I could only imagine how that conversation was going to go down.
Josie got busy with her meetings, and I took my cue from Vincent and threw myself into teaching and playing with the roomful of preschoolers.
I didn’t get a chance to talk to Vincent until Josie had seen out her visitors, shot both of us dirty looks, and then taken herself to lunch. As soon as she was gone, I set my group of kids up with Play-Doh and plastic shaping tools and snuck over to where Vincent had his kids, including Kellan, competing in an obstacle course he’d made in the outside play area. We stood side by side watching the kids chase each other around, letting their squeals and laughter wash over us.
“I want one,” Vincent said eventually.
I glanced up at him. His dark-brown hair flopped across his forehead, and he brushed it back absently with the back of his hand.
“One what?”
“A child.”
It didn’t hugely surprise me. Most people who worked in this industry, male or female, really liked kids, and if they were young enough to not have any of their own, they were probably using the job to fill that ‘clucky’ void inside them. “You’re good with them. They like you.”
“I like them, too.”
We went back to watching the kids.
“I’m really sorry about this morning,” I said eventually. “Caleb…”
“Came to a center full of small children, your place of work, and threatened to end you. He also called Little Dog a rat, which she is clearly not. I think that says all I really need to know about Caleb.”
The frost rolling off Vincent was like opening the door to a freezer. But I instinctively knew it wasn’t directed at me. I could practically still feel the warmth of his body as he’d held me at his back, putting himself in the firing line of Caleb’s rage and insults.
I still remembered how good he smelled. That gentle cologne was intoxicating even now. “I just wanted to say thank you. For what you did. And for what you said.”
Who else would want your ugly, fat ass?”
“I do.”
He’d said it with such conviction that Caleb had believed it. And so had I.
For all his uniqueness, Vincent was classically handsome with his clean-shaven, chiseled jawline and dark features. He had an intense, broody quality to him that would draw the eye of any woman. But this softness inside him, his adoration for a group of kids he’d only known a week, and the way he’d put himself on the line for a woman he barely knew, was what made him truly attractive.
He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I meant every word. He doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you, Betha— Bliss. I would have made good on my threats then and there if there hadn’t been a roomful of witnesses.”
I blinked, realizing we were talking about two different things. I’d been talking about him telling Caleb he wanted me. He was talking about his threats to maim and disembowel.
A shiver rolled over me, but I tried to shake it off. People said things like that all the time. Just because Vincent was a tad on the literal side, didn’t mean that he’d really meant any of the things he’d said in the heat of the moment.
He’d protected me. Stuck up for me. I’d felt safe with him, and more than that, I liked him. A man who tenderly wiped toddler tears and listened to twenty-minute-long, rambling stories about Spider-Man and Disney Princesses was not anyone I needed to be worried about.
“Well, I appreciate the backup—”
“Kellan?” Vincent snagged the boy’s arm as he ran past, quickly dropping down to his eye height.
“I’m playing, Mr. Vincent!”
“I know, little friend. But look at me for a moment.”
I saw what Vincent had spotted. One of Kellan’s eyes was half swollen shut. The skin around his lips had turned a rashy red.
“Are you feeling okay?” Vincent asked carefully.
Kellan rubbed at his swollen eye. “I’m fine.”
He clearly wasn’t fine at all.
My heart thumped harder while I racked my brain for Kellan’s medical history. “I think he’s had anaphylactic responses before. How long has he been like that?”
Vincent knew instantly. “He was normal when we came outside, so no longer than ten minutes.”
“That eye is swelling fast then.”
Vincent bundled Kellan into his arms. “Okay. We’re off to get you some medicine. Everybody else inside to Miss Sarah. I think I heard her say she’s getting the painting easels out.”