Cross My Heart (A Contemporary Romance Novel)

brooding.”
    He smiled in spite of himself, wondering how he’d ever be able to stand his house without Claire in it.
    “Sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to brood.”
    “Is it because of Jenna?”
    He shrugged. “It’s not important. Nothing for you to worry about.”
    “We’ll be over there again Thursday, to paint the dining room.”
    “I know. Are you and Ellie hungry?”
    Claire held up the cookies. “No, we’re good. We had pizza with the band, so this is just dessert. Have a good night, Dad.”
    “You, too.”
    He turned back to the window. His eyes were on Jenna and the happy, carefree group on her patio, but his thoughts were looking inward.
    Dark and brooding.
    For some reason, he found himself thinking about the kid he’d been in high school. Not dark and brooding, maybe, but aloof. Solitary. Part of that had been about survival, but some of it had been the sense of separateness he’d always felt around other people.
    Keeping his distance from his parents had been a deliberate choice. Everything they were was diametrically opposed to what he wanted for himself. But why had he kept his distance from everyone else? His friends, Angela, Denise—even Claire.
    Jenna had a knack for bridging gaps between people. He thought about the effortless way she’d made him and Claire feel comfortable, that very first night. She might have a restless soul, but she also had a way with people.
    He didn’t have a way with people, but that didn’t mean he had to stand here in the dark, looking out at Jenna and her friends like the lonely kid he’d once been.
    Like the lonely adult he was now.
    The word echoed in his mind, echoed in the dark room behind him.
    It went against the grain to admit he was lonely. It felt like a weakness.
    But if he didn’t admit it, how could he change it?
    When he was with Jenna, he didn’t feel lonely. He felt connected. To her, to his daughter—even total strangers, like that night at the Albert Cray concert.
    But he couldn’t rely on her to do that for him. She’d be out of the picture soon. After she was gone, he didn’t want to go back to the ways things had always been. He wanted the changes she’d brought to his life to stick.
    He might not be a natural the way Jenna was, but he was capable of reaching out to people. He could choose community over solitude.
    And he could choose to stop obsessing over Jenna’s ex-boyfriend, who, because of Jenna’s generous spirit, had been readmitted to her life when he didn’t deserve it.
    He took a deep breath and headed for the stairs.
    “Hey,” he said a minute later, standing in Claire’s doorway. The two girls were sitting in front of the computer, giggling at whatever they were looking at.
    They turned at the sound of his voice. “Hey, Dad,” Claire said. “What’s up?”
    He was surprised at how awkward he felt. Downstairs this had seemed like a great idea, but now he wasn’t so sure.
    “I was wondering if the two of you felt like doing something.”
    Both girls stared at him blankly. “Do something?” Claire asked. “You mean, with you? Like what?”
    “Well...” He hadn’t even thought this through. He racked his brain. “It’s only seven o’clock. The mall will be open till ten, right? We could go shopping. Or...we could go to a movie. Or...” He tried to think of another option.
    “Bowling!” Ellie said suddenly. “Claire, you said you wanted to learn to bowl.”
    “Ooh, good idea! Dad, do you want to take us bowling?”
    He’d never bowled in his life. “Well...you’d have two students on your hands,” he said, looking at Ellie.
    “No problem! It’ll be easy to teach you.”
    Be careful what you wish for, because you might end up wearing rented shoes. “Okay, then. Bowling it is.”
    * * *
    “Bowling?” Jenna smiled in delight as she pried the lid off a paint can. “You really took him bowling?”
    Claire nodded. “Yeah, and of course he picked it up right away and became, like, instantly awesome. He always has to be good at things. It’s kind of annoying.”
    “I don’t have to be good at things,” Michael said mildly, stirring the paint he’d just opened. “But I do have a certain amount of manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination. I am a surgeon, after all.”
    The manual dexterity she could attest to. She’d never been with a man who could turn her on so much with his hands, who knew exactly when and where and how to touch her.
    She closed her eyes as a visceral memory