she had wanted. Rebecca had only laughed.
    “No, I know what I like. Seeing through someone else’s eyes is a whole other skill.”
    He’d immediately thought she could do that. When she said, “That would look perfect in your bedroom,” she was always right. Just as he’d enjoyed every one of the books she’d loaned or given him, every all-time favorite movie of hers she had absolutely insisted he would love, too. He hadn’t said it, though, didn’t want to admit how well she understood him.
    It wasn’t his insatiable physical hunger for her that had made him shy away, Daniel had long since realized. No, it was her ability to get under his skin that had bothered him. What did she see when she studied him with those disquietingly perceptive eyes? Sometimes he’d imagined her peeling away layer upon layer, until she had bared even the hurt little boy who didn’t understand why his mommy sometimes flinched from him.
    He gave himself a shake,