by Ember Leigh
Suppose it’s time you find out. She pulled Emmy’s plate in front of her and cut the steamed veggies into smaller pieces. Emmy slapped at her hands as she did this, gurgling happily as she watched Rose’s progress.
She leaned forward and murmured into Emmy’s ear. “Can you even feed yourself yet?” The baby giggled. Rose looked at Emmy closely for a moment, placed a big kiss on her forehead and then gripped her cheeks between thumb and middle finger. “Open up, baby.”
Inside sparkled six white nubs. Emmy clamped her mouth shut and grinned. She pushed back a few curly wisps that had fallen in Emmy’s eyes and turned to the food once more.
“Is she teething?” Wesley asked.
“Sure is.” With only six teeth in there, she had to be growing more, right? She cut up all the carrots and green beans and put the plate in front of Emmy. As the baby contented herself with grabbing chunks between thumb and forefinger, Rose tended to her own plate of food.
“She has your eyes,” Wes added. His gaze shifted between Rose and Emmy, eyes narrowed as though trying to locate the exact genome within them related to eye characteristics.
Rose laughed, wishing she could add Surprise, we’re not related. “Thanks, I get that a lot.” She smiled at the brothers, noting how their own features didn’t require extra imagination to find the similarities. Both had strong, sharp noses, big, green eyes, and dark hair.
Garrett was taller by a few inches. Rose guessed he’d been the star athlete, and Wes the chess nerd. Wes kept his hair trimmed and neat with a pair of dark-rimmed glasses and a few days’ worth of stubble that completed his modern businessman look. Garrett, on the other hand, still carried something with him from his youth. Maybe his tongue-in-cheek bravado, or some vestige of his glory days. Either way, she sensed it. She’d been trained to pick up on these things.
If it came down to it, she could take both the brothers out, easily. The rest of the twenty guys here, she wasn’t so sure about—but the brothers, no question.
Garrett might be a challenge, though. She eyed the way his muscles flexed under the white shirt. Lean and probably mostly muscle. Looked like he could slither out of plenty of positions she could get him in to. Her cheeks flushed, and she busied herself with cutting pasta into bite-size pieces for herself.
Truth was, she wouldn’t mind trying him out. She was dying to get a glimpse underneath that shirt.
Emmy yelled something and slapped her hands against the table. She looked toward the workers at the end of the table, as though addressing them directly. Rose bit back a giggle.
The worker seated nearest to Emmy reached out for her hand. Emmy shied away from him, but as he continued offering his hand with a big smile on his face, she soon wriggled toward him.
“Can she come to Uncle Bill?”
Rose laughed, letting Emmy slide over to him. “Absolutely.” She slid the plate of food over and watched as the burly guy helped Emmy put carrots into her mouth.
“Cute,” she said. “Uncle Bill, you’re hired.”
Someone toward the end of a table murmured a joke. A few guys laughed in response. Rose’s shoulders tensed, and her gaze slid toward the far end of the table. She didn’t know what they’d said, but probably it had to do something with either her or the baby. And either one of those were grounds for a chokehold.
“So, Rose,” Garrett said after a long pull of his wine, “What do you do?”
Her stomach clenched again. I steal babies from deadbeat parents. “Oh, you know…nothing too interesting. Nothing like what you guys do.”
“Tell us. You’re such an unexpected and delightful guest, we have to know as much about you as possible,” Garrett said. “Plus we’d feel bad for ruining your car and not knowing some of the basics about you.”
Rose laughed, could practically hear the whoosh of her internal filing cabinet as she searched for an answer she would remember tomorrow. “Fine. I’m a secretary. For a doctor’s office.”
She watched as they absorbed this information. That’s all you could come up with? She hoped she resembled whatever image of secretaries they had in their heads. Maybe the kid would help her fill the stereotype. Just your average single mother, raising a baby, working in an office. She set this on repeat inside her head, hoping it might help spark answers to more unexpected questions.
“What type? General practice, or something more specialized?”
“Obstetrics and gynecology,” she blurted. The first thing that had come to her mind was her last pap smear. OB-GYN it would be then. Maybe she could throw in something about stirrups, to really hit it home. “It’s really great.” She sipped her wine once, and then a second time. “I like it.” She tried to think of related terms beyond pap smears, should she be required to provide work anecdotes, but she couldn’t think of anything other than “speculum.”
Think, Rose. Lying would never be her forte.
“So giving birth to Emmy was on the house?” Garrett smiled wide, obviously pleased with his joke.
“Ha.” She rolled her eyes, trying to convey a modicum of exasperation with “the health care industry.” When nothing else came to her, she added, “In your dreams, boys.”
“Well, you have produced a very lovely daughter.” Wesley smiled at Emmy and then nodded at Rose. “How old is she, around one?”
Panic gripped at her chest again, though she appreciated Wesley’s obvious attempt to feign interest in a child. Hell if I know. She’d been told at the start of this gig, but that information had disappeared entirely within her head since the more recent turn of events. Two different numbers floated inside her head—fourteen and eighteen—but she couldn’t pin down which one was Emmy’s age and which linked to something random. “Yep, you nailed it.” She rubbed Emmy’s tiny hand between her fingers as she continued to shove carrots into her mouth from the lap of the worker. “A little over, actually.”
“And how old are you, Rose?” Garrett tossed the last of his wine back and reached for more.
She pursed her lips at him. “How old do you think?”
“Around fifty.” He winked. At his side, Wes massaged his temples.
“Close,” she shot back, liking the way he pushed the envelope a bit with her. She liked a guy who didn’t fear overstepping a boundary or two; it meant more chances for her to put him in his place. “But try again.”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Wrong again.”
“One hundred three.”
She nodded, biting back a smile. “Nailed it.”
Garrett looked over at Wes, feigning triumph. “Yes.”
“And what about you, Garrett?”
“Thirty-three.” He squinted the ceiling, did a quick calculation, and then said, “Thirty-four.”
“And Wesley?”
“Thirty-five,” he said. “My birthday is coming up soon, too.”
“Ah, maybe I should stick around for the party, then?” Rose grinned.
Garrett laughed. “Be our guest. Though I warn you, the guest list looks a lot like this dinner party.”
Emmy began fussing. Rose reached for her, brought her onto her lap, and tried to console her as the baby struggled beneath her grip.
“Come on, now, Emmy…”
The girl leaned forward, grabbed a handful of food, and tried to put it in her mouth. Halfway to her mouth, she decided otherwise, and turned to Rose and pressed it into the front of her shirt.
“Oooh…” Rose sighed down at the mushed beans and carrot staining her front. Emmy looked up at her, half-pleased, half-scared. “Now, why did you do that, Emmy? Food goes in the mouth.”
Wes gestured toward the exit of the dining room. “Why don’t you head to the bathroom? There’s one right out there. Get that cleaned off so it doesn’t stain, and we’ll grab you an extra shirt.”
Rose nodded, handing the baby back to the worker at her side. “Good idea. I’ll be right back.”
She crossed the hall to the bathroom. She shut the door, the doorjamb completely mis
sing. A Peeping Tom’s dream. Rose tugged off her shirt and opened the hot water spigot, staring into the mirror as she waited for it to heat up.
Not bad. It was what she always thought when presented with her reflection—half admiration, half intent to get better. Her long, brown hair hung limply off to one side; the bronzed gleam she’d perfected from a recent stint in southern Florida had begun to fade as she’d spent several weeks prepping for this gig in the north. Her shoulders flexed as she twisted in front of the mirror. Biceps, triceps, abs—all fully visible. Breasts had always been on the smaller side but were even more so as she’d been experimenting with a leaner diet in recent times. As she admired a particular flex of her triceps, someone approached.
“Rose.” Garrett’s voice. “I got you a shirt. You want it?”
“Definitely.” She hesitated, looking at her dirty shirt in the sink. A mischievous thought occurred to her. Why the hell not? She pulled open the door, grinning. Shock registered on Garrett’s face, and Rose feigned confusion. “What?”
“Here.” He turned his head, shoving the shirt into her hand. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
She pursed her lips. “Oh, come on. If I were at the beach, this would be perfectly normal. Don’t impose your hetero-normative guidelines onto me, please.”
Garrett’s eyes flashed. “I wasn’t imposing any heteronormative whatevers, just being polite, thank you very much.” His eyes darted down to her torso, then back up to her eyes. “Sorry. You are ripped.”
She bit back a smile. “I know.” She grabbed the shirt from him. “Thanks for the shirt.”
“No problem.” He looked confused now; he’d picked up on the game, she could tell. She loved playing with people’s heads, making them uncomfortable. It was a type of sport for her. And terribly gratifying when the right person came along to play back. “Seriously, you work out like, all the time, right?”
“Like a regular person, I guess,” she said, letting the shirt hang in her hand at her side. Let him drink it up—she liked the way his eyes scorched across her skin. She had half a mind to pull him into bathroom with her. Though that might be too fast for the first day meeting someone, kid.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Regular people don’t look like you.”
“Well, regular doesn’t really mean anything, now, does it?” She tugged the shirt over her head. The soft white cotton settled comfortably over her, not too baggy at all. “That’s you trying to put people in their boxes, again.”
“I’m not trying to put anybo—” He clamped his mouth shut and gave her a knowing look. “You know how to poke, don’t you?”
She grinned. “Poking is what I was born to do.”
He eyed her cautiously. “You and me are a lot alike.”
No kidding. She’d felt it without even fully realizing. It made her curious to continue poking him, as well. Just to see what might happen.
Maybe it would even lead to him putting his hands all over her. Pressing his long, lean body up against hers.
He must have seen the flash in her eyes because he lifted a brow, suddenly curious.
“More alike than you realize.” She pulled the bathroom door shut behind her as they returned to the dining room. “I was kidding about my name being Rose. It’s actually Garrett.”
He cracked a grin. “Well, that’s weird because my name is actually Rose.”
They shared a glance as they returned to their seats. She’d known this guy for a handful of hours, and already felt like they’d grown up together.
Somewhere between her belly and her heart, contentment sparked to life.
Chapter Four
Garrett had looked at the clock four separate times and each time it read the same: just after midnight, go to sleep, you have a full day of work ahead of you.
But sleep evaded him. He slid out of bed, pulling a pair of sweatpants over his briefs, and slipped out of the room as quietly as possible. Wes was dead asleep—really, on second thought, he should go back and record the snoring for proof, but maybe another night—but the simplest rustle could awaken him, learned from their childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and now actual adulthood spent together in cramped quarters.
Garrett usually slept soundly, and easily—but tonight he could barely calm his mind enough to close his eyes. He supposed the unexpected arrival of a certain Rose had something to do with his restlessness. He intended to wash his mind of the distraction, and a night swim would be the perfect remedy.
Maybe it could wash his mind of a few other ideas as well—like rubbing my hands all over her body.
He had a few ideas about what he’d like to do with her, alone. He had more than a few ideas. He’d been mentally categorizing these ideas alphabetically since the second he’d met her, really, but he needed to get rid of those.
The lady was a transient, a mother, and not to mention, something was weird about her. Something he couldn’t place his finger on, exactly. Not a hide the gold and get a lawyer type weird, but she held a secret somewhere.
Furthermore, he’d never met someone with abs like hers working in a doctor’s office. Not unless she did crunches while answering phones. It bothered him how much he wanted to figure her out.
He and Wes had decided to maintain the pool as a form of recreation for the crew and themselves. Initially, Wes had opposed it, claiming the cost of restoring the pool now far outweighed the cost of restoring it later, before the clients came to see the property. But Garrett had argued six months in the mountains, trapped in a building with twenty men and without any way to distract themselves or exercise, constituted the exact setting for the beginning of plenty of B-list horror movies and would procure at least one suicide or homicide during their time here.
Wes had relented, of course. Garrett made sure he used the shit out of it, just to make his point.
Garrett had been a swimmer in high school and through college. In addition to track, and the occasional bout of baseball, he found swimming eased his mind in a way no other activity could. The water, when he arrived at the pool room, lay eerily still. The air hung humid and warm, moonlight barely making it through the blizzard beyond to shine through the skylights.
He stepped up to the side, slid out of his sweatpants and briefs, and then dove into the water. His body cut the surface almost silently, a maneuver he couldn’t verify by sound but could tell, exactly, by the way his skin had made contact with the water.
When he surfaced, the muffled echo of his own gasp for air greeted him. He treaded water a moment, allowing the eerie darkness to sink in once more. He had a rough idea of where the pool edges were. The lighting was so low, it took his eyes a few moments to adjust, the water around him a black abyss. He sunk into the water once more, gathering a large breath so he could sink low and stay there.
His feet touched the rough bottom of the pool. He fell into a posture of legs crossed, half sitting-half standing, and allowed his arms to float up by his ears.
His meditation.
Garrett didn’t know how long he sat there—one minute, seven minutes, he could be under there for an hour if he had an oxygen tank. He stayed under until his mind slowed a little bit—enough for him to consider attempting sleep once more.
When he surfaced, his ragged breaths echoed through the room, like he’d forgotten how to breathe while he’d been under. He liked to practice holding his breath at least a few times a week. His job demanded the mental breaks, and besides, he had to maintain the award-winning lung capacity from his younger days.
As his breathing normalized and he could hear beyond his own echoes, his ears perked up.
Something was out of place.
He waited for a moment, unable to tell, exactly, what had tipped him off. The water lapped against the edges from his resurfacing, his breathing the only noise filling the room. The moonlight continued to struggle through the sheet of falling snow.
“Hey.”
Garrett whipped around to greet the voice at the same time his
heart exploded and stomach shrunk to a cell. There, a foot or two away from him: Rose.
“Jesus. Christ.” He covered his face with his hands, unsure if his heart would ever resume a normal rate. “You…you fucking scared the shit out of me.”
Her laughter came out throaty but quiet, enough to set his skin on fire. He couldn’t make out much of her, but her hair was slick against her head. Weak light glimmered across her body, and his balls nearly inverted when he thought he caught the outline of a nipple. Between the flash of panic and the hot boil of arousal, Garrett’s legs went weak underwater.
“I have to say the same about you.”
“What do you mean?”
She laughed again. “I got here first, you know.”
“Seriously? But, this room was empty when I—”
“You didn’t see me,” she said. He sensed her swim closer, could see more glints of light on her face. “But I was here.”
“So you saw everything?” This meant all the way down to his pecker, but he wanted to see if she fibbed. Maybe he could catch her in a lie.
She laughed again. “Yes, everything. I assume you’re talking about how you’re naked, right?”
Thankfully, the light was low enough she wouldn’t see the red in his cheeks.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” she added. “I’m naked too.”
Garrett’s dick twitched below water, and he began treading water a bit more noisily. “Must be the thing to do tonight, huh? Hey, how’d you know we had a pool?”
“I found it.” She’d swum nearer. This time, he could see her eyes in the moonlight. He couldn’t decide if she looked like a lemur or a sphinx in the light. Something definitely temptress, though. That’s clear.
“You have insomnia tonight, too?”
“Yeah, something like that.” She disappeared, in what direction he couldn’t tell. He heard her strong strokes leading away from him, and tried to drift in her general direction. “Have you always been a swimmer? You cut that water like a professional.”