That Thing Called Love by Susan Andersen Page A

assistant—the news was several weeks old. I was photographing the reefs and the Karangetang volcano in the Sangihe-Talaud Archipelago of Northern Sulawesi at the time. It’s remote, it’s freaking monsoon season, which our scheduler should have known before he set the damn trip up, and we only got access to a satellite phone when we came back to Minahasa about every third weekend or so.” He shrugged. “Even when I heard about it, I was obligated for an additional six days. Then it took time to get a flight to the Philippines and even more time to get a flight from there to Seattle. I don’t go to the most accessible spots in the world.”
    “So even if you heard right away, you wouldn’t have been here any sooner?”
    “I had a contract! Would you have left this inn in the lurch?”
    “For Austin? In a New York minute.”
    His expression went blank. “I genuflect to your superior parenting skills. But I’m trying here, okay?”
    And since Jenny had caught a glimpse of genuine pain cross his eyes before he slapped on a poker face, she nodded. For the first time she really saw that he was, indeed, trying—and that maybe this wasn’t as easy for him as he’d made it appear up until now. “Okay. I guess the important thing is that you’re here now. But you’ve gotta understand that this isn’t going to be easy.”
    “I know,” he said wearily. “Believe me, I get it that I’ve got a lot to make up for.”
    She pushed her plate away, sat a bit taller and reached for her coffee cup, wrapping her hands around it in an attempt to warm her cold, cold fingers. Despite the lip service she’d given, a part of her must have secretly hoped this was something that would simply disappear if she wished hard enough.
    Instead, it was growing more real, more concrete, by the second. She drew in a deep breath, then quietly exhaled. Replaced her cup in its saucer and pressed her hands, fingers splayed, against the cool wood of the tabletop to disguise the faint tremor they’d developed.
    “Give Austin time and don’t bullshit him,” she told him quietly, “and he’ll likely come to love you. He adored the idea of you when he was little.”
    Jake leaned into the table. Slid his own long-fingered hands across its surface as if to touch her. But he halted their progress when his fingertips were less than an inch from hers.
    She hated that the near touch set up a series of quivers deep inside.
    “And you’ll help me?” he demanded.
    “I said I would, didn’t I?”
    He nodded.
    “Then I will.”
    Even though it’d likely rip her heart right out of her breast to do so.
    * * *
    “B RADSHAW ! G ET YOUR head outta the clouds and pay attention!”
    Austin literally jerked at the sound of Coach Harstead’s brisk bellow—and raised a baseball mitt-encased hand to acknowledge the reprimand. “Sorry, coach!” Drawing a deep breath, he forced himself to refocus on the Bulldogs’ Wednesday practice.
    God, it was hard, though. His so-called father had been trying to pin him down for the past week and a half, wanting to talk and bond and shit. Austin had been doing his best to avoid the guy, but surprisingly, Jenny, who he’d assumed would be the last person wanting him to spend time with the man, hadn’t been much help. She actually thought he should be—how had she put it?— open-minded.
    My ass. Resettling his cap in front, he narrowed his eyes on the batter. His friend Lee was up. Dude was right-handed with a tendency to pull the ball, so ninety percent of his hits came straight to where Austin played shortstop, between second and third base. “Come to Mama,” he murmured.
    Yet even as he concentrated on being ready for it, he wondered where his “dad” had been when he’d actually wanted a father. Nodamnwhere, that’s where. Or maybe, given the guy’s big-deal job, everywhere.
    Everywhere except Razor Bay.
    The crack of a ball off the bat focused his attention once again and, seeing Lee’s line drive arc