Colton's Secret Investigation. Justine Davis

the dragon!” He could hardly contain himself now.

      “So is this it? What you want?” Stefan asked. “No changing your mind later,” he added.

      “Well, maybe when he’s twenty,” Daria said teasingly. The boy laughed, as if the idea of being that old was ludicrous.

      Twenty. For a moment Stefan just stared at his son, tried to picture him at that age. You’re still surprised by him at five. Twenty’s beyond your imagination.

      Sam shifted his gaze. Gave his father a look that seemed equal parts hope and doubt. “Did you mean it? I can have this in that room?”

      That room. Not my room. Daria had been right.

      “It’s your room now, Sam,” he said quietly. “So yes, you can have this in your room.”

      After a moment, when Sam didn’t speak, Daria said, “I’m sure your room would have been ready if your dad had known sooner you were coming.” She gave Sam a wide-eyed look. “But who knows what he would have picked out? Maybe something really babyish, because he remembers when you were a baby.”

      Sam looked horrified. “No! I want this.”

      They ended up buying the bed, a shelf that could be hung off the end to make a night table, a small dresser and a couple of pictures for the walls. And, when Daria pointed out—tactfully—that as tall as Sam was for his age, he couldn’t reach clothes hanging in the closet, they added a clever setup that hung a lower pole from the upper one, right at Sam’s height.

      Stefan managed not to wince when the clerk rang up the total. But Sam was quite disappointed when he realized they couldn’t take it all with them, and that the furniture and some of the other items would have to be delivered in a few days.

      “It won’t all fit in the car, plus we have to get the other stuff out of there,” Stefan explained, “so there’s room for your stuff.”

      “Oh,” the boy said. Then, warily again, “Are you mad?”

      Stefan blinked. “About what, son?”

      “Your stuff.”

      For a moment Stefan couldn’t think of what to say. So he tried to imagine what Daria would say. And running on that impulse, he reached out and ran a hand over the boy’s soft, short curls. “You’re worth a lot more to me than any amount of stuff.”

      Sam stared at him as if he wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. They were on their way back to the car when Daria’s phone rang. She answered as Stefan got Sam in and situated in the booster seat. The boy didn’t like it, and Stefan understood; he was tall enough it seemed extraneous. But it was the law, and so into the booster seat he went.

      “That was Fiona,” Daria said as she got in and fastened her own belt. “She suggested this Saturday for the playdate. They’ve got a covered patio with heaters, so the boys can have lunch outside and if the weather holds play on the fort, as they call it.”

      Stefan turned to look at her. “Just like that?”

      “Fiona,” Daria said, “is the mother every kid wishes they could have. He’ll have fun and be safe. Can’t ask for much more than that.”

      “No,” Stefan said gruffly. “I…thank you.”

      “Thank her. All I did was facilitate.”

      “Still…if not for you…” He drew in a breath. “If not for you, a lot of things.”

      And suddenly it was there, in the car with them, the memory of last night and that hug of thanks that had become an entirely different kind of embrace. And he knew, by the way she averted her eyes and became suddenly busy adjusting her purse, that she felt it, too.

      Where that left them, he had no idea.