by Helen Lacey
“I was so mad at him,” she said, the words coming out in a rush of breath against his chest.
Kane was silent for a moment. “Frank?”
She swallowed hard. “Mad at him for leaving,” she said, voicing the words to someone other than herself for the first time. “I know it’s irrational.”
“Feelings aren’t irrational,” he assured her. “We all experienced things we think we shouldn’t in our life. Losing the one person you love above all others—that’s a big deal, Layla. Give yourself a break. It’s okay to be mad at him.”
“Is it?” she queried. “If things had happened the other way around, I know he wouldn’t be mad at me. That wasn’t his way.”
He reached and grasped her chin, gently tilting her face to meet his. “That’s the thing when you paint someone as perfect and without flaws, it’s impossible to live up to the same standard. I’m sure he would have gone through the same series of emotions, Layla. That’s what grieving is. It’s getting through...it’s letting yourself be mad and disappointed and plain old resentful.”
Layla pressed closer and kissed him softly. “Thank you,” she said on a sigh. “For understanding. For being so sweet.”
His eyes darkened and he returned the kiss. “Yeah, I’m real sweet,” he said with a self-derisive grin. “But since all I want to do is spend the night, I’d better bail.”
He kissed her softly and she held on to him.
He left soon after, and Layla was more reluctant to have him leave than ever before. The intimacy between them had gone up a few notches over the course of the evening and she felt herself getting drawn deeper and closer to him. She knew he felt it, too...knew he was thinking about the next step in their relationship. Layla wasn’t under any illusions—men and women usually thought about sex differently. And the truth was, she did want to make love with Kane. She was achingly attracted to him, and more than that, they had developed an emotional connection that was undeniable.
But...she simply didn’t know if she was ready.
And she didn’t want to screw up their budding relationship.
They’d made plans to spend the following day together and it was eleven in the morning when Kane picked up her and Erin. There was a basket in the back seat of his Ranger and he quickly explained he’d stopped by Roja and Nicole had pulled together a picnic hamper for him. They drove to a park in town, one with a pond and shady trees and a lovely family vibe. It was a cool day, but the sky was brilliantly blue and clear. There were several other families already settled at the park and Layla quickly spread out the checkered picnic blanket and got Erin settled. Her daughter looked so adorable in her denim overalls, pink fleecy sweater and purple shoes, and she figured that to an onlooker, they appeared very much like your average family out for the day.
“You look nice,” he remarked as he took off his jacket and sat down beside her.
In dark jeans and khaki Henley and navy sweater that did little to disguise his broad shoulders, muscular thighs and chest, and unbelievable washboard belly, Layla could barely keep her eyes off him.
“You, too,” she said. “But then, looking good is probably as natural to you as breathing.”
He chuckled. “Is that some roundabout way of saying you find me attractive?”
“Nothing roundabout about it,” she said, and laughed. “I’m sure you know. Even my grandmother thinks you’re sexy.”
He laughed so loud that Erin started giggling, and Layla ignored the heat burning her ears and face and quickly checked out the contents of the basket, finding sandwiches and fruit, cheese and crackers, bottled water and soda, and a juice box for Erin.
“Incidentally,” he said a little while later as they ate, and in between Erin passing him grapes, “I told my mother about you.”
Layla’s brows shot up. “You did?”
“She called me this morning,” he explained, and shrugged one shoulder. “Asked me why I haven’t called her. I said I’ve been preoccupied with two beautiful girls.”
Layla experienced a twinge behind her ribs. It would be so easy to fall for him. Too easy.
“And what did she say?”
“Well,” Kane replied, and grabbed her hand, entwining their fingers in such a startlingly intimate way that her toes actually curled, “she was mad at first, when she thought I was dating two women. Then I explained about you and Erin and she quickly came around.”
She wanted to swoon. “Have she and your dad visited Rambling Rose?”
“A couple of times. Not for a while. I know they want to see Larkin again, so perhaps Adam can persuade them to come sooner rather than later.”
“I guess babies have a way of bringing families together,” she said and looked at Erin. “Weddings, too.”
His eyes widened. “I’m sure my mom thinks so.”
Layla knew she was skirting around some suggestive ground, but she was curious. “Not your dad?”
“Depends who’s getting married I suppose. If it’s a Fortune wedding, not so much. He thinks bad things tend to happen when too many Fortunes get together.”
Layla heard the disappointment and frustration in his voice. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said, and tried to lighten his mood, tightening her fingers for a second before she withdrew her hand and picked at the food on her paper plate. “I think plenty of good can come out of it.”
“You may be a little biased,” he said, and flopped back on the blanket, popping sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose, one hand curled under his head, the other resting on his chest. The image was so insanely masculine she caught the breath in her throat and darted her gaze away, trying to think of anything other than his flat belly, rock-hard thighs and unbelievable shoulders. She’d had plenty of practice touching different parts of him over the last week and had never known a man with such a perfectly proportioned physique. And the thought of seeing him without clothes had entered her mind way too many times since they’d first met.
“How many tattoos do you have?”
He looked up. “Huh?”
“You told me you hid your first tattoo from your parents for a year,” she remarked, hoping he didn’t think she was imagining him naked—even though she was.
“Three,” he replied, and crossed his ankles. “You?”
“None,” she admitted, grinning. “So, where are they?”
He stayed lying flat and pulled up the sleeve on his shirt, exposing the tattoo she’d seen before—the Celtic braid circling his biceps. Then he tugged the shirt off one shoulder and she saw a pair of eagle wings. “The other one we’ll leave for another time.”
Heat surged over her skin and she swallowed hard. “I guess you have women throwing themselves at you all the time, right?”
At that instant, Erin ditched her plate and climbed across his feet. “At the moment, yeah.”
She laughed, because despite the undercurrent of awareness, the companionship between them was relaxed and easy, and she loved the way he was so naturally accepting of her daughter’s attention.
Loved...
The thought startled her. Was that it? Was she falling in love with him? Did she even believe she was capable of loving someone other than Frank? Did she want to? The thing was, she didn’t know him that well and her overcautious mind screamed out all of the reasons why she shouldn’t think she was falling for him. For starters, it was too soon. She was still missing her husband. She wasn’t the kind of woman who fell hard and fast. She had a child to think about first and foremost and then quickly realized that point was moot because Erin adored him.
And despite the monologue in her head about things going too fast, she wanted more of him. She wanted to see more. To know more. To be a part of more.
“Ah, Kane,” she said, hesitating a little. “Do you think that I’d be able to see your house?”
He flicked the sunglass
es up. “Now?”
She shrugged. “Sometime. I mean, we always meet at my place and I just thought it would be a nice change to spend some time where you live.”
“We can go when we’re finished here if you want.”
“Sure.”
They stayed at the park for another hour, eating and keeping Erin occupied. Then they took her for a short walk, both holding one of her hands, swinging her gently in the air between them. The poignancy of the moment wasn’t lost on Layla—it was exactly the kind of family day she’d longed for, and seeing her daughter so happy and so clearly enamored with Kane, she fought the battle inside her head that told her they were moving too fast. By one thirty, Erin was clearly ready for a nap and so they packed up the picnic and headed into town.
His house was small, but neat and tidy and not the bachelor pad she’d expected. For one, there was a high chair at the kitchen table and several toy boxes in the living room. She noticed a gaming console, several sporting magazines scattered on the coffee table and numerous piles of books on the sideboard.
“You like to read, huh?” Layla asked as she smoothed Erin’s hair, and her daughter snuggled in her arms.
He stilled, standing rigid behind the sofa. “That surprises you?”
She shook her head. “With the way you can make up fairy tales to get my daughter to sleep—not at all.” She walked around the sofa. “You should write a book.”
His mouth flattened and then he laughed humorlessly. “Well, that’s the first time that’s ever been said to me. It would give my brothers a good laugh.”
There was something odd about his tone and she frowned, for two reasons—firstly, because she felt as though she’d said something that was somehow insensitive. And secondly, that after such a short acquaintance, she actually could recognize his reaction. It occurred to her that he considered himself the same kind of workingman as his father—good with his hands, able to fix things, the kind of man who wore blue flannel with the same stereotyping that a banker might wear a suit.
“You don’t have to wear a suit to be—”
“What?” he asked harshly, cutting her off. “Smart?”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said quickly. “If I did then I—”
“I’m dyslexic.”
Layla stared at him, absorbing his quiet announcement. Again, she heard something in his tone, as though he expected disappointment, or perhaps censure. She thought about the storytelling, the way he didn’t ever seem to do more than glance at menus and how he’d discarded the instructions when building the playhouse for Erin.
Her daughter stirred in her arms. “Do you have somewhere I can put her down for an hour or so? She’s sleepy.”
“Sure,” he replied. “I’ve got a crib here for Larkin.”
Minutes later, Erin was settled in the small bedroom in the crib. It took about thirty seconds for her daughter to fall asleep and Layla went back to the living room. There was a long silence and she watched him, standing by the sideboard, hands in his pockets.
“I’m sorry if I offended you,” she said quietly.
“You didn’t,” he replied. “And I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
Layla moved around the sofa and sat down. “Would you tell me about it?”
He shrugged his magnificent shoulders. “There’s not a lot to tell.”
Layla saw his closed-off expression and her insides rolled over. “Kane...please?”
He met her gaze and sighed. “Okay. I was diagnosed when I was eleven. I had trouble with learning in school—poor attention span, acting up in class. And I struggled with reading and writing. I was a D student at best. My mom kept at the teachers until they realized it was more than a behavior issue. Looking back, it was very clear I was typecast as the slow kid—you know, the one good at sports but who couldn’t read well. Words terrified me back then.”
Layla’s instinct was to stride across the room and hold him close, to soothe the obvious pain in his voice with her touch and compassion and understanding. “But you graduated from high school, went to college, got your degree, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he admitted. “I got into college on a football scholarship, but blew my knee out in the second year. After that, I worked two jobs to keep up with the tuition. My parents helped out as much as they could, of course, and I spent a lot of time with an occupational therapist in my teens and early twenties.”
Layla thought about how easy she’d found school, even while moving around every six or so months. And how she took for granted her ability to read and comprehend the written word. Even the challenges she had with the course she was studying now was more about time management than any difficulty with the content.
“And all the books?” she asked, gesturing to the piles on the sideboard.
“I try to read every day.”
“It helps?” she asked softly, eager to know more, but not wanting to push him too hard.
He nodded and walked a few steps, running a hand across a stack of books. “It keeps words in my head...makes me feel less like the dumb jock everyone called me in high school.”
Layla didn’t miss the way his voice lowered and it wasn’t hard to fill in the gaps. “I’m guessing that a girl called you that?”
He nodded again. “Girlfriend, actually.”
“It hurt you.” It wasn’t a question, but she said it as gently as she could.
“It made me better at disguising my flaws,” he replied and smiled humorlessly.
“Like knowing what you want to order at a restaurant or story-time with a two-year-old?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Exactly. I have a voice to text app on my phone and have trained myself to use the strategies I learned when I was younger.”
Her admiration for him spiked. So did everything else she was feeling. “By the way, it’s not a flaw,” she assured him. “You’re so together,” she said and smiled. “I envy that about you.”
“Smoke and mirrors,” he replied.
Layla’s heart rolled over. “Thank you for telling me. It means a lot that you trust me with something so personal.” She paused for a moment, choosing her next words carefully, and almost holding her breath as she spoke. “Kane, would you like to come over tonight?”
He smiled. “As long as you let me buy dinner.”
Layla warmed from head to toe and felt as though she was standing on a precipice and about to make a monumental decision—one of the biggest of her life. She took a breath and met his gaze straight on. “In that case, I’ll make breakfast.”
And they both knew exactly what that meant.
Chapter Ten
In all his life, Kane had never been nervous about sex. He’d lost his virginity at fifteen with the girl who lived across the road and who had then married one of his friends a decade later. He’d had no short supply of hookups in college and since then, if he wanted to get laid, it was never too difficult to find someone he was attracted to.
But this...this was a whole lot of different.
Layla McCarthy was not a one-night, or even a one-month, stand kind of woman and he, Kane knew with certainty, wasn’t that guy when he was around her. And it was a startling revelation.
They were back at her home by four and Kane carried Erin inside, who was still a little bleary-eyed after her nap. She lay on the living room carpet and Kane watched her for a moment while Layla put the remainders from their picnic lunch in the refrigerator.
“She looks so peaceful and so happy,” Layla said when she joined him in the living room doorway, her head just below his shoulder. “I know she’s had a lovely day. So have I.”
“Me, too,” he admitted. And it was the truth. Spending time with Layla and Erin had quickly become almost as intrinsic to him as breathing.
“We could sit down,” she suggested, an
d he followed her lead, sitting on the sofa, his legs stretched out in front of him.
Once she was beside him, Kane grasped her hand. “You smell nice,” he said. “Like flowers.”
“I think it’s only shampoo.”
He rested his arm along the back of the couch and twirled a few strands of her hair around his fingers. “Still, it’s nice. The again, everything about you is nice.”
Erin noticed them sitting down and made her way over to the couch, standing between their knees and then holding out her arms to him. Kane lifted her onto the couch and he noticed she was holding her favorite book.
“I’ll read it to her,” Layla said, clearly picking up on his reluctance, and took the book from her daughter’s hands.
Kane instantly saw Erin’s disappointed expression and shook his head, grasping the book from Layla. “It’s okay.”
“You don’t have to if you don’t—”
“Layla.” He said her name quietly but firmly. “It’s fine.”
He meant it. Kane was savvy enough to know that Erin had quickly become attached to him and he felt compelled to not disappoint her. And he trusted Layla. Perhaps more than he’d ever trusted anyone. He wondered how it could have happened so fast...how they had built such an incredible connection in a span of mere weeks. And then he wondered why it mattered how long they’d known one another. And with Erin looking at him with such hope and wonder, it wasn’t surprising he’d fallen for them so quickly.
Once Erin was settled beside him, Kane flipped the page, took a long breath and stared at the words on the page. For a few awkward seconds, while he steeled his nerves and pulled on his guts, he thought it would be like school all over again. He would fumble. He’d feel the familiar sense of embarrassment. Humiliation. The words would taunt and mock him. His eyes wouldn’t be able to see what his brain was telling him. He’d feel like a fool...or worse, like he was less than normal. Stupid. Unintelligent. Weak.
And then Layla’s hand touched his thigh and strength seeped through him like water running into a dry creek bed. He also knew she wouldn’t judge him. That wasn’t her way.