“Yeah, right.” But he crouched in front of his niece. “Sasha, the yellow ones are very nice. They’re pretty, don’t you think?”
Dark curls flew back and forth as she shook her head. “Me want pink shoes. With kitty. Like book. Me like pink. Me like kitty.” She kicked off the yellow shoe the salesman and Ryan had wrestled onto her right foot. “No!”
Ryan looked so shocked, Cassie had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Most of the time he and Sasha got along fine. There hadn’t been many tantrums in his presence. Looked like that was about to change.
“What do I do?” he asked.
“It’s your choice,” she told him. “Pick your battle. Do you want to fight it out with a two-year-old over these shoes? You have to weigh the costs and benefits. Yes, you’re the adult, you’re buying the shoes, you have the final say. If you think the yellow shoes are better for her feet then you should insist.” She met his gaze. “If it’s just that you like the brand name better, then it’s less simple. What if she refuses to wear the yellow shoes once you buy them? Do you want to have this fight every morning? Or to be more accurate, do you want me to have this fight every morning?”
“She’d really hate them that much?”
“I don’t know. She might be fine. She might always remember the pink ones.” Cassie leaned forward. “Welcome to parenting, Ryan. There aren’t any easy solutions. You do have to decide what’s worth taking a stand on because one of the worst things you can do is waffle once you’ve drawn a line in the sand. So think long and hard before making any pronouncements.”
He picked up a pink shoe, then grabbed the yellow one she’d kicked away. “They’re just shoes.” The brightly colored footwear looked tiny resting on his hand. He turned his attention to his niece. “You’re too young to be causing this much trouble.”
Sasha held out her arms. “Hug,” she demanded.
He obliged, all the while grumbling. “You’re not going to win me over with a little affection,” he said.
“Why not?” Cassie asked. “Women have been using their feminine wiles to get what they want for centuries.”
“I don’t think of Sasha as having feminine wiles.”
Cassie didn’t say anything, but she knew the exact moment Ryan made his decision and she wasn’t surprised when he turned to the hovering clerk and said, “We’ll take the pink ones.”
As he helped Sasha back into her old shoes and socks, he glanced at her. “What are you thinking?”
That he was too cute for words, but she couldn’t tell him that. “Nothing much.”
“Which ones would you have bought?”
“The pink ones. It’s an easy win for her. They’re both well-made, she’ll outgrow both of them quickly.”
“So I did okay?”
His earnest, hopeful expression made her heart melt. “You did great.”
“Thanks. Your opinion means a lot to me.”
He flashed her a smile that, if she hadn’t already been sitting down, would have made her knees collapse.
While Ryan settled Sasha on his hip and walked over to pay for the shoes, Cassie slowly collected their jackets. She needed a minute to calm down. It was difficult to pretend he didn’t matter to her when her body was on constant alert. But as long as Ryan didn’t figure it out, she could live with the symptoms. At least that was what she told herself.
Feeling and strength returned to her legs and she rose to her feet. As she met Ryan by the door, a young woman with two children in a stroller smiled at them. “Your daughter is very pretty.”
Ryan hesitated, then thanked the woman.
When they were in the mall, he turned to her. “I didn’t know if I should explain the situation or not,” he said. “It seemed easier to accept the compliment. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. It was bound to happen.”
“Thanks for understanding.”
“No problem.”
“So what are we going to do about lunch?” he asked.
Cassie listened while he and Sasha discussed the possibilities. She reminded herself that she had Ryan’s respect and his affection. That was enough. But when the woman had assumed they were a family, something inside of her had flared to life. In that moment she realized that walking away from Ryan was going to be much harder than letting go of Joel. She hoped that there weren’t any other parallels—that when she gave her heart to a man other than Ryan, she wouldn’t be settling for second best again.
* * *
THE SOUND OF laughter pierced Ryan’s concentration and he turned toward the window. At first it had been easy to block out the sounds of Cassie and Sasha in the house, but that was becoming more and more difficult. He supposed part of the reason was that he enjoyed spending time with them. Given the choice between them and work, there wasn’t a choice at all.