Spontaneous - Brenda Jackson [21]
He knew the feeling.
“But I do like kids and want to have a child someday,” she added.
Her statement didn’t surprise him. Although he’d never seen her around children, for some reason he believed she would be a good mother and nothing like the woman who’d birthed him. As far as kids went for him, he liked them but wasn’t sure he could ever be the father his dad had been. Orin Jeffries had been a rock for his kids. He had always been there for them, and when his poor excuse of a wife had walked out, he had taken on the role of single father without much sweat.
Duan pulled in a deep breath, wondering who he was fooling. He shifted his gaze from Kim and stared out over the water, thinking that for his father, there had been both sweat and tears. He would never forget the day he’d walked in on his father standing in the middle of his bedroom, staring at his wife’s picture and crying. Actually crying over the woman who’d humiliated him by running off with another man. Duan had backed out of the room without his father knowing he’d been there. That day stuck out in his mind because it was then that he’d decided he didn’t want any woman to ever cause him the pain he’d seen on his father’s face.
“What about you?” Kim asked.
He glanced back over at her. “What about me?”
“How do you feel about marriage and children?”
It had been a long time since any woman asked him that. “I don’t ever plan to marry. And as long as there are such things as condoms, I don’t ever intend to produce a baby, either, although I like them. I just don’t want to parent one. Don’t know how good I’d be, so I’d rather not take any chances.” He turned from Kim and stared out over the ocean again.
“I guess we’ll have to wait on Sherri and Terrence.”
He glanced back at her. “Wait on them for what?”
She smiled. “Babies. I’ll be godmother to any baby they have. That’s a given.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Is it?”
“Yes.”
And any baby his brother and sister-in-law produced would make him an uncle. Uncle Duan. He liked the sound of that, but he wasn’t so sure it would be Terrence and Sherri who would be bestowing the honor upon him first. For some reason, he had a feeling it would be Reggie and Libby.
Deciding to change the subject to the one they needed to discuss, he asked, “How are things with your mother?”
The face she made told him the answer before she opened her mouth to say anything. “Basically the same. I’ve talked to her twice this week and at least she’s agreed not to do anything rash about her marital status until after I get there.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Friday, and I plan to be there for a week. That will give me a few days to spend with her and to get to know the man she wants to marry.”
He nodded. “And are you still contemplating taking a fake fiancé with you?”
She tilted her head back and met his gaze. “It depends.”
He lifted a brow. “On what?”
“On whether or not you were serious about going with me.”
THERE, SHE’D SAID IT and now she was trying to decipher his response, Kim thought, studying Duan. She had been tempted to bring up the subject all morning but hadn’t known how to.
Although he’d made the offer last weekend, it had been post-sex, when they’d still been caught up in the hot time they’d shared in her hotel room. When she’d played the offer over and over in her mind this week, she’d tried to convince herself that he had been serious, but she wasn’t so sure. This was one way to find out for certain.
He placed his fishing pole aside and leaned over her. “Then I guess I just became your pretend fiancé since I was dead serious, Kim.”
She swallowed. He was giving her that look. “You do know what that will mean when it comes to my mother and aunt, don’t you? They will be asking you questions, trying to pin us down to a wedding date and all that stuff. It won’t be easy.”
He shrugged. “And it won’t be hard. You tell me what to say and I’ll say it.”
She tilted her head and continued to hold his gaze. “And just what will you