by London Hale
Yet there I was, storming into the hospital because I knew she’d be alone. I knew she’d need someone. And I wanted that someone to be me.
“Lara McKay,” I said as soon as I approached the information desk. The man behind it, who wore an obnoxiously decorated sticker with the name Paul in the middle of it, frowned and typed, frowned and typed. Slowly. If he’d been an employee of mine, I’d have fired him already. And that was before he started humming to himself.
“Car accident,” I said, doing my best not to grit my teeth. “Came in through the emergency room.”
He nodded and pressed a few more buttons at the pace of a sloth. “Got it. Looks like she’s in the surgical ward. Are you family?”
“Yes, I am.” The lie came easily—too easily—but the fact that my own cousin was a surgeon here had taught me a few things. Like that only family was allowed in the surgical waiting room, and that the volunteers behind the desk would never ask for proof of relationship.
Paul did not disappoint. “Perfect. Okay, here’s a guest badge. Please wear it throughout the hospital. Surgery is up on—”
“Four,” I said, cutting him off as I snatched the plastic badge from his fingers. “Yeah, I got it. Thanks.”
I rushed to the elevators and jabbed the up button more times than necessary. The damn thing seemed to take forever to arrive and even longer for the doors to slide closed behind me. What was it with this place and obstacles?
As I stared at the lights telling me what floor we were on, my impatience burned hot under my skin, my need to get upstairs harsh and painful. I would’ve liked to have said it was for Lara. She was a nice lady, pretty and sexy. Between her looks, her charm, and the fact that we were the youngest parents on the PTA—fully a decade younger than the rest—it would have made sense for us to date. Hell, we’d even flirted a bit when the girls first met and we started seeing each other at playdates and birthday parties. Two single people in their early twenties trying to navigate the waters of being a parent and an adult tended to gravitate together. But no, she wasn’t for me. No one had been, really.
I’d kept any romantic connections private—very private. Temperance Falls was a small island with big eyes and even bigger ears. The last thing I needed was to start dating someone and risk my reputation. I had a little girl to raise, one I protected with everything I had. Lara had been barely more than a blip on my attraction screen.
Her daughter was a whole different story, and I was going to end up in hell for the thoughts I’d had about her. Those thoughts—fantasies, if I was being honest—had started recently. Really recently. Just since the night barely over a week ago, when she’d sat on my couch talking with me as if we were old friends. Leg up and tucked beneath her, far too much skin on display, red hair tumbling over her shoulders—she’d been a dream come true. A siren calling to the basest parts of me. And smart. The girl was charming, personable, witty…and sex on legs. I’d barely been able to resist her; the only thing keeping me from pinning her under me was the knowledge that my own daughter, Gen’s best friend, had been sleeping upstairs at the time. That and the fact that she was far too young for me. Probably.
Think of the devil, and he shall appear…
“Brandon.” Genesis caught me as I stepped off the elevator, those killer eyes meeting mine. They were so bloodshot, so pained, so worried. I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed the girl and pulled her into a hug, shielding her as much as I could with my body.
“Are you okay?” I asked, nearly shaking with my need to press myself against her. To feel more of those curves. To hold her tight and never let her go so I didn’t have to think about what would have happened if she’d been in the same car as her mom when it went over the bridge. Fuck, she wasn’t mine in any way, but that would have killed me.
Gen clutched my shoulders, her delicate fingers pressing deep, and nodded against my chest. “I’m fine. My mom’s bad, though. There’s swelling around her brain, plus her leg’s pretty mangled. I don’t… I’m not sure what we’re going to do.”
The fear in her voice gutted me. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
A silent moment, the feel of her body melting into mine, and then she cried. Hard. Fuck, that wasn’t like Gen. The girl was loud, brash, and audacious. Sexy in a way that stopped men in their tracks. I’d done a good job of ignoring those facts as she grew into them, but then last week, after Evie’s graduation party… I couldn’t ignore them anymore. And I hated myself for thinking about that while she sobbed in my arms. Asshole of the Year award, well deserved.
A polite cough had me turning, though I didn’t let go of Gen. I kept her wrapped up and safe. Close to me.
“Hey, Brandon.” My cousin stood before me looking tired and slightly curious. Of course, he did—I had a sexy-as-fuck eighteen-year-old in my arms. Shit.
“Josh. Good to see you.” I reached out a hand, moving Gen into my side so our embrace looked a little more appropriate. Which was fine so long as no one noticed the massive fucking hard-on I was now sporting. “How’s Lara doing?”
“She’s hanging in. Her lower left leg is broken in three places, and her MCL is completely torn. We have the best orthopedic surgery team on their way in to take care of that, but it’s not our priority.” He glanced at Gen, who was still tucked against me with her hand on my chest. “Your mom took a pretty solid hit to the head, and that’s the issue we need to address immediately. There’s a lot of swelling, and that can cause brain damage, but this isn’t a touch-and-go situation. We’ll relieve the pressure by opening up a flap in her skull and keep her unconscious for a few days to give her brain time to heal.”
Gen felt rigid in my arms, so I jumped in with the first question I needed answered. “So, you’re operating today. When will they operate on her leg?”
“The team should be here tomorrow.”
The single parent in me couldn’t help but ask, “And what’s her recovery timeline?”
Josh held my gaze, his concern obvious. “Minimum two weeks in the hospital, then another two to six in rehab. It depends on the amount of damage—if any—to her brain.”
Four weeks minimum. Gen could end up alone, without someone to look over her, for a month. In the back of my mind, I knew she didn’t need another person around, but that didn’t appease the instinctual part of me that didn’t want her unprotected.
“Okay.” Gen pulled away from me before I could decide what to do about the four-week thing, squaring her shoulders, a little of that fire back in her eyes. “When can I see her?”
Josh frowned, shooting a look my way before refocusing on the woman before him. “You can see her now, but only for a few minutes. I want her in an operating room within the hour.”
“Fine. Let’s go.” Gen snatched her bag off a chair, then reached as if to grab my hand. Looking somewhat lost. Somewhat vulnerable. Looking as if she needed me. “Come with me?”
Fuck, the dirty places my brain went when she said that, when she looked at me like that. How could I possibly tell her no?
“Of course.”
We followed Josh to a room off the main hallway. The place was dim, almost dark, but not enough that we couldn’t see the woman huddled under the sheet. Couldn’t see the bruises and cuts, the pillow-like device holding her leg in place. Gen stiffened when she walked in, completely froze for a moment as she took in the sight of her mother so damaged. I squeezed her hand and hoped my presence offered at least a modicum of comfort.
“Five minutes,” Josh whispered as he caught my eye. “I’ll talk to you later?”
I nodded, knowing that talk would be about why I was touching a young girl who wasn’t my daughter. Shit, a woman. I needed to remember that. Gen was eighteen.
Just like my daughter.
Who was fucking my best friend.
When had my life become a soap opera?
“Mom,” Gen whispered, leaning over the bed. I stayed back, kept out of the way. Gave the two ladies their space. Lara’s eyes fluttered
a few times before finally opening, focusing in on her daughter immediately.
“Gen.” Her voice was rough, pained. Too quiet. “You okay?”
Gen huffed a laugh. “You were the one in a car accident, but you’re asking if I’m okay?”
“It’s the mom in me. I can’t help myself.”
“I’m fine. How are you?”
“I feel like I got hit by a semitruck and fell off a bridge. Oh wait, I did.”
“Mom, be serious.”
“Fine. I feel like ass. Everything hurts, even focusing my eyes.”
“The doctor’s going to fix you.”
“I know.” She licked her lips, glancing my way. “Brandon, can you take her?”
My eyes darted to Gen before returning to the patient. “Lara?”
“I don’t want her home alone for days on end. Can you take her? Let her come stay with you and Evie?”
Temptation had a way of making you do things you shouldn’t. Wrong things. I should have told Lara that Evie no longer lived with me. That maybe Gen staying with me—the man who had jacked off to thoughts of her every day for the past week—wouldn’t be a good idea. The right thing would have been not to lust after a teenager.
I did not do the right thing.
“Of course. Gen can stay with me as long as she’d like.”
Gen stiffened, her shoulders going tight as she glanced back at me, then addressed her mother. “Mom, no. I can stay at home by myself. I’m almost nineteen. I don’t need a handler.”
“I know you don’t, but I’d feel better if I knew you were taken care of.” She flicked her eyes in my direction, and my guilt multiplied. “Otherwise, I’m just going to be in here, worrying about you.”
The fight in Gen went out as soon as her mom spoke the words. “Fine. But promise the only thing you’ll think about while you’re in here is getting better.”
“I promise. I know Brandon will take good care of you.”
Yeah, I would. Hopefully without letting her know how much her curvy little body turned me on. How hard it was for me not to reach out and touch every inch of her pale skin. How fucking hard she made me every single day.
There was no denying it. I was going to hell. One I created for myself.
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Nanny With Benefits Sneak Peek
It’s time to take things indoors…
Book three of the Temperance Falls series features a hot, young widower and the nanny who lives right down the hall.
Come, pick a spot on the dock, and grab some lemonade. Things are about to heat up on the island as we bring you the next story in the Temperance Falls world.
She’s completely off limits
In my eyes—and those of every woman on Temperance Falls—Doctor Josh Hutton is the ultimate catch: single dad, handsome surgeon, and lonely widower all rolled into one. He’s also my boss. I shouldn’t want to take our relationship from professional to personal, but I ache thinking about even one night in his bed.
His control is slipping
I know better than to lust after Bailey, but that doesn’t stop me from doing it. She’s my employee, the person who cares for my son when I can’t, which only makes the dirty thoughts I have about her even more inappropriate. But she’s also a beautiful, sexy woman living under my roof, and that temptation is hard to resist. A door left ajar and a breathy moan is all it takes. One night of pushed boundaries, and all my rules go out the window.
Chapter One
Joshua
It’d been a year and a half since Bailey had shown up on our doorstep, hoping to become Max’s live-in nanny, and I still wasn’t used to her. I hadn’t quite figured out how to get rid of that punch to my stomach whenever I looked at her. That jolt to my chest when she’d turn her gaze my way and smile. That tightness to my cock whenever that husky laugh of hers left her lips.
Since it was obvious it wasn’t anything that was going away, I’d functioned by ignoring it. Or I’d attempted to anyway. It wasn’t exactly easy to do when the subject of your infatuation lived in your house, occupying the bedroom next to your own.
Even worse than the pull I felt toward her was how easy it was for me to pretend this whole thing was real. That I wasn’t looking at Bailey, my nanny, waving from across the street while holding my son’s hand. But that I was looking at my family. It wasn’t hard to picture—Max shared her coloring, his fair skin matching hers and his dark brown hair only a shade or two lighter than hers. Besides that, though, it was obvious how much she loved him. On the handful of times we’d taken trips to the mainland, she’d gotten mistaken for his mom more than once.
That was something that never happened in Temperance Falls, of course. Everyone knew of the tragic car accident that had taken Max’s mom—my wife—away. We’d been the talk of the island in the time since then. As much as I loved this place, loved it for Max, sometimes I wished we had the anonymity of a larger city. Where no one knew our business. Where I didn’t get asked at the grocery store almost two years later how everything was going at home, if I was handling things okay. Trouble was, everyone on the island still saw me as one-half of a whole that would never be again.
But I’d moved on. I’d loved my wife more than anything, had thought I’d spend the rest of my life with her while raising a family. But it had been almost two years since she’d died. I’d mourned her death, and I’d mourned the loss of the life I’d pictured us having together. I’d had to, because I had Max to think about. I couldn’t spend my days wishing for something that would never be when I had a sad three-year-old who didn’t understand why his mom wasn’t coming back. I’d had to make things normal for him again, and I’d done that by grieving and moving on. It was a healthy step in the right direction, yet with every question from a well-meaning neighbor or friend or relative, it made me feel like I’d done something wrong in getting on with my life.
Or attempting to.
I’d come to the point where I’d contemplated dating again. Trouble was, it seemed the only person I had the capacity to feel any sort of attraction to was my too-young nanny. Wasn’t that just a kick to the nuts?
I crossed Main Street after saying goodbye to my cousin Brandon, attempting to discard the words he’d said to me. How he’d said Max and Bailey were my beautiful family. The gossip train had been going a mile a minute since Brandon and Genesis, his daughter’s best friend, had gotten together. It was all I’d heard for the past week in the hospital cafeteria. I knew what that was like—had been living it for far too long—but his situation was something completely different. He’d changed his whole life for a girl. Attraction or not, that wasn’t something I was willing to do again.
Bailey stood with a tight grip on Max’s hand as he bounced at her heels, waiting for me to get across the street, dancing like he had ants in his pants. I knew he wanted to drop her hand and run to me, but after a scary near-miss with a car speeding through a crosswalk when we’d visited Chicago one weekend, the rule was no letting go of hands without permission. Even while we were on the island where the speed limit topped twenty-five in most places, we didn’t take chances.
“Daddy!” Max looked up at Bailey, silently asking for permission to let go of her hand once I was close enough. She gave him a quick nod and released her hold, which was all the notice I had before thirty-five pounds of excitable five-year-old jumped into my arms.
“Hey, buddy. How was the park?”
“So fun. Bee went down the slide with me!”
“Bailey tried to go down the slide with you.” She rolled her eyes as she fell into step next to me. With a wry smile directed my way, she said, “Bailey got stuck.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that broke free, picturing her getting stuck on the twisty slide. “How’d you get down?”
“With a bucket of mortification dumped over me and a whole heck of a lot of wiggling.” She reached over and tugged o
n one of Max’s legs. “But it made Max laugh, and that’s all that matters.”
Like always, I was so grateful we’d found Bailey. The search for a nanny had been a long and arduous one, and then Bailey had shown up, and it had been like they’d both fallen in love with each other right then and there. Max had clicked with her instantly, and I’d known immediately she’d be the one. And the connection the two shared hadn’t waned at all—if anything, it had only grown.
Max pushed away from my chest, wanting to be let down, so I obliged, setting him carefully between Bailey and me. Without hesitation, he grabbed both of our hands and began swinging them back and forth. Having done this a hundred times before, Bailey and I knew the score and lifted him off the ground by silent agreement, swinging him into the air as we walked.
After a few swings in the air, he rushed ahead of us, tugging us along behind him. “Daddy and Bee, we gotta hurry ’cause Nana’s comin’ to get me!”
“Do you even know the way home?” I shook his hand, getting his attention. “I think you might be taking us in the wrong direction,” I teased.
“Nuh-uh, Daddy.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the too-colorful monstrosity on the corner. “We turn at the playhouse.”
“The playhouse, huh? That’s a nice name for it.”
“I figured Victorian nightmare might not be appropriate,” Bailey whispered to me.
I looked down at her, and that was a mistake. Her coffee-colored eyes were sparkling as she stared up at me, the wind blowing strands of her dark hair across her face. One piece got stuck on her bottom lip, which only managed to draw my gaze. Her lips were always a distraction—pink and luscious and full, brushed in some kind of shiny gloss. I wanted to lick it off and see what it tasted like. See what she tasted like under it.
Clearing my throat and hoping to God my jeans hid my erection, I turned away from her. “Good call,” I said, my voice scratchy and rough. Christ, I sounded like I’d just fucked my way through half the island.