Changing the Rules

by Erin Kern

“You hungry?” he asked instead of acknowledging the drool coming out of her mouth.

  “Um…” She crossed her arms in front of her, suddenly reprimanding herself for not bothering with a bra. So far he’d been a gentleman, keeping his eyes above her chin, which was more than she could say for herself.

  Her eyes, which didn’t seem to be functioning properly, dropped down again, taking special note of his flat brown nipples.

  Cameron’s finger touched her chin and nudged her face up. “How about we keep our eyes up here?”

  “Easy for you to say,” she muttered. At least she had a shirt on.

  “Is it?” he countered.

  She gave serious thought to smacking him. But that would mean putting her hands on him again, which she was so not doing.

  “Yeah, I guess I could eat.”

  “Don’t do me any favors,” he chided.

  Actually, breakfast smelled damn good, like the meals her mother used to make. She’d already learned that Cameron was a good cook. Audrey liked having her own way in the kitchen, and Cameron clearly did too, which had led to some disagreements about food.

  Who would’ve thought two people would argue about how food was supposed to be prepared.

  Piper picked up a slice of bread and dropped it in the egg mixture. “Cameron let me crack the eggs,” she announced. “But I got shells in them. And when I took them out, my hands were all sticky with egg.”

  “Let me see.” Audrey studied Piper’s hands and pretended to be appalled. “Oh, these are disgusting!”

  Piper giggled, making her green eyes light up. “No, they’re not! I cleaned them,” she exclaimed.

  Beside her, Cameron chuckled, and the sound did something funny to her insides, like they went all mushy and soft.

  Piper picked up Jellybean, who had been sitting on the counter next to her. “Jellybean wants powdered sugar on her French toast. Powdered sugar is her favorite.”

  Cameron shot a quizzical look at Piper as he removed two slices of browned bread from the pan. “I thought jelly beans were her favorite.”

  Piper swung her legs back and forth. “Only for lunch and dinner. For breakfast powdered sugar is her favorite.”

  Yeah, okay. They both knew the stuffed cat was as particular about her food as Piper was. But Cameron didn’t argue. He snagged a bag of the white stuff from the pantry and set it on the counter next to Piper. “Powdered sugar it is.”

  “But don’t stick your hand in there,” Audrey warned when Piper unzipped the bag and stuck her index finger inside.

  “Just a little bit to taste.” The tip of her finger came away white, and she licked the stuff off her finger with a soft smack.

  Cameron finished making breakfast and settled Piper at the counter with her plate. Audrey fixed her own while Cam dumped a pound of syrup over his.

  “I didn’t mean for us to crash your Sunday morning,” she told him. “You could have sent Piper back over to me.”

  “It’s fine.” Cameron flicked a glance at Piper, who’d managed to cover the front of her pajama top with white powder. “She just startled me when I heard noise in the living room.”

  Audrey watched the little girl for a moment, wondering if maybe she hadn’t been paying enough attention to her. Had she been neglectful with all her thoughts preoccupied with school, her business back in Boulder, and kissing Cameron? A wave of heat flooded her cheeks. She should have been more focused on Piper, not thinking about the man next to her and how she wanted to give those loose sweatpants a good tug. He was probably commando underneath his pants. All the hottest men usually went without underwear, at least in her experience. Something about them throwing off heat like furnaces and not wanting the extra layers.

  She bet his ass was nice and tight…

  And there she went again, centering her thoughts on a man who had only kissed her last night to shut her up, then turned around and made Sunday morning breakfast for his niece.

  “I don’t think she knew what to do with herself,” Audrey commented. “She and Dianna used to make breakfast together every Sunday.”

  Cameron glanced at her with an unreadable expression. Did that make him uncomfortable? Would he have had a woman here if she and Piper hadn’t been around?

  “She told me,” he finally responded.

  Audrey almost choked on her French toast. “Piper talked about her mom?”

  Cameron nodded and cleaned the rest of his plate with a final swipe of his fork. He set it down on the counter with a soft clatter. “She said her mom used to make pancakes look like Mickey Mouse. She’d use blueberries for the eyes and a piece of black licorice for the mouth.”

  Audrey smiled at the sweet memory, grateful to finally think of something other than Dianna frail and bald from cancer. “Dianna wasn’t a very good cook. They ate a lot of mac and cheese and hot dogs. But they always cooked together; it was sort of their thing.” She slid Cameron a look, hoping he wouldn’t see the sorrow on her face. “Dianna was really hands-on with Piper.”

  Cameron shifted his gaze to Piper again. “I can tell. She’s a well-balanced kid.”

  “What else did she say?” Audrey asked.

  “Not much.” He crossed his arms, which only emphasized the enormity of his biceps. “Just that Sundays were always her favorite with her mom.”

  “I should have a talk with her,” Audrey said more to herself.

  “Why?” Cameron asked.

  “Just to make sure she’s okay.”

  “She’s fine, Audrey. You fuss over her too much,” he added when she shot him a confused look.

  “I don’t fuss,” she argued.

  He watched her while leaning against the kitchen counter. “You fuss.”

  Audrey picked at her French toast, even though it was too good not to inhale. “I just want to make sure she’s okay. She’s been through a lot.”

  “So you’ve said. But the only way she’s going to get back to a normal routine is if people stop treating her differently.”

  Audrey ran her gaze over his strong profile, taking in his straight nose, unruly dark hair, and early-morning scruff darkening his square jaw. “Sounds like you’re talking from experience.”

  Again with the shoulder shrug, as though it didn’t matter to him. “I have a vague idea of what she’s going through.”

  Audrey supposed he would, given how he’d lost his dad. And maybe that was why Dianna had chosen Cameron for Piper. Setting aside the family aspect, she wanted to leave her daughter with someone who could identify with her. Someone who could match his own grief with hers, someone who knew how it felt to be alone. And for the first time since she met him, her apprehension loosened. She hadn’t been sure about Cameron, because his reception of them had been lukewarm. Ever since Dianna’s death, she’d been obsessed with Piper having the best, so she didn’t have to feel another minute of grief.

  “It’s okay, you know,” Cameron commented.

  Audrey blinked at him.

  “For her to be sad. She needs to be able to grieve without people making her feel like it’s not okay.”

  The comment took her aback. She hadn’t made Piper feel like that, had she? She shook her head and placed her plate on the counter next to Cameron’s. “I’m not trying to make her feel like that. I just…” She blew out a breath. “I just want her to be happy. She deserves that after what she’s been through.”

  “I know,” Cameron agreed. “And I’m not saying you’re doing anything wrong. But she needs to feel like it’s okay to let it out, rather than bottling all her sadness for her mom inside.”

  “Do you think that’s what she’s doing?”

  Cameron watched Piper feed a bite of French toast to Jellybean. “I think she’s trying her best to be a good girl.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  Cameron was silent for so long that she didn’t think he was going to answer. “My mom did her best with me after my dad took off. She worked two jobs to make up for the loss of income. But she was�
�unusually happy. Too happy for a woman whose husband walked out on her and left her with a kid to raise. She was always asking me if I was okay and telling me to smile.” He shook his head. “Made me mad.”

  “Why would that make you mad?” she asked. “She was just trying to protect you.”

  “Yeah, I know what she was doing. But I wanted to grieve in my own way, and she wouldn’t let me.”

  She watched Piper again, trying to make sense of Cameron’s advice. She’d been so sure she’d been doing the right thing with Piper, always making sure she was happy and adjusted, because she couldn’t stand to see the shadows in her eyes. No child should have to grieve the way Piper had. She was too special for that.

  A warm hand on her arm jerked her out of her thoughts. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I know you mean well. But if she wants to be sad, let her be sad. By the way, I’m taking Piper shopping this afternoon.”

  Cameron was going to shop with a six-year-old? “For what?”

  “School stuff,” he responded. “She still needs supplies, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but…” Actually, she had planned on taking Piper and hadn’t expected Cameron to just up and do it himself. Logically she knew he should. It was his place now to take care of these things. “I’ll get changed after breakfast and go with you.”

  Cameron shook his head. “Nope. Just me and her.”

  “Wait—”

  “No arguments, Audrey. You want me to do this, right?”

  She blinked at him, still thrown off by the conversation. “Yeah.”

  “So let me do it. And also, you were right last night.”

  Huh? His change of subject was so fast, she could only blink. “Right?” she repeated.

  “I did kiss you to get you to shut up,” he murmured.

  Had he moved closer to her? All of a sudden she could smell him. Like, smell. And she bet it was the natural smell of his clean skin and not some body wash or cologne. Did he just roll out of bed smelling like an orgasm in a bottle? Because her insides were, like, seriously dancing.

  “But I’m not sorry,” he told her.

  “Um, okay?” What else was she supposed to say? She was too focused on the pulse beating at the base of his strong neck. She bet he smelled really good there too.

  “Most people go around apologizing for things like that,” he continued, as though she’d asked for more explanation. “But I’m not going to.” He stepped even closer and lowered his head. She readied herself for another kiss. Instead, his lips bypassed hers and went to her ear. His nose nuzzled her lobe; then he inhaled a deep breath. “Do know you why?”

  Her hand curled into his bare shoulder. Yeah, his skin was as warm as it looked. “Because you’re a big tough man who apologizes to no one?”

  His throaty chuckle in her ear sent a shiver zinging down her spine. “Because you liked it just as much as I did. And you tossed and turned a lot last night, didn’t you?”

  Hell, yeah, she had. But she wasn’t about to tell him that.

  In a hasty and sudden move, he pulled back. “By the way, my mom is coming to dinner next Sunday.”

  And with that, he was gone, out of the kitchen and taking her quivering stomach with her.

  And wasn’t that just great? She went from kissing him to meeting his mom.

  Ten

  The following Monday at practice, Cameron was still thinking about Audrey. To his surprise, his thoughts this morning hadn’t centered on kissing her or the way her hungry gaze had left a scorching path over his bare chest. He couldn’t stop thinking about the wounded look on her face when they’d talked about Piper.

  How could she have known she was smothering the child? Cameron had felt the need to gently point it out to her, then wanted to kick his own ass for making her doubt herself.

  Audrey was too special for self-doubt. And she didn’t need him heaping onto what was already a world of grief after dealing with Dianna’s death. Audrey had been through a lot: the disappearance of her mother, her strained relationship with her brother and father. Starting her own business. Losing a friend.

  And then throwing all her energy into Piper, setting aside her own life to make sure Piper was happy. Audrey gave new meaning to the word selfless.

  Cameron grinned to himself when he thought about calling Audrey selfless. She’d probably argue with him, because the woman argued everything with him. That should annoy him, but Cameron found it an oddly refreshing change from the women who only wanted to get in his pants. They’d come around for a good time, then offer him a satisfied smile as they strolled out the front door.

  It was all so…empty.

  And it had worked for him. Until Piper had blinked up at him with sad green eyes and forced him to reevaluate his entire existence.

  Even though he still wasn’t sure what to do with the kid, and still felt a surge of panic every time she looked at him, Cameron knew he couldn’t carry on the way he had been. The question was, where did he go from here?

  To Denver and drag Piper to another city? Or did he turn his dream offer down and stay in Blanco Valley?

  Beside him, Blake blasted his whistle and called the players to huddle. As he approached the team to go over mistakes, Cameron consulted his notes and realized he hadn’t written a damn thing.

  Brandon nudged him. “You’ve got that look on your face again.”

  Shit, he seriously needed to work on his poker face. Maybe he should practice in the mirror. He chose not to say anything, mostly because he didn’t trust his voice.

  “Would it be so bad to get a little tangled up with her?” Brandon suggested, obviously knowing what Cameron was thinking about.

  Cameron watched Blake go over plays with the team. The kids were sweaty and hot but determined. “Is that what you thought about Stella?”

  Brandon moved his shoulders, as though not comfortable with the question. “I didn’t think I had any kind of future with Stella.”

  Cameron snorted and turned to face his friend. “Yeah, and I’ve got such a bright future with Audrey? We don’t even live in the same town.”

  “What if you end up in Denver? It’s not that far from Boulder.”

  “I haven’t decided about Denver. And I owe you an ass kicking, by the way,” Cameron added.

  “Don’t you think she was bound to find out?” Brandon shot back. “How did she take it?”

  Cameron kept his focus on Blake and the kids, even though he felt Brandon’s intent gaze. Blake ended his instruction, and the team dispersed to run through the play again.

  “You haven’t even talked to her about it yet, have you?” Brandon questioned. Then he laughed and shook his head. “Have you learned nothing? Women don’t like surprises.”

  Actually, he had been planning on telling her the whole thing. Then her tone had changed, going from casual conversation to tense when she’d sensed he was keeping something from her. He’d suspected it hadn’t been the right time to delve into the subject further, so he’d been evasive. Then he’d been possessed with thoughts of pressing his lips to hers, of leaning her back against the wooden steps and slipping his hand beneath her shirt. Then she’d gone and hurled all sorts of accusations at him, like kissing her just to shut her up.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted to Brandon in a low voice.

  Brandon shot Cameron a look with lifted brows. “You don’t know what?”

  Cameron scrubbed a hand down his face, wishing he’d taken the time to shave that morning. “Hell, I don’t know that either.”

  “Sounds like you could use a couple episodes of Dr. Phil.”

  Cameron rolled his eyes.

  “In all honesty, though,” Brandon went on.

  “Please, let’s not,” Cameron protested.

  “Just talk to her,” Brandon suggested.

  “Cameron, are you having woman problems?” came a godforsaken voice from behind him.

  He kept his focus forward on the players rather than acknowledge Drew’s comment.


  Drew stopped next to Cam. “Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of smooth operator?”

  Smooth operator? What decade were they in?

  Normally Cameron would throw out some offhand remark to get Drew all riled up. Something like, “Need someone to show you how it’s done?”

  But Cameron was over that. He was over deliberately baiting Drew until steam puffed out of the man’s too-small ears and he’d be out for blood. Pushing Drew to his limit no longer gave him the satisfaction it used to. Now Cameron was just tired and wanted to be left the hell alone.

  “Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Drew,” was all Cameron said.

  “Maybe not,” Drew said. “But I just feel like I need to look out for my married friends.”

  Cameron finally turned to Drew and looked down on the shorter man. “Now, why do you have to go and do that? Here I am, trying to be a nice guy, and you say stupid shit that makes me want to kill you.”

  “Just keeping it real,” Drew said with a shrug, even though his red ears gave his false confidence away. They both knew Cameron would wipe the field and the bleachers with the guy.

  “Why don’t you take a step back, Drew?” Brandon suggested.

  “Made any decisions about Denver yet?” Drew asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve decided to stay here and see your pretty face every day.”

  Aaaand there was the familiar shade of red Cameron was so used to seeing. It flooded Drew’s face and reminded Cameron why he used to always get in trouble in high school and why he was better off keeping his mouth shut.

  Blake headed back to the sidelines, his attention bouncing from Drew to Cameron. “How’s it going today, Drew?” Blake asked.

  Drew pasted a big, fake smile on his face, and Cameron had to give the guy a smidgen of credit. He knew how to turn it off and on, which was something Cameron had yet to figure out.

  “Great. Just came to see how the team’s doing,” Drew commented. “We’re playing a tough one on Friday and wanted to talk your game plan.”

  He and Blake stepped to the side, but not before Blake tossed Cameron a look that said, You just can’t help yourself, can you?

  No, he couldn’t. He had impulse issues.