Ana Seymour by Father for Keeps

distant.
    Still, even after he’d left her. he’d waited up for a good hour, hoping to hear the knob turning on the door between their rooms. Hoping that she’d want to spend their first night in their new home together.
    He sighed. Tomorrow would be better. She and Caroline would be rested. His parents would be there to give her an official welcome to the family. And then, perhaps, after a day of getting used to his world, tomorrownight she’d be willing to slip through that connecting door and let him spend the rest of the night making love to her.
    Sean’s knock the next morning on the door that connected his room with Kate’s woke her from a sound sleep. Without opening the door, he asked her if she needed more water or anything else, and then told her that he would wait until she was ready to go down to breakfast. She dressed in the same clothes she’d worn the previous day, then quickly put her hair up in a roll and knocked a little timidly on Sean’s door. He opened it immediately, as if he’d been waiting just on the other side. They stood staring at each other self-consciously.
    “You slept well?” he asked.
    She nodded. “And you?”
    He nodded.
    After a moment she said, “I should go see to Caroline.”
    He looked down at her breasts. “Do you need
    to—ah—feed her before breakfast?”
    Kate smiled. “I just need to hug her before breakfast. But she might be more insistent than that.”
    “May I come, too?”
    “Of course,” she answered, sounding surprised. Sean had not only become more distant as they’d neared San Francisco, he seemed to have become less sure of himself.
    They walked together to the nursery to find Caroline already up, dressed and bouncing on Nonny’s knee as the old woman sat in the big padded rocker. “We were just discussing what time you slugabeds were going todecide to make an appearance,” she said. “Caroline feels that she’s overdue for some breakfast.”
    Kate blushed, but the twinkle in Nonny’s eyes put her once again at ease. “I should feed her,” she said. “Do you mind waiting for breakfast?” she asked Sean.
    Nonny stood up, holding the baby in one arm and gesturing for Kate to take her seat in the rocker. “He has nothing to say about it, lass. It’s the first lesson that fathers have to learn. When babies need to eat, they come first.”
    Sean nodded his agreement. “I think I’ve learned that one already.”
    Kate took the baby and sat down, getting ready to nurse her. “Have you met with your parents yet?” Nonny asked Sean.
    He shook his head. “We’ll go down when Kate’s finished.”
    “Don’t let them bowl you over, girl,” Nonny warned. “Especially that hoity-toity daughter-in-law of mine. She likes to think she was raised in a castle in Paris, France, but I remember when my son found her singing for her supper in the mining camps when he made his strike back in ‘50.”
    Sean shook his head but smiled as he said, “Mother would kill you if she knew you’d told Kate that story.”
    “Well, it’s the truth. Thirty years ago most of these highfalutin folk who pretend such concern about using the right fork with their oysters were scrabbling in the mining camps for enough to eat.”
    Kate opened her dress and let Caroline find her nipple. She was so fascinated by Nonny’s plain speakingthat she forgot to be self-conscious, even when Sean’s eyes glanced over her, then looked away.
    “Well, you’d never know it now, to hear them talk,” Sean said.
    Nonny turned toward Kate. “Just remember my words, lass, if some of them start to put on their airs. I wonder how many of them could have done what you did—birth and raise this beautiful child all by yourself.” She cast a reproachful glance toward Sean as she spoke.
    “Thank you, Nonny, but I wasn’t by myself. I had a lot of wonderful help, especially from my sister, Jennie.”
    “Ah, there’s love in your family. I can tell. You’re lucky, child. You and your