LITMIR.BIZ

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slid down his throat to ease the sudden tightness there. How to explain Tula, he thought. Hell, where would he begin? “She’s…different.”

      Mick laughed. “What the hell does that mean?”

      “Good question,” Simon muttered. His fingers played with the shrink-wrapped label on the water bottle. “She’s fiercely protective of Nathan. And she’s as irritating as she is gorgeous—”

      “Interesting.”

      Simon shot him a look. “Don’t even go there. I’m not interested.”

      “You just said she’s gorgeous.”

      “Doesn’t mean a thing,” he insisted, shooting a look at the boys as they lined up to take turns at the cages. “She’s not my type.”

      “Good. Your type is boring.”

      “What?”

      Mick leaned both forearms on the picnic table. “Simon, you date the same woman, over and over.”

      “What the hell are you talking about?”

      “No matter how their faces change, the inner woman never does. They’re all cool, quiet, refined.”

      Now Simon laughed. “And there’s something wrong with that?”

      “A little variety wouldn’t kill you.”

      Variety. He didn’t need variety. His life was fine just the way it was. If a quick image of Tula Barrons’s big blue eyes and flashing dimple rose up in his mind, it was nobody’s business but his own.

      He’d seen close-up and personal just what happened when a man spent his time looking for variety instead of sensible. Simon’s father had made everyone in the house miserable with his continuing quest for amusement. Simon wasn’t interested in repeating any failing patterns.

      “All I’m saying is—”

      “Don’t want to hear it,” Simon told him before his friend could get going. “Besides, what the hell do you know about women? You’re married.”

      Mick snorted. “Last time I looked, my beautiful wife is a woman.”

      “Katie’s different.”

      “Different from the snooty ice queens you usually date, you mean.”

      “How did we get onto the subject of my love life?”

      “Beats the hell outta me,” Mick said with a laugh. “I just wanted to know what was bugging you and now I do. There’s a new woman in your life and you’re a father.”

      “Probably,” Simon amended.

      Mick reached out and slapped Simon’s shoulder. “Congratulations, man.”

      Simon smiled, took another sip of water and let his new reality settle in. He was, most likely, a father. He had a son.

      As for Tula Barrons being in his life, that was temporary. Strangely enough, that thought didn’t have quite the appeal it should have.

      “I don’t know what to do about him,” Tula said, taking a sip of her latte. “What can you do?” Anna Hale asked from her position on the floor of the bank.

      Tula looked down at the baby in his stroller and smiled as Nathan slapped his toy bunny against the tray. “Hey, do you think it’s okay for the baby to be in here while you’re painting? I mean, the fumes…”

      “It’s fine. This is just detail work,” Anna said, soothing her, then she smiled. “Look at you. You’re so mom-like.”

      “I know.” Tula grinned at her. “And I really like it. Didn’t think I would, you know? I mean, I always thought I’d like to have kids some day, but I never really had any idea of what it would really be like. It’s exhausting. And wonderful. And…” She stopped and frowned thoughtfully. “I have to move to the city.”

      “It’s not forever,” Anna told her, pausing in laying down a soft layer of pale yellow that blended with the bottom coat of light blue to make a sun-washed sky.

      “Yeah, I know,” Tula said on a sigh. She walked to Anna, sat down on the floor and sat cross-legged. “But you know how I hate the idea of going back to San Francisco.”

      “I do,” Anna said, wiping a stray lock of hair off her cheek, leaving a trace of yellow paint in her wake. “But you won’t necessarily see your father. It’s a big city.”

      Tula gave her a halfhearted grin. “Not big enough. Jacob Hawthorne throws a huge shadow.”

      “But you’re not in that shadow anymore, remember?” Anna reached out, grabbed her hand, then winced at the yellow paint she transferred to Tula’s skin. “Oops, sorry. Tula, you walked away from him. From that life. You don’t owe him anything and he doesn’t have the power to make you miserable anymore. You’re a famous author now!”

      Tula laughed, delighted at the image. She was famous in the preschool crowd. Or at least, her Lonely Bunny was a star. She was simply the writer who told his stories and drew his pictures. But, oh, how she loved going to children’s bookstores to do signings. To read her books to kids clustered around her with wide eyes and innocent smiles.

      Anna was right. Tula had escaped her father’s narrow world and his plans for her life. She’d made her own way. She had a home she loved and a career she adored. Glancing at the baby boy happily gabbling to himself in his stroller, she told herself silently that she was madly in love with a drooling, nearly bald, one-foot-tall dreamboat.

      What she would do when she had to say goodbye to that baby she just didn’t know. But for the moment, that time was weeks, maybe months, away.

      If ever she’d seen a man who wasn’t prepared to be a father, it was Simon Bradley.

      Instantly, an image of him popped into her brain and she almost sighed. He really was far too handsome for her peace of mind. But gorgeous or not, he was as stuffy and stern as her own father and she’d had enough of that kind of man. Besides, this wasn’t about sexual attraction or the buzzing awareness, this was about Nathan and what was best for him.

      So Tula would put aside her own worries and whatever tingly feelings she had for the baby’s father and focus instead on taking care of the tiny boy.

      She could do this. And just to make herself feel better, she mentally put her adventure into the tone of one of her books. Lonely Bunny Goes to the City. She smiled to herself at the thought and realized it wasn’t a bad idea for her next book.

      “You’re absolutely right,” Tula said firmly, needing to hear the confident tone in her own voice. “My father can’t dictate to me anymore. And besides, it’s not as if he’s interested in what I’m doing or where I am.”

      The truth stung a bit, as it always did. Because no matter what, she wished her father were different. But wishing would never make it so.

      “I’m not going to worry about running into my father,” she said. “I mean, what are the actual odds of that happening anyway?”

      “Good for you!” Anna said with an approving grin. Then she added, “Now, would you mind handing me the brush shaped like a fan? I need to get the lacy look on the waves.”

      “Right.” Tula stood, looked through Anna’s supplies and found the wide, white sable fan-shaped brush. She handed it over, then watched as her best friend expertly laid down white paint atop the cerulean blue ocean, creating froth on water that looked real enough Tula half expected to hear the sound of the waves.

      Anna Cameron Hale was the best faux finish artist in the business. She could lay down a mural on a wall and when she was finished, it was practically alive. Just as, when this painting on the bank wall was complete, it would look like a view of the ocean on a sunny day, as seen through a columned window.

      “You’re completely amazing, you know that,

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