“Charlotte?”
Blake and the kid spun toward the sound of a woman’s voice. She stood a few feet away, wearing a little yellow T-shirt and those shorts he’d had the privilege of seeing from behind. The shadow of a big straw hat hid her face and rested just above the bow of her full lips. Pretty mouth, nice legs, great ass. Probably something wrong with her eyes.
“Mama!” The kid ran to her mother and threw herself on the woman’s waist.
“You know you aren’t supposed to leave the yard, Charlotte Elizabeth.” The shade of her hat slid down her throat and T-shirt to her breasts as she looked down at her child. “You’re in big trouble.”
Nice-size breasts, smooth curve in her waist. Yeah, probably had funky eyes.
“That man is weally mean,” the kid wailed. “He said bad words at me.”
The sudden sobbing was so suspect he might have laughed if he was in a laughing mood. Behind him, Johnnie whispered his name, and in front, the shade of a straw hat rested on the top of a nice pair of breasts. The shadow dipped into her smooth cleavage, and lust plunged straight down Blake’s pants. He went from irritation to desire to a combination of both in the blink of an eye.
The brim of the hat rose to the bow of her lip again. “I heard him.” The corners of her mouth dipped in a disapproving frown.
His frown matched hers. He’d always avoided women like her. Women with children. Women with children were looking for daddies, and he’d never wanted kids. His or anyone else’s.
“Please don’t swear at my child.”
“Please keep your child out of my yard.” Women with children wanted men who wanted relationships. He wasn’t a relationship kind of guy. Out of all the SEAL teams, Team Six had the highest divorce rate for a reason. It was filled with men who loved to throw themselves out of airplanes and get shot out of torpedo tubes. Filled with good men who weren’t any good at relationships. Men like him, and until recently, like his brother. Men like his father, whose wives divorced them after twenty years of serial cheating.
“Fine.” Her lips pursed like she was going to hit him or kiss him. Off the top of his head, he’d guess the former. “But what kind of man talks like that to a child?”
The kind who was white-knuckling his sixty-second day of sobriety. The kind who wanted to pour some Johnnie down his throat, say fuck it, and dive face-first into soft cleavage. “What kind of mother lets her child roam around unsupervised?”
She gasped. “She was supervised.”
“Uh-huh.” He’d made her mad. Good. Now maybe she’d leave. Leave him to his fight with Johnnie and himself.
“Charlotte knows better than to leave our yard.”
He pointed out the obvious. “This isn’t your yard.”
“She’s never run off before.”
He couldn’t see her eyes, but he could feel her angry gaze. All hot and fiery. He liked hot and fiery. He liked it riding him like a banshee. Wild, screaming his name, and . . . Christ. His lust for Johnnie and this nameless woman made him dizzy. “Only takes once for her to get hit by a truck,” he heard himself say between clenched teeth. “I had a dog that only got out once. Bucky ended up as axle grease for a Chevy Silverado.” He shook his head. God, he’d loved that poodle. “He’d been a damn good dog, too.”
Her pink mouth opened and closed like she was speechless. Then she waved a hand at the bottle of Johnnie and obviously found her voice. “Are you drunk?”
“No. Haven’t had a drop.” He wished he could blame his erection on Johnnie.
“Then you don’t have an excuse. You’re just a . . . a . . .” She paused to cover the girl’s ears with her palms. “A raging asshole.”
She’d get no argument from him.
“I heard that,” the kid said into her mother’s stomach.
“Come on, Charlotte.” She grabbed the kid’s hand and stormed off. He could practically see the steam shooting out of her ears.
So much for being the charming twin.
He shrugged, and his gaze fell to her nice butt.
Fuck it. Charming was for nice guys, and he hadn’t felt nice for a very long time.
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author RACHEL GIBSON began her fiction career at age sixteen, when she ran her car into the side of a hill, retrieved the bumper, and drove to a parking lot, where she strategically scattered the car’s broken glass all about. She told her parents she’d been the victim of a hit-and-run and they believed her. She’s been making up stories ever since, although she gets paid better for them nowadays.
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By Rachel Gibson
I DO!
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT YOU
BLUE BY YOU
RUN TO YOU
CRAZY ON YOU
RESCUE ME
ANY MAN OF MINE
NOTHING BUT TROUBLE
TRUE LOVE AND OTHER DISASTERS
NOT ANOTHER BAD DATE
TANGLED UP IN YOU
I’M IN NO MOOD FOR LOVE
SEX, LIES, AND ONLINE DATING
THE TROUBLE WITH VALENTINE’S DAY
DAISY’S BACK IN TOWN
SEE JANE SCORE
LOLA CARLYLE REVEALS ALL
TRUE CONFESSIONS
IT MUST BE LOVE
TRULY MADLY YOURS
SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An excerpt from What I Love About You copyright © 2014 by Rachel Gibson.
I DO! Copyright © 2015 by Rachel Gibson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition JANUARY 2015 ISBN: 9780062247513
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062247520
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I Do! Page 8