A Baby in the Bargain by Victoria Pade Page A

note of how Gideon dealt with kids was something she’d been doing for a while. In fact she’d found reason to do it each time Thorpe visited the book booth and Gideon had had any exchange with him.
    The man was a natural with children, which surprised Jani as much as her early arrival had surprised him. He didn’t go overboard with Thorpe. He never talked down to the four-year-old. He didn’t try to be cool or cutesy or silly with him, he just treated him like anyone else, patiently answering his questions and listening to what Thorpe had to say. And all as calmly as if he were an old hand at it.
    “Can I have this book?” Thorpe asked.
    “If it’s all right with your mom. Why don’t you show it to her, tell her it’s my treat. But don’t run.”
    Thorpe took the book and walked with purpose to the popcorn booth.
    After listening to her son for a moment, the councilwoman waved her approval and Gideon took his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans to put a dollar in the cash box.
    “Please don’t tell me that whoever it was you read that book to every night before bed was your last girlfriend,” Jani teased him, fishing for information in the process.
    As the day had progressed they’d both relaxed more than they had at any other time they’d been together. She’d come to see that Gideon Thatcher actually had a fun—and funny—side. A side that was a little ornery and mischievous and far more lighthearted than she would ever have imagined. A side that had allowed for joking and teasing. And maybe just a little flirting, too.
    It had made the time go faster—and far more pleasantly—for Jani, even though she did keep telling herself that flirting was probably not a good idea.
    Despite the fact that her comment just now had clearly been a joke, Gideon’s smile in response wasn’t as open or relaxed as what she’d come to expect from him today. Instead it was bittersweet, and Jani knew instantly that she’d somehow struck a nerve again.
    “I read the bear book over and over again to my daughter,” he said stiffly.
    Jani very nearly dropped the notebook where she’d just entered the title of the bear book and the amount Gideon had paid for it.
    His daughter?
    “You said you were divorced. I didn’t realize you had kids,” Jani said without any levity at all.
    “I don’t,” he answered in a clipped tone that left her more curious than she had been before.
    “You read the bear book to your daughter, but you don’t have kids...” Jani said, trying to figure out the riddle of that.
    But he acted as if he hadn’t heard her and instead went to straighten the table of books farthest away from her.
    Oh, this can’t be good, Jani thought.
    But before she knew how—or if—she should pursue the subject, she thought she heard her grandmother’s voice in the distance, saying, “There she is! Over at that one.”
    Turning away from the sight of Gideon’s broad back in the thick gray wool sweater he was wearing with jeans, Jani looked out into the crowd of shoppers milling around the booths. She sincerely hoped her ears had been deceiving her, but they hadn’t. GiGi was indeed making her way in Jani’s direction.
    She’d spoken to her grandmother after leaving Gideon the night before and told GiGi all she’d learned about the Thatchers. She’d also told her grandmother that she had agreed to work the flea market today. The elderly woman had given no clue that she might show up.
    But there she was suddenly, accompanied by the man who had become her constant companion since the two high school sweethearts had reconnected in October.
    “Hi, honey!” her grandmother greeted her when the two older people arrived at the book booth.
    At seventy-five years old, they were still both in robustly good health, despite carrying a few more pounds than they should have been on their short frames. GiGi’s blue eyes still sparkled with vigor, and she looked sporty with her salt-and-pepper hair curled around