“Something else gone wrong?” he asked when she remained quiet.
She flashed him a glance. “Not wrong exactly.” She took another sip of wine and another deep breath.
“Come on, sergeant. You know the old saying—a problem shared is a problem halved.”
Her lips almost curled into a smile at that. “It’s not a problem. It might actually be a good thing. I just haven’t wrapped my head around it yet.”
“Around what?”
“My mother and father are getting back together. She’s moving in with him.”
“What about you?”
She quirked a brow. “What about me?”
“Are you and Jenny going with her?” He didn’t want her to. It was none of his business, but he didn’t want anyone else looking after them but him.
“No. We’ll stay in the old house. Mum has said she’ll babysit whenever I need her. We’ll be good.”
He didn’t think, just opened his mouth and words came out. “Perhaps you and Jenny should move in here.” For a few seconds he was shocked into silence by his own speech. He’d never invited anyone to move in with him before. Never even come close to wanting to. But when he thought about the idea, he liked it. It felt right.
That way, even if the physical relationship with Abby petered out—and he couldn’t imagine that right now—then he would still have her close. They could be friends. He’d never had a woman friend before; he wasn’t a particularly friendly guy, but he could make it work. He’d make the effort for Abby and Jenny. They might not be a real family, but they would be together and that was important. He’d spent his first ten years hardly knowing his father. He understood the importance of family.
“Are you out of your mind?”
Her words dragged him out of his rose-colored vision of the three of them playing happy families. He watched her warily as she slowly placed her glass on the table in front of her. She clearly wasn’t enamored of his offer, definitely wasn’t jumping up and down and squealing with joy at the idea of sharing a house with him.
“It’s a big house, so why not? You could have your own room,” he offered. He’d actually envisioned her sharing with him, at least at first, but that might be a little optimistic. Best not to crowd her. On the other hand, he wanted her with him. “Or we could share, at least until one of us wants some space.”
She stared at him, brows drawn together as though she were translating his words from some weird foreign language but they made no sense at all. “Completely out of your mind?”
He ignored the warning signs and kept right on going. Excitement was shooting through him. Something told him this was the way forward, an opportunity he shouldn’t throw away. “We’d get to spend time together, and I’d get to spend more time with Jenny without taking her away from you. Come on, Abby, think about it…it makes sense.”
She shook her head slowly. It was dawning on him that she wasn’t experiencing the same sense of anticipation he was. From the tension radiating from her small body, she wasn’t feeling anything good at all. “It makes absolutely no sense at all. You’re crazy if you think I’d move in here with Jenny. I told you seeing you could seriously damage my career, and what do you do—ask me to move in with you. Yes, of course it makes sense—if you’re a complete moron.”
He opened his mouth to say something—what, he wasn’t sure—but she beat him to it. “Jenny needs a stable environment, not to live with some adrenaline junky who happens to have a—very probably short-lived—sexual fixation on her mother.”
“You want something permanent?”
She gritted her teeth. “Of course I don’t want anything permanent.”
“Or is it that you just don’t want anything permanent with me?”
She glared at him. “You know what? Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is just you.” She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Sorry, that was uncalled for, but you bring out the worst in me. Come on, Logan. We’ve only really known each other a few weeks, but you do not come across as the sort of guy looking for commitment. Yes, it might be fun for a while. You’d get to play out your fantasies, and I’d have the best sex ever. But what happens when the fantasies run out, or you start fantasizing about another woman. What if you want to bring her home?”
“I wouldn’t do—”
“Wouldn’t you? How long do your relationships usually last? A month? Three months? Are you saying I’m different? You want to marry me, Logan? Give Jenny a real family?”
He had no clue what to say to that. Not that he seriously believed she wanted to marry him. She was simply making a point. And making it very well.
He’d never thought in terms of marriage. The word sent ripples of fear down his spine. Now he tried to get his head around the alien idea. Obviously he took too long, because she stood up.
“I thought not,” she said. “I’m going to bed.”
This time he made no move to stop her.
Had he really asked her to move in?