What a Woman Needs

by Judi Fennell

  “So how are your assignments coming, boys?” Gran asked.

  “How’s it going?” Bryan choked on the words before he thought about the consequences of saying them. Consequences he quickly tried to mitigate when Gran looked at him sharply. “I seriously have no idea why people procreate. You ought to see these five kids. I get the place all clean and nice, and by the time I’ve finished the last room, I have to start all over again. It’s like each kid is their own tornado. Inversely proportional to their size, too. That little one . . . whew. She can create a mess of epic proportions.”

  “She’s hurting, Bryan. Acting out. Have patience,” said Gran. “Her father was the pilot of that plane crash a few years ago. Sad.”

  So much sadder than anyone had realized. And given what’d happened to his parents, Bryan was in the perfect position to empathize, hence his issues.

  He cut a slice of bread. “I know exactly what she’s feeling, Gran.”

  “I know you do.”

  Gran squeezed his hand and for a moment, he was back in the church the day of the funeral when she’d done the same thing before he’d broken down completely.

  And just like then, she changed the subject. “Liam? How’s Cassidy?”

  Liam shook his head. “She’s Cassidy.”

  “Now, Liam, don’t judge her by what everyone says about her.”

  That she was a spoiled socialite without one iota of a clue how to live a normal life since her rich father paid for everything. Airhead Central.

  The thing was, it’d be easier to deal with Cassidy Davenport and her cluelessness than Beth and her down-to-earth-ness. Her realness. And the kids . . . God, the kids. The fact that he knew what they were going through . . . Why’d Mac had to give him this assignment? Why couldn’t he have gotten some old woman with fifty years’ worth of cobwebs and dust bunnies to deal with? Or, hell, even Cassidy. He’d take Cassidy any day over wanting Beth so much that his chest hurt when he thought about it.

  And he was thinking about it a lot. Missed half the dinner conversation thinking about wanting Beth. Christ. He was a mess. He took a swig of his wine. He really needed to get out while he could. “So what do you think about switching, Sean?”

  Sean shook his head. “I’m sorry, what’d you say?”

  “Your assignment. She must be a babe if you haven’t even told us word one about her. I’m thinking I might have to check her out if you’re not calling dibs on her. Maybe we can switch jobs.” As soon as he said it, he knew he wouldn’t do it. Sean might not be in movies, but he was a good-looking guy. And local. Beth and the kids could get attached to Sean as much as they’d get attached to him.

  “You have your own client to deal with.”

  Gran drilled him with her gaze. People called her eyes slate blue; Bryan called them steel. His grandmother was made of stern stuff and she didn’t miss a trick. It’d made it tough to get away with shit when he’d been a kid and it looked like things hadn’t changed much in the intervening years. “And she’s quite lovely if I remember correctly from the newspaper.”

  The newspapers hadn’t done Beth justice. “Yeah, she’s hot, but she’s got five kids. Nothing destroys a woman’s attractiveness faster than a bunch of kids hanging around.” He was lying. Beth could have ten kids and it wouldn’t change how he felt about her, so who was he trying to convince?

  His brothers. Because if they had even an inkling of the struggle he was facing when it came to Beth and her family, he’d never hear the end of it.

  “Ahem.” Gran drilled him with her eyes. Her hard, cold, steel blue eyes.

  Why?

  Oh shit. Gran had raised four kids and he’d just made that stupid remark. . . “I’m, uh, sorry, Gran. I, uh—”

  Gran lifted her hand. “I raised you better than that, Bryan Matthew. That woman has a lot to offer someone, and those children are blessings. You should be so lucky to have her even think about going out with you. With comments like that, you don’t deserve her.”

  He knew that. He didn’t deserve her. And more importantly, she deserved better.

  So then why, a few hours later when he’d survived the dinner with eagle-eyed Gran, did he jump at the chance to spend Friday night with her when her friend Kara called to invite him to the neighborhood happy hour?

  Because he was obviously a glutton for punishment.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  HE was definitely a glutton for punishment; he spent the entire next day working on the closets in Beth’s bedrooms. She’d left him a list of things to do—he refused to call it a Honey-Do list because that would imply he was her honey and he did not need those implications—and the most pressing seemed to be the loose clothes racks. He hadn’t counted on what, exactly, he’d be touching.

  Or maybe he had.

  There he was, shoulder to shoulder—and cheek to cheek—with her dresses, removing them, draping them over his arms, feeling the silky fabric slide against his skin, imagining it doing the same to hers. Imaging her sliding against him. Replaying the kiss in the gazebo over and over until his dick could have held all the clothes up. And her perfume . . . It lingered in the air of her closet, surrounding him, taunting him with something he had no right to want.

  Thank God she was gone for the day. At least when he was walking around with a boner big enough to hang clothes on, no one was there to witness it.

  “Dude, please tell me you’re not into ladies’ clothing.”

  Except for Jason.

  Shit. He’d forgotten that Jason was old enough not to go on every excursion Beth took.

  Ah, well. Nothing deflated a boner quicker than the kid of the woman he had that boner for.

  “I’m fixing your mom’s closet.”

  “Actually, that’s my dad’s.”

  Double shit. Boner gone; empathy ratcheting up six zillion degrees.

  Silence. Jason glaring at him, daring him to say something.

  So he did.

  “Then maybe you ought to help me fix it.”

  Jason blinked. Fast. A few times. He looked away briefly, too. But then he sucked it up, choked back the tears that Bryan could tell were brimming just below the surface, and nodded.

  It was enough.

  • • •

  BETH stared at the price tag. Again. She couldn’t even say how long she’d been staring at it or even what the price was because her mind was a million miles away. Well, four point two miles to be exact. That was exactly how far her front door was from this store. She drove here hundreds of times a year, but that wasn’t why she knew it was four point two miles from her home. No, that she knew because she’d watched the mileage tick up as she drove farther from her home this morning. Before Bryan had arrived.

  She hadn’t wanted to be there. Well, that wasn’t quite true. She’d wanted nothing more than to be there, which was what was wrong. Bryan. Was. Leaving. She had to get it through the thick, charisma-induced fog that’d filtered into her brain cavity the day he’d shown up.

  “Mommy, are you gonna get that one or not ’cause I’m gettin’ bored.” Maggie plopped her chin in her hand and looked up at Beth with Mike’s eyes.

  Beth dropped the price tag and shook her head. “It’s not exactly what I want.” Because what she wanted couldn’t be bought off a rack.

  Two more weeks. The maid service had been the perfect gift, but the more Bryan worked around her house, the more he fixed her home aesthetically, the more he did it emotionally. Mentally. Spiritually.

  It was nice having a man around her house. Nice seeing his broad shoulders reaching places she couldn’t, doing things she didn’t have time to do. Setting her home to rights. As if a sweep of testosterone was all they needed to put the house back to the way it was before Mike had taken off that morning.

  Except that testosterone couldn’t be Bryan’s. Maybe she should go out and start trying to find someone. Someone for her. Maybe that’s what this was all about. The raw, blatant, knock-her-socks-off appeal of Bryan’s sexuality had
woken her up. Made her want again. Made her ache again, and she’d forgotten what that was like. Forgotten what it was like to yearn for someone. To want to be physically and emotionally close to someone. No, Bryan couldn’t be that man, but he sure as hell was the best wake-up call there was. She owed it to her kids to find someone. To make the house a home again. And she owed it to herself to love and be loved. To find that companionship the whim of Mother Nature had ripped from her.

  Happy hour tonight. There were several single guys in the area. Many of her friends invited their friends. Maybe she’d come out of her shell a bit and actually talk to some of them with an eye toward dating instead of hiding behind her widowhood. Maybe it was finally time to live again.

  “Can we get hot dogs, Mom? Please?” asked Tommy.

  “Yeah, I want mustard on mine. And kraut,” said Mark.

  “You don’t like kraut.”

  “Yes I do.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “I do too.”

  “You do not.”

  “Do too.”

  “Do not.”

  “Dorks!” Kelsey plopped a hand on the twins’ heads and swiveled them around to look at her. “Remember what Bryan said? You have to watch each other’s backs. You can’t do that if you’re fighting, so knock it off. You don’t like sauerkraut, Mark. You said it tastes like seasick worms and we don’t need you puking on the ride home.” Kelsey glanced up and shook her head at Beth.

  Remember what Bryan said . . . Great. Now her children were quoting him. Living by his rules. By the example he’d set.

  She was never going to be able to replace him in her life.

  Then she showed up at happy hour and realized that, for tonight at least, she wasn’t going to have to.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  DID you see who’s here?”

  “Oh my God, it’s Bryan Manley!”

  “Bryan Manley is here!”

  “A movie star is on Kara’s patio!”

  “I’m going to have an orgasm right this minute!”

  Beth could relate to every comment. Especially that last one, though it was just wrong that it came from Jason’s math teacher. It was weird enough seeing Mrs. Shuman in her robe getting her newspaper on Sunday mornings in their neighborhood, but now this?

  Someone sidled up next to her and slid an arm around her waist. “Beth! I’m so glad you decided to share him.”

  Beth looked at the woman next to her. Bethany Cavanaugh. She lived four doors down, drove a Jag, and was single. Beth had spoken to her maybe six times in all the years the woman had lived here and now they were buddies? “I, uh—”

  “Oh, it wasn’t Beth.” Kara slipped through the crowd with a sly smile on her face and handed Beth a glass of wine. “I invited him.”

  “How’d you get his number?” Bethany asked the question Beth would’ve asked if she could speak.

  “I have my ways.” Kara took smug to a whole new level.

  Of course she did. And of course she’d use them to get him here. Beth should have seen that one coming. But what the hell did it mean? Kara was married. Happily, or at least Beth would have thought so, but then, you never could tell what went on in other people’s marriages. She sipped the wine.

  “Well, aren’t you the hostess with the mostest?” Bethany sidled up to Kara.

  Beth suddenly felt the need to take a shower.

  Even more so—and in a totally different way—when Bryan looked up at that moment and caught her staring.

  She wanted to shower with him. To get all sweaty and then soapy with him. Slide up against him in her sheets, then in the shower and, hell, maybe even on the bathroom rug.

  “So you didn’t know he was coming?” smirked Bethany. Though their names were similar, Beth was plain Beth while Bethany was as sleek and sexy as her Jag. “Honey, I’d sure know if he was coming.”

  Oh, the innuendo. Beth so did not need it.

  Bethany, apparently, did. She left her new bestie Kara to saunter over to Bryan.

  Beth felt a slight moment of gratification to see Bryan glance at Bethany, take in her breezy summer dress that had slits in all the right places, then look back to her with a slight smile hovering on his lips that said he’d seen this before.

  Was it wrong that it made her happy to know Bryan saw through the woman?

  True to his graciousness and charm, however, when Bethany planted herself in front of him and held out her hand for him to take—back of it up as if she expected him to kiss it—Bryan did turn on the charm. Beth could have told him not to have bothered; Bethany was his for the taking, even if he wanted to run through his lines while she did him. It was almost laughable.

  Almost.

  “So how much longer do you get to enjoy him?” asked one of the other women.

  “Has he done your drawers yet?”

  “Cooked in your kitchen?”

  “Changed your sheets?”

  The innuendoes wouldn’t stop, and while Beth could appreciate the humor and good-natured teasing behind them, she was having a hard time holding on to her composure.

  Then he appeared at her side. “Hey, Beth. Ladies.”

  He’d singled her out. The envy in the other women’s eyes was almost palpable. Especially Bethany’s when he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Your friend Kara invited me tonight.”

  “So I heard.”

  “It was nice of her.”

  Nice had nothing to do with why Kara had invited him.

  “Thank you for fixing the bars in my closets. They were accidents waiting to happen.”

  “Yeah, they were pretty loose. Jason helped me.”

  “Jason?”

  “You know, your son? Used to have a mop on his head but now you can see his face? Surly kid.”

  God, the man was gorgeous when he teased her.

  Focus on the conversation, not on his dimples.

  She took a quick sip of her wine. “Oh. Him. Yeah, I think we’ve met. But the Jason I know had zero interest in helping me around the house.”

  “Well he suddenly became interested. He helped with the rest of the clothesline project, too.” His fingers tapped her waist and Beth was suddenly interested in something also.

  Well, no. That wasn’t true. She’d been interested in that since she’d laid eyes on him on her front porch.

  She shoved the thought aside, took another sip of wine, and dragged her brain back into their conversation. After all, they were talking about her son for Pete’s sake. She ought to be able to keep lust-filled thoughts at bay while discussing her child. “He has a vested interest in the clothesline. He doesn’t want his boxers showing up in the neighbor’s hedges again.”

  Bryan’s left eyebrow went up and, oh, was it a good look on him. “Again?”

  Beth nodded. “Sherman’s an equal-opportunity humiliator.”

  “Ah. That explains Jason’s enthusiasm then when we finally erected it.”

  Did he have to use that word? It was all Beth could do not to glance at his groin.

  Several of the women, however, weren’t so circumspect, and Beth was amazed to see Bryan blush.

  “So, are there any more like you in Mac’s stable? If so, sign me up for a lifelong contract,” one of the woman said, earning a nice round of chuckles.

  “Sorry, ladies. My brothers and I are taken for the month, but I’m sure Mac will be hiring more guys since there’s been a lot of interest.”

  No, he was what caused the interest. Mac Manley had known what she was doing when she’d put her brothers to work.

  Just like Kara had known what she was doing when she’d invited him to the party. It went on longer than any of the other happy hours had lasted before, to the point where kids were starting to drop like flies and Kara’s basement den became one big sleepover because none of the parents wanted to leave.

  The thing was, Bryan charmed them all, not just the women. The men got over their initial animosity to talk about his movies and the stunts and what it was li
ke to work with “hot babes,” and all the stars he’d worked with. Bryan was amazing about deflecting a lot of the attention, though. When the conversation would go on for a while about his life, he’d turn it around and ask other people what they did or where they were going on vacation or how their kids were doing in sports or school or boy scouts . . . The man really knew how to work a crowd and make it seem genuine.

  But then, Bryan was genuine. Beth liked that the most about him. Sure, he was nice to look at and he could kiss her right out of her clothes if he tried hard enough, but in the end, he was a genuinely nice guy. There were no airs, no look-at-me-I’m-better-than-you, no false modesty, just a genuineness and self-effacing honesty that made him all that much more attractive.

  “So, Beth, why don’t you bring Bryan along on Sunday?” Dena Reardon tucked the lone curl dangling from her updo behind her ear with a seductive tilt of her head.

  Only in this crowd would an invite to an amusement park include a come-on.

  “Sunday?” Bryan did his own head-tilting, but it was completely natural and devoid of invitation.

  That didn’t stop Beth from wanting to run her lips along his jaw and kiss her way down his throat and run her fingers through his hair—

  “Um, we’re going to Martinson’s Amusement Park. The kids have wanted to go since it opened in April, but with school it was too hard to schedule. I promised them we’d go at the beginning of summer and Sunday’s the only day it works until August.”

  “I remember Martinson’s.” Bryan’s face lit up in a smile. If he hadn’t already been a movie star, that smile would seal the deal. “I could never get enough of that place growing up.”