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  They left the kids in the foyer. Alec charged them with passing out candy while they played with the puppy and came up with a name.

  The great room looked different without the previous owners’ big, comfy sectional taking up space. Alec’s sleek leather couch had been a good fit for his apartment, but it was dwarfed here, the scale too small given the room’s dimensions and high ceilings. He apparently read her mind.

  “I need new furniture.”

  “Something a little larger,” she agreed.

  The dining room was empty. She followed him into the kitchen. She didn’t recognize the canister set on the counter by the stove, or the assortment of copper-bottomed pots that was hanging from a rack over the island.

  “These are new,” she said.

  “I’m taking some cooking lessons,” he told her with a shrug. “I decided I didn’t want to eat out for the rest of my life, especially now that I have a home.”

  “A dog and cooking lessons. Wow.” She shook her head in amazement, not all of it teasing. Alec had done a lot of changing since she’d met him. Some of it to save his job. But this, in a way, was to save himself. Tears threatened. She blinked them back, and then her gaze caught on the plant she’d sent him. It was in front of the window, and most of its leaves were gone. Those that remained were edged in brown. He was probably overwatering it. Another plant was next to it, a larger one that was not in much better shape.

  “Where did the palm tree come from?”

  “The previous owners left it. Fred said he thought it was root bound. He said I should repot it. Maybe I need to take a class on plants, too.” His smile was self-deprecating, endearing.

  He was trying so hard to create a secure base for himself. The sort of place he’d never known growing up. Feelings Julia had tried to deny bubbled back up.

  “So, you’re enjoying homeownership?” she asked.

  “Trying.” He stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. Then he confessed quietly, “I almost put the house back on the market the week after I moved in.”

  “You did? Why?”

  “I wanted a home and, well, it didn’t feel much like one.”

  “I’m sure that was just because it was empty,” she said.

  From near the front door they heard the dog bark, followed by children’s laughter.

  This was what the house was missing, more so than furniture and window treatments. Alec’s expression told her he knew that, even before he agreed, “It was empty. But it was missing more than furniture. It still is.” He stepped closer. “How have you been?”

  Heartsick. “Busy.”

  He lowered his voice. “I’ve missed seeing you. I’ve been tempted to say something stupid to a reporter again, just so we’d have to work together some more.”

  “Don’t you dare!” She laughed. “I’ve been impressed with how well you’ve been doing on your own. The segment of you attempting to diaper a doll that aired on the local morning show last week was priceless. You’re almost a natural when you’re around kids now.”

  “It helped that it was a doll.”

  “Still. You showed patience, restraint and a good sense of humor.”

  “I guess I learned a few things from our time together.” He reached over and gave her arm a squeeze.

  The simple touch made Julia yearn. She swallowed around the lump in her throat. It struck her then, full force, not only how much she’d missed him, but also how much she had denied them both, how much she had denied her children, by bisecting her life in the short time they’d been together. Her sister had warned her. Julia hadn’t listened. Not to her sister. Not to her own heart. Was it too late?

  Shaken, she walked over to the plants. The palm tree probably had been lush in the beginning. What remained of its foliage now was stunted and dull. It stood nearly as tall as Julia, it’s trunk as big around as her fist, but its roots were tucked into a pot no more than eight inches in diameter. The plant had long ago outgrown it.

  As she studied it another leaf fell off and fluttered to the ground. Julia started to cry, not a mere misting of her eyes that she was able to control this time, but a vast waterfall of tears that washed down her cheeks. A sob escaped when Colin and Danielle’s delighted laughter echoed from the foyer. She covered her face with her hands and wept.

  Alec was beside her in an instant. “My God! Julia, what is it?” She felt his hands on her back, patting in comfort, but she wished that he would hold her.

  “Fred’s right. It’s root bound. The pot is too small. It’s too damned small,” she managed to say after a minute. “This tree was beautiful once, but it’s dying now. All because of the pot.”

  “Julia?”

  She pulled her hands away. After a deep, bracing breath, she said, “I never told you I love you.”

  Alec had been patting her back, doing his damnedest to resist the urge to pull her into his arms and make a fool out of himself. Now his hand stilled and he forced her to turn and look at him.

  “Can you say that again?” he said quietly, fiercely. “I want to be sure I didn’t misunderstand.

  “I love you.” She smiled and his heart squeezed. Then she asked, “Is it too late to start over?”

  “I don’t want to start over,” he told her honestly. He didn’t want to go back. They’d come too far for that. He framed her face in his hands, caressing her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “I want to move forward, with you and the kids.”

  When he kissed her, Alec was home.

  EPILOGUE

  One year later...

  Alec stood at the altar and fought the urge to tug at his tie. Despite the church’s air-conditioning, perspiration was beading on his forehead. Hurry up, already, he thought as he watched Julia walk up the aisle on her father’s arm, her children on either side of them. A package deal, she’d once called it. A bargain, Alec thought now, though there had been bumps along the way. Plenty of them.

  Julia smiled. She looked lovely in the fitted white suit, serene compared to his flurry of nerves. He took that as a good sign that she wasn’t about to change her mind. They’d been engaged since Christmas and she’d initially wanted a year-long engagement, in part to give the children time to get used to the idea of their family of three expanding to four again. He’d talked Julia into eight months so that the kids would be settled in their new home before school started.

  He couldn’t wait until they were all under one roof, starting a new life as a real family, the kind of family he’d never expected to have. He wasn’t going to screw it up.

  His gaze fell on his parents then. They were in the front pew overdressed for the understated occasion in designer clothes—the best that money could buy, of course. But at least they’d made it, or so Julia had reminded him when they’d jetted in late from a month-long sojourn in Belize. They were what they were, and they had no intention of changing. Just as Alec had no intention of ever being anything like them.

  And so it was when Julia reached the altar and Lyle placed her hand in Alec’s that he whispered fiercely, “I promise to be the best husband and father I can be.”

  The ceremony hadn’t quite begun and the minister hadn’t yet said anything about kisses, but Julia touched her lips to his.

  “I already know that.”

  * * * * *

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  ISBN: 9781460306857

  MUST LIKE KIDS

  Copyright © 2013 by Jackie Braun Fridline

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