by Lucy Gilmore
But the phrasing, that make her mine, was doing strange things to her equilibrium. She wasn’t the sort of woman who cared to belong to anyone—male, female, or anywhere in between—but for a brief flicker, she felt as though she might be willing to make an exception. To belong to Ford, to matter to him, seemed like an experience worth having.
“Emily, there’s a peanut-butter sandwich in the kitchen with your name written all over it,” he said, unaware that the world had just tilted on its axis. “And there’s a bowl of puppy chow for Jeeves. Make sure you don’t get them mixed up. I tasted the kibble, and it’s terrible. I don’t recommend it.”
Emily giggled. “I know. I ate one yesterday. It tastes like worms.”
Finding nothing odd in that pronouncement, Ford straightened and watched his daughter trot out of the room, Jeeves obligingly at her heels. Lila got to her feet and made a motion to follow them to the relative safety of the kitchen, but Ford blocked the door, his wide shoulders almost filling the gap.
“You fell asleep,” she accused. It wasn’t the most pressing issue on her mind, but it seemed the safest.
“I know. I haven’t done that in ages. Thank you.”
“Oh.” She blinked, once again caught unaware. Ford had the disconcerting ability to say the last thing she expected, and with such nonchalance that it threw her seriously off-kilter. “Um. You’re welcome?”
He grinned. The ink smudge had been wiped from his face, but that smile was just as effective in making him appear boyishly charming. “You should have warned me that having a puppy is as bad as having an infant. Jeeves howls.”
“He does not.”
“Like a werewolf under the light of a full moon.”
Lila stiffened. It was one thing for Ford to mock her, but to mock her highly trained puppy was another thing altogether. “I beg your pardon. Jeeves has never howled a day in his life. Did you feed him?”
“Of course.”
“Water him?”
“He was practically attached to a hose.”
“Take him outside to go to the bathroom?”
“Every hour on the hour.” Ford shifted from one foot to the other, his blue eyes twinkling. “I think he did it because he missed you. To be honest, I felt a little like howling myself.”
That was taking things too far—even for a man Lila was coming to realize was unable to open his mouth without nonsense spouting out. “You did no such thing,” she protested. “You don’t even know me. I could be a horrible person. I might troll people on the internet or fail to use my turn signal at a busy intersection.”
He laughed, the sound deep and rich and devastating to her sense of balance. “If you think not using a turn signal is the worst thing a human being can do, I’m pretty sure we’re going to get along fine. Besides, you didn’t out me to Helen this morning, and you just offered to be my daughter’s friend. The way I see it, that makes you damn near perfect.”
She didn’t take that as a compliment. She couldn’t. Perfect was an insult that had been leveled on her far too many times in her life already. It came mostly from men, and mostly with the intention of making her feel about two inches tall.
Patrick Yarmouth had been the most recent transgressor—and the most painful. I can’t keep up with your goddamned perfection, he’d said in the same tone he might have used with a serial killer. Are you even human under all that?
She hadn’t bothered to ask him what “all that” was supposed to be. Her clothes? Her hair? Her skin? There were enough lizard-people conspiracy theorists out there that she wasn’t sure she cared to hear the answer.
“I’m not perfect,” she said stiffly. “And I have half a mind to march over to Helen’s house right now and tell her that I’ve never been to Canada.”
He laughed, but it carried a rueful tinge this time. He also lost some of his swagger, his shoulders coming down a fraction. “Please don’t do that. I know it was wrong of me to encourage her to think we’re dating, but you have no idea what a favor you’d be doing me if you’d pretend to be madly and desperately in love with me. Oh, and jealous in the bargain. Like, the kind of jealous that ends in televisions and baseball bats thrown onto the front lawn.”
Lila tried to keep her stiff upper lip, but it was difficult. Mostly because no one would believe it if she started tossing televisions onto front lawns. Not only was it a terrible waste of resources, but all that broken glass would be devastating to puppy toes. She’d end up spending hours crawling over the yard with tweezers in hand.
“Couldn’t you have just told her you’re not interested in going to her work party?”
“Theoretically? Yes.” He sighed. “But it’s not what you think. My relationship with Helen is…unique.”
“Unique like your relationship with Maddie and Danica?” she guessed.
His eyes flashed with a quick glimmer of humor. “You caught that part, huh? I know how it looks. It sounds even worse.”
“Try me.”
He stole a peek behind him, probably to ensure that Emily wasn’t anywhere near, and dropped his voice. “You heard most of it already,” he said. Lila had to step closer to hear him, even though proximity to this man was the last thing she needed. There was something about him that was so…easy. Easy to like, easy to trust.
Easy to fall for.
“Emily has never been great at making friends.” He sighed. “I don’t know why. I used to think it was because of the implants and the speech classes she has to go to, but there’s more to it than that. She’s… Quiet. Reserved.”
Lila nodded. Quiet and reserved were two qualities she was intimately acquainted with.
“So much of her life has been spent being poked and stared at by strangers, dragged from one specialist to the next. She’s taken every bit of it in stride, but that’s a lot to ask of such a little kid. Add a parent who has no idea what he’s doing most of the time, and this is what you get. A six-year-old with the weight of the world on her shoulders.”
That was another thing Lila could readily understand. Take an already level-headed child and throw her into a routine of doctors and adult responsibilities, and the results were understandably quiet. Reserved. Cold.
“I owe Helen so much,” he added candidly. “Helen and Maddie and Danica and pretty much every other parent within a five-block radius. Some days, they’re the only way I’m able to get from start to finish. Other days, well…”
“Well?” Lila prompted.
He shrugged his shoulder and offered her a rueful grin. “There’s just so many of them.” With a laugh, he added, “It was wrong of me to use you like that, and I really am sorry about putting you in that position, but you saw how quick she was to give us some time alone, how easily she dropped her plans for this weekend. She almost never does that. As strange as it sounds, this is the first time in years that I’ve been able to breathe.”
If Lila had thought that being physically close to this man was a bad idea, it was nothing compared to the effect his confession was having on her. His flirtation startled her, his playfulness unsettled her, his charm knocked the air from her chest. Honesty, however, was turning out to be the worst of the lot. In that moment, his handsome face so earnest—so pleading—he could have asked her for anything, and she’d have given it to him.
Partially to preclude this catastrophe from taking place and partially because he seemed to expect a response, she nodded once. “Okay.”
He shifted, his posture again resuming its strong, wide stance. “Okay, what?”
“Okay, I understand. Okay, I forgive you.”
“That’s it?” His voice dropped into a note of suspicion. “What’s the catch?”
“You are, obviously.”
He tilted his head in a question, one brow raised. The arch of that brow was so cool, so debonair, it forced a laugh out of her. This man had no idea what kind of effect he had on women. He probably had no idea how dangerous it was for him to saunter around in the cold without a shirt on, either. O
r even with one on. He wouldn’t be standing there in a skintight thermal and faded jeans, his feet in fuzzy red socks, if he did.
“You don’t think it’s a little bit weird that every unattached mom in your life is on the prowl?” she asked.
For the first time since she’d met Ford, he looked more flustered than she felt, the tips of his ears glowing adorably pink. He glanced away. “They’re not on the prowl. It’s just a game we play. It’s not easy, meeting people when you have children.”
She almost snorted. “Helen’s cute. She could swipe right and have plenty of men lining up to introduce themselves.”
“It’s not like that. Our kids go to the same school.”
“Oh, is that what people find attractive? Proximity and shared bake-sale duties? No wonder I’m still single. I’ve been going about this all wrong.” She shook her head, amazed that such a seemingly intelligent man could be so dense. “Ford, you’re a single dad. You’re gainfully employed. You have the face of a Skarsgård and the body of a Hemsworth. And from everything I’ve been able to glean, you’ll flirt with anything that has a pulse.”
The pink had yet to die down from his ears, but he regained some of his composure. It was accompanied by a mischievous smile she didn’t trust. “I didn’t quite catch that bit about the Hemsworths,” he said.
Lila opted for the high road. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Or the bit with the Skarsgårds.”
“You’re missing the point.” She leveled him with a careful stare, her breathing only slightly hitched. The look he was giving her was so eager, so hungry that it was no wonder he had all of the women in this neighborhood at his feet. “Most men go through life without sending every female they meet into a flutter.”
“But every woman doesn’t go into a flutter,” he pointed out. “You didn’t.”
She opened her mouth and closed it again, unwilling to make the error of speaking her thoughts aloud. She could have enlightened him on a number of things, including her indifferent feelings toward him, but she didn’t. Mostly because her feelings were anything but indifferent. Like Helen and Maddie and Danica and Lord knew who else, she’d taken one look at him in that tuxedo and counted herself a goner.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, as was more likely the case—she had a job to do. And she’d do it, too, no matter how much his blue eyes twinkled.
“Helen will figure the truth out eventually,” she said.
“I know.” He hunched his shoulders in an apology, but she wasn’t buying it. Not when the gesture was accompanied by a sneaky glance at her from under his lashes. “But would it be the worst thing in the world to play it out a little? You’ll be here until New Year’s anyway, so it’s not like you’d have to go out of your way to spend time with me. Plus, I can pretend you dumped me over the holidays, which means I can hide behind a broken heart for at least six months. I could eke it out a year if you really demolish it. Would you be willing to cheat on me, do you think?”
She just stared at him.
“It’s too bad I don’t have any brothers, because then you could have an affair with one of them. Or sisters, come to think of it. I suppose I could always kill you off, but…”
“Ford, you wouldn’t!” Lila was unable to tell if it was laughter or anger that caused the waver in her voice, but she was balancing precariously between the two. “What about Emily?”
He blinked. “What about her?”
“Um…you don’t think it might affect her?”
“Not really, no. She’s a smart kid. She’ll understand—especially if it means we can have a few free days in the meantime. Helen’s a nice woman, and she does her best to try to understand Emily, but she always ends up making her feel small.” He feigned a thoughtful look. “The poor child might object to murdering you, though, so that endgame is out.”
“I’m not having an affair.”
“You’re an old-fashioned woman, I see. Loyal to the core. That must be what I love about you.”
There were so many things wrong with this conversation, not the least of which was the fact that they were holding it inside a child’s pink, fluff-filled bedroom—his child’s pink, fluff-filled bedroom. “I hardly think we’ve known each other long enough for you to start throwing around the l-word,” she said primly.
He laughed. “That shows what you know. All that stuff I told Helen out in the yard was the truth. I was yours the moment I first saw you, ranting about dental hygiene in a giant pink ball gown.”
She wouldn’t fall for it. She wouldn’t fall for him.
“If you knew anything about me, you wouldn’t call me old-fashioned,” she said. “Monogamous, maybe, but not old-fashioned.”
The appreciative gleam deepened. “I like the sound of that. Elaborate, if you please. Are we talking about your political views or your s-e-x-u-a-l ones?”
It was ridiculous that a grown man spelling out the word sexual should have so much power over her, but there it was. Had he just thrown the word out there, trying to get under her skin with his teasing flirtation, she’d have immediately stopped him in his tracks. But she doubted he was even aware he did it. Spelling out naughty words, protecting his daughter even when she was on the other side of the house, came as naturally to him as breathing.
“My views are none of your business,” she replied somewhat breathlessly. “Use your imagination.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked. “My imagination can be quite…fertile.”
Taking one step forward, he drew so close they were within kissing distance. All Lila had to do was lift her chin up a few inches, and their lips would be touching.
She didn’t do it, though. Neither did he. It was as good a reminder as any that the game they were playing was just that—a game. His words, not hers.
“I’m not going to lie for you,” Lila said. A game had rules and boundaries—two things she happened to excel at. “Just so you know. I can’t stop you from telling those women anything you want, but if anyone asks me a direct question, I’m going to answer it truthfully.”
He didn’t seem dismayed by this. “Noted,” he said with a nod. “Loyal, monogamous, and honest. I clearly have great taste.”
“And I’d appreciate it if you kept things strictly professional between us. As strange as it may seem to you, I’m here to do a job.”
“A great work ethic, too. My heart can’t take much more.”
She gave in to the urge to laugh and immediately wished she hadn’t. Laughter carried with it a soft chuff of breath, which met his in a warm swirl mere inches from her lips. It wasn’t a very big leap from mingled breath to mingled mouths, to tongues entangled and—
“Ahem.”
Lila blinked, startled to still find herself in Emily’s bedroom—and to be leaning this close to Ford. She didn’t dare move, though. To do so would be to admit that she was aware of him, of how intimate the moment had become. “Um. What?”
She felt rather than heard him chuckle. “I asked if I could make one last request of you. I know I have no right to, not after everything you’re already doing for me and Emily, but it’s not a big one, I promise.”
In that moment, with Ford’s long, lean body not quite touching her, her knee-jerk reaction was to deny him anything and everything. She’d only been here one day, and she was already throwing common sense out the window.
She, Lila Vasquez, famed for her level head and propriety.
She, Lila Vasquez, the fortress no man had yet penetrated. Psychologically speaking, that was.
She, Lila Vasquez—
“Sure,” she said, unwilling to indulge in further remonstrance. What was the point? She could make a fifty-page list of all the reasons she should run screaming from this room, but lists hadn’t been doing her a whole lot of favors lately. Sophie didn’t make lists. Dawn didn’t make lists. And look how much better people liked them. “What do you want?”
“Oh, lots of things,” Ford said,
his voice rumbling with laughter. “But for now, I’m only hoping you’ll teach me how to braid Emily’s hair like that.”
Chapter 6
“Uh, Lila? Did you fall down a well or something?”
Lila slid into her favorite booth at her favorite restaurant, where she and her sisters had dinner at least three times a week, with her head held high. “I’m fine, thank you.”
Dawn and Sophie shared what they thought was a secret look. It was a thing they’d been doing for at least two decades, a sort of half side-eye that didn’t require them to move their heads. As was usually the case, Lila did them the honor of pretending not to notice. Their hearts—and their pride—would break to know how obvious they were.
“Is it windy outside?” Sophie asked with another one of those looks at Dawn.
“A little.” Lila hung her purse from the hook supplied under the table and started arranging her silverware in front of her. “The weather report says we should be getting a pretty big snowstorm later. Have you already ordered?”
It was too much to hope that her sisters would take the hint and find something else—anything else—to discuss. Skipping the clandestine look this time, Dawn nudged Sophie on the shoulder. “You ask her. She never yells at you.”
“This is Lila we’re talking about. She never yells at anyone. She just uses that icy voice and changes the subject.”
“My voice is not icy,” she protested. “And I can’t change a subject that neither of you has the nerve to broach outright.”
“It’s just that we’ve never seen you look so…askew.”
Lila stifled a laugh. Askew was putting it mildly. That was a term used to describe a slight upheaval, a delicate shift from the norm. Her hair looked as though someone had dipped it in one of those cotton-candy machines and set it on high.
“If you must know, I ended today’s training lesson with some client-building rapport.” Lila hid her face behind a menu, even though she knew it by heart. None of the Vasquez sisters were the least adept at cooking, which meant they’d been coming to the Maple Street Grill for so many years that she could have recited its offerings in her sleep. “I think I’ll have the salmon tonight. With a nice chardonnay.”