by Leanne Banks
Part of her longed to close her eyes to the dangers and allow herself to be drawn into Eli’s life, to let down her guard and add a little comfort and warmth, to take him up on that shower, to find out if, despite all her doubts, there was a courtesan inside her. She’d always wanted to make love with a man and get so excited that she went a little wild. And maybe have him get so excited he went a little wild, too.
One of the kids shrieked, jolting Andie back to reality. Blinking, she took a quick breath and felt her cheeks heat. What was wrong with her? Distressed, she bit her lip. She was a nutcase.
When was she going to learn? This overblown nurturing instinct was going to destroy her if she didn’t rein it in. She cared too much. She didn’t need to lose her heart to a complex single father with an adorable, but vulnerable son. She didn’t need to lose her heart to anyone right now.
An hour later, Andie leaned against the side of a pinball machine and smiled at Fletch’s persistence with his very absentminded uncle, Caleb. She’d noticed that Fletch hovered on the fringe of the group and sometimes just went off alone. She hated to think of him as a little lone wolf.
“Pizza in five minutes,” Eli said and stood beside her. “What are you watching?”
Andie nodded her head in Fletch’s direction. “Your son is charming your brother back into the real world.”
Eli watched Fletch offer Caleb a copper token in exchange for the scrap of paper in Caleb’s hand. Clearly reluctant, his brother shook his head. Fletch offered two tokens and pointed to an electronic game. Caleb hesitated. Fletch pushed his advantage, snatched the paper and stuffed it in Caleb’s shirt pocket. His mouth quirking in a slight grin, Caleb took Fletch’s hand and allowed the birthday boy to drag him to the game.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Eli murmured.
“Fletch is very persuasive.”
“He had better luck with Caleb than I did,” Eli admitted, still staring at his son and brother.
“You didn’t bribe him with tokens,” Andie pointed out.
Eli slid his gaze back to her and assessed her as he shifted closer. “Would tokens work with you?”
Andie’s heart jolted at the look in his eyes. She was about to give him an absolute unequivocal no when Ash joined them.
He gave Eli a sympathetic pat on the back. “I think Fletcher got the Masters ‘G’ gene.”
Eli nodded. “I suspected.”
“Is he reading?”
“Yes, and multiplying.”
Ash winced. “You’ve got your hands full.”
Confused, Andie looked from Ash to Eli. “The ‘G’ gene?”
Eli looked uncomfortable. “My mother was...academically...”
Ash snorted. “Mom was a genius. So are Eli and Caleb. I’d lay odds Fletch is, too.” He grinned with great pleasure and answered her unvoiced question. “I’m not.” The loudspeaker announced the Masterses’ pizza and table were ready. “Time to round up the kids. I’ll grab those in the moon walk.”
Eli tossed her a wary glance. “You look a little stunned.”
Andie followed the group to the table and lifted her shoulders. “Well, he seemed so pleased that he wasn’t...”
Eli exhaled in disgust. “He has always rubbed it in that he isn’t an egghead.”
She heard a trace of resentment in Eli’s voice that she didn’t understand. “Do you think it’s a defense mechanism?”
Disbelief skimmed across his face. “Ash?” Eli laughed. “He watched Caleb and me struggle to fit in throughout our entire childhood. I’ve never seen a kid so relieved as Ash was when his first report card had average grades. There were plenty of times Caleb and I envied him.”
Andie shook her head. “But it’s wonderful to be intellectually gifted. You can do so much....” She broke off when she saw his eyes darken and his jaw tighten. Immediately, she knew she’d spoken without understanding and she regretted her insensitivity.
“Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it just marks you as different.” Glancing at Fletch, Eli pulled out a chair for her. “Have a seat.”
Polite again, she thought, unfailingly so. But she was stuck wondering what his deeper thoughts and feelings were, and knowing he wasn’t going to share them. He’d closed a door, and she was filled with an odd sense of loss.
The pizza was devoured amid great chaos. The adults spent more time refilling drinks, mopping up spills and serving seconds than actually eating anything themselves. While Eli took pictures, Andie lit the candles on Fletch’s cake and led everyone in a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday.” The way Fletch solemnly gazed at the group singing to him caught at her heart. She gave him a quick squeeze. “Make a wish before you blow them out.”
Fletch looked at her, wide-eyed. “A wish?”
Andie smiled. “Anything you want.”
“Can I make a wish for my mommy?”
Her heart tightened. “Oh, honey.” She felt the burn of tears. Other little boys would be wishing for fire trucks or bicycles, but Fletch had suffered a tremendous loss. It was all she could do not to pull him into her arms and try to make his hurt go away.
“Andie?” Eli prompted, glancing from her to Fletch with concern.
She nodded, feeling a tug of compassion for both of them. Eli wanted so badly for Fletch to be happy, especially today. “It’s okay,” she told him. “We’re working on the wish.” Then she turned back to Fletch. “You can make a wish for your mommy if you want to,” she said gently. “You can wish that she’s happy and well where she is. And you’re a really special boy to even think of it. But since it’s your birthday, I bet your mommy would want you to make the wish for you.”
He took a deep breath. “Think so?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
He thought a moment, then took another deep breath and blew out all the candles. The kids cheered, and Andie watched Fletch smile, his dimple making a rare appearance. He leaned close to her and whispered loudly in her ear. “I wished for a puppy.”
* * *
After everyone returned home and the parents picked up the children, the big house seemed as quiet as a tomb. Surprisingly, Fletch had given in to a nap. Eli sat in the den with Andie and his brothers. It wasn’t one of those brotherly bonding moments. An uncomfortable silence hung in the air. Caleb was scribbling on another piece of paper, and Ash was reading the sports section of the newspaper. Eli narrowed his eyes and took a second look. Or was it the stock report?
He rubbed his hands together and glanced at Andie.
The single bit of warmth in the room stood as if she were making her escape. “Thanks for including me. It was a memorable experience,” she said with a smile full of gentle amusement.
He stood, too, reluctant for her to leave. “Why don’t you stay for dinner?”
She waved her hand in the direction of Caleb and Ash, and moved toward the hall. “Your brothers are here. I don’t want to intrude on your family time.”
Eli didn’t have a clue what family time was. It sounded similar to small talk. “We often include visitors during family time,” Eli said, feeling like the blind leading the blind as he joined her in the hall.
Eyebrows furrowing in confusion, she tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. “But I thought you said it’s been years since the three of you were together.”
“Right.” He met her gaze for a long moment, then sighed. “Andie, what did your family do during your family time?”
She shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary. We played board games. Sometimes we sang or someone would read. That was usually me.” Her mouth tilted in a grin full of reminiscence. “I had three brothers, so when they got a little older, they begged me to bake cookies and we would watch football or basketball games on television.”
Eli considered her suggestions and eliminated each one. The only one that held any appeal was the cookies. “Can you remember anything else?”
She blinked and just looked at him for a long moment. Then her eyes widened incredulously. “Eli!”
She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Don’t tell me you and your brothers have nothing in common.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and pondered her statement. “We know a lot about cars, but Caleb hates working on them.” Eli didn’t think Andie would understand his oddball family. Her frame of reference was totally different. “When we were growing up, our mother encouraged us to develop our individual interests.”
“But surely you must have played together some.”
“I don’t remember playing much, at least in the sense that you would define it.”
Andie muffled a groan. “Okay.” She pushed her hair behind her ear and pursed her lips as if she were determined to solve this problem. He wondered if she wore that same expression, totally feminine, yet completely unbending, at work. “What about games and books and sports?”
He was so distracted by her effect on him that he almost forgot to answer. He glanced away to clear his head. “The last time Caleb and I played chess, he was eight and I was eleven. He got mad become he was losing. Caleb is incredibly competitive. Middle children often are,” he felt compelled to explain, and grimaced in remembrance. “He put the chess pieces in the oven. The set had been an anniversary gift to my mom from my dad. She cried. My dad yelled. No more chess.”
She nodded her head in understanding. “Music?”
Eli shook his head. “Shower voices only.” Major understatement, he thought, considering his entire family was tone-deaf. “Reading’s out, unless we ask Ash to read the sports page. I suppose Caleb could mumble a few chemistry formulas,” he added half-seriously.
She closed her eyes. “Let’s save that one. What about movies or favorite television shows?”
“My mother believed television was a mental vacuum. Every once in a while, Dad would sneak and let us watch professional wrestling.”
“Wrestling?” she echoed in disbelief.
“Nature Boy Rick Flair, Hulk Hogan,” he quoted, the names as indelibly imprinted on his brain as his academic knowledge. “Ricky Steamboat, André the Giant—”
She held up a hand for him to stop, then rubbed her forehead. “This is too much,” she murmured. “Did your brothers like wrestling? Do you still watch it?”
“We all liked it, but I haven’t watched it in years. It was fun until I went away to college. I think it was the forbidden element.”
She looked him over for a long considering moment, then her gaze shifted downward and her eyelashes shielded her eyes. Shaking her head, she smiled as if she’d remembered a private joke.
The secret smile took him off guard, and Eli thought about a different forbidden element. He’d like to see her wearing a smile and nothing else. He wished he could crawl inside her mind. Inside her body.
“Okay,” she said. “You get started on whatever you were planning to give them for dinner, and I’ll be back in about thirty minutes.”
She was already moving toward the front door. Eli snagged her hand. “Where are you going?”
“It’s a surprise,” she said in a dry tone.
“Why are you doing this?”
She stopped, and a fleeting shadow of vulnerability crossed her face. She shrugged and looked away. “Because I was born to,” she murmured darkly and pushed open the door.
Eli stared after her, wondering what she was talking about.
* * *
Two hours later, Andie viewed Eli’s den with a mixture of emotions. Three grown men scarfed down meat-eaters’ pizza, guzzled beer and laughed, guffawed and slapped their knees as they watched a video filmfest of the Three Stooges. Fletch sat on his father’s knee and alternately followed the movie and fiddled with the steam-cleaned carburetor Caleb had given him as a birthday gift.
Some things never changed.
Andie recalled a similar scene years ago, minus the steam-cleaned carburetor, when she’d been left in charge of her brothers. The weather had been horrible, so they couldn’t go outside. Out of desperation, she’d switched on the TV and found Larry, Curly and Moe. Within moments, her brothers were glued to the screen, laughing and pointing at the Stooges. Although she’d been thankful for the Stooges, she’d never shared her brothers’ enthusiasm for the trio.
Through no fault of their own, the Stooges became associated with that seemingly endless period of time when she’d taken care of her brothers and missed out on being a teenager. When she left home for college, she’d made a promise to herself that she would never watch another Stooges movie. It had been one small way of disassociating herself from her caretaker role and forging a new identity. Impatience licked through her. So where was her new identity tonight? Saturday night, and she was watching men watch a movie. For crying out loud.
Stiffening her spine, she took one last look at the Masters men, her gaze lingering on Eli. Despite her frustration with herself, part of her was pleased that she’d been able to help him. Part of her wanted to take the seat beside him just to be close to him. Part of her wanted to park her brain in neutral and just kiss him, long, and slow, and deep.
Part of her, she told herself grimly, was obviously insane.
With that admonition in mind, she ignored the ache that was becoming more insistent, the heat that threatened to melt her resolve and an insatiable feminine curiosity. Instead she slipped down the hall and out the door.
Walking home to a dark, silent and nearly empty house, Andie squelched the urge to return to Eli’s mausoleum. Too restless to go to bed early, she pulled on her long T-shirt and decided to tackle the fascinating task of laundry. Mary Chapin Carpenter belted it out on her CD player, and Stud shifted positions often enough for her to trip over him twice.
She was folding towels when she heard an insistent tap at her back door. Noting the late hour, she ruefully glanced at her state of dress. Although her T-shirt nearly reached her knees, she took a blue bath towel with her to look out the window.
Dr. Frankenstein in the flesh.
Fighting a strange uneasiness, Andie opened the door. Eli walked in, a bottle of wine in one hand, two glasses in the other. “You left,” he said, his gaze intense and questioning.
Her stomach took a dip. She hugged the blue towel to her chest and backed away. “I’d already seen those movies,” she said. Twenty times at least, she thought.
He stepped closer. “You should have told me.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt.” Dismayed by a sudden jittery feeling, she tried for a slight smile. “You seemed absorbed.
“I kept wondering when you were going to come back.” He set the bottle on the table and cocked his head to one side, regarding her curiously. “How did you know we’d like the Stooges?”
Andie relaxed just a little. “Oh, well, that’s easy. I had three younger brothers, and along the way, I learned a few common denominators for the male gender. Food, especially pizza and homemade brownies, can distract a guy from the time he’s learning to chew until the time he loses his teeth,” she told him. “And all men love the Three Stooges. It must be in the Y chromosome.”
Eli raised his eyebrows in amusement. “You think it’s genetic.” His grin was slow. “What an interesting hypothesis. We got the pizza and the Stooges. What do I have to do to get the homemade brownies?”
Andie wondered how he managed to remind her of Fletch negotiating for a treat at the same time that he exuded enough sex appeal to turn her kneecaps to maple syrup. A warning signal went off inside her. “I don’t bake on demand anymore, so I guess you have to be around when the mood strikes me.”
“I’ll remember that,” Eli said, and glanced around the kitchen. “Your wine corkscrew?”
“Second drawer on the left.” She pointed to it before she realized she’d just agreed to share a glass of wine with him when she should have been shoving him out the door.
With steady hands, he opened the bottle and poured the wine into the glasses. “You mentioned food and the Stooges as common denominators for men. Any other ones you can think of?”
Sex. Bold, er
otic, the word and image shot through her like lightning. Feeling her cheeks heat, she accepted the wine he offered and took a quick sip before she set the glass on the counter. “I’m sure there are more.”
In the background, she heard Mary Chapin Carpenter singing an instruction to “Shut up and kiss me.” Andie resisted the urge to echo those words. “Eli, it’s very nice of you to bring this over, but it’s late and I’m not really dressed for—” When he stepped closer to her, her voice suddenly failed.
“Dressed for?” he prompted, his gaze wrapping around her like satin on naked skin.
Andie swallowed hard. “Dressed for company. I was going to—bed.” The last word came out in a whisper, and Andie forced her mind away from a quicksilver assault of heated images.
“I came over because I didn’t get a chance to thank you.”
“For what?” she asked in a small voice.
“For coming to Fletch’s party, and for renting the videos.” He shoved his glass on the counter behind her and threaded his hand through his hair. She could sense his frustration. His tension echoed inside her like a steel coil. “For being sweet.”
Something in his eyes shifted, and Andie got a glimpse of that contained energy spilling over. “Aw, hell,” he muttered, sliding his hand to the back of her neck.
Before she could think, let alone speak, his mouth took hers. Her heart skipped over itself. She should pull back, her inner voice insisted. But his subtle musky masculine scent distracted her. His mouth was warm and gentle, seeking, not conquering, and something inside her softened.
His tongue teased the seam of her lips, coaxing her to open and accept, to give and take. His body was hard and warm, his chest a strong protective wall that brushed against her breast. Acutely sensitive, she felt her nipples tighten and sucked in a quick breath.
“God, you’re sweet,” he muttered, pulling her closer and massaging the back of her neck. He pushed the towel she’d held against her to the floor.
“Open up,” he urged softly. “You feel so good.” He took her mouth again, more urgently. Shifting his mouth first one way, then another, he explored and implored. His obvious arousal hit her where she was most vulnerable, at the deep, dark center of where she doubted her ability to turn him on.