Knox KOBO

by Christie Ridgway

  “That’s what I thought we could take care of after egg rolls and chicken chow mein.”

  Oh. “That’s an amazing idea.” Staggered by his thoughtfulness, she continued to stare at him. “You remembered the mess. You’re suggesting we can tidy things up.”

  “Do what looks like needs to be done, so when Marissa and Tom return home everything is back in place.” He smiled at her. “Plus, I might want to play with those salt and pepper shakers just a little.”

  Erin’s eyes stung.

  “Hey,” he said, coming forward with a rattle of the take-out bags. “I won’t play with them if you don’t want me to.”

  She gave a watery laugh. “My emotions are a little wonky right now.”

  “I get that.” Knox shuffled the bags so he had both in one arm. He took her hand with his free one. “I heard about Rob and Tom’s cousin’s wife.”

  “Sylvia.” Erin blinked away another round of incipient tears. “It was terrible.”

  “I can imagine.” He led her toward the kitchen. There, he carefully made a place for a couple of plates among the novelty ceramic pieces and dished up food for each of them.

  Erin found forks and they sat at the table.

  “I’m hungrier than I thought,” she said, after a few minutes of non-stop eating.

  “Post-adrenaline rush,” Knox said, nodding. “After a session of big-wave riding, I can eat a couple of cows.”

  “I’d like to see that.”

  He cocked a brow at her. “Really? The way I down the hooves is not an elegant sight.”

  “You’re trying to make me laugh.”

  “Is it working?” He reached out to cup one of her cheeks with a big palm. “Because I find it really bothers me to see you cry.”

  She covered his hand with hers. “That’s…nice.”

  His fingers slipped away, and he winced. “For the record, no man likes to be thought of as ‘nice.’”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” She reapplied herself to her food. “And what I meant about wanting to ‘see that’ was watching you surf.”

  “Well, that’s better,” he said. “A chance to show off my impressive physique and my magnificent athletic prowess. I’m all for it.”

  “Making me laugh again.”

  His expression was all innocence. “Are you doubting my magnificent athletic prowess? And you’ve experienced firsthand my impressive physique.”

  Her mind wandered again for a moment, then she yanked it back to the present, and gazed with some bemusement at her charming dinner partner. “Knox Brannigan.” She took his hand. “You’re proving to be an excellent distraction.”

  His palm turned, and he entwined her fingers with his. “I want to be what you need.”

  Erin’s heart lurched in her chest at the quietly spoken words. “I…” She dropped her gaze, to hide how much they affected her. He was just being nice, she reminded herself, as much as he disliked the compliment. It was important not to read too much into anything he said.

  Knox stood, his hand leaving hers. “And right now you need a partner in disaster relief.”

  Erin made a quick detour to the laundry room to start a load of baby items with a special detergent she found on the folding counter, then they tackled the kitchen together. First they washed and hand-dried all the china and stemware and returned them to the cabinet in the dining room, Knox placing the items carefully on the higher shelves.

  She put the first load of laundry in the dryer, tossed more things into the washer, then rushed back to the kitchen to find Knox stacking the everyday dishes in the dishwasher. “Okay?” he asked, glancing at her.

  She nodded, not trusting her voice. Silly, how a handsome man performing such a simple task could affect her so. Wasn’t there something about the sight of a man vacuuming being an aphrodisiac? But right now she felt the heat more in the center of her chest than anywhere else. Clearing her throat, she turned to the salt and pepper shakers. “These look newly cleaned, but we need to set them on the shelf over the window.”

  “How do we arrange them?” Knox said, coming to stand behind her. “Geographically?” With a careful hand, he shifted the jalapeno peppers next to the sombreros. “Or perhaps by biological kingdoms? Plantae,” he pointed to the peppers and a pair of red apples. “Fungi,” he said, indicating mushrooms, white and painted with purple dots. “And Animalia.” He nudged a Mr. and Mrs. Moose toward two bumblebees in their black-and-yellow ceramic glory.

  “What about these?” she asked, indicating a pair of robots, one black, one white.

  “We’ll let Ridiculous have its own section of the shelf.”

  It took twenty minutes of deliberating and bickering to get the extensive collection in place to both their satisfactions. Then he trailed her to the laundry room where she removed clothes from the dryer and replaced them with the final just-washed load.

  When Knox moved to help her fold, she looked up at him. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I fold bar towels all the time,” he said, matching the corners of a tiny terry piece decorated with pastel sea horses. “This can’t be much different.”

  Everything felt different to Erin. Who knew that the hot guy she’d met at the Moonstone Café not long ago would morph into this handsome man, kind enough to help out some near-strangers in need? To help her out, by coming up with a productive way to keep her busy.

  Together, they carried the stacks of laundry into the nursery. Knox whistled as she flipped on the light. “I’m guessing Tom made the furniture.”

  “Tom and Rob together.” The dresser, crib, and changing table matched, each a honey-stained wood that had been hand-carved with fanciful creatures from prancing unicorns to sleek tigers with wings.

  “They’re like animals on a merry-go-round,” he said, going down on his haunches to inspect more closely the face of a drawer.

  “That’s the idea.”

  “They have an amazing talent,” Knox said, as if to himself, wandering about the room to look at each piece.

  “I’ll say thank you on their behalf.”

  “Hmm…” he said, in absent acknowledgement.

  Erin watched him run his hand along the beveled edge of the dresser. “What kind of place do you live in?” she asked, suddenly curious.

  He glanced over. “Me?”

  “Penthouse of stainless steel and glass? Mediterranean McMansion? Man cave decorated in classic Frat House?” She needed to know, so she could picture him in his natural element, instead of seeing him here, surrounded by soft colors. Or how he’d looked in the laundry room, folding a tiny shirt with his big hands.

  “Two-bedroom cottage in Santa Monica,” he said. “Not much to look at yet, because it started life a good long while ago as someone’s beachside getaway. But I have a friend who wants to help me do the reno.”

  Then she could see that, a shirtless Knox wielding a sledgehammer.

  “I like to get my hands dirty,” he added, his voice sly.

  She sent him a sharp look, and he laughed. Then he crossed to her, and pushed her hair off her face. “Are we about done here? You look beat.”

  The tender touch made her want to melt. “Yes,” she said. “We’re about done.”

  He was leaving tomorrow.

  It was at the forefront of her mind as he drove them back to her house. Maybe it was why she invited him up for a nightcap—an attempt to put off voicing yet another goodbye.

  They settled on her couch with a couple of beers. Erin turned on the gas fireplace to warm the living room and the TV to give her something to look at besides Knox. With their feet up on the coffee table, they sipped their beverages, and Knox idly flipped through the channels.

  “Good God,” he said, pausing on a commercial that showed a bunch of small boys exiting a minivan as a harried father stood by. “That’s familiar, minus the hovering dad of course.”

  Erin tried to imagine having a tribe of siblings. “It had to be fun, at least some of the time.”

&n
bsp; “Oh, yeah. Always somebody you could cause trouble with…or to.”

  Erin’s eyes drifted shut as she pictured a herd of male children chasing each other about. “Who’s the oldest?”

  “Perfect James,” Knox said, and plucked her beer away from her slackening hold. She heard both bottles clack onto the tabletop and then felt an arm circle her shoulders.

  “Which number are you again?”

  “Sixth of the seven.”

  She tipped her head to the side to rest it on his shoulder. Any minute now she’d get up and send Brannigan Number Six on his way. A huge yawn nearly cracked her jaw. “I bet you were an adorable little boy,” she said, her voice drowsy.

  “Incorrigible little boy,” Knox corrected. “But there wasn’t anyone interested in reforming me after my mom died.”

  “She must have had a lot of patience to have seven sons.”

  “Patiently waiting for a girl,” Knox said.

  “I bet she loved her boys anyway.”

  “I think she did.” Knox drew Erin more closely into the circle of his arm.

  “Tired,” she murmured, eyes still closed.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  His heart beat steadily against her cheek. “Do you want kids?” she asked.

  “Wouldn’t know how to be a dad.”

  “If you had an instruction manual?”

  His short laugh rumbled in his chest. “Maybe if I had the right woman, and she wanted kids.”

  “Are you going to find the right woman?” Erin mused.

  “It’s a question,” he said, his voice drifting away.

  Or maybe that was her, Erin thought, just as she lost the battle with sleep.

  Sometime later, a buzzing woke her up. She opened her eyes, disoriented.

  Gray light filtered through her living room windows. Dawn.

  Her cheek was pillowed on a familiar tweed cushion. Sofa.

  A warm body spooned hers from behind, and a heavy arm was draped over her waist. Knox.

  That buzzing came again, and she saw her cell phone on the coffee table, doing a dance. She reached for it, Knox still unmoving.

  The screen read Deanne’s name and number. Instantly alert, Erin sat up, hearing her sofa-mate mumble behind her.

  “What is it?” she demanded of her friend. “Is everything okay?”

  “The baby’s decided to arrive today despite all best efforts to convince him or her otherwise,” Deanne said. “Come to the hospital if you want to pace and drink bad coffee like the rest of us.”

  On a muttered curse, Knox counted the deadwood cards in his hand, then threw them down on the upturned oil drum he and Erin’s father were using as a card table. They sat in the warm winter sunshine outside the office of Mickey’s Motorcycle Sales & Repair. It had to be over seventy degrees in the sheltered spot. “Seventeen.”

  The older man diligently added the number to Knox’s losing gin rummy score. “Are you sure we shouldn’t agree instead to a penny a point?”

  “No.” Knox scowled. Their deal was that the player with the highest score at the end of thirty games would pay the winner—the one with the smallest score—a dime a point. “I grew up with six brothers, and I know damn well it’s as bad as cheating if you try to re-negotiate the terms once the competition has started.”

  Cass chuckled. “I learned that from my brother too.”

  “About Mickey…” Knox began, then his head lifted as a small car approached the business. Cass looked around too, but it wasn’t Erin’s little Fiat, and the vehicle continued past. Stifling an impatient sigh, Knox watched his competitor deal the next round of cards.

  “You could call her, see how it’s going,” Cass suggested.

  “Nah,” Knox said, with a one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t want to intrude. This is a special time for her with her friends.” Despite the efforts to halt Marissa’s labor, the call that morning had informed Erin that Baby Farmer—they’d chosen not to learn the sex of their child ahead of time—was determined to have a birthday party as soon as possible.

  “They’re close, those three—more sisters than friends. Without a mom, Erin relied on those girls to get her through the things a dad doesn’t know about or can’t talk about.”

  “I saw that closeness.” Knox picked up his hand and moved the cards about, organizing them into potential melds.

  With his focus on the game, he didn’t notice a truck approaching the business until it screeched into the lot, burning rubber. The smell was as nasty as the expression on Wylie-the-Asshole’s face as he braked the vehicle a few short feet from Knox’s chair. The driver’s window winched down, and the cowboy threw a buff-colored business-size envelope out the opening, knocking the stock and discard piles of cards, the score sheet, and the stubby pencil from the oil drum so they scattered to the ground.

  “It’s all there,” he spit out. “One-thousand five-hundred twenty-six dollars. And then the cost of seven gallons of gas.”

  Without raising a brow, Knox scooped up the envelope and lifted one hip to shove it in the back pocket of his jeans.

  “Are you going to give it to her?” Asshole Wylie asked. “Or are you considering that payment for your services the other night?”

  Knox didn’t think. He was on his feet and then in the man’s face, his hand shoved through the open window to fist in the collar of a cheap plaid cowboy shirt. Cotton ripped, and he felt no remorse. “Keep your insinuations to yourself,” he said from between gritted teeth.

  “Or what?” Wylie taunted.

  Knox gave a vicious twist with his hand, making a noose out of the collar, and his voice turned low and lethal. “Turns out I have a hot temper when it comes to Erin.”

  The other man’s face went red, and he sputtered.

  “So get your big mouth and your thieving ways out of my sight,” Knox continued. “And you won’t find out the what I want to do to men who take advantage of idealistic young women.”

  More sputtering.

  Cass came up behind him. “Uh, son…”

  “Yeah, yeah. I won’t commit murder on your property.” He released his death grip on the shirt to leave Wylie choking and coughing. “Get gone,” he told the other man, with a last, withering look.

  The window rolled up and then the truck began to reverse. Knox gave the scarred and crumpled bumper a savage kick with the sole of his boot for good measure, then watched the vehicle bounce out of the lot and turn onto the road. More rubber burned as Wylie accelerated.

  Then he flipped Knox an exaggerated bird.

  “Pleasant fellow,” Cass said mildly.

  Trying to steady his raucous breathing, Knox side-eyed him. What had Erin’s dad made of the cowboy’s crack about payment for services? “We had some old business to settle.”

  Then, with pseudo-calm, he returned to the disrupted card game and bent to retrieve the cards spread about the asphalt. Residual anger pounded at his temples. “I don’t think you’ll see him again—he said he was heading out of town today. But…”

  “That’s my daughter’s old business,” Cass said. “I recall the amount stolen. That was him?”

  “Yeah.” Hauling in a deep breath, Knox slid the envelope from his back pocket and took a moment to thumb through the contents. Looked like the amount of missing cash plus another thirty or so for the purloined gas. The self-respect Wylie had stolen from Erin? Knox hadn’t been able to think of a way to extract that from the cowboy’s hide. The money would have to do.

  He held it out to Cass. “Will you pass it to her?”

  The older man put up his hands. “You’re the one who got it back.”

  “I’m thinking I should be taking off,” Knox said.

  The altercation with Wylie had unsettled him, leaving his temper barely balanced on a fine edge. For damn sure he lost his head when it came to Erin, he thought. His brothers wouldn’t recognize their laid-back, let’s-keep-it-easy sibling in the man who’d wanted to strangle the ugly cowboy just minutes before. Knox didn’t rec
ognize himself.

  Maybe moving on was the cure.

  “You were waiting to hear about Marissa and Tom’s baby.”

  Knox shrugged. “I barely know the couple.” He glanced up at the sky, noting the angle of the sun. “I want to get some ground covered before nightfall.”

  Cass inserted his hands into the pockets of his coveralls. “Erin will wish she had a chance to say goodbye.”

  “We’ve exchanged those more than once already.” Another wouldn’t make going any easier. “Here. Take the money.”

  When it looked as if Cass would stubbornly resist accepting the envelope, Knox shoved it back in his jeans. He’d stash it in the office or something. “We should settle my bill for the Indian.” He swiped up the tattered score sheet. “And this too.”

  “Knox—” Cass began, but broke off when a little Fiat swooped into the parking lot. It had barely come to a complete stop when its driver jumped out of the car and began dancing around the lot, the full blue skirt she wore belling out like a ballerina’s.

  Her hair floated above her shoulders, and at her radiant smile, Knox’s still-hot temper instantly simmered down. A grin spread over his face, and he called out to her. “Good news, beautiful girl?”

  She pirouetted nearer, then leaped into his arms. Laughing, he held her high, her feet dangling, her hands on his shoulders. “Great news!” she said.

  A new awareness prickled the back of his neck, and he glanced over to see Cass watching him closely. But then Erin cupped her palms around Knox’s cheeks and drew his attention back to her glowing face.

  “You are so damn gorgeous,” he said, unable to help himself.

  “I feel gorgeous.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead. Then another. “The entire world is gorgeous.”

  Then she wiggled free and skipped over to her father. “Hi, Daddy!” She pecked his cheek with a loud smack.

  “Hello there.”

  She started dancing again, her feet executing intricate movements that Knox recognized as Irish step dancing. He watched her, fascinated.

  “I wasn’t completely sure about you, son,” Cass murmured. “But now, with that expression on your face…”

  Erin frolicked close again, and this time Knox snatched her around the waist, before she could get away. “Okay, lady, enough of the teasing. What happened at the hospital?”