The twins had taken a box there that contained the pieces to ten puzzles. They’d wanted to put them together on the flat, open floor. But that had turned into throwing the pieces at each other to see how many they could land—like a snowball fight—and now the pieces needed to be organized.
As she and Liam sat cross-legged on the dance studio floor with the mess between them, she ventured into new territory that she realized was prying but couldn’t resist now that his sullenness seemed to have passed.
“So...what was going on with you today? You were kind of...off...” she said cautiously, wondering if mentioning it would reproduce his bad humor the way it would have with her father. Or if it might set off the kind of temper and defensiveness it would have roused in Garrett.
But in Liam it didn’t do either of those things. He didn’t deny it and said with some regret in his tone, “Yeah... I’m sorry about that.”
An apology. Dani thought that was encouraging.
“Seeing Declan this morning hit me kind of hard,” he admitted then.
“You said he was doing okay.” When Liam had finally come down from the guest room she’d asked him if everything was all right with his brother. But he’d assured her his twin was all right.
“Physically he is on the mend,” Liam went on, explaining what he’d found on that initial visit. Then he said, “He’s in a bad way mentally, though.”
Liam told her in detail what his brother had said about their friend, filling her in on who that friend was and their history with him. As he did, the glumness reappeared full force to deepen his voice before he finished and fell silent as they exchanged puzzle pieces.
“I’m sorry,” Dani said in condolence for his friend.
“You hope there won’t be casualties. But you know there always could be,” he said solemnly, his tone telling her that his brother wasn’t the only one to have feelings over this loss.
But he didn’t talk about his own feelings. He went on talking about his brother. “I’ve just never known Declan to be as low as he is. He’s not himself and that got to me more than even the physical stuff. I’m worried about him, and I don’t know what to do to help him.”
“From what went on with my dad I know that can be really tough,” she commiserated when she heard the frustration and concern in Liam’s voice. “I think you just hang on tight. Hear him out when you can get him to talk. Listen for clues to what he needs from you. My mom used to say we needed to do that with my dad, that sometimes we could figure out what to do from listening.”
Liam laughed humorlessly. “Something else for me to figure out?” he moaned. “Something else that isn’t simple?”
Dani laughed the same way he had. “Life and people get complicated.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
For another moment he didn’t say more as they finished putting the puzzle pieces back into their boxes. Dani wondered if his melancholy had so much of a hold on him again that he would retreat to the guest room now.
It shouldn’t have mattered to her. But it did. She didn’t want him to go yet. And she needed to steel herself a little for the possibility that he would.
Then, rather than getting to his feet and leaving her behind, he shifted positions, bending one knee and hugging it with both long arms.
He was wearing jeans and a yellow sport shirt. His sleeves were rolled to just below his elbows, exposing thick wrists and powerful forearms that his big hands wrapped around. And for some reason, something tingly rushed through Dani that brought with it madly inappropriate thoughts of those arms around her. Of those hands on her skin.
She mentally fled from the images and tried to quash the tingling, forcing her eyes upward to his face.
Which wasn’t the best of solutions because that gave her the view of his smoldering good looks as he smiled a bit sheepishly and obviously came out of the gloom again.
“You’re pretty good medicine for what ails me, though,” he said. “You and being around the kids and the restaurant and Carmella.” He paused again and looked into her eyes with those stunning blue ones of his. “But mainly you.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she claimed because she didn’t feel as if she had.
“You picked up the slack I left all day long. You kept things cheery enough that I don’t think the kids even realized I was moping.” His smile stretched into a grin. “You also helped by giving me that nudge at the pool so I didn’t blow it with the kids again by being a taskmaster. In fact you let me treat Little Miss Daredevil Evie to that jumping-into-the-pool-thing and I think I made a little progress with her because of it—today of all days. Without you I probably would have just made them like me even less. I kind of felt like we were partnered up and you had my back.” He shrugged. “Just being around you is... I don’t know...good,” he added as if he needed her to know that.
“Well, sure, because there is my magical superpower force field,” she joked in response.
He laughed a genuine laugh of his own—which was the only thing she did think of as an accomplishment with him today.
“So that’s what it is about you—a superpower force field,” he responded, playing along.
“You forgot magical,” she corrected matter-of-factly. “It’s an upgrade.”
“Magical superpower force field,” he amended, still amused. Then those blue eyes of his took on even more of a sparkle of delight and, as she watched, his smile somehow turned very sexy. “I saw you in here that first night, you know?”
She didn’t know what he was talking about. “You saw me?”
“Sure. With the lights on in here, from outside in the dark you can see everything. You were in here with the kids, your hair was all whacky from Evie doing it and you were going as wild as they were.”
Dani suddenly remembered that she and the twins were in here that night when he’d arrived.
“Oh, dance party! We were getting the wiggles out,” she recalled.
“Yeah,” he said with an even bigger grin. “That’s also not something that would have ever gone on at my house growing up. But I enjoyed watching it...”
There was heavy insinuation in his voice, which had gone deeper when he’d said it, infused with more intimacy.
“You were spying,” she accused.
“It wasn’t like I could have missed it,” he defended. “Go out and see.”
“If I do, will you dance?” she goaded.
He laughed again. “Not a chance.”
“Then we won’t be even.”
“It was quite a sight,” he teased. “I wouldn’t say you have a lot of rhythm...”
“We were just playing.”
He shook his head, denying that, clearly giving her a hard time. “You were totally into it.”
“For the kids!”
“Nah...your eyes were closed and you were cutting loose.”
“I know my eyes weren’t closed.”
“They were,” he insisted with another laugh. Then, in a voice that changed to match that intimate look in his own eyes, he said, “You were a sight to see...”
He was looking at her so intently there seemed to be something to see now, too. And out of nowhere a memory of her own bout with voyeurism flooded her with the vivid image of him walking out of the locker room at the pool today.
Oh, that body.
Those cobalt blue eyes that were holding hers...
He unclasped one hand from the opposite forearm and reached slowly across to slide it behind her neck—so slowly she thought he was giving her ample time to slap it away if she wanted to.
But she didn’t want to. Not when everything she’d been fighting the last two nights, at the pool today, just now at the simple sight of those hands and arms, all came out from hiding again.
He leaned forward. Pressure from that big hand on the back of her neck urged h
er forward slightly, too. And there was nothing Dani could summon to make herself not go there, not accept it when his lips met hers, not kiss him back the same way he was kissing her.
And she was kissing him back—eyes closed, lips parted just a little, with only enough sway to answer his—as everything instantly became about that kiss. That kiss was good enough to wow her into oblivion.
Before it ended a moment later, for no reason, even though she knew it should never have happened at all.
“I know,” he said quietly. “You’re gonna tell me I shouldn’t have done that. That there’s no place for it in the situation we’re in. And you’re right.” He shrugged one of those broad shoulders. “But I couldn’t help myself.” Then he smiled with only one corner of that supple mouth she just wanted back on hers. “Must be your force field pulling me in.”
“I’ll see what I can do to turn it down,” she said, deciding to go along with the gag so she didn’t tell him that, regardless of whether he should have kissed her, regardless of the situation they were in, she just wanted him to kiss her again.
“Thanks, that would be helpful,” he joked.
He got to his feet and held out a hand to help her to hers.
And it didn’t make any difference that she knew without a doubt that she shouldn’t take it. She took it anyway, unable to deny herself slipping her hand into his, feeling the strength in the arm that pulled her up.
Once he had she wished mightily that he would pull her all the way to him and kiss her again while she melted against that big masculine body.
But he didn’t. Instead he was a perfect gentleman and as soon as she was on her own two feet he let go of her hand.
Sending a ripple of disappointment through her.
But that really was the way it needed to be, Dani told herself, bending over to pick up a wooden puzzle box and holding it in front of her like schoolbooks to keep her own hands from reaching out to him.
She headed for the door, leading the way out of the dance studio.
“I’ll go to the hardware store in the morning and get what I need to replace your pipe,” Liam informed her as he followed. “And then it’s a day at the restaurant?”
“It is,” she confirmed, heading for the entryway and the staircase that would take him up to the guest room.
Up to the guest room alone, she reminded herself when her mind wandered up there with him.
“And Evie and Grady are going to teach me how to make the bomb things,” he was saying over those wandering thoughts.
Dani smiled. “They do think they’re experts. We made a small batch just for us a while ago when we got snowed in and they learned how.”
“They don’t seem confident in my abilities,” Liam said as he stopped at the foot of the steps.
“But I have faith in you.”
“Thanks,” he said with another laugh.
She didn’t pause for more than that, though, afraid of what she might do if she put herself in kissing position again.
Instead she left him there with a “See you tomorrow,” and kept on going as if nothing had happened between them.
But even after his answering “See you tomorrow,” she didn’t hear him climb the stairs.
She thought she could feel his gaze staying with her down the passageway to the kitchen and until she turned into the stairwell to get downstairs.
She didn’t glance back to see if she was right, though, because it was bad enough that she was thinking of that kiss and how good it had been.
And worse than that, she was fighting the inclination to instigate more of them, and it was all she could do to keep herself on track.
Chapter Six
“Okay, go to work. I’ll be back tomorrow at zero seven hundred,” Liam said on Friday morning when a nurse came to retrieve Declan’s breakfast tray and take him to physical therapy.
“You’re serious about that?” Declan said.
“Every day as long as I’m around. Conor got it okayed and I’ll be here for breakfast with you. Conor’ll come, too, when he can—doing a new residency to switch from ER to orthopedics has him tied up a lot—but I’ll be here come hell or high water. Count on it.”
“Okay,” Declan said, agreeing without a fight.
The ease of that concession surprised Liam but he thought there might be the faintest hint of something not quite as disheartened in that single word.
Declan had shown no enthusiasm when Liam had arrived this morning and announced the breakfast plan that he’d put into play through Conor last night after talking to Dani. And it wasn’t as if Liam’s presence had seemed to lift his twin’s spirits.
But now, while that barely uttered word might not have seemed like anything to get excited about, to Liam it was the first encouraging sign from his brother.
Liam left Declan to the nurse, glad he’d taken seriously what Dani had said the night before.
After talking to her he still hadn’t known exactly how to help Declan. But he’d thought about what she’d said about her father, about her mother figuring out how to help her father, and he’d tried to translate that into something he could do.
He’d decided that for now maybe he should just be there for Declan. Spend more time with him than he’d planned or thought he might be able to, and maybe that would give Declan the opportunity to begin to open up. Even if that didn’t turn Declan around, it might at least give some clue to something more Liam could do to help. Like Dani’s mother hitting on the boat idea to help her father.
If nothing else, he was going to make damn sure that his brother knew Liam was thankful not to have lost him. That one way or another he wouldn’t let him go down with the ship. And he was going to do that by starting every day at that rehab hospital with Declan.
From the rehab center Liam headed for the hardware store, feeling better than he had the day before when he’d left his twin.
Seeing Declan for the first time yesterday had been frustrating and discouraging and left him with a sense of powerlessness—something that he rarely experienced.
Now, despite not having a clear mission with all the details figured out, he at least had a plan to put into motion. Having even an undetailed plan of action helped him feel slightly less useless.
And again it was thanks to Dani.
He wasn’t sure what he would do without her right now, he thought as he got on the highway. Somehow she’d become his guiding light as he trod through the current murky waters—first with the kids and now with Declan.
Just talking to her offered him comfort and support and relief, and then to top it off she gave him insights on how to handle it all. When he was stewing over Declan yesterday, even knowing that he could talk to her when he was ready to, that she was a great listener, that she would give her perspective without being pushy about it, had helped. And he was grateful.
“But that wasn’t gratitude at work last night when you kissed her,” he muttered.
No, it hadn’t been gratitude. It had been something much harder for him to swallow—a soft spot.
He didn’t have many weaknesses, but it was becoming clear that she might be one. Kind of a big one because he’d never in his life kissed someone he knew he shouldn’t kiss.
Being friendly, getting to know her, learning from her, and even confiding in her was one thing. He was Special Forces—when there was a mission that required skills he could provide, he was called in. When it came to kids and what to do for a depressed brother—missions that were out of his skill set—he needed someone to turn to who did have those skills. That was just standard operating procedure.
But going from friendliness and her expertise and insights to kissing her? Definitely not SOP.
But what the hell was the universe thinking to send him a guiding light like Dani? A guiding light with long, thick, lush hair, glistening eyes and skin th
at looked like silk and made him want to see if it felt like that, too? A guiding light who was smart and funny and quick-witted? Girl-next-door sweet, kind and simmeringly sexy, too, to tempt him to forget all his troubles and escape into her instead?
Because being with her did offer an escape. Being with her helped him to sort through all this stuff he was up to his eyeballs in right now. She made him feel like he could come at things better on the next pass, and once she accomplished that, he could just enjoy being with her.
And he did enjoy being with her...
Which had culminated in kissing her because that was the normal course of being with someone who made him feel so much.
But he still shouldn’t have done it. He knew that and there was no excuse for it except the driving need that had shot his discipline to hell.
Okay, sure, another time, another place, and he would be saying full steam ahead when it came to her.
But now?
He had to figure out how to help Declan. He had to figure out what to do if he was Evie and Grady’s father. He had to figure out how to be a father if he was. And if he wasn’t, he had to figure out how to help get those kids taken care of better than just being loaded into the system. Because now it wasn’t only wanting to look out for kids left by someone he’d once been close to, he was beginning to care for the kids themselves.
So he had enough to work through without adding a new relationship with a woman to it all. A woman with a lot on her own plate.
This was just not the time, and he had to put his discipline, his training, into effect.
As he went into the hardware store the certainty that he could control himself went with him.
And lasted long enough for him to get what he needed and return to his rented SUV.
Then there she was again, on his mind.
And for some reason he was thinking about how nice it had been kissing her.
So damn nice...
And she hadn’t stopped it, he thought as he got behind the wheel. In fact, if he hadn’t stopped that kiss he thought she might have kept it going.
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