She let out a throaty laugh then angled into him.
“Thank you,” she said.
“What have I done to warrant thanks?” he asked.
She looked deep into his eyes, hoping he would feel the weight of her words.
“For today,” she said. “For wanting to prove yourself.”
He smiled down at her, his dark eyes glinting with what looked like laughter and hope. “Does that mean you’ll kiss me again?”
Kyra turned around to make sure Ava wasn’t looking.
“Okay, okay, I’ll stop asking,” he said when Kyra turned away from him. “Mmmm. The sauce smells delicious.”
When Kyra turned back toward him, she realized she was hungry. And not for spaghetti. She leaned into Marcus and let her lips sink into his. As the kiss ended, she whispered onto his lips.
“You’re delicious.”
8
Marcus sat at the wrought iron garden table on the back patio in the cool air of late evening. His eyes stared out at the thick copse of trees behind the estate but in his mind, Kyra’s face was front and center, in the moment when she’d closed in for a kiss. When she’d leaned into him and pressed her lips onto his, she’d lit him up inside, surprising him and turning him on all at once. His instinct had been to pull her closer, to tangle his hands in her curly hair and ravage her with more kisses.
But Ava had been right behind them.
Surprisingly, Marcus didn’t resent the little girl for being a buffer between him and Kyra. He was simply charmed by Ava—she brought out emotions in him that he’d never experienced. Earlier, when she’d gotten hurt, he’d been overwhelmed by feelings of wanting to take care of her every need, to make everything okay. If he didn’t know better, he would call those feelings fatherly.
To be honest with himself, he didn’t know better. He had no idea what fatherly felt like.
But he wanted to learn.
Spending even one day with Ava and Kyra had shown him that he not only enjoyed playing the role, but that he might actually be good at it. He’d handled the broken ankle situation pretty well. He’d even learned how to cook—sort of—and judging by Kyra’s reaction, he’d done okay.
As his thoughts jumped from Kyra to Ava and back, he heard the screen door slide open behind him. He turned to see Kyra, wrapped in a light sweater, slipping outside. She smiled at him.
“Hey there,” he said. “How’s Ava?”
“She’s out cold.” Kyra took a seat beside him. “I think the events of the day wore her out.”
“Full belly too,” Marcus said, and Kyra laughed.
“Yes. That girl can eat her weight in spaghetti.” Kyra eyed the two wine glasses he’d brought out to the patio. She placed a hand on the unopened bottle. “Wine?” she asked.
“Of course not,” he said. “It’s sparkling cider.”
“Very thoughtful of you,” she said.
Marcus poured two glasses and handed one to Kyra. He couldn’t help but notice how her skin seemed to glow in the light of the moon. She wore no makeup, and yet her face shone. Her beauty was all-natural.
“Well here’s to one successful day of…” He wasn’t sure how to phrase it so it didn’t sound presumptuous, so he raised his glass and went with his original thought. “…parenting.”
Kyra laughed again and clinked glassed with him. He watched her bring the glass to her lips and take a sip of the bubbly cider.
“I have to admit it was nice to share duties with someone for a change,” Kyra said.
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m already a single parent.” Kyra’s face clouded, and she started twirling her hair around one finger. “My sister hasn’t always been the most responsible person. Somebody has to watch out for her and Ava.”
“And you’re that somebody?” Marcus asked.
Kyra shrugged. “Our father left when we were really small,” she said. “Our mama had to make ends meet, so I grew up fast. I took care of myself and Maggie while Mama worked.”
“What kind of work did your mother do?” Marcus wanted to know everything about Kyra.
“Oh, she did a little of everything for money—waitressing, retail—but at heart, Mama’s a musician, a singer.”
Marcus smiled. “Cool. What type of music?”
“Jazz mostly,” Kyra said. “She played a lot of smaller clubs in Atlanta, nothing big. Once when I was in high school, she had an audition for a really big opportunity in Nashville. She spent weeks preparing for it.”
“So what happened?”
“The guy she was dating at the time was supposed to drive her to the audition, and he never showed. We didn’t have a car, and it was too late for her to take a bus or anything else. She was screwed.”
“Oh man, that’s awful.”
“It really was.” Kyra shook her head. “I’ll never forget that day. My mama curled up in a ball crying, cheeks all streaked with mascara, smoking a cigarette. She was so mad.”
“I’m guessing things with the boyfriend fell apart after that,” Marcus said.
Kyra nodded. “From that day on, she never stopped reminding me to be independent and to never depend on a man to get what I needed out of life.”
Marcus was quiet for a moment, digesting Kyra’s words. Suddenly he saw Kyra’s insistence on raising their child alone in a different light. It wasn’t a personal rejection of him; it was a dogma she’d been fed her entire life. He longed to make her see that all men weren’t like her mother’s loser ex-boyfriend.
“Mama continued to play smaller gigs,” Kyra went on. “And work her tail off doing other jobs to pay the bills.”
“So you and your sister spent lots of time in nightclubs?” he asked, trying to lighten the mood.
Kyra threw her head back in laughter. “Oh, hell no! Our mama would never allow us to go to her shows. Too seedy. She was strict, and we had a healthy fear of crossing her.” Kyra rolled her eyes then. “At least I did. Maggie became something of a wild child that I had the pleasure of trying to keep under control.”
Marcus sensed resentment in Kyra’s tone. “A lot of responsibility for a young girl,” he said.
“There are only five years between us, but I always felt like I was in charge of Maggie, and that responsibility doubled when Maggie got herself pregnant with Ava,” Kyra said, her finger still twirling away inside her dark curls. “Her boyfriend, Ava’s father, was a deadbeat. He couldn’t hold down a job let alone support Maggie and a child.”
“Does Ava even know her father?” Marcus asked, unable to imagine what it would be like to know you had a daughter out there somewhere but not be a part of her life in any way.
“No,” Kyra said. “He split soon after she was born and hasn’t been in touch ever since. So, I threw myself into my career and my family full-force—with no time left for anything else. I had to. I knew I had to be successful to provide for us and to deal with Maggie and whatever shenanigans she got into along the way. And any time I wasn’t working, I was taking care of Ava, and making sure Maggie had a safe place to land after another one of her wild ideas fell through.”