Trevor reached them, holding a child in each arm as though they weighed no more than a sack of flour. His hair was ruffled and with his niece’s arms linked happily around his neck, he looked utterly charming and at home.
“I see you two have met,” he said with a smile. “These two monkeys are Max and Lilly. Monkeys, this is Sophie.”
Two pairs of bright blue eyes studied Sophie curiously. She smiled warmly at them. They really were adorable, both with heads of dark black hair and many of the same features as Danielle and Trevor.
“It’s nice to meet you, monkeys,” she said very seriously. “If I would have known that I’d be meeting monkeys today, I would’ve brought some bananas with me.”
Her silly statement won a giggle from Max, but Lilly wrinkled her little nose.
“Bananas are yucky,” she proclaimed with all the airs of a princess-in-training. “But I do like chocolate cake. Maybe you could get me some of that instead.”
“Lilly Marie Denton, what did I tell you about asking people to buy you things?” Danielle tried to look cross and stern but didn’t succeed. She was just too sweet to appear severe.
“But, Mommy,” protested Lilly, “you only said I couldn’t ask Grandma for any more Barbies. She’s not Grandma and I didn’t ask for a Barbie.”
Danielle rolled her eyes and said in an aside to Sophie, “My mother-in-law is a compulsive child spoiler. We literally have hundreds of Barbies.” To her daughter, she said, “Expand that to include asking anyone to buy you anything.”
“But, Mommy,” Lilly said, her lower lip quivering.
Sophie hastened to interrupt. “I noticed a grocery store on our way in to town. Maybe we could pick up some groceries and bake a chocolate cake together. Baking a cake is much more fun than buying it. If that’s all right with your mother, that is.”
Lilly looked at Sophie through new eyes, clearly thinking Sophie was not quite as awful as she had originally supposed her to be. She turned a pleading look to her mother. “Is it okay, Mommy? Please?”
Danielle sent Sophie a thankful smile. “It’s fine with me if Sophie doesn’t mind.”
“Yay!” Lilly clapped her hands together. “When can we go to the store? Now?”
“Me too!” shouted Max, not about to be left out on the apparent fun. “I want to help!”
“Of course you can,” Sophie told him.
Trevor lowered the squirming children back to the ground and ruffled their hair. “The store will have to wait,” he told Lilly. “We just got here.”
“Ohhhhh,” complained Max and Lilly in unison.
“How about if I take you two to the store while Trevor and Sophie unpack?” Danielle suggested to her children.
Max and Lilly looked as though they were about to argue, but finally acceded.
Danielle beamed at them. “Good.” She turned to Trevor and Sophie. “Justin ran out to the mainland to get some crabs for supper. He should be back in half an hour. Lilly and Max are both sleeping in the yellow bedroom and Justin and I have the master, so the back bedroom is open. I’ll just get my purse.”
Less than a minute later, Danielle and the kids were disappearing down the boardwalk. Sophie stole a glance at Trevor.
“The kids are adorable,” she murmured. “And your sister is great.”
Trevor gave her another grin. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Absolutely.” It would have been nice to have him all to herself, but she liked seeing this side of him.
He leaned down and dropped a light kiss on her lips. “Let’s take our things inside.”
“Are you gonna marry Uncle Trevor?”
Sophie, who had been in the process of cracking an egg for the chocolate cake, hit the egg on the rim with so much force it broke prematurely. The white slid into the bowl. The yolk landed on the floor with a splat.
“Darn.” Sophie reached for a paper towel to clean the mess she had made.
“Well,” demanded Lilly, who had asked the disturbing question and was not about to be sidetracked. “Are you gonna marry him or not?”
Sophie mopped up the egg and glanced at Lilly. She was standing on a chair next to the kitchen island, her black hair pulled into pigtails, a small apron tied around her waist.
“I don’t think so, honey,” Sophie told her, still startled by the question. It made her wonder for the first time what it would be like to marry again. After Peter’s death, she had never thought she would remarry, had never expected to find another man she could grow to love and want to spend the rest of her life with. But she was beginning to realize it was only natural to want to experience love again.
She stood back up and fished as much of the egg white as she could from the bowl.
“Why not?” Lilly asked, sounding offended. “He’s a lot of fun. He plays tag and hide-and-go-seek with me and Max whenever we want him to.”
“And he tells really good stories,” Max offered. “Plus, he takes me fishing.”
Sophie found herself smiling at their ardent defense of Trevor. It was plain as day the two loved their uncle.
“I think he’s pretty great too,” she confessed, feeling somewhat silly saying the words aloud to a pair of children.
“Well then why dontcha marry him?” asked Max as he stirred the batter. His tone was one of bafflement.
A blob of the batter slipped over the side of the bowl.
“Be careful not to spill, Max,” she instructed gently. “Sometimes, things aren’t as easy as they seem. Your uncle and I are just good friends.”
“Good friends get married,” Lilly pointed out. “Mommy says Daddy is her best friend in the whole wide world.”
“That’s true, Lilly,” Sophie conceded. How could she possibly convince them that she wasn’t going to marry Trevor? Probably best to use distraction as her tactic. “I need someone to measure the sugar.”
“Me!” Max raised his arm and waved it like he wanted to answer a question from the teacher, eager to be of service.
Sophie heaved an inward sigh of relief, thinking herself off the hook.
“Dontcha like Uncle Trevor?” Lilly asked, pursing her little lips.
“Of course I do, Lilly,” Sophie answered. “I like your uncle very much.”
Lilly rolled her eyes expressively. “Grown-ups.”
Sophie laughed at that. “I know the feeling, honey. I know the feeling.”
Trevor was doing his damnedest to ignore his sister and her husband as they sat together on the sofa in the living room. They were nauseatingly in love, even after nearly eight years of marriage. Although they were in the same room as him, it appeared as though they had forgotten his existence entirely. They were holding hands and looking at each other with puppy dog eyes and damn if Trevor wasn’t jealous.
He drummed his fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair he occupied, trying to force himself to watch television. Some ridiculous, so-called reality show was playing but it held no interest for him. Damn it, he wanted Sophie. But she was currently being monopolized by his niece and nephew, leaving him alone with the lovebirds.
Ah, the plans he’d had for their time together on the island. Sophie was ready to take the next step in their relationship, he could sense it. And God how he wanted it. He wanted to be free to take her in his arms, kiss her, touch her, and make love to her without her pulling away from him. It was fast becoming apparent, however, that none of these things were going to happen as long as Danielle and the kids were at the house. Christ, he was sleeping on the living room sofa tonight instead of in Sophie’s bed where he belonged.
Damn it.
The sound of Danielle’s voice interrupted his frustrated musings.
“Justin, why don’t you check on Sophie and the kids in the kitchen?”
Justin shot Trevor a meaningful look as he rose from the sofa and left the room, a look Trevor well recognized. It said look out loud and clear. Hell. Trevor wasn’t certain which was worse, sitting by while his sister got all lovey wi
th Justin, or being grilled by her himself. He’d been waiting for it to come, waiting for her to get him alone so that her curiosity could be satisfied.
Danielle rose from the sofa and seated herself in the chair next to Trevor’s, settling in for a chat. He wasn’t surprised. He had never introduced his woman-of-the-moment to his sister over the years. They hadn’t stayed in his life long enough for it to matter. Not that Trevor had intended to introduce Sophie to his family today, but there was no denying the rightness of it. Sophie was different, she was important, she was special. She was Sophie, and that was all.
“How long have you been seeing her?” Danielle asked him quietly so her voice wouldn’t carry to the kitchen.
Trevor thought about that for a moment. It felt as though Sophie had been in his life forever, odd as that was. It had become so natural for him to be with her, so easy, so unlike anything else he’d ever experienced.
“About a month,” he finally said.
“How did you meet?”
Trevor smiled wryly at that. “She got in an accident on the highway and I pulled her from her car.”
Danielle’s narrow black brows rose in surprise. “She’s the one you saved?”
A flush stained his cheekbones. “Not the classic method of meeting women, I know.”
“Oh, Trevor.” His sister’s eyes searched his. “You’re serious about her, aren’t you?”
His discomfort grew. “Define serious, Danielle.”
“You’re falling in love with her.” It wasn’t a question but a statement.
Oh hell. Was he? Was that what this crazy need for her was? Just to be with her, to see her smile, to hear her laugh, it made him happy. Did that mean he was falling in love with Sophie?
“I don’t know,” he began uncomfortably.
“You are, Trevor,” Danielle interrupted. “I can see it in the way you look at her. I’ve never in my life seen you like this. I never thought I would.”
Her last statement wrung a laugh from him. “The funny thing is that if you would have told me six months ago that all this would happen, I never would have believed you.”
Danielle reached out and gave his hand a squeeze, her heart written all over her face. “I’ve waited so long to see you happy.”
“I have too,” Trevor admitted. “I just didn’t know it.”
“The kids already love her,” Danielle murmured, as though that alone was enough to recommend Sophie.
Trevor nodded, troubled to find that the kids likely weren’t the only ones who had fallen under Sophie’s spell.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Danielle wanted to know next, her usual pragmatic self.
Trevor ran a hand through his hair. “Nothing yet, El. She lost her husband and daughter two years ago. The last thing I want to do is move too soon and scare her away.”
“Oh my Lord.” Danielle pressed a hand to her heart. “The poor dear. I had no idea. How did she get through it? I don’t think I could cope with losing Justin or the kids.”
Trevor didn’t tell his sister that Sophie almost hadn’t made her way through it. That was something that only he and Sophie knew and he imagined it would always stay that way.
“She’s strong,” Trevor responded truthfully.
She had needed someone to help her find that inner strength. Sophie had come a long way since he had pulled a broken woman from the wreckage of her car. Something that felt suspiciously like pride welled up within him. Damn it all, what had Sophie done to him? He was, as impossible as it was to contemplate, going soft.
“If you want, Justin, the kids and I can head back home tomorrow,” Danielle suggested helpfully, “and leave the two of you alone.”
As tempting as it sounded, Trevor wasn’t about to chase his sister and her family away from their vacation. Besides, he knew Sophie wouldn’t hear of it.
“Don’t be silly,” he told Danielle. “I think Sophie likes Max and Lilly more than she likes me.”
He hadn’t meant for the words to sound so plaintive, but that was how they sounded even to his own ears. Trevor was well aware he was acting like a little boy too selfish to share his favorite toy, but he couldn’t help it.
“I can see how that would happen,” Danielle teased.
“I know. She’s too good for me, really. She’s sweet and beautiful, not to mention that she’s an incredibly talented artist. You have to see some of her work, El. I took her canvases up to the Gallery and they sold like hotcakes. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Trevor abruptly stopped his accolades when he realized how love-struck he was beginning to sound. He had to look away from Danielle’s knowing gaze, feigning interest in the television.
“Reality TV is garbage,” he proclaimed into the silence that had descended between them, desperate to cover his embarrassment.
His attempt at deflection was not, however, met with much success. His sister patted his hand and gave him a sympathetic look that belied the twinkle in her eyes.
“Poor Trevor. You’ve got it bad,” she said before rising from the chair and heading into the kitchen.
No he didn’t. Just because he couldn’t stop thinking about her, just because he was halfway in love with the woman didn’t mean a thing.
“People fall in and out of love all the time,” he muttered to himself. “Look at the divorce rate.”
He didn’t have it bad, whatever that meant anyway. Danielle made it sound as if he had a stomach virus.
Admittedly, he wanted to be with Sophie his every waking hour. True, he had envisioned their future together on several occasions. But that didn’t mean he was a hopeless case. That didn’t mean a thing.
Christ, who was he kidding? He was jealous of his own niece and nephew for snagging so much of her attention, for God’s sake. A man couldn’t stoop much lower. Trevor heaved a sigh and glared at the offensive television. Danielle was right. He had it bad.
Sophie couldn’t sleep.
It wasn’t that the street outside was full of unnaturally loud traffic, because the night was still. It wasn’t that her bed was uncomfortable, or that she was too hot beneath her sheet and quilt. It certainly wasn’t that it was too early for her to be falling asleep. The alarm clock on her nightstand told her it was almost one in the morning.
No, there was only one reason why she kept fitfully turning onto first her left side, then her right. There was only one reason why she was irritably punching her pillow and muttering to herself.
That one reason was Trevor.
Spending the previous night in his arms had spoiled her. She wanted to feel the heat of his body merging with hers. She wanted to feel his strong arms wrapped around her, to feel his breath caressing her cheek. She needed to be close to him, to feel safe and loved and at peace with the world. But she couldn’t have Trevor, at least not right now with his sister and her family sleeping just doors away.
The knowledge was driving her crazy. It was becoming apparent there would be no sleeping on her part unless she did something to distract herself.
Her thought process halted and fell apart as she opened the door to reveal Trevor standing before her in his boxer briefs. He flicked on the lights, making her blink to adjust to the sudden change. As always, his gaze on hers ignited some primal fire within her. They stared at one another in the semi-darkness for a few moments, each taking the other in.
“Can I come in?” He finally asked.
Wordlessly, Sophie stepped back and held the door open wide for him. She closed it with a soft click after he stepped over the threshold. Desperately trying to ignore the pang of yearning in her heart at the mere sight of him, she focused on his right shoulder.
“Sophie, I’m dying out there.” The ache in his voice forced her to look him in the eye.
What she saw reflected there made her knees go weak. She barely restrained herself from flying into his arms. She wanted to go to him, press herself to his warmth, and kiss him. Make love with him.
Oh God.
He looked at her expectantly, as though waiting for her to say something.
But what could she say to him in a moment like this? She was afraid her heart was in her eyes.
“To hell with it,” he muttered. The next instant, he pulled her into his embrace, right where she longed to be.
His arms wrapped around her tightly and she slid hers around his lean waist. She pressed her face against his chest, breathing deeply of him. He buried his face in her hair. The longing passing between them was so poignant, so potent, it nearly hung suspended in the air.
“I want you so damn much that it hurts,” Trevor said, sounding as frustrated as she felt.
His arousal pressed against her insistently, lending credence to his words.
Too caught up in the intensity of the moment to care for consequences, Sophie reached up and hooked her arms around his neck.
“Kiss me,” she demanded.
And he obliged. Oh, did he oblige.
His lips, as they molded hers, were hungry and demanding, skilled and powerful. They made her dizzy, weak, overwhelmed. She opened her mouth for his probing tongue, moaning when he deepened the kiss. His hands gripped her butt, grinding her against him. Her hands sank into his hair.
She was drowning, awash in a tidal wave of sensation from which there was no escape. Not that she wanted one, of course. Sophie had never in her life felt so aflame, helplessly caught up in the raging fires of passion. Nothing could have prepared her for it.
Trevor tore his lips from hers, his breathing ragged. “I couldn’t sleep, knowing you were in here.”
“I couldn’t either,” she confessed. “I needed to touch you.”
“This isn’t what I planned, sweetheart,” he murmured.
“I know,” she said, thinking he spoke of the intense need that flowed like a river between them.
Her heart thudded at the sincerity in his eyes. She kissed his cheek, his chin, the tip of his nose. Strange how quickly his handsome face had become so important to her. Not very long ago, seeing his face had meant the difference between living and dying for her as he gave her new reasons to live. In some ways, it still did.
Reprieve (Love's Second Chance Book 1) Page 11