by Maggie Wells
Once burned, this father of twins is twice shy until he realizes the right woman is the charm . . .
James Harper is a great dad, but a lousy judge of women—as evidenced by his twin boys’ flighty mother, who walked out when the babies were just six weeks old. He’s got fatherhood down, but dating is another story—especially when the twins’ mom shows up any time she needs something. His office manager, Rosie Herrera, is the one woman he can count on, actually talk to, flirt with, and . . . come to think of it, has he been overlooking the perfect woman all this time?
Rosie’s been in love with James since her first day on the job, but she’s certain he only sees her as a reliable employee—until one heated kiss changes everything. And then James’s ex shows up, and walks right into his life again. Determined to move on, Rosie tries to forget everything she feels about James—by doing her best to fall for someone else. But James isn’t about to make the same mistake twice. To woo Rosie this time, he needs to prove they’re made for each other . . . forever.
Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com
Books by Maggie Wells
Coastal Heat
Going Deep
Flip This Love
Love & Rockets
Worth the Wait
Three Little Words
A Will and A Way
A Bolt From the Blue
Play Dates
Play Dates
Easy Bake Lovin’
A Ring For Rosie
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
A Ring For Rosie
Play Dates
Maggie Wells
LYRICAL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
Copyright
Lyrical Press books are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2018 by Maggie Wells
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First Electronic Edition: August 2018
eISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0351-5
eISBN-10: 1-5161-0351-3
First Print Edition: August 2018
ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0354-6
ISBN-10: 1-5161-0354-8
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
For my parents, who didn’t have to tough it out alone - they had a lot of gin on hand.
Foreword
I’ve wanted to write a stories about single dads ever since I married one. Not long after that, one of my brothers became the custodial parent to his three daughters. Between the two of them, I discovered that society seems to acknowledge and sympathize with the struggles many single mothers face, but you don’t often hear about the men who are on the job all on their own. Single parenthood presented a number of unique issues for my husband. For example, many of my step-daughter’s friends had parents weren’t comfortable letting their daughters stay the night in a house with a single man. Understandable, given the horror stories we hear on the news, but still heartbreaking for him and for her.
I want to thank Kensington Publishing and Lyrical Press for allowing me the opportunity to write these books. Each and every one of them contains a little bit of my heart.
Acknowledgments
Enormous thanks to Martin Biro and Marci Clark for saying yes to this series. It’s been a joy working with you over the years! A powerful *fist bump* goes out to Sara Megibow. Your positivity, encouragement, and steely-eyed determination make me HUNGRY! I love working with you. Finally, to my friends and family. Those who have known me long enough to bust any Facebook game I try to participate in, the Super Cool women who shoved me off onto this iceberg we call a writing career, then jumped on board with me, and my always incredible critique partner extraordinaire, Julie Doner.
Finally, I have to thank my husband, Bill. Not only does he provide fodder for funny tweets, Facebook antics, and fits of giggles, but in this case, my Fodder has truly provided the fodder for my writing, I thank God every day that my name got drawn out of that hat!
Chapter 1
Rosie Herrera turned into the parking lot at Trident Security and smiled at the long, lanky figure trying to make himself small in the face of the winter wind. James Harper stood outside the darkened office door, the amber security light adding a golden burnish to his auburn hair. She shook her head at the hatless figure hunched into a Patagonia parka. Temperatures had been brutal all week, but James was standing outside. Typical James.
He’d left his vehicle in the Trident lot, taking a Ryde car to his appointment. Parking in the Streeterville neighborhood was either abysmal or expensive, so a cab or shared ride made sense. What was completely baffling was why one of the owners of the company couldn’t let himself into the secured building to wait for her to return with his vehicle and its precious cargo.
Rosie shook her head in dismay. “He forgot the alarm code…again.”
For some reason, she found his inability to keep up with quarterly changes to the alarm system codes charming. Trident was a consulting firm specializing in security issues. Alarm systems were bread and butter in their business. And yet, he was standing there, freezing his tuchus off outside of the building he partially owned because he couldn’t keep up with five measly digits.
The SUV’s thermal seats and blasting heat made her feel smug and superior. Glancing back at the redheaded twins strapped into their booster seats, she slowed to a crawl as she cruised past the entrance.
“Look, boys, there’s a stray daddy roaming around our parking lot,” she called over her shoulder. “Shall we take him home with us?”
“Yeah!” Jamie and Jeffrey chorused, right on cue.
She wheeled James’s car into the first non-handicapped parking spot in the small lot. Putting the SUV in park, she gathered her purse and unclipped her seatbelt. When she heard the shussh of nylon parkas shifting behind her, she shot a quelling glance in the direction of the back seat. “Nuh-uh. Stay put.”
The icy January wind sliced through the worsted wool of her coat. Once again, vanity had led her down the primrose path. But her down-filled puffy jacket looked silly on top of a pencil skirt, and the lining on her trusty trench coat was no match for a Windy City winter. Clutching the lapels together, she gulped icy air and nearly choked on the frigid lungful.
As soon as she caught her breath again, she smiled. “Hey.”
“God, Rosie, you are the best.” A whoosh of vapor trailed after him as his long strides ate the ice-crusted pavement
between them. He came straight at her, his arms extended, and she braced herself for the hug. Not because his embrace wasn’t welcome, but because it would never be what she dreamed being held by James could be. Lord help her, she stepped right into the hug anyway.
But before she could tip her face up and away, his lips touched down. Not on her cheek or her forehead, temple, or any of the other seemingly innocuous places a kiss could land. No, he kissed her mouth. Square on the mouth. Not at the corner or slightly off on the chin. This kiss wasn’t one of those head-turning mishaps she may or may not have attempted to orchestrate over the years. No, James Harper was kissing her freely and willingly.
On. The. Mouth.
An honest to goodness kiss, if a brief one.
Her euphoria turned to mortification when she noticed the saucer-like circumference of his bright blue eyes as he straightened. The kiss might not have been an accident, but judging by the shock on his face, he hadn’t actually planned to. But he did.
She was about to tell him he couldn’t take it back when James gave a great full-body shake. Like a dog shedding water. Or a man shaking off the vestiges of an unsettling dream. He blinked once, then took a hasty step back. Unfortunately, his heel caught a patch of ice. She stumbled back as he flailed for balance. He slapped a hand against the side of the car to catch himself, and she pressed her gloved fingertips to her lips. Not so much to catch her gasp, but to trap the tingling sensation he’d left behind.
James regained his equilibrium before she did. The grin he flashed was heart-achingly familiar, though the happiness didn’t quite reach his eyes. Even in the golden glow of the streetlight, she could see him struggling to cover his discomfiture.
For once in her life, Rosie didn’t feel compelled to make it any easier on him. She hadn’t asked him to kiss her. As a matter of fact, she’d been doing him a favor by picking up the twins before his mother, who watched his sons during the day, had to leave for one of her many club meetings. Rosie managed many facets of James Harper’s life, but who he kissed and when was entirely on him. She stared straight at him, unwilling to let him off the hook without some kind of explanation for the unusual greeting.
But rather than doling out explanations, he offered her a ride. “Get in.” He nodded to the opposite side of the car. “It’s freezing out here.”
Unwilling to let him see how happy she was to comply with his officious tone, she tipped her chin up and tried not to envision icicles hanging off her nose. “Actually, below zero. We left freezing behind a long time ago.”
Her smartassed retort seemed to reanimate him. Rolling his eyes, he pressed a hand to her elbow, careful to keep her at arm’s length, and propelled her around the rear of the SUV. “Thank you for the weather report. You missed your calling.”
“And here I thought scheduling your dental cleanings was the most fulfilling work a woman could do.”
He snorted as he opened the passenger door. “As if you’d schedule anything less than a full-blown root canal.”
Rosie smiled as she slid into the warm cabin of the car. She’d was clear early on to James and his partners, Colm and Mike, she’d be happy to handle their professional scheduling, and didn’t mind making personal appointments to fit their busy schedules. But she categorically refused to pick up anyone’s dry cleaning. Which was only right. She was an employee, not their mother. Or wife. Or even girlfriend. Though she fantasized about the latter more than was healthy.
James closed the door with a firm thunk, and she turned to beam at the twins. Playing things cool was out of the question. She had only a few precious seconds before the man himself slid behind the wheel. In that moment, a stunningly surreal moment, she found she was physically unable to contain the thrill of being kissed by James Harper at last.
“I’m back. Did you miss me?”
“Yes,” Jeff answered in all sincerity.
“Are you comin’ home wif us?” Jamie asked as his father threw himself into the driver’s seat and tossed his messenger bag onto the rear floorboard. “Is Rosie comin’ home wif us?”
James spared the rearview mirror only the most cursory glance. “We’re giving Rosie a ride to her house.” He darted a look in her general direction but failed to make actual eye contact. “It’s too cold for her to stand at the bus stop.”
Rosie frowned as she wriggled into the heated seat, willing the warmth to seep through the layers and penetrate down to her bones. She was raised a city girl, not a spoiled suburbanite like James. She stood at the bus stop almost every night, even on nights much colder than this one, and he never made a point of giving her a lift before. Maybe something really was changing between them.
Pursing her lips, she tried to ignore the lingering tingle on them and stared straight ahead as the boys in the back seat regaled their father with the day’s exploits. Having been privy to the initial report, Rosie let her focus soften until the bright lights and gritty grime of the city streets melded into a blur.
She’d sensed a shift in James in the months since the other Trident partners had paired off. Colm and his finance whiz girlfriend, Monica, were finally reaching a point where their relationship seemed more like a partnership than two stubborn people trying to wrangle one of Doctor Dolittle’s pushmi-pullyus. And Mike—straight-laced, skittish Mike—had run headlong into love with a baker who specialized in producing erotic edibles for bachelor and bachelorette parties and the like. They were an unlikely duo on the surface, but within five minutes of seeing them together, it was easy to tell they were a forever thing.
James was the odd man out. Not a position Mr. Center-of-the-Universe was used to holding.
“And then he kickded her,” Jamie crowed, interrupting his minutes-younger brother’s recitation of a playgroup skirmish.
She looked over in time to see James’s head pop up and his eyes narrow as he glared into the mirror. “You kicked her?” he demanded.
Rosie turned back and saw Jeffie blanch at the sharp edge in his father’s voice. He shrank into his booster seat, then whispered a plaintive, “No,” almost inaudibly.
Eager to set the record straight and protect the shyer, more sensitive Jeff from his cocksure brother and father, she tapped her memory banks for the facts as they’d been relayed in the original version. “No, Hunter kicked Elise,” she clarified. She swiveled in her seat until she could look Jeff square in the eye. “Jeff told Hunter to stop pushing her, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he lisped.
James blinked, then blushed as he glanced somewhere in the direction of Rosie’s handbag. “Oh. Right. Good job, man.” He turned to look at the slowly unfurling boy.
Conversation resumed, but this time Jamie took the controls. A typical firstborn, he often seemed more assured of his place in the world—if one could say so about a boy barely past his fourth birthday.
Her job as moderator temporarily on hold, Rosie gave Jeff a reassuring wink, then settled back into her seat. A sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach anchored her there. She angled her head enough to appear as if she was gazing out the passenger window. But she was aware of James’s every movement. Oh, no. Heaven forbid she cease her constant vigilance. What if this was the moment he chose to finally open his eyes and realize she was everything right and good for him. And the boys. If, by some minor miracle the phenomenon was to occur, she couldn’t chance missing a second of it.
The traffic gods were kind them, the dirty bastards. If pressed, Rosie would swear they’d been forced to stop at only one of the seventeen stoplights between the office and her apartment building. But Rosie didn’t swear on anything.
He hooked a right onto the quiet residential street between Milwaukee and Western avenues. The properties ran the gamut from rundown to completely refurbished, but the majority fell somewhere between. The building where Rosie lived was a quiet, semi-gentrified three-story walk-up popular with the nursing staff from nearb
y Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center. The narrow courtyard featured two bare-branched buckthorn trees, an assortment of ill-trimmed evergreens, and a concrete sidewalk stretched in spokes to five separate entrances.
James pulled to a stop beside two snow-banked vehicles and shifted the car into park. Looking anywhere but directly at her, he nodded to the white-draped lumps at the curb. “I guess we know who takes public transportation around here.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. She knew the owners of both vehicles. Only an act of God to get them out of their prized parking spots any time before a spring thaw. “Yeah. They both work at the Academy of the Sacred Heart. No bus pass needed.”
“No vehicle needed. Why do they bother?”
Irked that he showed an ardent interest in her neighbors’ commuting habits but couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge the kiss they shared minutes before, she gathered her purse and tote. “I often ask myself the same question.” She cringed at the waspish sting in her tone but refused to apologize for it. “Goodnight, James.”
Reaching for the door handle, she turned and blew kisses to the twins. “Buenas noches, mis queridos. Se bueno.” She stepped out into the bracing cold.
“Buennochas!” they called back, flinging exuberant kisses her way. She gave James a tight smile. Seconds before the door closed, she heard Jeffie ask, “Aren’cha gonna kiss Rosie good night?”
Rosie didn’t wait around to hear James’s answer. Ducking her head, she lifted a hand in farewell, darted between the parked vehicles, and bounded as gracefully as she could onto the shoveled sidewalk. Two quick toots of the horn signaled the Harper men’s departure. Pulling her keys from her coat pocket, she fingered the master for the security door as she quickstepped to the courtyard’s innermost entrance.
Of course James wasn’t going to kiss her good night. Silly Jeffie. She bit her lip as she slid the key into the lock. Of all the Trident kids, Jeff Harper was the one with the tightest grip on her heart. Perhaps because they were kindred spirits. Quiet, but not truly shy. Watchful. Maybe somewhat wary. But steadfast. Oh, so steadfast.