From Neighbors...to Newlyweds?

by Brenda Harlen

  And it seemed obvious that the first step toward becoming friends was to be a good neighbor. He finished the last strip of his grass and pushed the mower over to Georgia’s lawn.

  Having never owned anything with a yard before, he wasn’t sure how he would feel about the required maintenance and upkeep, but so far, he was enjoying the physical work. And mowing the lawn, being unable to hear anything but the rumble of the motor, was almost relaxing. Or it would have been if the hum and the vibration of the machine in his hands hadn’t started him thinking about different hums and vibrations that he hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

  Yeah, it had definitely been too long since he’d been with a woman. Which brought him back to thinking about Georgia again. The neighbor who was, he reminded himself, strictly off-limits with respect to any kind of romance.

  But while his mind might be willing to heed the warnings of his brothers, his hormones weren’t entirely convinced. Especially when Georgia’s van pulled into the driveway and his pulse actually skipped a beat.

  * * *

  As Georgia turned onto Larkspur Drive, she mentally reviewed her plans for the rest of the day. First and foremost was the long-neglected manuscript still on the dining room table. And when she finally got that manuscript finished, she would set Pippa up in her playpen on the deck while Georgia cut the grass. She still had mixed feelings about letting the boys play in the neighbor’s yard, but she thought she might indulge them today, trusting they would keep safely out of the way in the tree house.

  She hadn’t seen much of Matt Garrett over the past few days, which made her realize how little she knew about him aside from his name. She didn’t know where he worked or what he did, whether he was married or engaged or otherwise involved. Not that she was interested, just...curious.

  And when she turned into her driveway and saw him pushing a lawn mower over the last uncut strip of grass in front of her house, her curiosity was piqued even further.

  She parked her minivan, then opened the back door to let the twins scamper out before she unlatched Pippa’s car seat. By the time she’d taken the baby into the house, he’d finished the lawn and was making his way toward her.

  “Need a hand?” He gestured to the grocery bags in the back.

  Georgia turned to respond, but the words dried up inside her mouth. His hair was tousled, his bronzed skin bore a light sheen of perspiration, and the gray T-shirt that molded to his broad shoulders and strong arms was damp with sweat. She’d always appreciated men who were more GQ than Outdoorsman, but she couldn’t deny that there was something very appealing about this man.

  She swallowed. “No, I’ve—”

  Ignoring her protest, he reached into the vehicle for the remaining two bags.

  She blew out a breath. “Okay. Thanks.”

  He grinned at her, and her knees actually went weak.

  Something very appealing, indeed.

  The first time she’d seen him up close, she’d been struck by his stunning good looks—and unnerved by her body’s instinctive response to his blatant masculinity. But she’d managed to convince herself that she’d overestimated his appeal, that he couldn’t possibly be as handsome or as sexy as she’d thought. Face-to-face with him now, she was forced to admit that, if anything, she’d underestimated his impact.

  Those deep blue eyes were both warm and seductive, and his exquisitely shaped mouth seemed to promise all sorts of wicked pleasure. Not that she was interested in seduction or pleasure; she didn’t even have the energy for an innocent flirtation. But the pulsing of the blood in her veins proved that her body was only exhausted, not dead.

  Matt followed her into the house and set the grocery bags on the counter.

  “Can we come over to see the puppies?” Quinn asked.

  Shane looked up at their neighbor, too, the plea in his gaze as earnest as his brother’s question.

  “The puppies aren’t at my house today,” Matt told them.

  Their hopeful smiles dimmed.

  “Where are they?”

  “With my brother, Luke, at his clinic.”

  “He’s the doggy doctor,” Quinn reminded Shane.

  “He’s a doctor for all kinds of animals,” Matt clarified.

  “Maybe we could visit the puppies at the clinic,” Quinn suggested.

  “Not today,” Georgia told him.

  Shane pouted. “I want a puppy.”

  “Well, you got a baby sister instead.”

  “I’d rather have a puppy,” Quinn grumbled.

  Matt turned to hide his smile as he washed his hands at the sink. “Those puppies were kind of cute,” he agreed. “But your sister is even cuter.”

  “Do you think so?” Quinn’s tone was skeptical.

  “Absolutely.” He smiled at the baby still securely strapped into her car seat but directed his next words to Georgia. “Can I take her out of there?”

  She hesitated. “If you want, but she doesn’t have a lot of experience with strangers so she might...”

  Her explanation trailed off when she saw that he already had Pippa out of her carrier.

  Matt looked up. “She might what?”

  “I was going to say ‘fuss,’” she admitted. “But obviously she is doing anything but.”

  Instead, the little girl’s big blue eyes were intently focused on Matt’s face and her mouth was stretched into a wide, gummy grin that filled his heart so completely, his chest ached.

  “She’s a charmer,” he said, tucking her carefully into the crook of his arm so that her head and neck were supported.

  “She has her moments,” her mother agreed.

  “Mostly she cries,” Quinn said.

  “’Specially at night,” Shane added.

  Georgia’s sigh confirmed it was true. “Colic.”

  He’d had his own experience with a colicky baby, and he winced sympathetically. “Are you getting any sleep?” he asked.

  “A lot less since my mom went away,” she admitted. “But I’m managing—if you disregard the fact that I’m falling behind on my work, housework and yard work.”

  Shane tugged on the hem of her shirt. “I’m hungry.”

  “I know, honey. I’ll get your lunch as soon as I get the groceries put away.”

  “Gill cheez?”

  She smiled. “You bet.”

  “I want twisty pasta,” Quinn announced.

  “You had pasta yesterday,” she reminded him. “We’re having grilled cheese today. But you can go put cartoons on TV while you’re waiting for your lunch, if you want.”

  Apparently that was an acceptable compromise, as the boys both scampered off to the living room.

  “But you’re not falling behind with your kids,” he said. “And that’s what really matters.”

  The smile that curved her lips was both genuine and weary. “And thanks to you, I’m no longer as far behind with the yard work as I used to be.”

  He shrugged. “I was cutting my grass anyway.”

  She took a jug of 2% and a tub of yogurt out of the bag, found room for them in the fridge.

  “You should try soy milk,” he told her.

  She lifted a brow. “Because you have futures in soybeans?”

  He grinned. “Because colic can be caused—or aggravated—by an intolerance to the proteins in the cows’ milk consumed by a nursing mother.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “How did you know I’m nursing?”

  To his credit, he managed to keep his gaze on her face without his eyes even flickering in the direction of her very lush breasts. “No baby bottles in the drying rack or the fridge.”

  “Very observant,” she noted. “And how do you know about the soy milk?”

  “I read a lot.”

  She’d finished putting away her groceries and reached into the drawer under the oven for a frying pan. “I used to read,” she told him. “Sometimes even for pleasure.”

  He smiled. “You will again—someday.”

  “I’l
l take your word for it.” She retrieved the butter from the fridge. “But for now, we’re getting through one day at a time.”

  “I’d say you’re doing better than that. You’ve got three great kids, Georgia.”

  She started buttering slices of bread. “I wish you could be here to tell me that at 3:00 a.m.” Then she realized how her words might be misconstrued, and her cheeks filled with color.

  He knew she wasn’t issuing an invitation, but he found himself wishing that he could find some way to help her out, to be the man she turned to when she needed someone, to be the one who could ease some of the fatigue from around her eyes and put a smile on her face. But those were very dangerous wishes. She wasn’t his wife, her kids weren’t his kids, and he had to stop wanting things that couldn’t be.

  “I only meant that it would be nice to have someone around to reassure me in the early hours of morning when I feel like crying right along with Pippa,” she hastened to clarify.

  “Sharing a burden makes it lighter,” he agreed easily, and scribbled his phone number down on the notepad on the counter. “And if you ever do need a hand—with anything and at any time—give me a call.”

  “You’ve already done me a huge favor by cutting the grass.” Butter sizzled as she dropped the first sandwich into the hot pan.

  “I didn’t know there was a limit on good deeds.”

  She smiled again, and though he could see the fatigue in her eyes, the curving of her lips seemed to brighten the whole room. “I don’t mean to seem ungrateful—”

  “I wouldn’t say ungrateful so much as resistant.”

  “I lived in New York City for the past dozen years,” she told him. “I wasn’t even on a first-name basis with most of my neighbors, and the biggest favor any of them ever did for me was to hold the elevator.”

  “Obviously moving to Pinehurst has been a big adjustment.”

  “My mother told me it was a different world. She encouraged me to make conversation with people I don’t know, and she chided me for locking the doors of my van when it’s parked in the driveway.”

  “You lock the doors of your vehicle in your own driveway?” he asked incredulously.

  “When I first moved to New York , I lived in a third-floor apartment in Chelsea. Two weeks later, I wandered down to the little coffee shop on the corner without securing the dead bolt and by the time I got back with my latte, the place had been completely cleaned out.”

  “I can see how an experience like that would make anyone wary,” he admitted. “But around here, neighbors look out for one another.”

  “Says the man who just moved into the neighborhood,” she remarked dryly, turning the sandwich in the pan.

  He grinned. “But I grew up in Pinehurst and I’ve lived here most of my life.”

  “And probably quarterbacked the high school football team to a state championship in your senior year,” she guessed.

  “Actually, I was a running back,” he told her.

  “Yeah, ’cause that makes a difference.”

  She removed one sandwich from the pan and dropped in another. Then she cut the first into four triangles, divided them between two plates and set them on the breakfast bar. She reached into the cupboard above the sink for two plastic cups, then maneuvered past him to the fridge for a jug of milk.

  Though she moved easily in completing tasks she had no doubt performed countless times before, he was suddenly cognizant of the fact that he was just standing around.

  “I’m in your way,” he noted, moving aside so that he was leaning against the far stool at the counter, the baby still tucked securely in the crook of his arm.

  She shook her head as she half filled the cups with milk. “If you weren’t holding Pippa, she’d be screaming her head off, wanting her lunch, and I’d be juggling her and burning the sandwiches.”

  As she called the twins to the kitchen, he glanced down at the baby who had, in fact, shoved her fist into her mouth and was gnawing intently on her knuckles.

  “Well, as long as I’m being useful,” he said, his wry tone earning him a small smile from Georgia, and a wide drooly one from the baby in his arms.

  The quick patter of footsteps confirmed that the boys had heard their mother’s call, and they eagerly climbed up onto the stools at the counter.

  Georgia moved back to the stove and flipped the next sandwich out onto a plate. She sliced it in half, then surprised Matt by setting the plate on the counter in front of him.

  “Milk?” she asked. “Or did you want something else? I’ve got iced tea or juice or soda.”

  “Milk is fine,” he said. “But I didn’t expect you to feed me.”

  “It’s just a grilled cheese.”

  “Which is much more appetizing than the cold pizza in my fridge at home.”

  She shrugged. “I figured a sandwich is a small price to pay for lawn maintenance.”

  “You might get the hang of small-town living yet,” he told her.

  “I’m trying.”

  The fact that she was making an effort gave him confidence that their fledgling friendship could lead to something more.

  And though Jack’s and Luke’s warnings still echoed in the back of his mind, they were easily drowned out by the pounding of his heart when Georgia smiled at him.

  Chapter Three

  Georgia waited until Matt’s car was gone from his driveway before she okayed the boys’ request to visit the neighbor’s tree house. Over the past couple of weeks, they’d enjoyed several adventures in the treetop, but only when their new neighbor wasn’t home.

  It wasn’t that she was avoiding Matt. Not exactly. There was just something about the man that set off warning bells in her head. Or maybe it was tingles in her veins.

  He was friendly and great with the kids, and if not for the way her body hummed whenever he was near, she might have thought that they could be friends. But the sizzle of awareness was too powerful for her to be comfortable in his presence, so Georgia decided that it would be best to maintain a safe distance from him at all times—or at least until her post-pregnancy hormone levels were back to normal.

  She carted Pippa over to the neighbor’s backyard so that she could keep an eye on the boys while they played in the branches.

  With the baby cooing happily in her playpen, Georgia settled in a folding lawn chair beside her. She smiled as she listened to the boys’ conversation—or rather Quinn’s animated chatter and Shane’s brief responses. A few minutes later, she saw Shane’s sneaker on the top step of the ladder.

  “Be careful,” she said, instinctively rising from her chair in the exact moment that his foot slipped off the next step. She was halfway to the tree, her heart lodged in her throat, when his body plummeted toward the ground.

  * * *

  Emergencies were par for the course for any doctor, and especially for one who worked in a hospital E.R. But when an emergency surgery was squeezed into a very narrow window between two scheduled procedures, it made an already long day seem that much longer.

  After a quick shower, Matt decided to head to the cafeteria for a much-needed hit of caffeine. But then he saw Brittney—a much more effective mood booster than any jolt of java. He slung an arm across her shoulders and pressed his lips to the top of her head.

  She, predictably, rolled her eyes. “A little professionalism, Dr. Garrett.”

  “My apologies, Miss Hampton,” he said, not sounding the least bit apologetic.

  Brittney Hampton was his former sister-in-law’s only child and a student helping out in the E.R.—a co-op placement for which she’d applied without his knowledge, determined to secure the position on the basis of her interview and not because her uncle was a doctor on staff at the hospital. She was loving the experience, and he was pleased to see that she was so intently focused on the pursuit of her goals.

  “Are you on a break?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “Dr. Layton said I should take one now, while there’s a lull in the E.R.”


  “A lull never lasts long,” Matt agreed. “If you’re heading to the cafeteria, can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  She made a face. “I hate coffee.”

  He smiled. “Hot chocolate? Coke?”

  “Vitamin water?”

  “Sold.”

  They settled at one of the tables by the window with their beverages.

  “How was your morning?” Brittney asked him.

  “In addition to the usual hip replacements, I put a plate and five screws in the ankle of a kid who took an awkward tumble on the soccer field.”

  She winced. “Sounds painful.”

  “Nah, we put him under so he didn’t feel a thing.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I meant the tumble.”

  “I imagine it was,” he agreed. “How was your morning?”

  “I had a test on molecular genetics,” she said.

  “And?” he prompted.

  She shrugged. “I think I did okay.”

  “So no worries that Northeastern is going to rescind their offer?” he teased.

  “Not yet.”

  “Is Brayden going to Northeastern, too?”

  “Brayden is old news,” she told him.

  “Oh. I’m...sorry?” Truthfully, he was relieved. On the few occasions that he’d met her boyfriend, he’d seemed like a nice enough kid but Matt had worried that the relationship with Brayden would distract Brittney from her studies and her ultimate goal of becoming a doctor like her uncle.

  She smiled, at least a little. “It was a mutual decision.”

  “Then your heart isn’t broken?”

  “Not even bruised.”

  “Glad to hear it,” he said.

  “How’s your heart?” she countered.

  His brows lifted. “Do they have you working in cardiology now?”

  She smiled again, but her eyes—when they met his—showed her concern. “Mom told me that Aunt Lindsay is having another baby.”

  “Yes, she is,” he acknowledged, pleased that his voice remained level, betraying none of the emotions that churned inside of him whenever he thought about the family that his ex-wife now had with her new husband. He didn’t resent the fact that Lindsay had everything he’d ever wanted, but he was painfully aware of how empty his own life was in contrast.