Page 123 of The Woman By the Lake

“Kiss me.”

I pushed up and kissed him, we both used tongues, but it was Riggs who ended it, and he did this too soon.

“Be back in a while,” he promised.

I nodded.

He leaned in, kissed the top of my head, then he was gone.

You’d think, the amount of time I spent around children, I’d be good at keeping something from just one.

But perhaps it wasn’t that I was bad at it, instead, that Ledger clearly took after his father in more than looks, but also in brain capacity (and I was a professional—I could ask him to take tests, but I already knew he was significantly advanced in far more than reading).

As such, I was about to learn that I sucked at keeping stuff from him.

“Was there another break in at the cabin or something?” he asked. “Is that where Dad’s at?”

I was drinking coffee.

So he wouldn’t feel left out, I made him a mug of cocoa. Thus, we could be two buds sharing a mug at the kitchen bar waiting for his dad to come home and take us to breakfast.

I thought about how Riggs was with his boy in everything but that he and I were sleeping in the same bed and shared, “I saw something yesterday in the woods. He and Harry are checking it out.”

“Oh. Okay,” Ledger replied blithely, such was the power of his dad to see to all the mysteries and ills of the world, then he took a sip of his cocoa, leaving a cocoa mustache.

Which…honestly?

His reaction made me feel much better, because I was also finding Doc Riggs had the power to see to quite a number of the mysteries and ills of the world.

When Ledger was done swallowing, he announced grandly, “I wanna say something.”

“You can say anything to me,” I told him.

“Okay. Then I’ll start by saying, I don’t want to make you cry or anything, I just want you to know how sorry I am that your mom died.”

Official.

I was falling in love with this kid.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” I replied.

He nodded and went on, “That makes it hard to say what I gotta say next. But I gotta say it. My mom was being a dick to you the other day, so I’m gonna apologize for her.”

I wasn’t sure where Riggs stood on the word “dick” coming out of his son’s mouth in that capacity.

I was sure Ledger and I had now spent quite a bit of time together, but we still weren’t in a place I felt I could admonish him, because I thought nine was too young to use the word “dick.”

Not to mention, he was being so earnest and sweet, I didn’t want to color the moment.

Thus, I let it lie and focused on the sweet part of what he said.

“That’s okay,” I replied. “But I appreciate your apology.”

“Nah, it isn’t okay,” he returned. “I miss my brother when I’m with Dad, but Stormy’s cool about having me over so we can hang, or bringing Viggo over here.”

This was news.

“He’s only three, but I know he misses me too,” Ledger continued. “But I’m gonna ask Dad, when he leaves again, if I can stay with you or Gramme instead of going back to Mom.”

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