He thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah.” Then the moment was over.
“I have to check Clashing Clans.”
“Go ahead, honey, I’ll print these off for you.”
Evan had informed her not to let him play the game on the iPad all day long, but she’d kept him occupied with the photography for two hours, and she considered that a win. She’d have to tell Evan his son had an interest in art after all.
The printer whined to life, pulling paper in and beginning to print. She scooted away from the desk, her mind on Evan when he’d dropped off Lyon. More specifically, on Gloria, who’d arrived with them.
Charlie had never met the raven-haired literary agent, and when she saw her—long, silken hair, sexy but professional style of dress, tall shoes, red lips, and blue eyes—she felt a pang of jealousy so strong, she could hardly breathe.
In a weird way, Glo reminded her of Rae. All vivacious beauty and fiery attitude wrapped up in quick wit and brains. Charlie, her light hair and simple dress, plain shoes and quieter voice, paled in comparison. That thought led to Russell, and Darian, the spunky redhead he’d married instead of Charlie. Before she could follow that thought into a downward spiral of inadequacy, she heard her front door pop open.
“Honey, I’m home!”
She reached the room to see Evan standing in her doorway, the gray sky behind him, soft lamplight highlighting the angles and planes of his face. He was dark and almost beautiful, one hand casually resting on the doorknob, a slow smile creeping onto his mouth. She wanted to tell him not to move a single muscle so she could grab her camera.
But that would be weird.
“Hey, how’d it go?” she asked as he came into her house and shut the door.
He strolled over to her, no closer than he’d ever stood to her, but somehow it felt too close. She thought of the moment he helped her stand when they were on the dock yesterday. He’d been too close then as well. She could smell his skin, hear him breathing.
Too close.
Stepping a foot away from him, she pointed to the dining room–turned-office at the back of her house. “I took some pictures I want you to see.”
In the kitchen, Lyon didn’t bother looking up from his electronic device. “Hey, Dad.”
Evan shot her a look.
“He hasn’t been playing long. Come on.”
She gestured to the printer. It happened to be printing her favorite photo. When the sheet slipped onto the tray, she lifted it carefully.
“Isn’t it great?” She admired the photo again, pointing to the set of Lyon’s mouth, the mood in his eyes, the way she’d captured a thought frozen in time. “He looks like you in this, don’t you think?” she asked, then became suddenly nervous when she realized she’d gushed over how handsome Lyon looked in the photo. By default, she’d also confirmed she found Evan handsome as well.
“He looks sad.” Evan’s brows pulled as he studied the picture, not sharing her neurosis.
He did? She looked again. “I thought he looked contemplative.”
“I don’t like to see him look grown up,” he murmured quietly. A penetrating sigh, then, “Rae’s missing it.”
She was. Missing everything.
Charlie’s heart sank. She’d overlooked an obvious factor, seeing the photo as a work of art, a beautiful piece. To Evan, it served as more evidence his son was growing up too fast, and Lyon’s mother wasn’t here to see it.
“I didn’t think of it that way,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” She bit her lip and regarded the still-printing pile of photos, worried there were more like it.
A warm hand slid up her back, coming to rest between her shoulder blades. Her skin tingled where he touched, a tingle that raced down her limbs. She clutched the photo, wrinkling one edge.
“Sorry, Ace.” She caught a hint of spice on his skin, the radiating attraction growing in circumference. His lips were next to her ear when he spoke again. “Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
There went the heart-flutter. The one she worried would turn into a flap. She swallowed thickly as he straightened away from her, keeping his hand on her back. He sneaked a glance over at Lyon who was ignoring them both, then Evan’s turquoise eyes turned back to her, traveling her face before he spoke again.
“I saw him sad. At age three. Because his mom was gone.”
At the inference of them grieving over Rae, the flutter dissolved into an ache.
“Don’t wanna see that sadness again. No kid should lose his mom that young.”
“Neither should her husband.”
His eyes met hers. “Neither should her best friend.”
She gave him a weak smile of agreement. They’d all lost her, and it’d been as unfair as Rae missing out on every moment since. She grasped his arm with one hand, running her fingers lightly over the sparrow tattoo on his arm. Rae’s tattoo.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re an amazing father.”
She felt him lean in the tiniest bit closer. “Think so?”
When she lifted her eyes from the ink, she found him watching her mouth. At that moment, a moment of mutual comfort turned into something… more. Something unexpected. His arm was wrapped around her on one side, his palm high on her back, and her hand was squeezing his forearm. They were holding one another. And now she was admiring his lips, too.
So wrong.
Sorry, Rae.
“Dad!” Lyon’s raised voice made her jerk. “Swimming!”
She yanked her arm away, but Evan moved until his palm rested on the back of her neck.
“Okay, bud. Get your stuff.” When he turned back to her, his eyelashes were narrowed over his blue eyes, a hint of a smile playing on his mouth. “Ace.”
Fluttering. So much fluttering.
“Hmm?”
A gentle squeeze to her neck and then, “We’ll continue this later.”
With that cryptic promise, he gathered up Lyon and left her house.
* * *
The next morning, Charlie was hunkered over her computer working on Sofie’s promotional brochure. The lighting in the photos of Sofie needed a few touch-ups thanks to the darker corner where they’d shot them, but Faith’s needed none. Helping the cause were her enviable bone structure, straight back, and flawless skin. She decided to ask Faith to be on standby in case she needed a model.
A knock on her sliding door made her turn her head, where she saw Evan, a mug in each hand, and Lyon, hands cupped on either side of his face, peering through the glass.
She grinned, stood, and opened the back door. Then took in Evan’s stunned expression and realized belatedly she didn’t look her best. She went to work straight out of bed and was still wearing pajamas. Striped cotton shorts and a thin cotton shirt… and she hadn’t brushed her hair.
“Oh, my hair.” She lifted her hand to her head in apology. It must be a rat’s nest.
Lyon walked past her, paying her no attention, but Evan’s dark brows were near his hairline.
“I’ll go brush it.” She backed away to let him in. “I woke early and got so wrapped up in what I was doing…” She spied the mugs he was holding. “You brought me coffee? Thank you so much. What time is it, anyway?”
He didn’t answer, simply abandoned both mugs on her kitchen table, then startled her by gripping her arms and pulling her to him, so tightly her breasts smashed into his chest. That’s when she realized something else: she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“Don’t move,” he instructed, his voice rumbling along her rib cage, which happened to be butting up against the hard muscle of his chest and torso. “Buddy,” he told Lyon, “wait outside while Charlie gets ready, yeah?”
From the refrigerator, he argued, “But I want juice.”
“I’ll bring it out.”
Lyon lurched to the door, giving a preemptive Geez, Dad, before he slid the door shut behind him. He forgot his anger the moment his feet hit the porch, jumping down the three steps and running along the edge of where
the grass met the beach.
She dragged her gaze from the sliding door to Evan. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her hands clutching the sides of his T-shirt. “I didn’t think.”
He looked down at her face, then lower, to her thin-and-getting-thinner T-shirt, something in his eyes she didn’t quite recognize.
“Don’t apologize, Ace. We barged in on you. But you’re going to have to start thinking, babe, because my kid won’t be seven forever.”
She cringed. “Oh, and I look—”
“Amazing,” he said on a low growl.
She felt her eyes blink, then widen, and angled her chin in a way that if he leaned a few inches closer, their lips would touch. Not in a friendly, hello-how-are-you kiss, but in a real, pliant-lipped, slightly open-mouthed kiss.
Oh. Oh, she’d like that.
“Sorry?” She was pretty sure he’d accused her of looking amazing. That couldn’t be right.
“If I’m alone next time,” he rumbled again, “feel free to answer the door just as you are.” He shrugged one eyebrow. “Or wearing less.”
She blinked. Was he… kidding? Maybe he’d suffered a head injury this morning. Maybe she had. Maybe she was unconscious, in an ambulance on her way to the ER instead of in her kitchen pressed against Evan’s body, his tattooed, corded forearms locked around her.
Yes. Well. She should… do something else with herself.
“I… um… I’ll get Lyon some juice.”
When she attempted to push away from him, his grip tightened on her lower back.
“Don’t move.” He pressed her closer. “This time for my sake.”
That’s when she noticed the hardness between them was more than his torso and arms, but also his—oh. Oh boy.
As quickly as he’d pulled her to him, the corner of his lips turned up and he let her loose. She scuttled to the refrigerator.
“Get juice,” he instructed softly. “I’ll take my own advice and wait outside. Get dressed, grab your coffee, and after we drink it on your deck, we’re going to the farmer’s market.”
“We are?” She turned, a carton of orange juice in hand, fridge door open.
His eyes flickered down her body and back up. “Killing me, Ace.”
That’s when she looked down and saw her nipples pressed against the pale yellow fabric of her shirt and covered herself with her free arm. “Sorry,” she muttered quickly.
“I’m not.”
He threw a smirk in her direction, then took his coffee and went outside.
CHAPTER SIX
Brown hair mussed, short shorts and shirt wrinkled, the girl stumbling into the sunlight—and out of Asher’s rented cabin—was most certainly doing the walk of shame.
Evan rested his wrist on the steering wheel of his SUV and watched as she wobbled up the gravel driveway in short, high-heeled boots, then angled her way onto a path pointing to another group of rental cabins up the hill.
Damn. Ash didn’t waste any time.
Evan got out of the truck and knocked on the front door three times before a shout came from the side of the house.
Ash approached, robe open, wearing only a pair of boxers underneath, his face boasting a scraggly start of a beard, hair sticking up all over the place.
“You look like shit.”
“Rode hard, man.” Ash sipped from his coffee mug and glanced up the hill where the petite girl had disappeared into the trees.
“Geez, dude. You could have at least walked her home.”
“She didn’t want to be walked home. You want coffee?”
“Nah.”
Evan followed Ash to the backside of the house, where a sprawling, covered deck overlooked a steep hill. Treetops filled with skittering squirrels and chirping birds made up his view, the thick forest blocking the other houses.
A porch swing sat adjacent to a pair of wicker chairs. He moved to the chair and addressed Ash, who leaned a hip on the railing. “Gloria know you’re entertaining the locals?”
Ash shook his head. “The less she knows. She’s like my mother sometimes.”
“Or something else,” Evan put in. He tipped his head toward the hills. “Where’d you find her, anyway?”
“Jordan? Salty Dog.”
A bar. What a surprise. Evan rested his elbow on the arm of the chair. “And just how old is Jordan?”
“Twenty… something.” Asher’s brow crinkled. “I’m not sure.” His buddy looked older than his thirty-two years at the moment. “We drank a lot of Jack, came back here, played a lot of strip poker.”
“Explains a lot.”
Asher abandoned his mug and reached into his pocket for a cigarette.
“Thought you quit.”
“Now you’re my mother?” he mumbled, the cigarette waggling in between his lips. He lit it, sucked in a long drag. “I’m down to half a pack a day.” He blew out a long stream of smoke and glanced around at the scenery. “It’s nice here. I can see why you moved.”
Evan took in the leaves rustling in the breeze. “Yeah, it is.”
“I gotta rent a boat while I’m here. Fill it with babes.” He flashed a tired smile. “Know any?”
Just one.
Again, Charlie had struck him dumb. The sight of her in that tiny cotton getup this morning—her legs on display, the outline of her breasts visible through her shirt. The only thing more intriguing than the way he’d reached for her was the way she’d clung to him when he did.
That wayward attraction he’d noticed on the dock? Not a one-way street.
Changing topic, Evan said, “Glo told me to come find you. Said she couldn’t reach you on your cell.”
Ash paused, cigarette to his lips, and shot him a look. “What’d she want?”
“The library wants to do a big book signing at the Starving Artists Festival this year.”
“Ah, the poor man’s carnival. I remember it well. Crafts, auctions, and a fleet of roach coaches with exotic fried foods.”
“She thought it’d be good publicity to donate a copy of Mad Cow and an original painting for the auction. Wants us to sign and sell copies while we’re there, too.”
His eyebrows raised and he gestured to himself, cigarette scissored between two fingers. “Us?”
“Wants you to sing.”
A trail of smoke blew from his nose and he crushed the cigarette into an ashtray on a small table overflowing with butts. “I don’t know, man.”
“An acoustic ballad by the Asher Knight? That’ll fill your babe boat right up.”
Asher folded his lanky body into the chair next to Evan. “Yeah. Seriously though, you and Lyon should come out with me. Maybe invite your sexy neighbor.”
Evan iced Ash with a glare and straightened from his lean. The hand that’d been casually resting on the wooden arm of the chair curled around it in warning.
It was a warning Asher didn’t heed. “Gloria told me she met her.” Contented to throw kerosene on the brush fire, he pursed his lips and slowly mimed an hourglass figure.
Evan’s blood pressure skyrocketed at the idea of Ash sniffing around Charlie. Teeth clenched so hard he swore he heard a filling crack, he growled, “Charlie’s off the table.”
Unfazed, Ash stoked the flames. “Don’t want her on the table, Ev. Want her in my bed.”
He pushed himself to standing and Asher rose, put up both fists, bounced on the balls of his feet, and grinned.
Evan continued advancing. “I’m not kidding.” He wasn’t sure he’d hit his friend, but pushed, he might.
“Bring it, bro.” Asher’s fists rose higher. “Déjà vu all over again.”
Evan stopped walking. He knew exactly what his buddy referred to.
Ash lowered his fists, his grin fading slightly. “The summer you met Rae. You got that same gleam in your eye when Donny and I agreed she was hot.”
He remembered. Rae Lynn Mosley had stepped onto that beach and into his life, a towel rolled under one arm and a huge floppy hat hiding her curls. He’d been so dist
racted by her that Donny had gotten him into a headlock and dragged him underwater. When he sputtered to the surface, Ash had joked he was going to go flirt with her and Evan had dunked him.
“You nearly drowned me,” Asher reminded him now.
Hell yeah he did. A small smile found his face, then faded as a new memory cozied up behind the old one.
“Charlie was there that day,” Evan said aloud. “Next to Rae.” She’d been there other days, too. Year after year. Off to the side the entire time.
“Donny and I stayed away from her, too. You staked your claim in a pretty wide arc back then.”
In an instant, Evan was completely gone for Rae. It’d taken him two more summers skirting around her to finally ask for her phone number. It took him two more to use it and call her. To him, at the time, Rae Lynn had been this unattainable beauty. A fantasy mirage he only caught glimpses of one week out of every summer. When he finally got her, he couldn’t believe it. When he lost her, he couldn’t believe that more.
“Some things never change,” Ash said, lifting his fists again. “You go soft, Downey? Or you gonna fight me for Charlie?”
Evan was being baited, and he’d be damned if he’d give into his half-wit friend and fight him over something that wasn’t gonna happen. He dropped his guard, crossing his arms over his chest instead. “You wouldn’t have a prayer with her.”
“True story.” Asher was quiet for a moment, then his fists dropped again, and his expression turned somewhat serious. “Sucks she’s not here.”
“Charlie?”
“Rae.”
Evan nodded his agreement as he walked past Asher, planks on the wooden porch creaking underfoot. Maybe not as half-witted as Evan had thought, because his buddy was right. It did suck she wasn’t here.
“Where you headed?”
“Got shit to do,” Evan answered, stepping off the porch into the gravel and dirt making up the worn driveway. “And hey, keep it in your pants. Glo doesn’t want any bad press while you’re here.”
Ash waved a hand. “There’s no such thing as bad press.”
Evan had heard that a time or three. When he was halfway around the house, Asher called out, “Tell Charlie I say hi.”
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