by Maggie Wells
Letting her lips part in mock shock, she gave him the big, wide calf’s eyes. “You mean not everything I read on the Internet is true?”
Jake chuckled again and looked away. “I’m a firm believer in gathering hard data before tossing hypotheses out there. And Darla, I have to tell you, I’m getting conflicting information here.”
She wet her lips, then caught the bottom one, sucking pensively while she absorbed the truth of his statement. “I know,” she said at last. “I can handle the dishes.”
And maybe by then, she’d get a leash on her impulses, too.
“Dr. Jake, I think I’ve got Saturn,” Grace called, her voice squeaking with excitement.
“Saturn, huh?” Jake took his time pushing away from the doorway. He unfolded his arms and straightened to his full height. The move was lithe, almost lazy, but impossibly masculine. “Now that’s a sight to see.” His eyes locked on Darla’s. “Have you ever seen Saturn?”
“I’ve been to every planetarium on the Gulf Coast,” she said with a wry smile.
“Have you ever seen Saturn through a telescope your daughter pointed at the sky?”
Shooting one last wistful glance at the piles of dishes and the respite they promised, she wagged her head silently.
Jake smiled, something hot and challenging igniting in his eyes as he held out his hand. “Well, then you’d better come, too.”
They made the obligatory oohs and ahhs over the discovery, but Darla hung back again. The angle allowed her to ogle Jake’s butt while feigning rapt attention to the proceedings. Her thoughts were all over the place, skipping like a flat rock across a still pond.
He knew, but that was okay. She knew, too.
There was no doubt in her wine-muddled mind he was every bit as aware of her as she was of him. But this was different. She hadn’t had her first post-Gracie date until her daughter was almost four. She’d agreed to go to a movie with Charlie Beatty, a very nice man who worked for the local restaurant supply company. They’d gone to see one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. She wasn’t sure exactly which one it was, because five minutes into the show a baby in the back of the theater began to fuss, and Darla burst into noisy, snuffly, sympathetic tears.
She’d gotten better at dating over the years, even going so far as to lay awake for nearly three quarters of the night in Steve Greer’s bed before shaking him awake and claiming parental emergency. She’d crept silent as a burglar into Connie Cade’s house and slipped into her daughter’s bed without making Gracie stir. She dubbed herself a ninja mother, and consigned her sex life to a few mutually agreeable short-term arrangements she kept far, far away from her daughter.
And here. Now. She’d invited a man into their home. Their sacred, heretofore unsullied-by-any-man-but-Harley, girl space. And Harley didn’t count. He only came over when they needed something lifted or fixed.
Tipping her head to the side, she watched Jake and wondered if he was any good with lifting and fixing. Grace had blabbed Jake was coming over when they’d had dinner at Connie’s house the night before. Darla cringed inwardly as she gave unnecessary explanations about Gracie’s project and Jake’s involvement in the Young Scientists Foundation. Nothing she said did anything to dull the speculative gleam in Delaney Tarrington’s sharp eyes or dim Connie’s hopeful smile. Only Harley seemed undisturbed by the announcement. He kept shoveling in the meatloaf and mumbled something about Jake being a good guy. When pressed, he added in a couple of comments about knowing his ass from a knothole and a ‘crazy’ ability to eyeball measurements with surprising accuracy.
One thing was for sure, he was turning out to be a lot harder to resist than Darla had prepped herself for. Yeah, she was keyed in on the physical attributes, and she knew he was kind and well-mannered, but she hadn’t counted on the punch of the total package. Particularly not when the heat that sizzled between them in the kitchen followed them into the living area.
Darla kept sneaking glances at her daughter, wondering if she was at all attuned to the buzz humming through the room. In the past year, her quiet, studious daughter had suddenly become more aware of the opposite sex. So far, Grace’s scrutiny hadn’t zeroed in on any one boy in particular—heaven help the one who caught her attention—but the signs were there. The heightened interest in haircuts and having the right jeans. The lightly padded training bras they’d picked out together. The heavy sighs came from the recliner whenever Peeta Mellark appeared on the screen during The Hunger Games. Thankfully, she seemed to be too wrapped up in the possibilities of space to worry about her mother’s earthier impulses.
Because acknowledging those would prove horrifying for both of them.
Oh, but she had those impulses and not one of them was on a leash. Damn Jake for not letting her hide in the kitchen. Now, all she could do was stand there and make nonsensical noises of approval as whatever Grace was saying drifted in one ear and out the other. She couldn’t focus on anything but the heavenly body standing right in front of her. And God, he was perfect. Not only in the way he looked or acted toward her, but in the easy camaraderie he seemed to have developed with her kid.
As a parent, she couldn’t help but appreciate the simple but non-condescending way he layered bits of instruction and insight with praise as he made minor adjustments to the instrument’s alignment. He talked with a thirteen-year-old girl with stars in her eyes as if she were a colleague, asking her opinion on things and offering his in return, but not forcing his thoughts on her. He pointed out barely visible objects in the evening sky with assurance and a boyish hint of wonder. The conversation between the two flew at warp speed, bouncing from one topic to another, and gaining an almost reckless momentum.
Darla dragged her focus away from the taper of Jake’s back and checked in for a conversational touchstone, in case either of them remembered she was there. She tuned in just in time to hear Grace accuse Jake of wanting a plastic lightsaber and Jake boasting he already had one.
“Seriously?” Darla pressed her fingers to her mouth, then let them fall as both dark heads turned in her direction. She couldn’t really take the question back.
“Seriously,” Jake replied as sober as a judge. “Both the original and the double-bladed.”
“Nerd alert,” Grace whispered in a singsong.
Feeling the need to atone for her blurt, Darla turned to Jake and said, “Gracie has a silver cape she claims is an invisibility cloak. When she’s mad at me, she puts it on and throws it over her head.”
“Mom!”
Darla turned to her daughter, unmoved. “You should know better than to nerd-shame someone.” Returning her attention to Jake, she smiled. “She also has a Sorting Hat. I’m a Hufflepuff.”
He grinned. “I can totally see that. I’m Ravenclaw.”
“Me, too!” Grace cried, the humiliation she’d suffered seconds before magically forgotten.
Jake stepped back from the telescope. “There. I think I sharpened things up a bit. Should we let your mom take a look?”
Grace bobbed her head enthusiastically. “Go ahead, Mama. Look.”
As always, her heart did a slow somersault when her baby reverted to Mama rather than the plain old ‘Mom’ she’d been using more and more lately. Her arm brushed Jake’s as she took the spot he’d vacated. Leaning down, she squeezed one eye shut, then caught herself at the moment Jake and Grace said, “Both eyes open,” in perfect unison.
She did as she was told. It took a second to gain her bearings, but once she focused in, her breath caught. “Oh.”
“Cool, huh?”
She didn’t have to look to know he was grinning his cover-model smile. “So cool.” She beamed at her daughter. “You can see the ring things.”
“I know!” Grace pressed in and nudged her with her hip. “Let me look again.”
“Hang on.” Darla took another look through the scope.
“Moooom.”
“You don’t own it, you know,” she shot back.
“I want to look again. He brought the telescope for me to use, not you.” Grace throttled the complaint back so it fell short of a whine.
He chuckled. “Don’t make me take my toy away.”
Reluctantly, Darla straightened. She looked up and found his dark eyes riveted on her. “Amazing.”
“Sometime you all will have to come over to my place. The one I have on the roof is even more powerful.”
She wanted to press her hand to his mouth to muffle the invitation. Instead, she settled for giving her head a sharp shake. The last thing she needed was for him to dangle the whole frickin’ universe in front of her space-hungry kid, then yank it away. At Grace’s insistent nudge, she relinquished the telescope. Darla nodded to the other end of the room. Quick on the uptake, he followed when she moved away from the window.
Careful to keep her tone neutral, she stole a glance at him as she started gathering the last of the detritus from the table. “Isn’t there some old line about not asking for the moon when you have the stars?”
“Why can’t you have both?”
Huffing, she jerked her head toward the kitchen and took off without looking back. When he placed the breadbasket and empty wine glasses on the counter, she whirled on him. “Don’t make promises to my kid.”
Jake took a step back like she was some kind of crazy woman. As he had the night of the benefit. Her cheeks started to burn as he raised his hands in what was becoming an all-too-familiar calming gesture. “I didn’t make any promises,” he said. “I was simply bragging.”
Shocked by his spin, she fell back against the counter, her jaw dropping as she stared up into his utterly sincere face. “Bragging?”
He shrugged. “It’s not uncommon to brag about how big your telescope is.”
A helpless laugh escaped her. Darla searched his eyes for a hint of... something. Something she could use as a valid excuse for not taking this surprising man up on anything and everything he had to offer. Duplicity. Calculation. Even some good old-fashioned smarminess would do. But, of course, she found none.
Jake Dalton was one of the good guys. Genuine, if a bit oblivious at times. Charming as all get-out. And handsome. So knee-knockingly handsome her wine-addled brain was having a hard time finding reasons to resist. And he’d come so close to kissing her. Right here in this room. Steeling her resolve, she asked the blunt question.
“What do you want from me?”
“What do I want from you?” he repeated, then gave a husky chuckle. “Where do I start?”
“I mean, what are you after? Me or Grace? Are you here to help her, or are you trying to get into my pants, because you wouldn’t be the first.” She launched her little salvo with raised brows.
“Clearly.”
Her temper flared. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He gestured toward the living room. “Well, obviously I’m not the first, you have Grace. What I’m trying to figure out is why being here has to be an either-or thing. I’d assume the two of you are a package deal no matter what.”
Planting her hands on her hips, she thrust her chin into the air. “We are.”
“There you go.”
She squinted at him, annoyed by his cavalier tone. “There I go what?”
He exhaled long and loud, then closed the distance between them. Darla yelped a little when he pulled her flush against his body. Again. God, he was tall. And taut. She thought about running her hands all over him like she had earlier. But without the clothes. Apparently, he was thinking the same thing, because he shifted to bring their bodies into perfect alignment. Her breath caught and held when he lowered his head. His was warm and damp against her skin. She could almost taste a hint of the wine. She called on every ounce of her reserve not to purse her lips in a silent plea.
“I want the package deal.”
The breath rushed from her lungs. His mouth was a surprise. Soft. Unspeakably soft. But the kiss was firm. Commanding. It took a few seconds for her brain to catch on, and the second she reacted, he pulled back.
“Have dinner with me.”
She blinked. Not an invitation so much as a command. Darla didn’t know what to think. Not when she was struggling to latch onto any coherent thought. “We just had dinner.”
“Dinner without a chaperone.”
He sounded so sure she’d say yes, Darla didn’t know if she actually had the strength to reject the proposition. “We’ve got one now and it doesn’t seem to be impeding things any.”
The observation coaxed a wry smile out of him. “Depends on your definition of impediment.”
“What are you saying? Are you trying to tell me if Grace weren’t in the next room, we’d be going at each other on the floor?”
“I was thinking the counter would work.” He tipped his head to look past her, a speculative frown tugging the corners of his mouth down. “I think I’m tall enough.”
She gaped at him, fascinated by the funky mix of awkwardness and arrogance that should have been annoying, but proved to be damn near irresistible. A giddy laugh bubbled up from some smooshy girlie place deep inside her. “You’re serious.”
“Absolutely,” he answered, returning his laser-like focus to her.
Never in all the years since they placed the tiny squirming human she’d carried inside her body in her arms had she ever wished she weren’t Grace’s mom. And she didn’t now. She wished she’d sent her daughter to Connie Cade’s for the night. But how could she do that when Grace was the reason Jake was there in the first place?
“I don’t do this,” she said slowly.
“Do what?”
“Mix things up like this. Dating and Gracie,” she explained with a dismissive wave. “I don’t let the two co-mingle.”
“Well, it’s going to be hard for me to help Grace with her project if we don’t mingle.”
“But you and I—”
“Definitely need to mingle,” he finished for her. “So we figure things out. A new angle.” He flashed her a mind-melting smile. “We’ll explore new territory.”
Oh, the innuendo packed in those few words. “I haven’t said yes.”
“Yet.” His smile widened into a grin. “You can think it over while I help Grace move the scope to her room and reset. Then, I think I’d better get out of here.”
He swooped in and stole another kiss. This one hard and hot. Equally packed with promise and demand. And, damn, if she wasn’t panting for more by the time he thrust her back toward the counter. Her chest heaved as he ran his knuckles down the curve of her cheek.
“Think about it.” He caught one of the curls behind her ear and rubbed her hair between his thumb and forefinger. “Either way, I’ll be out of your hair in about ten minutes.”
He was out of the kitchen before she found her voice. “Yes.”
His step hitched, but he didn’t turn back to look at her. At least, not right away. First, he nodded as if he were accepting nothing less than he expected, then he glanced back at the kitchen but didn’t quite meet her eyes. “I’ll, uh, call you and we’ll figure things out. Sorry to leave you with the cleanup.”
Then she saw the fist at his side unfurl and realized hadn’t been as sure as he wanted her to think he was. Then and there she realized Jake Dalton was more than the charmingly absent-minded man of science he liked to show the world. No, in his quiet way, this guy was a risk-taker. The revelation should have made her wary, but she didn’t feel put-on or played. Instead, she found she liked his reckless streak. He was a cowboy. Han Solo playing poker-faced while he bluffed his way into getting what he wanted.
Jake Dalton, space cowboy. Yeah, she liked that image a lot.
Chapter 6
Darla scrunched her nose and stretched her mouth into an exaggerated grimace as she looked down at her sauce-spattered tennis shoes. Though her feet ached, she didn’t dare unlace the shoes, much less toe them off. So
meone had to pick Grace up from school, and she was the only someone for the job. Rolling her head to the side, she squinted at the clock on the microwave. Twenty more minutes.
Long ago she’d learned these little pockets of time were to be cherished. There were very few minutes in the day she could truly call her own. Now, she had twelve-hundred whole seconds when she wasn’t at anyone’s beck and call. She wasn’t anyone’s waitress or Grace’s mother. Not that she didn’t want to be either of those things. Her steady employment at The Pit had kept them afloat, and being Gracie’s mama was her greatest achievement in life. A person simply needed a few precious moments in a day when she could simply be.
Blowing out a long breath, she dropped onto the sofa and flexed her toes inside her too-snug shoes and winced when she heard the telltale pop of nylon separating itself from rubber. Squeezing her eyes shut, she sent up a silent but futile prayer she hadn’t torn them. New shoes weren’t in the budget. And they wouldn’t be for another two or three weeks.
Her hand fell limp at her side and she blinked twice, giving herself a moment to determine if she was prepared to face reality or not, then she bit the bullet. Swinging her knees to the side, she eyeballed the side of her hot pink running shoes. Oh, crabcakes. There was a tiny tear in the sauce-crusted mesh along the sole near her pinkie toe.
She groaned. These were the first pair of good sneakers she’d had in the better part of a decade. The name brands had something more than cache and a big price tag going for them—for the past eight months, high-tech insoles cushioned her arches and provided the kind of support Darla yearned for herself. All enveloping. Sturdy. Soft, but unquestionably solid.
They’d been a particularly sweet bargain bin deal. One of the few perks of being only a few inches taller than a cookie-making elf was her ability to find clothes and shoes on almost any clearance sale rack. Even at the MassiveMart. Still, even with the sale price the shoes had been a splurge. One she wasn’t likely to repeat anytime soon.
Heaving a sigh, she hoisted herself off the couch and headed toward the kitchen to grab a granola bar and a pack of string cheese. Grace would be ravenous. She always was these days. Food in hand would keep her from gnawing holes in the upholstery on the ten minute drive home. She paused in the tiny galley, trying not to picture Jake taking up all of the doorway, like he had the other night. She definitely didn’t let herself dwell too hard on The Kisses.