by Isabel North
Good that he was prepared.
And hopefully the next house that Lila showed him would be the one. David could be settled and secure, and Burke could fade back out of Lila’s life, so when she went for her own big life change, it wouldn’t hurt as much.
Right.
He’d had her for one night, and he’d ached with missing her every minute since.
Burke checked his rearview mirror again. His attention rested on the sporty black Miata three cars behind. He’d seen it on and off for the entire journey.
After another twenty minutes, he gave in and dialed her number.
She answered. “Lila Baxter, superstar realtor, what’s your pleasure?”
“A house within my budget available for immediate purchase and occupation would be nice,” he said.
“Working on it. I’ve got something lined up for Tuesday. Are you free Tuesday?”
“Yes.”
Silence for a few beats.
“Ohhh,” Lila said. “It’s that kind of call. We should keep things professional, but okay. You talked me into it.” Her voice dropped. “What are you wearing?”
Burke laughed. “Are you following me?”
“Hey, you were good, Burke. You weren’t that good.”
His hands tightened on the wheel. Yes, he was. With Lila, he was.
“Why do you ask?” she was saying. “Where are you?”
“I’m three cars ahead.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Are you following me?”
“Ahead, Lila. Three cars ahead.”
“Point. Where are you going?”
“Seattle.”
“Me too! Why are you going?”
“Picking up David. You?”
“Uh… I’m staying for the weekend. Catching up with old friends. That sort of thing. Nothing important. Interesting. Nothing interesting.”
They chatted for another few minutes, then Burke turned on his blinker.
“Where are you going?” Lila asked.
“Pit stop.”
“I didn’t see any signs.”
He glanced in the rearview, and saw that she’d turned her own blinker on.
“Because it’s not a rest stop,” he said. “If you need a bathroom break, or more gas, or a soda, better keep driving. There’s a good place a few miles up.”
“I know. I’ve driven this route a few times. Not much since I came back from college, but it’s familiar. Huh. Do you mind me tagging along? I’d hate to impose.”
They were almost at the exit.
“Free country,” Burke said.
“All righty, then. I can take a hint. See you on Tuesday. Have a great weekend.”
He shouldn’t say it. “Come with me, Lila.”
“I don’t know…”
“I have cupcakes.”
She followed as Burke turned off the I-90. After another fifteen minutes driving down increasingly empty roads, Lila pulled her Miata alongside his truck and parked. She was smiling when she climbed out. “Hi.”
Burke’s chest expanded in that way it seemed to do whenever Lila was around. She was in indigo skinny jeans and low-heeled ankle boots, topped with a baggy pink sweater that exposed the straps of the tank she wore beneath it, and was in danger of slipping off one shoulder.
Burke walked over to her and stood, looking down. His brows drew together. “You’re short.”
“You’re noticing this now? It’s my oversized personality confusing you.” She tipped her head back. Way back. “Five-three.”
“You’re like a fairy princess,” he said, trying and failing to swallow his stupid comment before the words got out.
Lila beamed. “I’ve been called evil pixie and nasty little troll before. Fairy princess is new. I like it. Thanks, Burke. And now I know what my costume is gonna be this Halloween.”
“Who the fuck called you a nasty little troll?”
“Jason Barnes. Remember, Jenny mentioned him? The asshole who hung me upside down and showed the entire playground my panties?”
Burke clenched his teeth. “He still live local?”
Lila patted his chest. “Twenty years too late to defend my honor. Besides, with my hair back then, he wasn’t far off.” She held her hands out around her head. “Troll doll. Especially when I was upside down.”
He clenched his teeth harder. “That a yes? Still local?”
She dismissed it with a casual wave.
“And evil pixie?” he gritted.
“Allison. She’s my boss, she’s awesome, and I’m almost sure it was a term of reluctant affection.” Lila scanned their surroundings. “So what’s out here? Looks like your standard woods to me.”
Burke went back to his truck for the box of cupcakes and travel mug of coffee he’d brought along. “Come on.”
Shoving her hands in her pockets, Lila sauntered up to him and they set off down the narrow, rutted track.
“What?” she said when he glanced down at her again. “I’m short. Get over it.”
“I have no problem with you being short.” Made it easier to put her where he wanted her in bed.
“It’s one of the reasons I wear stilettos. Also, they look sexy as hell.”
Yeah.
“But you’ve seen me without my heels on before.”
“You were horizontal.”
Lila choked a laugh. “Not when you were cooking me dinner.”
“You were sitting on the counter.”
“All right. Not when you came over, then.”
“It was dark. I had other things on my mind.”
“Returning my laptop?”
“Yup.”
“If it’s not the height thing, why do you keep side-eyeing me?”
“Trying to work out your clothes.”
“You don’t like my outfit? My sweater is one hundred percent cashmere.” She shrugged her shoulder to make the sweater slip all the way off, and gave him an innocent look.
Burke tugged it back up. “I like it,” he said, voice rough. “Doesn’t seem like an interview outfit, is all.”
“My suit’s in the car,” she said, and missed a step. “Oh.”
He’d been right. She wasn’t going to Seattle to see friends. She was going to interview for a job. He gave her a tight smile.
“I am also meeting up with friends,” she said carefully, then stopped. “Wow.”
Burke followed her gaze. The trail opened out on a spectacular view of forest rippling over the land below them, the trees an amazing contrast to the azure, cloudless sky. The flat land formed a natural viewing platform, and an ancient rustic picnic table invited anyone passing through to take a load off and soak in the splendor.
With a light touch at the small of her back, Burke guided Lila to the table. He waited for her to sit before sitting beside her. She eyed him, then scooted along to close the gap between them. Twisting to lean an elbow on the table, she rested her chin in her hand. “Come here often?”
“Yes and no. Used to be every weekend I’d drive up to see David. But you know how it is. Kids. Social lives are packed these days, and now he’s a teen. Got better things to do with his weekend than hang out with his father. But, yeah. I pull over whenever I come this way. Last big breath of oxygen before the city, you know?”
Lila’s expression was soft.
Burke cleared his throat and opened the box of cupcakes he’d picked up from Megan’s. He silently offered it to Lila.
“Ooh. Which one is your favorite? Because I’ll eat anything.” Her hand hovered. “Burke?” She looked up when he didn’t reply. “You don’t have a favorite?”
“David prefers the lemon.”
“Then I’ll take the strawberry.”
They tucked into their cupcakes, and it only took a small amount of coaxing to get Lila to have a second.
“You like feeding me,” she remarked, crumpling up the wrapper.
Burke suppressed his smile. “Yeah, I do,” he said.
“What’s so funny?”
He pointed at the corner of her mouth. “You’ve got a little something right there.”
“Don’t believe you. Unlike some people, I can eat cake without getting it on my face.”
His smile grew.
Lila stuck out her tongue, licking at the corner of her mouth.
Holding her gaze, he shook his head slowly.
“Other side?” She licked the other corner.
Burke gave up resisting. “Let me?”
“Go nuts.”
He dipped his head and pressed his lips to the corner of hers where a tiny smudge of frosting lingered.
Lila’s eyes were wide when he lifted away. “Did you get it?”
“Most of it.” All of it. He brought up a hand and feathered a light touch along her jaw.
“Perhaps you should make sure?”
“I do like to be thorough.”
“Thorough is good.”
He kissed the spot where the frosting had been again, then slid his lips over hers, touching his tongue to the seam briefly.
“How about now?” Lila asked, eyes dancing. “Did you get it?”
Burke pressed a thumb to the corner of her mouth, feeling her wide smile, and released her. “Yeah.”
They stared at each other for a quiet moment. It was charged, but peaceful.
“You are such a sugar fiend,” Lila told him.
“I can’t seem to get enough,” he agreed.
Her eyes dropped. “Coffee?” she asked brightly.
He handed her the travel mug.
Lila took a sip. “Is today the big move for David?”
Burke turned to rest his back against the edge of the table, angling his face into the cool breeze. “Yep. They’re packed up and out of the building. Mike is flying to London later today.” He sent Lila a teasing glance. “She sold her apartment in forty-eight hours.”
“Really? Really, Burke? Did she? Or did a realtor sell it for her?”
He grinned. “Nope. Mike sold it herself.”
“What does she do, anyway, apart from bear your children, drag you around the country, have a cool name and sell property on the side? Unless… Is she a realtor, too? Griffin Burke, do you have a dark sexual need for realtors?” She sat up and pressed a hand to her chest. “Am I a fetish?”
“She’s in finance. I have no idea what that signifies, other than she plays with money. And no, she’s not a realtor. She sold it to a colleague, and that was after an office bidding war. She made quite the profit, she said.”
“I hear a but.”
“I suppose you and Mike share a few similarities.”
Lila narrowed her eyes. “She’s short, isn’t she? You like throwing women around in bed.”
“I do. Tough to throw Mike around, though. She’s five-ten.”
“I hate her.”
He laughed. “Physically, you don’t have much in common.” His eyes tracked to her breasts and flicked away.
Lila pointed at him. “Boobs!”
Yes. They both had spectacular breasts. He didn’t deny it. But that wasn’t what he’d meant. “You’re both determined women. Classy. Smart. Business-minded. Know what you want from life, not afraid to go after it.”
Both wanted more than he could provide.
“I sound pretty fantastic.” She looked half-pleased and half-nervous at his description. “Are you excited about having David live with you? First time, right?”
“Yeah. I don’t know if excited is the word I’d use. He’s a handful.” And he was carrying condoms about in his backpack.
Burke had called him on the condoms, and David’s guileless answer was ‘holding them for a friend’.
Burke had told him to try again.
David had confessed that yes, fine, okay, they were totally his, but so far all he’d done was practice putting them on. Himself and bananas. He hadn’t used any yet.
Burke had suggested he leave the fruit alone since that was more for those who didn’t have a penis of their very own to practice on, which had made David say, huh, and Burke had ended the conversation before he’d burst out laughing.
“He’s a handful, but he’s a good kid,” Burke said to Lila. “It’ll be fine.”
“Of course he’s a good kid. He’s got you for a dad. I’ll bet you’re a great dad.”
“I’ve done okay part-time. Remains to be seen how well I do full-time. I’m looking forward to it, though. Funny thing. When he was a baby, I counted his age in months, as you do. And now he’s sixteen, and here I am, back to counting in months. Less than twenty-four, and he’ll be an adult. My time of being a real father is running out.”
“It doesn’t stop when he turns eighteen. Or if it does, my dad didn’t get the memo, and please don’t tell him. I might be a thirty-year-old classy business-minded fairy princess, but I still need my daddy.”
“To come over and catch your spiders?”
“Spiders are horrifying, Burke, okay? I am not ashamed. I would rather take on a wolverine than a spider, and stop laughing at me because I’m very, very serious. Besides, you’re thirty-seven. You could go for round two. Be a father again.”
“No chance,” he said. Lila looked up at him, surprised at his tone. “David is the only child I’ll ever have.”
“You never know.”
“I know, Lila. David’s it for me.” It wasn’t up for discussion.
“Oh. You’ll let me know if I can do anything to help settling him in to Emerson, won’t you? Apart from finding you a house. I know it’s taken more than forty-eight hours, but I’ll divert all energy to it next week. But if you need anything else, I’m there for you.”
His eyes clashed with hers. “Until you leave.”
He hadn’t wanted to say it. Her offer was sweet. But he said it, and it came out harsh. Shit. It was all this talk of kids and… Burke rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
On the surface, Lila didn’t seem upset. There was no physical flinch, and she gave him a sunny smile as she gathered their cupcake wrappers and screwed the lid back on the travel mug. Didn’t fool him.
He’d hurt her feelings.
She filled the walk back to their cars with inconsequential chatter, hardly even pausing to take a breath until he caught her hand in his.
Her fingers tensed.
Burke kept his attention on the path ahead. Lila’s hand relaxed, and he tightened his grip. They walked on in silence, palms pressing together.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lila watched Burke’s truck take a left as she took a right. She beeped her horn and waved as she buzzed past. She thought she saw him lifting an arm in acknowledgement before he was swallowed up by the stream of cars and lost to sight, but she wasn’t sure. City driving. Ugh. She’d forgotten how not-fun it was.
Strange, because she regularly drove in cities. It wasn’t even that long since she was last in Seattle, for a college friend’s bachelorette party. Perhaps it was the contrast with the quiet stop with Burke, when they ate cupcakes and drank coffee and all she could hear was the rumble of his voice and the chatter of birds, and the wind in the trees.
Yeah.
That was it, that was why she was feeling unsettled and out of place.
Nothing to do with Burke’s odd mood shift when she’d suggested he might like to have kids again.
Which he was dead set against.
And was none of her business, since they weren’t together or anything and she would soon be living here anyway, while he was—
A horn blared, jolting her. It wasn’t a friendly horn. It was a hey lady, move your car, jeez, some of us have places to be not daydreaming in freaking traffic blast.
“All right, all right,” Lila muttered, driving off. “This is Seattle, asshole, not New York.”
Or Emerson.
It was also time to get her head in the game.
Lila drove to the boutique hotel she’d booked for an overnight stay. She could have made the trip there and back in a da
y, albeit a long day, but she’d thought some distance would do her good.
Now she found herself wondering about Burke.
Was he driving home today? He’d said that Michaela was flying to London. Knowing Burke, he’d leave his truck running, sling David’s stuff in the back, and burn rubber out of the city. They’d be home by dinner.
Was Burke going to cook? Or would they eat at Kurt’s?
Order pizza?
And why the hell was she daydreaming about Burke’s food plans? She had her own plans to be focusing on. Important plans.
Life plans.
Lila left her car in a parking garage and checked in to the hotel. An hour later, she was in her interview suit, and ready to wow Allison’s contact into hiring her.
Stephanie Gower was a plump, perfectly-coiffed fifty-something with unblemished milk-white skin, a manicure to die for, and the stone-cold sociopathic stare of a politician.
They chatted over coffee—not as good as Burke’s—and pastries—not even close to Megan’s—and Stephanie explained that the position Lila was interviewing for was, while a step up in salary, also a step down in seniority.
“But Allison tells me you’ll claw your way up to the top in six, seven months, so it shouldn’t matter,” Stephanie added with a tinkling laugh.
“I’m not afraid of hard work,” Lila said.
“Good.” The tinkling laugh cut off. “If I decide to hire you, I’ll work you hard, Lila. I know that, coming from a small-town outfit like Allison’s, you’re used to doing a bit of everything, lending a hand wherever it’s needed.”
“Of course.” Lila nodded. “It’s part of being a team. We all look out for each other.”
“Quaint. There’s none of that here.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve been doing this job a long time now, and you know what the most important thing to ensure success and a solid working environment is?”
Something told Lila it wasn’t dress-down Friday or bringing birthday cakes to the office.
“Hierarchy,” Stephanie said. “You have your duties and you stick to them. You don’t stick your nose in to other agents’ and brokers’ business. Unless you’re the boss.” Tinkling laugh.
“Of course.”
“Another pastry?”