“Mom has her on Fridays,” Brady answered.
He flattened a hand against his back pocket, as if to check that his cell phone was there. It was an unnecessary gesture, since he’d put it there just seconds ago. He was on edge, just as she was. His strong shoulders were held tight, and he curled his hands into fists then let them go again.
“She works Monday through Thursday,” he went on. “So on those days Scarlett’s in day care. You’re earlier than I was expecting. I was just about to go pick her up from Mom’s. Here…” He opened the door.
It was a big room, built over the whole area of the double garage, and it was lit by large windows on three sides. The white drapes looked new. Libby recognized her own queen-sized oak sleigh bed, with matching tallboy and dresser, her own delicately flower-sprigged sheet set, comforter and pillows, and the oak glider-rocker she’d bought last year, for sitting in to feed a bottle to Colleen.
Brady had angled the rocker so that it would get bathed in southern winter sun, and the matching oak crib was right next to it, made up with Colleen’s white broderie anglaise bed linen.
Finally, on top of the tallboy, sitting on a plastic place-mat, there was a pewter beer tankard stuffed—yes, you’d have to call it stuffed—with a big bunch of supermarket flowers, still swathed in their silver wrapping.
“Anything you want moved,” Brady offered, “just say so.”
“No, it looks good.” Apart from the supermarket sticker on the flowers.
The flowers said a lot. He must have remembered she liked to have them around the house. He’d taken the trouble to buy some. But he didn’t have a clue how to arrange them, and he didn’t even own a proper vase. The mix of thoughtfulness and clumsiness somehow softened her heart to a dangerous level.
They were both trying so hard.
So hard.
That had to be a good thing, didn’t it?
“It’s a great room,” she told him, meaning it.
“There’s a bathroom right next door that’s just for you.”
“You didn’t have to make the bed.”
He shrugged. “You moved your life seven-hundred-odd miles. I made a bed. Are we even yet?”
She laughed, and it eased a little of the awkwardness in the air. Colleen wriggled out of her arms, toddled forward and launched herself at the rocking chair. Her fat, diaper-wrapped bottom stuck out and she buried her face in the cushion seat. She was attached to this chair, and Libby was grateful for the presence of the familiar object. All of this had to be confusing for a young child. It was confusing enough for an adult!
“Let me help unload your car, then I’ll go get Scarlett,” Brady said, watching Lisa-Belle watch Colleen.
He felt that they needed both girls here, blatantly identical, to remind them of why they were putting themselves through this. It was awkward. No doubt about that. He’d had Nate badgering him in one ear when she arrived. He hadn’t known what to say to her.
Welcome to my life?
And the flowers were probably dumb.
“Are you hungry?” he said, his voice gruff. “I could fix you coffee and a snack and you and Colleen can eat while I unpack.”
“I’m fine. I’m not leaving all the unpacking to you.”
No, Libby, honey, you missed your cue.
He’d been trying to give them both an out, a way not to have to eyeball each other as they went back and forth with boxes and bags for the next ten minutes. She hadn’t taken it. He tried again. “Or take a shower if you want.”
“Tonight. Not now.” She was too wrapped inside her own tension to perceive her wide-open escape route. “We should unpack.”
Colleen followed her mommy back and forth, threatening a couple of times to trip Brady up as he came in the opposite direction. He had to watch out for her underfoot, and he had to be careful, but he knew Scarlett would have done the exact same thing in an unfamiliar situation. Both girls were a little clingy.
Libby distracted him. She was petite, but she didn’t play helpless. She did her share. As he approached the car for his second load, he saw her leaning into the back seat to pick up a box, her bottom taut and round beneath a floral skirt that somehow managed to be both soft and flowing and sexily clingy at the same time. His body stirred and his blood felt as heavy as lead.
Ah, hell! This again!
This attraction that he didn’t want. The mechanics of male anatomy were a damned nuisance, sometimes. What would she think if she knew he was looking at her this way? How was he going to handle it, having her sleeping under his roof, maybe for weeks?
It had become clear during the day and a half he’d spent in Minnesota that she wasn’t involved with anyone there, and it must be pretty obvious to her that he hadn’t dated since Stacey’s death. Physically, his needs tormented him at times, but emotionally he felt only reluctance about any kind of involvement, and so in that area he was very much alone.
On paper, therefore, they were both free to leap into bed with each other tonight, as soon as the girls were asleep.
Who would know?
Whose business would it be, anyhow?
But he didn’t believe you could put sex in its own little compartment that didn’t impinge on the rest of your life, even if that was a convenient theory for some men, and he was sure that Libby wouldn’t believe it, either.
Sex mattered. Even sharing a kitchen could matter.
They had the girls to consider. They had to create a workable, co-operative relationship that would survive the next twenty years, and if they stuffed it up with sex and domestic illusions and a short-lived affair right at the beginning, it would be their daughters who would suffer the most.
He should have given Libby the phone number of one of the motels along Olentangy River Road and left her to fend for herself, honor and duty be damned. It might have been a necessary protection for both of them.
The car was full. Several suitcases, those boxes, and what looked like a big styrofoam cooler that Libby carried through the house and into the kitchen at the back. Two of the boxes she wanted in the kitchen as well.
“What’s in these?” he asked.
“Pantry goods. I thought I might as well bring them rather than throwing them out.”
“And in the cooler?”
“Frozen casseroles. Chicken and mushroom. Burgundy beef. Irish stew.”
Brady’s mouth began to water. So she cooked. She actually cooked. Having tasted her baking the day they’d first met, he was in no doubt whatsoever that she would cook well, and he hadn’t eaten a woman’s home-cooked meal in so long he could hardly remember what it was like.
Mom used to slap together a few easy recipes several nights in the week when he was a kid, but she’d stopped altogether when Dad had died ten years ago. She ate strange little evening meals now, like cottage cheese and sliced banana on toast, or canned soup in a mug. She was a big fan of the drive-through window at the local fast-food chain, too. Now that Scarlett had outgrown jars of baby food, so was Brady.
Burgundy beef, on the other hand… Shoot, but that sounded good!
“We could have one of them tonight, if you don’t have anything planned,” Libby offered.
Uh, no, he didn’t have anything planned.
He told her so, while realizing that he should have planned a whole lot of things. So that they didn’t have to confront the weird reality of their new situation. If either of them made too many mistakes at the beginning, their commitment to putting their daughters’ relationship first might show up as impossibly naive and unworkable.
They could end up in court, hating each other. That guilty wish—Libby had admitted to it, as well—that his mom had never seen Colleen’s photo in that magazine might turn into a bitter, lifelong and reasoned regret.
“I’ll put two of these in the freezer and leave the third to thaw,” Libby said.
“Burgundy beef sounds good,” he suggested, a little embarrassed at the eagerness that immediately crept into his voice.
<
br /> She smiled. “Burgundy beef it is, then.”
The sun struggled through a thin patch in the low, smoky cloud at that moment and the kitchen lit up, striking her blond hair, giving that melted-candy look to her pretty mouth. His blood slowed and his groin stirred again.
He was hungry. Not burgundy-beef hungry, but candy hungry, hungry for a woman’s sweet, melting mouth, hungry for her soft skin, for the touch of her fingers and the press of her breasts. Hungry for this woman. Just because she was here?
“I’ll go pick up Scarlett,” he said abruptly. Libby was staring at him, lips parted, eyes startled and swimming with heat. “Please make yourselves at home.” He grabbed his keys from a pocket, headed out the side door and let out a sigh of relief as soon as he reached the steps.
Chapter Four
“Make yourselves at home?” Libby muttered, after Brady had gone.
For how long would they need to do that? A week? A month? There was a pile of newspapers on the table in the breakfast nook, and she realized that he must have been collecting and saving the real estate section from the Columbus Dispatch for her, for the past three or four weeks. Flipping through the top copy, she saw that he’d circled a few places with a yellow highlighter pen.
Thoughtful.
Or was he just trying to get rid of her fast? She supported that plan. Standing in the kitchen together just now, the current between them had almost glowed. Her spine still tingled. Her breasts still ached. When she wrapped her arms around herself, it was his heat that she felt.
Colleen tugged at her skirt. “Fir-sty,” she said.
“You’re thirsty, honey?”
“’N hundwy, too.”
“Let’s see what we’ve got.”
There was milk in the fridge. Not a lot else.
She remembered some packets of peanut butter crackers in one of the pantry boxes and dug them out, looked around and discovered Colleen’s own high chair sitting beside Scarlett’s in a corner of the big kitchen. Libby slid the high chair out from the wall and lifted Colleen into it, and Colleen seemed quite happy to accept that it was here.
Hello, chair.
Libby peered through to the living room. There was none of her stuff in here. In the end, she’d rented her house out partly furnished to some friends who were renovating their own place, and she’d only brought enough to furnish a modest apartment here in Columbus. It was part of the not-burning-her-boats strategy she and Brady had both agreed on. She’d have to fly home in a couple of months to make a more long-term arrangement, but she didn’t want to think about that yet.
Brady’s living room was very masculine, furnished with brown leather sofas—a two-seater, a three-seater and an armchair—a large, low, heavy-looking coffee table made of dark wood, a square of Persian carpet on the hardwood floor, an open fire-place and a series of framed, limited edition photos of spectacular moments in sport.
The photos were just about the last thing in the world she would have chosen to put her own walls, but they were high-quality pictures, expertly hung, and the effect was far more attractive and dramatic than she would have expected. She actually liked it.
Colleen banged her cup on her chair tray and started singing, and Libby ducked back into the kitchen to make sure she wasn’t trying to climb out. That day would come soon. Now there were going to be two such bold little girls, pushing the boundaries of parental fear in this way. Examining the industrial-strength safety harness Brady had attached to Scarlett’s high chair, Libby was in no doubt that Colleen’s twin must be attempting Houdini-like feats.
Brady hadn’t said how long he expected to be. Libby phoned Chicago to let her mom know that she and Colleen had safely arrived. To get off to a good start, she also called a few numbers on the list of gynecology specialists that her St. Paul ob/gyn practice had given her and managed to get an appointment with the third one on the list for a Monday afternoon, two and a half weeks away.
If she was going to build a successful life here, she wasn’t going to let the grass grow under her feet when it came to practical details. She’d been meaning to make this particular appointment for a while, but somehow hadn’t gotten to it before she left. To be honest, she’d been putting it off.
Colleen finished her snack and clamored to be let down. After reminding her of the existence of “please,” Libby complied. Once again, she felt restless and jittery, and Colleen was getting antsy now, too, wanting to explore.
Together, they started unpacking the pantry boxes, finding the shelf where Brady kept cereal, and the one where he kept canned goods. If this was “making themselves at home” to a greater degree than he’d intended, he’d have to tell her so.
She heard the hum and rumble of his garage door about fifteen minutes later, and he soon appeared at the side door, with Scarlett in his arms. She was dressed in denim overalls with a red sweater beneath, and Libby wanted to hold her and hug her and tell her, “Guess what? You have a mommy now!”
She didn’t do it. She was too scared, and anyhow for Scarlett it would have been way too soon.
When was the awkwardness going to subside?
The girls just stared at each other. Sisters? They were strangers! Brady took in the peanut butter cracker crumbs on the high chair, the sippy cup on the sink, the open pantry door and the plastic storage container of burgundy beef on the counter-top. It had started leaking melted freezer frost onto the duck-egg-green formica.
“I was just—” Libby began.
“It’s fine. Scarlett had a big snack at Mom’s.” He looked at his watch and frowned.
Could I cut this air with a knife, or what? Brady thought.
His watch confirmed that at least three hours remained until they could put the girls to bed, and probably five or six until Libby would want to hit the hay herself. He’d spent several minutes at Mom’s convincing her, not for the first time, that she couldn’t rush over here right now to scoop Colleen into her arms. As far as she was concerned, she had a second grandchild now, and she was just as excited as she’d been when he and Stacey had brought Scarlett home. Maybe even more so.
“And why can’t I come over?” she’d wanted to know, as if he hadn’t been through all this with her before.
“It wouldn’t be fair to Lisa-Belle,” he’d said. “Or to Colleen.”
Problem was, he wasn’t good at articulating this kind of stuff. It really wouldn’t be fair. There were reasons, but he couldn’t pin them down in words. Fatigue. Overload. Take it slow. Give them time. Don’t scare them, when this is already scary enough.
And now they were just standing here, face-to-face—Libby’s eyes were so big and blue and pretty—and neither of them knew what to say or do next. He’d been absent a little longer than he wanted. The traffic cops had just closed off Lane Avenue for the annual Ohio State University Fall Homecoming Parade, and the traffic was heavier than usual, coming back from Grandview, up Route 315.
“Listen,” he said on an impulse he didn’t stop to rethink. “Would you like some fresh air and a little exercise? The Homecoming Parade is on soon. It’s hokey, but it’s fun. They throw candy from the floats, and wind up with the marching band coming past, and it really is the Best Damned Band In the Land, so it can be fun.”
“Yes, let’s do that. It sounds nice.” She grinned, looking relieved, which confirmed his sense that she’d felt as uncomfortable as he was about what to do next, reluctant to leave any space for the electricity to come crackling back into the air. “Although I should tell you,” she added, “we have a pretty good college marching band at home, too.”
“Don’t even start,” he threatened, grinning wider than she was. “You’re talking to a die-hard Buckeye, remember?”
“So when should we go?”
“Five minutes? Is that too soon for you? We’ll have to park north of campus, get the girls in their coats and hats, and strapped in their strollers. It’s chilling down out there. We’ll go in my car, so you’ll need to shift Colleen’s car seat, to
o. Maybe we don’t have time for this, after all…”
“Shifting her seat’ll only take a minute. I left our coats in the bedroom upstairs, and I’m going to change into some pants, if we’ll be standing around in the dark.”
The imminent prospect of getting out of the house energized and de-stressed them both, and the girls picked up on the atmosphere at once. Scarlett refused to get into her coat and wanted to turn it into a game of chase. She toddled at her usual breakneck speed around the circuit of living room to hall to kitchen and through to the living room again, shrieking with laughter.
Brady let her get away with it and pretended he couldn’t catch up to her. Finally, he cornered her by the side table in the front hall when, helpless with hiccupping laughs, she tripped over her own feet.
“Got you! Now I’m going to wrap you up in a parcel so tight, you’ll never get loose,” he threatened, then saw Colleen watching the two of them with her big, dark eyes, through the wooden spindles of the stair rail. She’d retreated to a position several steps up.
“Want to play, too?” he offered.
His heart gave that little lurch he’d only just begun to get used to. He had two daughters, now, only this one didn’t understand that, yet, and she was a little nervous away from her own territory. He was only beginning to understand it himself, and didn’t push Colleen to get over her shyness. It would take time.
Libby came down a couple of minutes later, while Colleen was still sitting on the stairs. Libby wore jeans that hugged her legs and hips the way frosting hugged the top of a cake, and a stretchy top with long sleeves and a wide, round neck, covered in a sprinkle of flowers.
There was a row of pearly little buttons running down the front of the top. They didn’t run all the way. They stopped right between her delicious, rounded breasts—and so did his gaze. One open button, and he’d be able to see a shadow, two and he’d be able to bury his face there and taste her skin. Sweet jiminy!
Enough, Brady, he coached himself. Enough!
Balancing Act (Silhouette Special Edition) Page 5