Second-Chance Family by Karina Bliss

Author:Karina Bliss
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Category, Suddenly A Parent
ISBN: 0373715242
Publisher: Harlequin Super Romance
Published: 2009-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

JACK STOOD IN THE KITCHEN amid the debris of breakfast. She’ll come back. No way would she leave me alone with young children. The thought steadied him. Ten minutes tops, and she’d walk through that door.

He sat on a stool at the kitchen counter and watched the minutes tick around the clock while Cassie pushed James Zombie Maisy around on Liam’s Ripstik board.

Then realized he was being pathetic. The least he could do was get the kids ready.

“You got everything you need for school, mate?” he asked Liam, who was lurking in the hall.

“Yeah, but I can’t find Froggie to put him in his tank.”

Jack hid his impatience. “Okay, let’s look.” That bloody amphibian went walkabout so often it should have a swag on its back.

They checked the obvious places first—the sink, the bath and the toilets; anywhere there was water. Nothing. Next were the dark places—wardrobes, cupboards and under beds. On his hands and knees, Jack lifted Liam’s bedspread and peered into the gloom, while Cassie jumped on the mattress. A spring hit Jack’s head.

“Sh—”

“Is he there?” The cover lifted on the other side, and Liam’s hopeful face appeared, upside down.

“No!” Dropping the cover, Jack stood up, rubbing his scalp. “Listen, Liam, if you’re given responsibility for something, you have to look after it properly.” He knew he should stop there, but he was pissed.

Ten minutes had come and gone, he was late for work and Roz should have been back by now. “This halfhearted, got-something-else-better-to-do mentality isn’t bloody good enough. Froggie depends on you to keep him safe.”

Jack caught sight of himself in the mirrored wardrobe—a big, angry man standing over a small boy with bowed head—and shock sent him stumbling back a step. He’d become his father. In the frozen moment that followed came another painful realization: And a damn hypocrite. “Halfhearted” was exactly the way he’d tackled this guardianship.

Liam shot him a scared glance that made him want to crawl into a dark hole with Froggie. “You know what?” Jack said quietly. “Most of the time you do a good job looking after that animal. He’s just the Houdini of frogs. Let’s keep looking.” Eventually the three of them found him in a plant pot in the lounge.

Liam’s watch beeped, and he glanced at it anxiously. “We need to go soon. That’s my ten-minute warning for Auntie Roz.”

“Maybe we’ll call in sick today.”

“No, we can’t! You’re in charge of the walking bus and I’m doing the morning talk.”

“What the hell is a walking bus?”

“Parents take turns walking kids to school. Kids get collected outside their houses.”

“Okay then.” Jack accepted the inevitable. “What’s left to get ready?”

“Make my lunch, change Cassie, sign my homework book—”

Jack raked a hand through his hair. “How about I give you money to change Cassie’s diaper?”

Liam looked doubtful. “I don’t think I’ll be very good at it.”

“Ten bucks. Fifteen if you can do it in five minutes.”

Liam grabbed Cassie’s hand and she growled. “If you let me change you,” he wheedled, because he really, really wanted all that money, “I’ll buy you a lollipop.

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