Page 18 of This Time Around (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #3)

“I was just wondering.” Her voice was small, but determined. “Did you do that stuff with other people besides mommy?”

“Whoa!” Bam jumped back, yanking the razor away from Jack’s face an instant before he flinched. “You’re lucky I saw that one coming, man.”

“Thanks.” Jack moved his jaw from side to side, relieved not to feel any nicks or cuts. He turned to his daughter. “Why do you want to know that, sweetheart?”

She shrugged. “I just do.”

Jack cleared his throat. “Well, that’s one of those questions that’s very personal. A lot of people don’t like to share that kind of information with other people.”

“Right,” she agreed. “But we’re not other people. We’re family.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Bam said.

Jack shot him a look. “Not helping.”

“Sorry, man.”

He turned back to his daughter. Her expression was earnest and he reminded himself he’d promised honesty. He might not have that much to offer as a parent, but he had that.

“Yes,” he said at last. “There were other people besides mommy. But this is a conversation we can have when you’re a little bit older, okay?”

“Okay.” She bit her lip. “How come?”

“Because love and sex and making babies—those are all really big and powerful things, but it’s important to be mature enough to think through all parts of it. The physical stuff, but also the emotional stuff. Does that make sense?”

Paige nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Totally.” Bam cleared his throat. “Good talk, guys.”

“Thank you for being part of it.” Jack sighed, pretty sure he’d never gazed upon his infant daughter and imagined serious conversations with her might include a guy sporting a neck tattoo of an octopus.

Bam looked at him in the mirror. “Mind if I start shaving again?”

“Yeah.” Jack glanced at Paige. “No more sex questions for right now, okay? After we’re done, we’ll go do some school clothes shopping for you and we can talk about anything you want.”

“Okay.”

“And you’ll be able to do it without me slicing Daddy’s jugular,” Bam added.

Paige sat like a perfect angel for the next twenty minutes, and Jack knew it probably drove her nuts not to have her phone for entertainment or the opportunity to badger him with questions. By the time he’d paid and ushered her out the door, she was beaming up at him again.

“You look good, Daddy.”

“Thank you. So do you.”

She giggled as he ruffled her hair, and Jack wondered how much longer he’d be able to do that.

Grabbing his hand, she started to skip down the sidewalk, even though he hadn’t told her which direction they were headed.

He steered them into downtown Portland toward 10th Avenue as a smattering of rain started to fall.

He flicked open the umbrella he’d brought along, grateful he’d had the foresight to grab it before leaving the house.

At some point he’d gone from being a guy who forgot his own house keys to a guy who remembered to pack snacks and umbrellas when taking his ten-year-old daughter out for the day.

Paige scooted under the umbrella with him, still skipping as she swung his hand back and forth.

“Are you excited about starting at your new school?” he asked.

“Yeah. Kinda. Maybe a little nervous.”

“What are you nervous about?”

She shrugged. “Bullies, maybe. Bigger kids.”

A flicker of rage burned in his chest, but he ordered himself to stay calm. “Have you been bullied before?”

“No. But it’s still scary.”

“That it is,” he agreed. “You know you can always come talk to me about stuff like that, right?”

“Uh-huh. But not about pubes.”

“You can talk to me about pubes, too. Just not in a public place next time, okay?”

She grinned and swung his hand back and forth a few times. “Got it.”

He stopped in front of the high-end thrift shop and gestured toward the mannequins decked out in clothes Jack guessed had originally cost more than his first car. “This is the shop I was telling you about.”

He pushed open the door, taking in the sight of bright dresses and fancy handbags.

This shop hadn’t been here back when he was in college, but he’d read about it online.

Caroline would have loved the place. Scoring designer clothes for a tiny fraction of the original cost had been something of a hobby for his late wife, and Jack had learned everything he knew about bargain hunting from her.

Back when Paige was just a baby and money was tight.

Thinking of his dead wife didn’t make him ache the way it used to.

It was more of a soft pang, somewhere between nostalgia and fondness.

She would have adored this shop for the same reasons he did.

There was something thrilling about knowing rich suckers were spending hundreds of dollars for the same shirt he could find in a place like this for twenty bucks.

He surveyed the round racks of clothing, his gaze swinging between handbags from Coach and Prada, past a rack of barely used Armani suits, skimming over the woman in a red dress with lush curves and caramel hair and?—

“Miss Allie!”

The woman jumped, and Jack looked down to see his daughter waving with excitement. “It’s me, Paige! We ate clams at your house. We were just talking about you.”

Jack’s heart throbbed its way up his throat as he lifted a hand in greeting. As her eyes locked with his, something bright sparked to life in his chest.