If nothing else?
His words spun around in her head. What in the world did that mean?
“All right,” she said, eager suddenly to just end the conversation. He was confusing her, and she didn’t want to be confused. She wanted to think straight, and that meant not staying in the same room with Garrett. “I’d better take Dalton out of here, though. He shouldn’t be around the paint fumes.” She hesitated. “I, uh, I’ll bring you a glass of lemonade.”
Garrett watched Lanie run away before he set back to work. He had no doubt that was what she was doing. Running. From him. Because she was as finished with him as he was with her—which was not at all.
He didn’t understand her, or the way she made him feel, he only knew he couldn’t stay away. He’d gone halfway around the globe and hadn’t gotten her out of his mind. He’d been drawn back to her as if pulled by an invisible string. There was still the question of Ben’s baby, but there was more now, too. Much more.
It’d been a shock, his first look at her. At least when she was pregnant, it had been easier for him to remember that the erotic thoughts she’d incited even then were inappropriate.
There was nothing so clear to flash that warning at him anymore.
She was more beautiful than ever. Slender now with gentle curves, wearing impossibly short shorts and a cropped yellow T-shirt, she’d taken his breath away. She didn’t look anything like a mom. She looked too young to be a mother, for one thing. Younger than her twenty-five years. But when he looked into her eyes, he saw pain and pride and a mature emotion that made him want to run for the hills and fold her into his arms, all at the same time.
It was a more-subtle sort of warning, and one he couldn’t heed—because he couldn’t get her out of his mind. He had to face down the mystery that was Lanie, for his own peace of mind. And for Walter’s, too. His uncle was agitated, to say the least, about Lanie’s continuing disregard for his demands.
Garrett worked for a good hour on the room, and finished the first wall. There hadn’t been a sign of Lanie, or any sound from the baby, either.
Curious and a little concerned, he set the roller on the tray and went downstairs. He stopped short as he entered the parlor. Lanie sat, head lolled back to expose the soft line of her neck, in the rocking chair. Dalton slept in her arms. The bright morning had grown cloudy, and in the muted light Garrett watched the gentle rise and fall of her breathing.
He felt again the longing that had seized him when he’d first arrived, only more fiercely than before. God help him, he wanted her.
He wished he could feel a pure lust for her, but he didn’t. It was complicated by an unsettling tenderness that bothered him even more than the lust.
Her lashes fluttered then, and she opened her eyes. He watched as she slowly focused on him, blinked.
“Oh, I was going to bring you lemonade,” she said softly. “I’m sorry. I fell asleep.”
“Don’t apologize. I can get my own lemonade. I’m glad you’re sleeping.” He nodded at the baby. “Looks like you both need the rest. Don’t get up,” he told her when she looked as if she might.
“I feel bad with you up there working on my house,” she said. “I could probably put Dalton back in his crib. He still has his days and nights mixed up to some extent, and he doesn’t sleep too much at night.”
“Which means you don’t, either,” Garrett said. “Please, sleep. Okay?”
She looked as if she was going to argue, and he was glad when she didn’t. He didn’t want to fight with Lanie anymore. Make love, not war, the old slogan popped uninvited into his mind. And of course, he couldn’t get it out.
“Okay.” Lanie looked grateful, and a little embarrassed and wary, too. “Thanks.” She pressed the floor with her toes and started to rock again, snuggling the baby close in her arms.
Garrett went on to the kitchen, working hard to block the images of what it might be like if he were the one snuggling with Lanie, sleeping with Lanie, feeling that soft breathing against his chest, tangling his limbs with hers, and staying that way all night long.
He wasn’t successful.
She made him lunch.
“Do you really work weekends all the time?” she asked him as she sliced tomatoes for sandwiches. Dalton gurgled from a baby swing in the corner.
She’d insisted he sit at the kitchen table and let her wait on him—to make up for him insisting she sleep all morning with Dalton while he painted.
“Don’t you have any hobbies?” she persisted.
Garrett contemplated his personal life, away from work. It was basically nonexistent, and that hadn’t bothered him before. He recalled how strange he’d felt earlier when he’d admitted to Lanie that he didn’t really need to work on the weekends. Whether he needed to work on the weekends or not had never been the point before. Going to the office on Saturday was just part of his routine. He’d picked up the habit from Walter. It was simply a good work ethic.
But he knew he could cut back, if he wanted to. If he had a reason to.
“What do you usually do on the weekends?” he countered, turning the question around on her.
“With a bed-and-breakfast, weekends are when I get most of my business,” she pointed out. “But I’m often free during the week, which can be nice. I volunteer at the elementary school—I help run the reading program. I’m on the visitors’ committee with the chamber of commerce, too, and I work on the various festivals and events in town. I used to teach swimming lessons at the city pool every summer, but I’m going to have to skip that this year. I’m not getting near a bathing suit anytime soon.”
The image of Lanie in a bikini sprang unbidden into Garrett’s mind. He was instantly hot and uncomfortable, despite the pleasant temperature inside the house.
“I didn’t realize you were so involved in the community,” he said firmly, working to focus on something that wouldn’t fuel his desire.
Lanie shrugged, continued building their sandwiches. “I haven’t been very involved lately,” she said. “But things will get back to normal, after Dalton gets a little older, settles into a schedule. I like working in the community. Deer Creek has given a lot to me, and I want to give back. I didn’t have many relatives as a kid, and growing up in Deer Creek was like growing up in one big family. Everyone watches out for each other here.”
Garrett wondered what it would be like to feel that sort of bond with a place. It was impossible for him to imagine. He’d lived in Austin most of his life and had never felt it. And he hadn’t realized he was missing anything—until now.
Lanie set a plate in front of him, piled with two sandwiches and a mound of potato chips. She sat down across from him.
“Where’s the furniture for the room?” he asked after a few minutes.
“It’s in the garage,” she explained. “There are some pretty heavy pieces, but Patty’s husband, Trent, offered to carry it up. It’ll take more than him, but I can round up a friend.”
“I’m more than halfway done painting. If you can have him come over this evening before I leave, I can help him carry it up.”
He wanted to be the friend she turned to when she needed help. Maybe if he focused on being her friend, he’d get over his other feelings.
“Thank you.” She finished her sandwich and made the call from a cordless phone she brought into the kitchen. “Trent and Patty will be over later,” she told him when she hung up.
Garrett set his plate in the sink. “Great.”
She stood there, her fingers jammed into the little front pockets of her shorts, staring at him. “I—you’re being awfully nice,” she said.
“Wasn’t I nice before?”
She lifted a brow, didn’t answer.
“That was my evil twin. I’m the good twin.”
She didn’t even crack a smile.
“Look I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop, that’s all,” she said. The steady hum of the battery-powered baby swing was the only sound for a seemingly timeless bea
t. “I’ve been getting letters from your uncle’s attorney—”
“Letters you’ve ignored. I know all about that.” Garrett. sobered. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
“Then why? Why are you here? You didn’t come to paint my room and move my furniture.”
“I came to see Dalton,” he said, moving cautiously through an explanation that was only part of the truth. “I’ve been thinking about him.”
“Thinking about him?”
“I’d like to see him, every once in a while.” He realized, over the past few weeks, that whether he could or should walk away from Lame and the feelings she inspired, there was something he couldn’t walk away from.
“You’re asking for some kind of visitation?” she asked dubiously.
“Nothing formal,” he said. “I’d just like to see him. If this is Ben’s baby—”
He hesitated, seeing her flinch at his use of the word if and feeling crazily guilty. He forced himself to go on, to disregard her hurt.
“If this is Ben’s baby, then I have an obligation to Ben to do something to fill the role he’s left vacant.”
“I have friends, lots of friends.” Lanie said hurriedly. “You don’t have to worry that Dalton will lack for male role models.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I have an obligation to Ben.”
He walked closer to her. She shifted backward, and he followed her. She bumped up against the kitchen counter and stopped, her gaze flashing nervously to his.
Stepping toward her again, he deliberately invaded her comfort zone. Was she nervous because he was discussing visitation with Dalton, or because of his physical proximity to her at this moment?
“So if Dalton is Ben’s child,” he pressed, “then it would follow that I have an obligation to Dalton, too, don’t you think?”
“I—I guess.”
Her voice came out wispy. She was flushed, and he could see a pulse beating frantically at the base of her throat.
“Good,” he said slowly, watching the quick dart of her tongue as she wet her lips. “So it’s settled.”
Then he turned and strode out of the room before he settled the other thing—whether or not she wanted to kiss him as much as he wanted to kiss her.
Chapter Nine
The old door on Lanie’s detached garage screeched in protest as Garrett pushed it up. Lanie flicked on the interior light. The musty closed-in air met the damp dusk. Rumbles from the thick, dark cloud-bank overhead reminded everyone that time was of the essence. The air was heavy with the scent of rain.
“We’d better get after this—it’s fixing to pour,” Trent Spencer, Patty’s husband, said.
“Just point out which boxes and which pieces of furniture you want, and we’ll take it from there,” Garrett said to Lanie.
She steadied her gaze on him. “The more of us working, the better, I don’t want things getting wet. I told you before, I’m perfectly fine. There’s no reason for me not to help carry stuff in.”
She breezed past him and picked up a box. The three of them made several trips back and forth, while Patty took care of Dalton inside. Patty had tried to get Lanie to switch with her—Lanie stay inside and watch Dalton while Patty did the work—but Lanie had been determined not to sit idly by and let her friends put in all the effort.
And she was equally determined not to let Garrett dictate her activity. She hadn’t felt as if she’d had a real choice when he’d declared his intention to fill a role in Dalton’s life. But she did have a choice in how much of a role Garrett played in her life. He had no business telling her what to do.
And she had no business fantasizing about kissing him, she reminded herself. She’d almost melted in the kitchen earlier, under his close regard.
She still felt shivery when she thought about it. And she kept thinking about it, even though she tried very hard not to.
After they’d carried in all the boxes, they came to the heavy antique furniture. Garrett put his hand on her arm. “I don’t care what you say, it’s only been four weeks since you had a baby. You’re going to carry this furniture over my dead body.”
Just his brief touch was enough to make her start melting again.
She countered the reaction with deliberate flippancy. “Hmm. Now you’re tempting me.”
Garrett watched her with such intensity that her words evolved to a meaning she hadn’t intended, and she could hardly breathe for a few seconds.
Then he spoke, breaking the spell. “Do you think you could just let me do you one favor without having to fight for it?”
She swallowed, focused. She knew he was right about her carrying the furniture, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of saying so.
“Okay, fine,” she said instead. “You can do me this favor. But next time, we fight.” She couldn’t help enjoying the surprised swirl of light she glimpsed in his eyes just before she spun around on her heel and marched back to the house.
Her heart drummed wildly. She felt breathless. What was she doing? She’d come dangerously close to flirting with Garrett, for heaven’s sake. Flirting! She shouldn’t be doing that—only, right then, she was having a hard time remembering exactly why. She felt such a rush of heat and desire, it clouded her mind.
Patty was waiting for her in the kitchen, pacing and patting a fussy Dalton.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Patty said. “This baby wants his mommy.” She handed him over. He quieted right away once in Lanie’s arms.
Lanie patted his back and murmured softly in Dalton’s ear. She went to the kitchen window and looked outside toward the garage where Trent and Garrett worked. She watched Garrett heft a headboard into his arms. His strong muscles drew her eyes.
She almost jumped out of her skin when Patty suddenly spoke.
“So tell me about Garrett.”
Lanie looked at her friend blankly. “He’s Ben’s cousin.”
“I know that. And I know all about how he came here demanding tests and ended up taking you to the hospital. But you made him sound like a jerk. Are you sure this is the same guy?”
“He is being kind of...nice, isn’t he?” What was she saying? She shook herself. “I think it’s because he wants visitation with Dalton. He thinks he has an obligation to Ben to—I don’t know. Play some sort of fatherly role in Dalton’s life.”
“Oh, really?” Patty lifted her brow. “Well, that’s awfully commendable.”
Lanie could see Patty’s opinion of Garrett was moving up several notches.
Garrett arrived at the back door. Lanie held the door open, then followed upstairs to direct placement of the furniture he and Trent carried up over the next several trips between the garage and the house. Patty joined in to help the men, and the room filled quickly. Lanie found herself bumping into Garrett more than once in the jam of unpacked boxes and furniture. The electric current of the contact took her breath away and spurred powerful images that she would have been better off without.
She ordered pizza, and the delivery arrived as the men brought in the last load. It started raining at the same time. Dalton was hungry, and crying up a storm of his own by then, so she went upstairs to nurse him.
When she came back down, having left Dalton tucked in his crib, she found everyone in the back den, an area she kept private from bed-and-breakfast guests. It was comfortable and messy, full of worn furniture and shelves stacked with old magazines and books. Photos filled the walls. She hadn’t changed it since her grandmother’s death, and it was so cozy, she doubted she ever would. The TV was back here, and she could see that was what had drawn everyone. A baseball game filled the small screen. Pizza boxes lay open on the coffee table along with glasses and a pitcher of iced lemonade. Outside, rain pounded down in the pitch dark.
She stood in the doorway for a minute, soaking in the easy atmosphere in the room, and how Garrett fit in with her friends. She’d seen the way he and Trent had been joking around while they’d hauled in her things. Now Garrett was argui
ng amiably with Patty over one of the ballplayer’s merits.
Lanie moved into the room. “Hey, what’s the score?”
She’d brought the baby monitor down so she could hear if Dalton woke. Setting it on the coffee table, she slipped to a cross-legged position on the floor. She poured herself a glass of lemonade, then reached for a warm, gooey slice of pizza.
Garrett looked at her, and their eyes locked. Her tummy did a little flip. He gave her the score, in his deep, even voice. But he wasn’t thinking about baseball when he looked at her, she was sure of it. She’d started something out there when she’d halfway flirted with him—and he hadn’t forgotten it.
How could she have been so reckless?
Because she wanted him, the answer came, and it frightened her more than a little. Was it just a physical thing, an awakening of her womanly center after her body had been pregnant and lumbering for all those months? If so, why couldn’t she find someone more suitable?
“We should get going,” Patty said abruptly. “It’s really coming down out there, and I just remembered I opened our bedroom window this morning when it was so nice, and I never went back to shut it. I bet there’s water all over the rug.”
She stood, and Trent followed her lead.
“Oh no.” Lanie felt the urge to throw her arms around Patty and Trent’s knees like a three-year-old and beg them to stay.
She didn’t want to be alone with Garrett. She was afraid her control was starting to slip.
“Don’t get up,” Patty admonished her when she started to rise. “We know our way out.”
She and Trent said their goodbyes to Garrett, and a minute later Lanie heard the front door close.
“I like your friends,” Garrett commented.
Lanie swallowed a bite of pizza. “Thanks. They’re great.”
She pretended to pay attention to the game for a few minutes while she consumed another slice of pizza and downed half her glass of lemonade. The storm picked up, and she could hear the wind howling down the chimney in the parlor. Thunder rattled the windows. Lightning flashed across the sky.
The Billionaire and the Bassinet Page 8