by Judi Fennell
“Thank you, Mommy. Bryan said little girls who take care of their rooms grow into very successful women. You must have had a really clean room when you were little, right, Mommy?”
Chalk up one more reason Beth wanted to kiss Bryan Manley.
• • •
ANOTHER one was added to the list when she got to the backyard and saw Bryan removing the slat in the wood fence that was pinning Sherman in place, Tommy on one side, Mark on the other, both ready to grab the hyperactive dog the minute he was free.
“This end of the hammer is used for removing nails. See this V here?” Bryan slid the curved end of the hammer along the wood and pried out a nail. “Be careful with it once you remove it. Rusty nails mean a trip to the ER.”
“Yeah, you have to get a big shot. Nick Miller had to do that when he stepped on one on the playground.”
Beth winced, remembering when that’d happened. The blood had scared the kids, and then one had shared the big needle myth, which set Nick and the rest of the kids off. It would be a birthday party Nick would never forget, but unfortunately not for good reasons. It was part of the reason her younger three were so terrified of needles.
“Like anything else, guys, you learn how to do it properly and you reduce your risk of injury.” Bryan pried out the other nail. “Now both of you hold on to Sherman ’cause he’s going to want to run when I lift this board off him.”
“I have his collar,” Mark said from the other side.
“I have his tail,” said Tommy trying to grab the stub that constituted Sherman’s wagging appendage.
“You can’t hold him by his tail,” said Mark scathingly. Amazing how the two minutes separating their births gave Mark the big-brother mentality.
“Can too.”
“Cannot.”
“Can—”
“Guys, both of you hold on. He’s going to want to get away. Ready?”
“Yeah,” they said in unison, a sound so sweet to Beth’s ears. Hadn’t been so much when they’d wailed in unison as infants, but this . . . definitely.
“One.” Bryan pried the board away from the one next to it with that curved end of the hammer. “Two.” He slid his fingers beneath it and set the hammer down, then grabbed the other side. “Three.” He pulled the board back just enough that Sherman could wiggle through, right onto Mark, who, thankfully, didn’t let go of his collar.
“Told you I could get him!”
“I helped!” Tommy was off and running toward the gate to get to the other side of the fence.
“That’s right, Tom. You did. Now hold on to him, guys.” Bryan set the board back in place, grabbed two new nails, and hammered them in.
“Bryan! You did it!” Maggie ran across the yard and flung her arms around his neck as she leapt onto his back. “You saved Sherman! Again!”
Again? Again? Beth admitted to a twinge of hurt. She was the one who’d found Sherman and untangled him from the clothesline. She was the one who’d puffed into his snout and carried him to the car. She was the one who’d been terrified she’d have to break the news to her kids that someone else they loved had died. Yet Bryan was the one getting the hugs?
“Your mom saved Sherman the other day, Maggie. Not me.”
Well, now he did deserve a hug for being so darn chivalrous.
Beth reached the two of them as he peeled her daughter’s arms from around his neck and stood up.
Her steps faltered. She’d forgotten how tall he was. How he filled out that shirt.
That’s because he wasn’t wearing a shirt in your dream last night, sweetie.
How observant he was . . . His left eyebrow arched as she blushed yet again.
“Thank you.” She tried to keep the huskiness out of her voice.
“No problem. The dog managed to wedge himself in there pretty good.”
“Not for Sherman. Well, I mean, yes, for that but also for . . .” She glanced down at Maggie and cupped her daughter’s chin. “Why don’t you go help your brothers bring Sherman back home where he belongs?”
“Okay, Mommy.”
Beth gnawed on her bottom lip for a second as she watched Maggie skip off, then looked up at Bryan. “I meant for what you just said to Maggie. That I saved Sherman. I know it shouldn’t be a big deal, but—”
“Hey, you don’t have to explain. Or thank me.” He touched her arm in a companionable sort of way—until electricity shot up her arm. His, too, if his reaction was anything to go by because he yanked his hand away so quickly it was awkward.
“I—”
“I’m—”
“What were you—”
“You first.”
Awkward reigned supreme.
Of course Bryan would be the one to break it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“No. It’s fine. It’s just . . . I’m not used to—”
“Oh right. I hadn’t thought about that.”
She was lying through her teeth. She didn’t react that way to anyone else touching her. Hell, she hadn’t reacted that way to the few kisses she’d received on those dates that hadn’t worked out and they’d been a hell of a lot more sexual than a mere brush of his fingers. “No, it’s not that. It’s just . . .” Geez, what was she supposed to say that wouldn’t embarrass them both?
“Beth, I—”
And there he went with the touching thing again. Granted, this time it was her shoulder, but still . . . same reaction. Only this time neither one pulled away.
But she should. She shouldn’t be contemplating what she was contemplating.
But he looked as if he was contemplating it, too.
This was crazy. Insane. Foolish. It could go nowhere. And they were in her backyard where anyone could see them.
Including Jason and Kelsey if they looked out their windows.
“Sherman!” Maggie squealed from the other side of the fence.
Maggie. Oh God. And Tommy. And Mark. They couldn’t see her and Bryan this close.
“Sherman, no!” This from Mark, accompanied by another squeal from Maggie and a word out of Tommy’s mouth Beth hadn’t realized he even knew.
“I need to see what’s going on.” Yeah, it was an excuse, but it was valid. Amazing that Sherman was her savior.
“I’ll go with you.”
Bryan grabbed her hand and they ran around the gate, all the while Beth was desperately trying not to notice the fire blazing along her nerve endings from her palm up through her arm and searing all throughout her body at the thought of what could have been.
Then she saw Sherman. Nothing like a good dose of dog-rolling-in-compost to cool one’s sizzling nerve endings.
“Oh, Sherman, no!” all four of the Hamiltons said in unison.
“Oh, Sherman, yes,” growled Bryan as he directed the kids to form a circle around the dog. “Come on, guys, get ready to grab him when he bolts.”
Bryan shifted his weight back and forth, ready to pounce, and oh, what it did to his butt. And Beth wasn’t looking away.
Then he lunged and the physical perfection that was Bryan was nothing compared to him coming to her rescue yet again—even when he slipped, taking a header onto the pile.
And it was that and the fact that he managed to keep hold of her squiggling pet that sent his knight-in-shining-banana-peel status up a whole bunch of notches.
Chapter Nine
BRYAN used the fluffy pink towel Maggie had insisted on lending him before he’d headed into the shower, and tried hard not to look around Beth’s bathroom when he finished. To imagine her in here, showering. Wet. Covered in suds.
Or not.
Okay, he wasn’t doing very well on that front.
He scrubbed his head with the towel. Ah, that smelled like her. Not perfume, just an inexpensive bottle of shampoo, but combined with her natural scent . . . Bam! Got him right in the midsection.
As had that almost-kiss earlier.
He should have done it—well, no, he shouldn’t have. There was too much baggage. His inc
luded. But, damn, he’d wanted to. Especially when he’d been within one tiny step of tasting her. Of holding her in his arms and discovering all the sweetness he knew was inside of Beth. Of feeling her against him, how her body would match the contours of his, how she’d fit into his arms. There’d be fireworks. He knew it. He didn’t know how he knew; he just did. He hadn’t felt fireworks in, well, years. Even with all the beautiful women he’d dated, he knew Beth would eclipse all of them if he only had the chance to take her in his arms and kiss her.
But he didn’t and he’d better suck that up and deal with it, not stand here mooning over something that would just complicate things. He wrapped the towel around his hips and looked for something to put on. Sadly, he doubted his uniform was out of the laundry yet, but he couldn’t very well go walking around her house in a towel. He wasn’t stupid; he worked hard at keeping his body in this shape and knew what it looked like. Knew the effect it had on women, and while he was glad of it around Beth, Kelsey . . . not so much.
Beth’s robe was hanging on the back of the door. Of course it was pink.
He shrugged. Real men could wear pink, and hell, he was already in this fluffy towel with a cat’s face on the edge; a pink robe was almost an afterthought.
Too bad it was too small.
Bryan pulled the one sleeve off. He’d gotten it up to his bicep. Beth might be the perfect height for him, but she wasn’t built like him. And thank God for that.
He shrugged and opened the bathroom door. Don’t look at her bed.
Uh, yeah. That didn’t work.
The bed had the covers pulled up but not tucked in. The pillows were on the chair beside it. She’d gotten up in a hurry to rescue Sherman. Had she been wearing those short shorts she’d shown up in outside to bed? Or did she sleep in the nude? She hadn’t been wearing a bra—that much he knew for certain and it’d tortured him throughout his shower.
He readjusted the towel. Yeah, that was pointless. A towel was not going to hide his growing erection.
Which meant that, of course, that was the moment her bedroom door opened and Beth stood there with clothing in her hands.
Which she dropped.
Bryan bent down to pick them up, almost smacking into her.
“I, uh . . .” Beth did that adorable hair-behind-the-ear move and the really hot lip-licking thing she had no idea would affect him as it did. He didn’t know it’d affect him as it did—like a wave of lava rushing over his head and shooting straight to his groin. Good God, he wanted her.
Reason enough to back away. Which he did.
Of course the towel fell off when he did so.
Bryan scrambled to catch the thing somewhere by his knees, blushing for the first time in his life at his nudity.
“Oh. Shit. Sorry.” The damn towel had shrunk two sizes in two seconds, and it was twisted around on itself so that if that pitifully narrow thing actually covered him, he’d turn in his man card.
Beth’s blush matched the robe perfectly.
“Oh, geez. Here.” She thrust out a piece of the clothing. Bryan snatched it from her and plastered it over his groin. Great. Nothing like standing in front of her holding his junk with his ass hanging out the window behind him.
He prayed there weren’t any reporters out there. This picture would go viral in an instant.
Beth stood up and tried to avert her eyes—but he caught the quick glance to his nether regions.
Which caused said nether regions to get mighty interested.
Great. Nothing like holding your erect junk in front of the woman who’d made it that way.
Thank God, she turned around. “Those are, uh, were Mike’s. He wasn’t as, um, tall as you, but they should still fit. Until your uniform’s dry.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll just leave you to . . . get dressed.”
He didn’t want her to go.
Thankfully, some shred of common sense prevented him from blurting that out, and he waited until she closed the door behind her before he moved.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about wearing her husband’s clothes.
Dead husband’s.
Right. That distinction was important. He didn’t hit on married women. Widows, on the other hand . . .
No, he didn’t hit on widows, either. Hell, he didn’t hit on anyone. He didn’t have to. They all hit on him. But he hadn’t taken up any married woman’s invitation and so far, none of his lovers had been widows.
Beth could be the first.
He yanked on the shorts. Maybe wearing her dead husband’s clothes was a good idea; it’d keep him from making an ass out of himself around her. Seriously, he was not going to start something with Beth. She had too much going on in her life to handle a casual fling, and a casual fling was all Bryan was able to do at this point in his life. Especially with a mom from surburbia.
A little tap sounded from the door. “Bryan?”
He whipped the T-shirt over his head. “Hang on, Maggie. I’ll be right there.”
He gathered up the towel and hung it in the bathroom to dry, then opened the door to find Maggie standing there with a hopeful expression on her face.
Just like Kelsey’s and her three friends’ behind her. How many groups of friends did this kid have?
“Hi, Bryan.” Kelsey gave him a flirty little tilted-head smile that would be devastating to twelve-year-old boys. Beth was going to have her hands full in a few more years.
The kid needs a dad.
Bryan sucked in a breath. He needed to go clean a toilet or something. Get his mind off that asinine notion.
“We were wondering if you’d, you know, take some pictures with us?” Kelsey asked.
“Yeah, it’d totally make everyone jealous,” said one of the girls.
“And my mom, too. She thinks you’re hot.”
Bryan worked hard to plaster a smile to his face. This conversation had to be inappropriate on so many levels.
“Sure, girls, but let’s take this downstairs, okay?” The bedroom was not the place to do a photo shoot. His agent would have a coronary.
The girls giggled and moved toward the stairs en masse in that odd way teenage girls did. Maggie rolled her eyes and shook her head as she reached for his hand. “Raquel’s weird. All she talks about is boys.” Maggie’s sigh spoke volumes on her thoughts about the subject. “Boys are annoying.”
Bryan’s lips twitched. Ah, the blunt honesty of a child.
“Well, ’cept you,” Maggie said, stopping at the top of the stairs. She patted his hand with her free one. “You’re not annoying. You’re nice.”
His heart melted right then. He was surprised it wasn’t sliding down the stairs, her words touched him so much. Because she meant them. Kids her age were brutally honest—and that truth could hurt or warm the heart.
He hiked her into his arms and rested his forehead against hers for a few seconds. “Thanks, Maggie. I think you’re pretty special, too.”
She patted his cheeks and gave him a kiss on the nose. “Now we’re special buddies. That’s what my daddy used to do with me before he died.”
Bryan’s heart melted the rest of the way and he could only nod. Hell, he even had to blink a few times just so she wouldn’t see him tear up.
He carried her down the stairs, making his steps a little extra bouncy so her squeals of delight would wipe away the heavy emotion she’d tucked inside him. They could both use her laughter.
Kelsey was waiting not so patiently in the family room, trying to act all grown up and cool around her friends. How he remembered those days. It was tough growing up with one parent, and with the way her father had died . . .
He’d done his research after that first night. Read all the press coverage. Saw the suspicion that Mike Hamilton had been under in the days after his death. It couldn’t have been easy for Beth, trying to deal with his death and taking care of her kids and handling the press coverage. The press could be ruthless, especially if they smelled a story. And they had. He’
d found himself getting angry as he’d read the speculation that, in the end, had turned out to be pointless. Mike had been cleared of any wrongdoing and his record remained untarnished—as it should be.
Bryan hoisted Maggie onto the sofa and walked over beside Kelsey. Her shoulders went back. Her head went a little higher.
Then he put his arm around her. Her cool quotient grew exponentially; he could see it in her friends’ awed looks. Good. If he could do this for her, putting on an apron was worth it.
“Okay, girls, I’ve got a few minutes to do this. Who’s taking the pictures?”
“Oh, uh, right.” Kelsey’s face fell.
“I can!” Maggie raised her hand, her little face so full of hope Bryan was halfway into a wince because he knew what was coming when Kelsey shook her head.
“No way, Mags. I’ll get Mom.”
His wince turned into a smile he couldn’t contain.
He tried to tamp it down when Beth showed up, wiping her hands on a dishtowel, looking so June Cleaver it ought to make him run in the opposite direction, but didn’t.
She stopped short when she saw him, and the look she gave him was far from June Cleaver.
He had to talk himself out of his body’s natural response. Teenage girls became his mantra. Nothing better to kill the effect Beth had on him.
The photo op went from “a few minutes” to a good half hour as the girls warmed up to him and stopped being star struck.
Then their moms showed up.
Beth answered the door when he was finishing up with the last photo and she walked back into the living room with an apologetic look on her face. “Um, Bryan? The moms were wondering if they could, well . . .”
“Sure. No problem. But why don’t we go outside, ladies?” He did like meeting his fans and he knew as well as anyone that his looks were the draw. He had no illusions about that, and he worked on his looks for just that reason. They’d gotten him noticed, but he had to work at his craft to keep the jobs coming in. He didn’t want to be a pretty boy joke when all was said and done. Which was why he was trying to segue out of action hero roles. No one won an Oscar for those. It was solid acting that came from portraying emotionally complex characters that got the Best Actor awards, and that was something Bryan had had his eye on since his first SAG role.