“That’s Miles on his first day of kindergarten. Right out front, as a matter of fact. Would you like to come in and sit down? I can make tea. I’ve got something stronger if you’ve a need.”

She walked ahead of him, into her house, and let that get her balance back. The kiss, the way she’d totally come undone the moment he’d touched her, had sent her reeling. Gillian was not a kiss-a-total-stranger type of woman. It was the opposite usually. It took her a long time to trust someone enough to get sexual in any way. But when his hands were on her, his mouth, she lost all her rules and fell into their insane chemistry. This bore a great deal of thinking and care. Too bad her hormones were far more interested in jumping on him than thinking.

He’d be reeling too, she knew, for entirely different reasons.

She put a kettle on and moved to the bookcases at the other end of the room. Selecting some photo albums, she brought them back to him. “Would you like to see some pictures? I’m not saying you have to meet him before the test comes back. But I thought . . .” She shrugged, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

“I’d love that. Thank you.” He patted the couch next to where he sat. “Please, I’ll need you to narrate.”

She sat, trying to keep her thigh from touching his.

“I would like to meet him as soon as possible. I understand this might be a surprise for him and I want to do this right. But I want to start getting to know him. Being his dad. At this point, the test seems, well, a foregone conclusion.”

Fear nibbled at her insides as she held on to the knowledge that she had control here. She was Miles’s mom and nothing was going to change that.

It still scared her. The thought of losing him, even if it wouldn’t happen in reality, made her sort of woozy.

“All right.”

“I appreciate this. The way, well, you brought him to me and you didn’t have to. And then I treated you badly. You invited me into your home today. I’m grateful.” His lips curved upward just slightly and she repressed a shiver. Oh yes, they had high-octane sexual heat. Which was stupid because this thing between them was foolhardy. He would need to focus on Miles and she’d help him because it was the thing to do. And it would make Miles happy.

“These are organized by year. Yes, I know it’s sort of obsessive of me, but for a time when Miles was an infant I made scrapbooks for people to pay my bills.” She tried to sound nonchalant, but the truth was, she was proud of those scrapbooks. Had spent a great deal of time and creative energy on them. But suddenly it seemed intimate to share that. So she didn’t.

“These are amazing. I can’t believe anyone could make something so beautiful. All this detail. He’ll have this forever.”

She ducked her head a moment. “Thank you. Obviously this is his first year.” She touched the first picture of him. A blurry shot she’d taken in the hospital. The card had read, “Baby Boy Forrester,” and she had it there, tucked into the page, along with his identification bracelet.

“He was little.”

Gillian laughed. “He was premature. But you know he was only in the hospital for a few extra days. We were lucky.” Lucky he hadn’t had to go through drug withdrawal or suffered any long-term effects from the life Tina had led while pregnant.

Adrian turned the page, amazed at the scrapbook he held. Amazed by her generosity in sharing it with him.

She moved quickly to get the tea and bring it back. She smiled, tapping her finger on a picture of a baby about Marti’s age sitting on an elderly woman’s lap.

“That’s my gran. She lived here with us for a few years until Miles got a little older and I had a steady income. They were inseparable. I don’t know what I would have done without her. Especially at the beginning.”

On it went, she showed him picture after picture in the first several albums. It was surreal, watching his son grow and change. Knowing other people got to watch him—love him—and all the while Adrian was less than thirty miles away.

“Miles is going to be home in about two hours. Would you like to have some lunch and perhaps talk about how we’ll move this forward?”

His stomach growled. “I haven’t had much of an appetite, but apparently that’s back now. I’d like that. I’m a pretty good helper.”

She looked him up and down and seemed to doubt that, but he left it alone. She’d just opened herself up to him and he appreciated it more than he could say.

“You’re in luck. My friend runs a food truck and she took pity on me and Miles and brought by a huge amount of food last night.” She put several containers out on the counter. “Plates are just behind you, in the cabinet.”

He got them out and moved to the island where she poked open containers and hummed her delight.

“Lucky you to have such friends.”

She shrugged. “I’m very lucky indeed. Miles too.”

He bit into a piece of spanakopita. “Damn, this is good.” He sighed. “Why didn’t she tell you, Gillian?” He hadn’t meant to sound angry, but there it was anyway.

“I don’t know. Tina was impulsive, flighty and pretty self-centered most of the time. But I do believe she didn’t say anything out of some sort of misplaced duty to Miles.”

“How could she look at him and think it was all right for that boy to grow up without a father? That wasn’t her choice to make.”

“She didn’t look at him. She never held him, not a single time. She signed him over to me immediately and then the adoption went forward very quickly. She never named the father on the birth certificate, and to be totally honest with you, I figured she just didn’t know. She was a girl who loved a good time with a lot of people. She was reckless and thoughtless a lot of her life, but I never knew her to be malicious.”