Brandon stood at his kitchen sink and looked through the window, across the common area his house shared with Toni, into her side dining room window. Her murky silhouette on the other side of the sheer curtains proved she was home. He watched her for a few moments, as he had more days than not since he’d been back. Not as a creeper—heck no—but he had to admit, he felt like a jerk for doing so. Each time he saw her alone and knew Sierra was out, he tried to muster the courage to talk to her. Not about Sierra, but about them.

So far he’d been unable to gird his emotional loins to his satisfaction. He’d backed down from a more direct approach each morning, convincing himself that patience and perseverance were the sure way to earn Toni’s trust. Because it was going to take her trusting him completely for them to ever be more than the coparents they currently were. It’d be nice to be friends, too.

Who are you kidding? You want more. You’ve always wanted more.

He knew it had been a shock to her that he’d quit the State Department. It had shaken her that he’d decided to settle down from his nomadic lifestyle, no doubt. But the worst for her had been that he’d moved in next door. Toni valued her space and privacy. And he’d totally overstepped.

They’d tiptoed through the last few months, avoiding any intimate discussions or conversation in general unless it had to do with Sierra. Nothing different than when he’d lived on the other side of the globe, in fact. These last few weeks since Christmas he’d realized it was getting old, this pretense that being civil when Sierra was present was enough.

Sierra deserved more. They all did.

No time like now.

Before he talked himself out of it, he grabbed two of the oatmeal–chocolate chip muffins he and Sierra had baked this past weekend and made the quick trip outside, across his back lawn and side yard, through the gate to Toni’s back door.

He rapped lightly on the window pane, not wanting to scare the heck out of her. He could have texted first but didn’t want to give her a way to wiggle out of talking to him alone. Plus, his lifetime of diplomacy work had taught him that sometimes a pleasant surprise was a good tool when dealing with a particularly spiky adversary.

After a moment, said prickly coparent opened the door.

“Yeah?” Toni’s monosyllabic greeting and deadpan expression would make the most hardened intruder reconsider. His hands gripped the plate tighter. She remained the epitome of feminine beauty to him and her sheer presence had only strengthened over the years. Did she know she exuded such a sense of power, of complete control over everything?

“Good morning! Did you see how bright the water is today?” Crap. He always talked too much when he was nervous.

“Um, can I do something for you, Brandon?” She stood a step above him, giving her a slight height advantage, as she was only half a foot shorter than him when they were both barefoot. Not that he thought about her bare feet, or how she liked to keep her toes polished in bright colors no matter the time of year. Not that often, anyway. “Brandon?” A look of concern washed over her features.

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“Ah, jeez, yes, sorry. Not enough coffee yet.” He shook his head, grinned. “No, wait, let me start over. Good morning, Toni.” He held out the plate of muffins. “I’ve brought a peace  offering. Interested?”

Her gaze left his for the treats, and a tiny line appeared between her brows. He remembered smoothing that line out many years ago, on one of their short but intense meet-ups in whatever hotel in whatever city they could mutually travel to as quickly as possible. Over a four-month period after they met, they would do anything to be together no matter how long the flights were, how short their time making love was. Before she’d decided to stay here and not follow him.

Don’t go there.

“There’s no need for a peace offering unless you need to apologize for something. We’re enjoying a decent détente, aren’t we?” Toni’s neutral expression was back in place, her emotional guardrails firmly up. He detested this. Being treated as if he were no more than another client. An acquaintance.

“Yes, about that…can I come in?” He wanted, no, needed to talk to her, to explain his side of their current living arrangement. And not on her back stoop.

She paused, then stepped aside and turned her back to him as she walked away. At least she left the door wide-open. “Come on in. I’m getting coffee, but then I have to get back to work. Shortly.”

“Same.” He walked into the kitchen, knowing an olive branch when he saw one. From Toni, the peace offering had thorns, but he’d take what he could get.

“Really?” She turned back, eyed him. “I thought you retired.”

“From government service, yes. But you don’t expect me to retire in my forties, do you?” Before she could say something acerbic about his silver-spoon family, he pressed on. “I recently agreed to take on some contract work.” There was the teaching offer from a local university, but he didn’t want to spring that on her, too. It took months, sometimes years to get the coveted position and he wasn’t about to confess he’d been planning this for years. He’d always hoped to live closer to his daughter.

And make more of your relationship with Toni.

He held back a grunt. So not happening.

Yet.

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“That’s nice, I suppose, that after years of overseas jobs you now have the option of going into business for yourself and working remotely. I love being able to do remote work when I can.” She hesitated, as if vacillating on letting her guard down. “I have to say, Brandon, it’s hard to imagine you doing desk work, or staying in one place. You’ve been moving around every couple of years and working in the field for so long. I guess I thought you’d always want to be on the move.” She lifted the towel off the plate of muffins. “Do you want your muffin heated?”

“Sure.” He didn’t see an iota of humor in her expression, so he passed on reminding her about how she’d once had a lot to say about how heated he made her muffin.

Stop. Going. There.

Geesh. Maybe he really was a creeper. No. He was nothing more than a man who’d lived solo practically his entire adult life. Minus casual dating here and there, no one had ever been enough to turn his head, to become a third parent for Sierra.

“The microwave is over the stove.” She pointed and he suppressed a grin. Toni definitely didn’t want him to confuse her with someone who’d provide any more hospitality than necessary. “Would you like coffee?”

“That would be great, but you don’t have to. Neither of us has a lot of time to spare.” He didn’t want to overstay. It was a miracle enough that Toni had invited him in. And maybe this wasn’t such a great idea, after all. Her shampoo’s scent permeated the small kitchen, and they stood close enough that he saw how her blue eyes reflected the morning light that streamed through the window above the sink. Without her customary Mariners baseball cap’s brim pulled low he was able to take in her entire face, see where the years had added the lines that only deepened her beauty.

Had she always appealed this much to him, even when clearly annoyed with him?

Yes.

“It’s actually good that you came over. I have something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, too.” She weighed coffee beans as she spoke, put them in a grinder and filled an electric kettle with water. Her tone and actions seemed casual enough, but he knew her better. Toni had never been one for small talk.

“You do?” His stomach, already tight with awareness, dipped. “What is it?”

“You go first.” The microwave beeped and she took the muffins out, sliding the plate across the island toward him. “Napkins are there.” She nodded toward the end of the surface.

“Thanks.” He paused, did his best to remain nonthreatening. If he put her on the defensive, any meaningful conversation would more than likely digress into a verbal spat. “Toni, I didn’t come over for casual coffee talk. I want to explain in more detail why I moved here. Without worrying about Sierra misinterpreting anything I say.”

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She batted his words away with a single blink of her eyes. “You already have. You wanted to be closer to your daughter. A very good reason—the only good reason, am I right?” Her query was rhetorical, and it struck his annoyance chord. Proof positive that she didn’t trust him with anything resembling her innermost thoughts. The mask she wore as a front against him was far from what he remembered as the genuine Toni. A lifetime from. “Unless there’s something more you need to get off your chest?” Her head tilted ever so slightly.

Yeah, she looked at him as if he was a criminal. Persona non grata in the diplomatic world.

“I owe you an apology. I should have told you I was buying the house next door way before you found out.” Her unwavering gaze would shoot laser zaps at him if she could, he determined. He shifted on his seat. “I could have at least let you in on my thought process when I originally considered leaving the foreign service.”

“Hmm. Or after you made your decision but before you signed the sales contract, maybe you could have let me know you were leaving the foreign service for good? That your income might take a dive, resulting in me becoming the sole breadwinner for Sierra’s sake until you got on your feet? How about the small detail that you were intending to move here, as in right here? Yes, you’re damn right you should have cut me in on your ‘process’—” she made air quotes, then shrugged “—but you didn’t.” She turned away as if she didn’t expect anything more than subpar from him. He ignored the defensive stance his mind shouted for him to take. Getting his hackles up would threaten this entire dialogue, worsen the too-polite relationship they currently shared.

Man up.

“No excuses on my part, Toni. I put you in an awful position with Sierra. You and I need to be a united front with her, and I let her know my plans before I spoke with you. I messed up. I’m sorry, Toni.” Now wasn’t the time to remind her that he had a modest pension to go with his retirement from State and plenty of savings. She’d always assumed he accepted funding from his wealthy family and yet, other than for his undergraduate degree, he’d never taken another penny from his parents.

He’d lined up employment to ensure Sierra’s well-being wouldn’t be adversely affected by the economic pitfalls of such a big move, too. But neglected to let Toni in on his work positioning.

“I appreciate the gesture, Brandon. But you didn’t need to make such a big deal of apologizing. If I was still angry about it I’d let you know.”

“Would you?” He contemplated her refusal to admit how selfish he’d been. Was it her way of staying calm, not letting him in? “I gave you no choice but to accept what I’d done.”

She startled him with a short bark of laughter. “It’s just like you, Brandon, to think that there’s a diplomatic answer for everything. Have you ever considered that just because you have diplomatic training that you yourself are anything but a peacemaker? A nice smile and smooth talking aren’t always the answer.” They faced off, she with a glare and he with what he prayed was a neutral, calm demeanor.

He had no reply.

“And for God’s sake, Brandon, sit down already. You look like you’re waiting for me to use the butcher knife on you.” She turned away, refocused on the brew.

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Her camel-colored sweater—was it cashmere, he wondered?—hugged her upper body, emphasizing the indentation for her waist, and her slacks or whatever women called them stretched enticingly over her full hips. A warm ball of awareness swirled under his rib cage, pushed against his logic. He looked away, out the kitchen window at the wooded area behind their homes. Anywhere but at the incredibly attractive woman standing mere feet away. The bond they shared was no longer romantic, but tell that to his libido. He mentally shut down his physical response to her as best he could. It was a tall order. His body reacted involuntarily whenever he saw her. His physical desire for her was in the way of the new friendship he hoped to mark today as the beginning of.

Didn’t she see that the impulsive man he’d been when they’d met all those years ago was dead? Long hours, mostly overseas, hashing out agreements that made the difference between nations going to war or not had tempered his spontaneity. He’d learned to think before he spoke, and definitely before he acted.

Except for surprising her with the muffins this morning. But he’d been planning to talk to her for weeks, months. Self-recrimination scraped on his esteem at his hubris for believing he’d get her to see his side, to forgive him for invading her until-now safe haven with Sierra.

He sat down at the island. She must have seen him in her peripheral vision because this side of her profile revealed the curve of her lips—still so full—in a small smile. “There. You look a bit more relaxed.”

“I didn’t know I looked tense.” He white-lied fluently, another diplomatic skill. “And for the record, I don’t think you’re going to murder me. You want to, sure. I get it. But I trust that you won’t.” His words sounded ridiculous and so did how quickly he spoke. Disapproval radiated off Toni’s presence and he had to figure out how to forge ahead regardless of the fire-breathing dragon in front of him. He let out a quick breath. “You’re right. I’m used to keeping things positive instead of facing the hard truth.”

“We call that people pleasing here in the real world.” She paused, her hand on the kettle as she looked at him. Her sapphire eyes sparkled with regret. “I shouldn’t have said that. What you do, what you did, is more real than anything. I’m sorry, too. I know it must sound as if I have issues with your line of work. I have tremendous respect for what you’ve accomplished, Brandon. I guess that’s what threw me when you moved here. I never pictured you doing anything but international diplomacy. And traveling for the rest of your life.”

Glancing away from him, she poured hot water over the grounds and hit the timer on her watch. Was she timing his visit, too? But then he saw the slight shake in her hand, the quick, nervous lick of her lips. Keep your eyes off her mouth, damn it. Toni was unsettled by his presence, too.

Glimmers of the cracks in her relationship with Sierra came to mind. It was natural for a mother and daughter to be close, but also to reestablish their relationship during early adolescence, sometimes only after huge meltdown fights. He remembered his mother and sister going at it, how he and his father would get the heck out of the room during the preteen angst tumult.

They remained in thoughtful silence until her watch pinged and she tapped it, silencing the alarm.

He waited for her to pour the coffee. She slid his, black, across the table, not offering milk or sugar. She’d remembered how he liked it.

“It’s odd that we haven’t had a coffee together since I moved in.” Before the words left his mouth he regretted them.

“Hmm, probably. But we’ve never been like other…coparents.” She added half-and-half to her mug.

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“No.” He gulped his brew and almost coughed. It was very hot. Needing a distraction from her nearness, he concentrated on their surroundings.

They sat opposite one another on stools, the butcher-block island in between them cluttered with detritus of family life. Two apples, one getting wrinkly, and a half-eaten banana rested in a wooden bowl that also held an unopened protein bar and a pack of gum.

“I need to put in a grocery order.” She’d mistaken his observation for judgment.

“I meant to ask you about that. The supermarkets have changed since I was last back. The aisles used to seem too big, and now they’re crowded with store clerks or gig workers, shopping for delivery orders. Does anyone do their own food shopping anymore?” There were supermarkets in China, but he’d relied on the local markets for all his fresh produce, proteins, spices and honey. “I’m not a Luddite, by the way. I’ve downloaded the local grocer’s app.”

She grinned, and it was the first time he’d seen her genuinely smile at him since…forever. Familiar warmth shot through his chest. And went straight to—

Don’t go there.

“Tell me if I’m wrong, Brandon, but I imagine you’re used to a much slower pace. Lifestyle-wise, that is, not work-wise.” He sensed she was trying hard to maintain a level of calm, and it reminded him of how they’d once been, during their brief but insanely passionate relationship. The push and pull of the constant tension between them, the way they’d matched wits. And then resolved any differences with a round of deeply satisfying sex. One round of which had created Sierra.

Toni’s cheeks reddened and she continued when he didn’t say anything. Had she seen the lusty memories in his gaze? “You had your apology, now it’s my turn. I’m sorry that I haven’t personally reached out to see if you need anything while you’ve been readjusting to life back in the States. Sierra keeps me informed of your day-to-day, of course. I’m sure she does the same with you about my daily goings-on.” Another grin, a shared glance of understanding. “Every time I think to touch base with you on my own, there’s a distraction. To be honest, it’s almost always Sierra. I don’t want her eavesdropping on our more adult conversations, for obvious reasons.”

“No apologies or explanations necessary. We both want the same thing—what’s best for Sierra. I hope I haven’t turned your routine upside down these past several months. Not too much, anyway.”

“You haven’t.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Well, not as much as I originally thought you would. I’ve tried to give you space so you could get used to having Sierra around regularly, and give her space to adjust to you, too. Not that she seems to ever need any space—that child is a wonder. She didn’t need any adjustment period with you here 24-7, in case you didn’t notice. And she is so happy you’re here, Brandon. Please don’t take my standoffishness as a reflection of anything she’s said or done. I don’t want to criticize how you do things. Each of us bring something different to the table for Sierra.”

“True,” he agreed.

“It was easier dealing with one another when we were in different countries, I have to be honest.” She grimaced, and he wondered if it was at having to say something unpleasant, or if the things she believed he’d messed up on were really that bad.

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“What do you mean?” He’d found it so much simpler to be able to look Sierra in the face, hear about her day-to-day happenings in person instead of on a twice-weekly video call.

She took a long sip of her coffee, as if bracing herself for his reaction. “I don’t know how to say this, but when you were overseas, I was able to email you with any concerns I had, which gave me a buffer, so to speak. From your reactions, good or bad. From worrying about Sierra’s reactions, too, once she was with you. Do you remember when Sierra visited you and I knew your parents were going to be with you, too?”

He nodded. “I do. You were worried that they were going to take her off on a deep in-country tour she’d never come back from.” His own frustration had been that Toni didn’t trust him enough to know he’d never send Sierra on any kind of travel that wasn’t sanctioned by the embassy or consulate, depending on where he was assigned.

“Right. And you set me straight. You told me the tours were done by employees of the embassy. You were in Beijing then.”

“Yes.”

Their gazes met, and the conflict in her eyes raised his mental red flags. The warm glow of affection—it had to be no more than that, after all this time—was smothered by a sense of dread.

“So go ahead, dive in. Tell me what’s been bothering you.” He put on his best neutral expression, the one he’d employed when the cooperation of an adversary nation’s representative had been paramount. He had to, because the last thing he wanted was for Toni to catch on to his greatest fear as Sierra’s dad.

That he’d made the move back to Sierra too late to make a difference in the young adult she was quickly growing up to be.