One-Night Love-Child

It sounded like the way to perdition to Sara. She shook her head. “It’s too soon.”

Flynn scowled. “Oh? And when is it not going to be too soon, Sar’? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year?”

“You’ve been here two hours, if that!”

“And I would have been here sooner if I’d known,” he said evenly. “I’ll say it again—as many times as it takes—I didn’t know. And if you’re worried about whether he’ll stay with me, ask him.”

“What?”

“Ask him if he minds. If he doesn’t want me to do it, I won’t.” Flynn raised his brows, met her gaze, threw down the gauntlet again. “Ask him.”

As if on cue, Liam yelled from outside, “Dad! C’mon! What’re you doin’ in there? Aren’tcha comin’?”

Sara winced at the eager tone, winced at the memory of her son striding up to Santa and saying, “I want you to bring my dad home.”

Flynn’s gaze remained fixed on her. His expression said all it needed to. But then he added, “Does Adam make you hot when he kisses you, Sara?”

“Fine,” Sara snapped. “Babysit. I wish you the joy of it!”

CHAPTER FOUR

FLYNN wished for the joy of it, too.

Babysitting his son while his son’s mother went out with another man was not what he had planned.

He’d planned—at some point after Sara had opened the door and bowled him over—to charm her and tease her as he once had done. And then, when he’d soothed her ruffled feathers, he’d intended to take her and Liam to dinner.

He had never considered how high Sara’s defenses would be—and how much work he might have to do to make her remember how good it had been between them.

God knew, he remembered. And he was remembering more every minute.

He hadn’t let himself think about her—about their time together—for years. What point would there have been?

They had met coincidentally, had clicked instantly. But in truth they had been ships passing in the night—Sara resolutely on her way to medical school and then to save the world, and he determined to shake the dirt of Ireland and Dunmorey off his boots and then to prove to his old man that he wasn’t the useless fool the old man seemed to believe.

Just because he wasn’t the solid, dutiful lord-of-the-manor type that Will was, didn’t mean he didn’t have his own talents, his own gifts. Not, Flynn thought wearily, that he had ever managed to convince the old man.

He had an uphill fight convincing Sara that he meant to do right by her and Liam, too. He didn’t suppose that grabbing this Adam jerk by the throat and throttling him would go very far in making that point. Sara had never been especially impressed by the caveman approach, as he recalled.

So, fine. He could wait. He could even let her go out with another man—especially one whose kisses didn’t make her go up in flames. And this guy’s clearly didn’t. She wouldn’t have been so furious at his question if they had.

But he wasn’t going to sit by and let the guy think he had a clear field. No way. So when he heard the knock at the back door and heard Sara open it, he stood up from where he’d been sitting on the sofa looking at old photo albums with Liam.