The Opposite of Wild

by Kylie Gilmore

  He slowed his walk and let Gran pull ahead of them. “You’re good with her.”

  She grinned cheekily. “Watch and learn.”

  He cracked a smile. She’s messing with me. “Okay. So you’re better with reasoning with her. I would have said no in the first place.”

  Liz halted, and her blue eyes flashed at him. He felt a jolt at her beauty as her expression came to life. “You don’t tell a woman like Maggie no. She’s smart and savvy and can make her own decisions.”

  He loved seeing her riled up. She had fire in her. “Sometimes people don’t know what’s good for them, Liz.” He gave her a wicked smile.

  She licked her lips nervously, and, damn, she looked like a pinup model hiding in librarian clothes. All that was missing was the glasses.

  Her hands fluttered in the air. “What makes you think you know what she needs?”

  He leaned in close, his mouth to her ear. “Some people send out that signal loud and clear.” He pulled back to make a slow appraisal from her buttoned-up shirt to the white, belted pants to… fire-engine-red toenails peeking out of sandals. Not what he’d expected. Something about those red toes turned him on. What else is she hiding under that buttoned-up exterior?

  Their gazes locked. He found himself leaning down toward her. Just one taste. Her breathing hitched. Then she surprised him. She stepped back, pursing her lips and giving him a slow once-over in return. By the time she’d finished, her cheeks were a gratifying shade of red.

  He gave her a slow smile. “Nicely done,” he said, working on riling her up again.

  She whirled away.

  “You two are slower than a senior scooter race,” Gran called from where she stood next to the car. “Time’s a wasting.”

  Gran’s voice brought him back to the business at hand—keeping Gran safe.

  Liz sped up. He kept pace with her. “Call me anytime about Gran. I’d rather know what’s going on than be surprised.”

  “Of course,” Liz replied tersely. “Though I’m sure there won’t be anything else I need to call about.” She avoided his eyes, practically radiating tension, as she headed for the car.

  Liz needed loosening up in a big way. He wouldn’t mind being the one to get her there. Nope, wouldn’t mind that at all.

  “I’ll drive over to the dealer too,” he said. “I can help with the haggling.”

  “That’s not…” Liz stopped at the driver-side door. “I mean, you don’t have to. I can help her.” She stood stiffly, looking everywhere but at him.

  “It’s fine. I can go,” he said.

  Liz gave a brief nod and unlocked the car.

  He walked around to the other side and held the door open for Gran. “You’re using the insurance money?”

  “Yup,” Gran answered as she fastened her seat belt. “That Toyota is melba toast. Bo-ring.”

  He couldn’t disagree. As he drove his own car to the Ford dealer, he decided hiring Liz was a good idea. He would’ve just kept arguing with Gran, and she would’ve fought him tooth and nail. This was easier. A win/win.

  And there was something about Liz. She wasn’t his usual type. He liked busty, flirty women, especially the newly divorced, who were in it for a good time. Liz probably wouldn’t know a good time if it bit her on the ass.

  At the dealer, Gran got into a convertible right away while the sales guy talked her ear off.

  “I need to make a call,” Liz said, taking a few steps away.

  He inclined his head. He wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but Liz’s voice carried when she got worked up.

  “This last trimester is especially important for the baby’s development,” she said. “Did you read the book?…Okay. Call me if you need me. Bye.”

  It was the reminder he needed. Liz had a baby on the way, and he’d already put in his time raising his kid brothers after their mother died. He’d had to step up as the man of the house when his father decided he’d rather lose himself to drink than deal with his grief. Or his three sons.

  Liz was back to her cool, controlled self. She kept her distance at the dealer, avoiding his eyes, keeping Gran between them like he had something that was catching.

  He helped negotiate a fair price with the sales guy. A short while later, Gran drove off the lot in a shiny red convertible, with Liz and him trailing behind in their separate cars, eating her dust.

  Liz drove exactly the speed limit. He drove behind her for a while, puzzling over his simultaneous frustration with her uptight ways and his fascination with the idea of pushing her out of her comfort zone.

  Finally, he hit the accelerator to pass her. As he drew even with her car, he glanced over at her. She drove with both hands on the steering wheel in the nine and three o’clock positions, her expression serious, eyes glued to the road ahead of her. She made the perfect antidote to Gran’s newfound crazy.

  He had no business messing around with Liz.

  None at all.

  Off limits.

  Chapter Six

  Liz drove Maggie home after a long, leisurely drive in the convertible. It was their second day of “taking the car for a spin,” as Maggie liked to say. They’d taken winding country roads through the nearby towns dotted with horse farms and beautiful elegant homes. Today they’d stopped at a park for a picnic in a gorgeous gazebo, chatting over chicken salad sandwiches, fruit salad, and iced tea. Liz was loving her new job.

  Until she pulled into Maggie’s driveway. Her heart kicked into double-time when she saw Ryan’s car parked out front. She whipped off the baseball hat she wore in the convertible to keep her hair in place and pulled down the visor to check her hair.

  “Ah! Major hat head.” The hat had conspired with the heat and humidity to make her hair frizzy, and the ponytail she’d made this morning was half undone and drooping sideways.

  “You look fine,” Maggie said as she opened the door.

  Liz ignored her, grabbed the brush from her purse, and quickly redid the ponytail. She opened her car door and saw Ryan walking toward the trunk of his car in low-slung faded jeans and a black T-shirt that emphasized his broad shoulders. Yup, pure sin.

  “Hey, Gran, Liz,” he called.

  Liz lifted a hand in a small hello, not trusting her voice. She hated the way her voice came out all breathy whenever she was close to him. Hormones—plain and simple. Her brain knew better.

  “Hi, Ryan, see you inside,” Maggie said.

  “Liz, hold the door for me,” Ryan said as he began unloading the trunk.

  Given no polite way to get out of the request, Liz waited by the front door. Maggie had already disappeared inside.

  She held the door to let him pass, his woodsy, male scent washing over her. She couldn’t help but notice up close the flex of muscles as he hauled three bags of groceries inside.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “No problem,” she breathed. Dammit.

  He headed back to the kitchen. Liz stayed put in the living room. A moment later, Maggie emerged from the kitchen with a couple of glasses of water in hand. “He does this every week,” she told Liz. She turned and pitched her voice to be heard in the kitchen. “Even though I’m perfectly capable of getting my own groceries.”

  Ryan appeared a moment later. “The bags are heavy. I don’t want her to carry a bunch of heavy bags up and down the stairs.”

  “Baloney!” Maggie said, jabbing a finger at him. “You just want to make sure I have the ingredients to cook all your favorite dishes.” Maggie turned to Liz. “His cooking sucks.”

  “Sucks?” Ryan asked. “Since when do you talk like that?” He shook his head and headed back to the kitchen.

  “You want a sandwich?” Maggie called.

  “No, thanks,” he answered. “I want to get the mowing in before the rain comes.”

  Maggie set the water glasses down on the antique cherrywood coffee table. Liz shifted some coasters under them.

  “Trav could send a crew to mow too,” Maggie said, “but Ryan wants him to focus on h
is wealthy clients.” She shook her head in mock indignation, her lips curved in a small smile that said she didn’t mind at all. “Would you like to stay and learn to knit? Then you can join our knitting group on Tuesdays.”

  “Sure, I’d love that.”

  “Let’s find something for you in my stash.”

  Her stash? Liz followed Maggie upstairs to what looked like one of her grandsons’ old bedrooms. It had blue walls and a few posters of baseball players. The dresser was topped with trophies and ribbons. She pictured a teenage Ryan in here. He’d been an athlete—varsity football, basketball, baseball, summer swim team.

  The swimming reminded her of The Humiliation, so she focused on the yarn. The twin bed, now with a rose floral comforter on it, was covered with clear plastic bins full of yarn.

  “My stash,” Maggie said proudly. She lifted the lid on one bin to reveal hanks of yarn in shades of green, blue, and brown. “I knit a lot for the boys. There’s always yarn left over that I can use to weave in to scarves or blankets, or just turn it into a hat or gloves. I never make socks. All that work and you never see them when they’re stuffed into shoes.”

  “This is quite a collection,” Liz said, indicating all the bins.

  “Go ahead and check it out. Make sure you really fondle the yarn. The feel of it is so important both for the knitter and the knittee.”

  Liz nodded and investigated all six bins, fondling (as she’d been told) the soft squishy yarn, the silky thinner yarn, the sturdy thick yarn. Finally she held up a hank of deep purple. It was soft and thick and, when she rubbed it on her cheek, so smooth.

  The roar of the lawn mower coming to life outside momentarily distracted her. She fought the urge to peek out the window.

  “Ooh, that’s a good choice,” Maggie said, indicating the yarn in Liz’s hands. “Merino wool. Let me just get you some needles, and you can start with a scarf.” Maggie pulled open a dresser drawer, where she’d stashed knitting needles in a variety of tube socks. “Let’s go. My knitting is already downstairs.”

  After they’d settled on the loveseat, side by side, Maggie showed her how to cast on and demonstrated the knit stitch. “In through the front door, around the back, out through the window, and off jumps Jack.”

  Liz tried it. “In through the front door”—she pushed the needle through the loop—“around the back.” She carefully wrapped the hanging yarn around the needle. “Out through the…oh!” The loop fell off her needle. “Oops.”

  “That’s okay, dear.” Maggie did a quick fix. “Start again.”

  “In through the…” The noise of the mower was getting louder. Her gaze was irresistibly drawn to the front window. Mistake. Ryan was shirtless, offering a magnificent rear view of bronzed back muscles leading to a very fine ass as he pushed the mower away from her.

  It was unbearably hot in here.

  “Is the air-conditioning on?” she asked.

  Maggie’s eyes danced with amusement. “Yes, it is. Concentrate, dear.”

  Her ears burned. It wasn’t fair that he was just so…much…man.

  Liz tried the knit stitch again. Don’t look out the window, don’t look, don’t look, she chanted to herself while her fingers fumbled with the yarn and needles. She managed to go in and around, but then Jack didn’t jump off. The yarn fell off the needle unknitted.

  Liz groaned.

  “Keep trying. You’ll get it.” Maggie demonstrated the knit stitch again. “I think you’ll like it once you get the hang of it. It’s very relaxing.”

  Liz was feeling anything but relaxed as she tried to knit. Ryan’s golden sweaty muscles went by the window, again and again, forward and back, forward and back. She was building up a sweat just watching him sweat. Another stitch fell off the needle. Focus, Liz!

  She carefully poked the needle through the next loop, ignoring the unraveled loops now hanging between the two needles. She slowly wrapped the yarn around and pulled it through. “I did it!”

  “Good for you!” Maggie pulled out her own knitting project—a cabled sweater in a cream color. “Now do it again twenty-nine more times.”

  Liz’s eyes widened. Twenty-nine times!

  “It’ll get easier,” Maggie assured her as her hands flew over the needles, miraculously creating a sweater. “Soon you won’t have to think about it so much. It’ll be automatic. Then you can get fancy with it.”

  Liz slowly, painstakingly worked her way through the row. Fifteen minutes later, she got to the end of the row. “Now what?”

  Maggie switched the needles in Liz’s hands. “Now you do the same thing all the way down this side. Just keep going to the end and then switch the needles in your hands and start again.” The mower went quiet for a moment. “Looks like Ry could use a drink. Could you bring him out a glass of water?”

  Liz looked out the window with alarm. Ryan had paused to wipe the sweat off his face with the T-shirt hanging on the front handle of the mower. She swallowed hard. She debated asking Maggie to do it, but she was here to help Maggie, not sit around on her sofa.

  “Sure,” she said, heading for the kitchen. She found a glass and poured water from the pitcher in the fridge. Just be polite. Hand it to him, and come right back inside.

  She walked past a happily knitting Maggie in the living room, briefly realized Maggie had a front row seat to the drinking-water scene, and stepped out the front door. He’d returned to mowing, and she waited until he turned back toward her. She held up her hand to wave, but barely managed a little finger wiggle at the sight before her, even better up close—a trail of sweat running down his chest to the arrow leading to his jeans. He didn’t see her yet, so she was free to continue looking. A woman with a two-year dry spell could look. Holy cocktails, he filled out those jeans nicely.

  Bracing herself, she waved her hand in a large motion, and he looked up and stopped the mower. The engine quieted to a low roar.

  “Hey,” he said.

  She couldn’t move. “Maggie asked me to bring you some water.”

  “Thanks.” He strode over to where she stood and took the glass. Up close, she noticed a puckered scar by his shoulder. She’d heard he’d been shot in the line of duty. Nobody knew how it happened, though. His Adam’s apple moved up and down as he drank. A sweaty man should not be so appealing. The stubble on his strong jaw made him look hot and dangerous, and she barely resisted reaching out to touch him.

  She gasped as he turned the glass and dumped the remaining water on his head. He shook his hair out, pushing the shaggy strands out of his eyes, and handed back the glass. “Thanks, I needed to cool off.”

  She stood there, mouth agape, watching the magnificent rear view as he strode away to the mower.

  “See you,” she breathed, though he couldn’t hear her over the mower. Why did he have to look so hot and be so sweet the way he took care of Maggie? Every time she looked at him, she was torn between throwing herself at him or throwing something at his head for The Humiliation. It was infuriating. She swiveled on her heel back to the house and stomped up the porch steps. Damn him, damn him, damn him. She opened the front door and stole one more glance over her shoulder.

  His eyes met hers. And he winked.

  He knew she’d been checking him out! Would her humiliation never cease?

  She whirled away, face flaming, fumbled with the doorknob, and finally burst into the house.

  “Everything all right?” Maggie asked.

  “Fine,” Liz said, setting the empty glass down on the table with a bang. “Sorry.” She slipped a coaster under it. She returned to her place on the loveseat, picked up her knitting, and refused to look out that front window no matter how close the mower got.

  It was a huge relief when Ryan moved to the backyard.

  ~ ~ ~

  Liz ate a quiet dinner of salad alone on Friday night while Daisy worked the dinner rush at Garner’s. She’d set up her laptop at the kitchen table so she could get started with her online continuing ed class on instructional technique
s for children with reading difficulties. She was halfway through the first lesson when her doorbell rang.

  She peeked through the peephole, and her heart picked up speed. Ryan! What was he doing here? She gave a quick thanks to the powers that be that she hadn’t changed into pajamas early. She smoothed her already smooth hair and opened the door.

  “Special delivery,” he said, handing her an envelope. “Your paycheck.”

  She reached out her hand. His fingers brushed her palm as he gave it to her, and she jerked her hand back like it was on fire. “Thank you. You can mail it next time. I’m sure you’re very busy.”

  He peeked over her shoulder at her neat apartment, then looked back at her. “I’m on my way to a stakeout, but your place was on the way. What’re you up to on a Friday night?”

  She wondered if he was on a dangerous mission. He always looked a little dangerous with his stubble and swaggering confidence. Focus, he asked you a question. “Oh, I’m…” She looked back at her empty apartment. “Going out later…but right now I’m working on an online continuing ed class.”

  “Going out later,” he echoed in a voice as smooth as silk. “What does Liz Garner do for fun?”

  Her hand fluttered to her throat, where her pulse was way too high. “I, uh, hang out with Rachel.”

  “Anything else?”

  She wondered what he was getting at. He always made her feel rattled. Was he referring to her ex-fiancé Craig?

  “This and that,” she finally said. “Well, thank you for stopping by.”

  He just stood there, his sharp eyes studying her. “You’re a puzzle, Liz.”

  “I am?”

  He reached out and smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear, and her heart caught in her throat at the gentle gesture. “You seem so…uptight,” he said.

  She stiffened and took a step back.

  “But I know you were checking me out when I was mowing.”

  She flushed, but rallied quickly. “I was only bringing you water.” She crossed her arms and said primly, “You surprised me when you dumped the water on your head. I was merely looking to see if you were going to do any other…surprising things.”