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“You’re really going to eat all that?”
“I really am,” she said, dumping an ocean’s worth of syrup over her pancakes before forking in a huge bite. “As you may have noticed, I’m not exactly petite. Yogurt and juice is not going to cut it.”
And maybe food was the antidote to the prickliness. Feeling a tug at his mouth, he said, “I have a favor to ask you.”
Questioning eyes briefly met his. “Oh?”
“Not so much a favor, I suppose, as a job.”
A grin bloomed and his heart knocked. “A job? Keep talking.”
“It’s not a huge project, but … Jack’s room needs some serious updating. And I’ve seen your work on your website. So—”
“Really? You checked me out?”
Wes felt his cheeks warm. “My mother did, actually. At my suggestion, though. Since Mom’s idea of redecorating is changing the drapes and carpeting for a fresh version of what’s already there.” Blythe laughed and his heart knocked again. “So would you be interested?”
“Absolutely. I love doing kids’ rooms.”
“Good,” Wes said on a relieved sigh. “Decorating was Kym’s thing, not mine. Even if I had the time. But I think the kid’s probably ready to ditch the race car theme his mom did for him when he was six.”
“Let me guess—complete with race car bed?”
“You got it. I have no idea what he wants, though.”
“Don’t worry about it. That’s between Jack and me.” Another, slyer grin slid across her face. Sly, and teasing, and sexy, even if Wes doubted that the sexy part was intentional. And sexy wasn’t quite the right word. Intense? That was closer. He guessed she was the kind of person who fully lived in the moment, relishing it for its own sake. “I assume I have carte blanche to do anything he wants?”
“Short of papering his room with pics of naked women, yes.”
This time her laugh was loud enough to make people turn their heads. “I’ll take that under advisement.” Then her brow knotted. “I’m pretty booked up through March, though—will that be a problem?”
“The kid’s already waited a year, I’m sure he can hang on for another six weeks.”
She nodded, then pushed her eggs around her plate for a moment before asking, “Does that happen a lot? People coming up to you out of the blue?”
Wondering what brought on the subject switch, Wes said, “Not everyone recognizes me, of course. But yeah. Being accosted is part of the job description. I don’t mind,” he said to her slight frown. “That’s why I did this, after all. To listen. And help, when I can. Although my staff handles most of the actual problem-solving. I sure as hell couldn’t do it all myself.”
Laughter from her cousins’ table momentarily snagged her attention; she slugged back half her orange juice, then met his gaze again. “And Jack … is he okay with sharing you so much?”
Over the years, first with his law practice and then on the campaign trail, Wes had gotten pretty good at hearing what people weren’t fully saying. Meaning he immediately sensed more layers to Blythe’s question than a simple answer could address … even if he hadn’t asked himself the same question a hundred times since taking office. And in those layers he sensed both irritation and genuine concern.
Even so, annoyance spurted through him as well, that she’d ripped the bandage off a festering sore. And by rights, he should have changed the subject, re-covered the sore, not poked at it by saying, “You think I’m neglecting him.”
Color bloomed in her cheeks as she picked up her fruit cup, forking through it to spear a honeydew wedge. “Forget it, it’s really none of my business—”
“Don’t you dare backtrack,” Wes said, and her startled gaze shot to his. “Or think you have to spare my feelings. Believe me, I have the hide of a rhinoceros.” He snorted. “Makes it harder for people to take a chunk of it. Worse than that, though, are the kiss-ups, people more intent on telling me what they think I want to hear than what I need to hear.” He leaned forward, seeing something deep, deep inside those deep blue eyes that plunged right inside him and latched on tight. “So out with it.”
Blythe froze, the fruit cup suspended over her plate. Granted, she’d never been one to shy away from a challenge, but did she dare say what she was really thinking? And how could she do that without backing the man into a corner? And yet, for the child’s sake …
Carefully she set down the small glass dish, then lifted her eyes to his. “Fair warning, Wes—saying ‘out with it’ to me is like waving a red flag in front of a bull.”
“Somehow, I figured as much. So?”
She pushed out a sigh. “Neglect isn’t the right word. Trust me, I know from neglect. That would imply you’re deliberately ignoring him, which I know isn’t true—”
“But you think Jack sees it that way.”
After a moment, she nodded. “From what I’ve observed, and heard, when I’m around the kids …” The space between her brows puckered. “I think he sometimes feels like he has to fight for your attention. And that could …” She felt her pulse hammering. “It could lead to places you don’t want him to go.”
His own breakfast long since finished, Wes leaned back in the booth, his arms tightly crossed, as though to keep his annoyance from escaping.
“You asked,” she said gently.
On a released sigh, he unfolded his arms to prop his wrists on the table’s edge, looking out the window for a moment before meeting her gaze again.
“You know this for a fact.”
The ache in his voice, the fear … her heart cracked. “That it will happen? No, of course not. That it could? Absolutely.”
Their gazes tangled for a long moment. “Speaking from personal experience?”
“Partly,” she said after a moment. “And that’s all I’m going to say about that. I also have no intention of giving you advice, but from what I’ve seen … I thought you should know.”
“And you think I don’t?” Wes lobbed back, his voice low but his eyes screaming with guilt, with ambivalence. “That I’m so engrossed in this job I’m oblivious to my son’s pain?”
“No, Wes, of course not. But—”
“But, what?”
Her hand covered his before she even realized she was doing it. “Redoing his room won’t make up for your not being there.”
“And maybe that’s all I have.” He pushed out a rough breath, then seemed to realize they were touching. Slipping his hand out from under hers, he said, “I know this is far from ideal. Especially since this wasn’t how things were supposed to pan out. The plan was, if I won, that Jack’s mother would be there for him when I couldn’t be. The plan did not include some texting teenager slamming into her and Deanna on a wet road three weeks before an election I didn’t actually think I’d win.”
Then he schooled his features in that way men did when they didn’t want you to see the torture behind them. Too late, Blythe thought as Wes continued. “But I did win. And I’d made promises to those people who put me in office. Not to mention to my wife, who’d been my staunchest supporter through that campaign from hell. Promises I feel very strongly about, that …”
Breathing hard, he shook his head. “I’m between a rock and a hard place,