Break On Through (7 page)

There was a sinking feeling in Reed’s gut. They weren’t going to get it, of course, and he was an idiot for starting this. He cleared his throat, then uttered the punchline because he didn’t see an alternative. “The salesman had to think a moment. Then he asked the old man, ‘Just how far is it to the next farm?’”

Eli and Obie only stared at him in disappointed silence. “That’s it?” the older boy asked. “It’s not even funny.”

“Yeah.” Reed rubbed his hand over his mouth, hating that he’d bombed with the elementary school crowd. “Sorry, guys.” Then he chanced a glance at their mom to see how she’d taken his failure. Her gaze was down, her lashes covering the expression in her eyes, but maybe there was a smile hovering on her mouth.

As he watched, she took a peek at him. Yeah, obviously amused.

He winked.

She laughed.

They continued on their way after that. Reed tempered his minor triumph with the knowledge that while their walk felt companionable, she was still keeping a rigid distance between them. No bumped elbows or back of fingers brushing. Sure, the sidewalk was wide, but her body posture was very self-contained. It occurred to him that perhaps his emissaries had done more when they visited Cleo than merely return the pans.

He cleared his throat. “So…did Cilla and Alexa tell you something they shouldn’t have about me?”
He’s a hermit. A horny hermit. With an imagination like the one he has, who knows what kind of filthy adventures he might dream up?
He wouldn’t think either Cilla or Alexa’s minds would run to such impurity, but now that they’d affianced themselves to such randy men as Ren and Bing, all bets were off.

“You mean besides being the son of one of the Velvet Lemons?” Cleo asked. “I admit to having a hard time wrapping my mind around what that must be like.”

Relief eased the little knot in his belly. “Yeah, being one of the end results of the few short years when the Lemons got a collective hair up their—” his gaze settled on the towheads ahead and he self-edited, “—noses and made babies with practically whoever happened by has been something else.” But hell, that sounded whiny, so he changed the subject. “What about you? You got an aging rocker as a daddy? A star-struck, barely legal fan as your mother?”

She shook her head. “My father worked at a feed store. My mother was the receptionist at my elementary school. Pretty ho-hum stuff.”

Except they weren’t around anymore, he remembered. “What happened to them?” he asked in a quiet voice, in case she didn’t speak of such things in front of her kids.

“Car accident right after my high school graduation. It was a shock.”

He allowed his hand to drift up and ghost over her hair. “What did you do then?”

She flashed him a glance. “Married my high school boyfriend. Moved in with his parents. Had two kids between his deployments.”

“He was in the military?”

“Popular choice around where we lived.”

The boys turned off the sidewalk and started skipping down a driveway that passed a big place with beige walls and a red-tile roof.

“This is us,” she said, pointing to a smaller dwelling place, in a matching style, sitting at the far end of the drive.

“How did you end up here?”
In all the gin joints in all the world
… Just on the other side of the back fence was his office, where he’d been lured from his dark, isolated den by the smell of sweetness and cinnamon.

“After my divorce, I thought it best to get out of town. Start fresh.”

Reed wondered what kind of man could let Cleo and her long legs, lush breasts, and beautiful blondeness walk away. “It wasn’t a good marriage?”

She sighed and watched her sons rush toward the front door of the small house. It was painted a fuchsia pink and looked cheerful, but not the kind of entryway for two growing sons. Boys didn’t like pink.

“We were so young, eighteen and twenty,” Cleo said. “I didn’t know myself all that well and Pete…” She shrugged. “When my divorce attorney had a friend who was looking for someone to stay on their property and do a little light overseeing for a spell, it seemed ideal.”

They’d reached the pink entry. She dug out keys, unlocked the door and pushed it open so the boys could scamper inside.

“What will you do when the owners return?”

“Try to find something in the area. The school is good. The boys like their teachers. I worked in the front office of a construction firm the last few years so I have experience.”

Reed instantly thought of Bing and Brody Maddox, two of the other Lemon kids, twins, who owned a construction business.
I could make a call
, he thought.

He wanted to make a call. Help her out.

She could help
me
out in
my
office.
Bake me cookies every afternoon.

Okay, this was weird, he decided, this urge to step in. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her grit, her self-awareness, her kids—but he liked them too much. Somebody could get hurt.

Just as he meant to retreat, she looked at him through those big brown eyes and licked that kissable mouth. Who the hell could resist?

He leaned closer. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

Cleo invited him in. She didn’t know why, exactly, other than he had carried their books home and the farmer’s daughter comedy had fallen flat with her boys, which was funnier than the joke by itself.

It occurred to her she needed to laugh more, and the times she’d laughed most recently, he’d been behind it.

The guest house’s front door opened directly into a living area and the boys bee-lined for the television sitting on a stand in the corner. She didn’t object, this was their “show” time. Eli had their favorite cartoon going in seconds and they ignored both her and Reed as they continued past.

She saw him glance at the kids. “They get to watch an hour a day,” she explained. “From five to six.” Did that sound like too much TV?

Guilt gave her a pinch. “There’s two of them, so really it’s just a half-hour a piece.”

“You don’t have to explain to me,” Reed said. “Nobody monitored a damn thing I did as a kid and I turned out okay.” His smile was slow wickedness, like a hand sliding between satin and skin. “Right?”

“Right,” she said faintly, as he followed her into the kitchen. It was good-sized space, with a wooden table where they ate and the kids did their homework. “You can put the books there,” she told him, indicating its surface.

He did as instructed, then looked around himself, clearly curious. She saw the area through his eyes. It was clean enough, the Mexican paver floors had been mopped just that day. The butcher block countertops were clutter-free, but there was a fingerprint or four on the stainless refrigerator. A short hallway opened to a bathroom and the two bedrooms. The boys’ bunks were neat and there was only a small pile of Legos on the area rug there, waiting for her unsuspecting and innocent bare sole.

Then Reed’s head turned and she could tell he was looking into her room. A blush heated her face. Though her bed was made, she had her pillows propped against the headboard, not hidden beneath the plain duvet. The lace-edged pillowcases looked…suggestive. Like the cups of a woman’s sexy bra showing above a low-cut tank top.

Oh, my.
She put her palms on her cheeks, trying to cool the burn. What was wrong with her? It was time to get him out of here, she decided.

Then he swung back to look at her. “Nice digs,” he said, his tone so innocuous that it acted as a balm to her alarm.

He was just a man, she reminded herself. The first person over eight years old she’d ever had in this house.

Unsure what to do next, she glanced at the clock. “Would you like some wine? I’m sorry I don’t have any hard liquor or beer…”

“I can drink wine,” he said. Watching her, he crossed the floor to lean against the table, giving her plenty of space.

She appreciated that. As she moved from the cabinets to the refrigerator, she forced herself to breathe slowly. One morning a week she volunteered in Eli’s and Obi’s classes, splitting the time between the two rooms. But other than that she hadn’t interacted with anyone besides her children, except for the phone calls from Pete’s parents and the occasional conversation with the contractors working at the big house.

And Reed, of course, when he used to talk with her in the lonely hours of the morning.

It was alien to have anyone in this space, including him. That must be why she was feeling so shaky. The wine glass she poured wobbled in her hand as she carried it to him.

He didn’t make a comment on her tremors as he slipped it from her hold without any skin-to-skin contact. “Thanks,” he said.

Returning to her own glass, she filled it, then picked it up for a healthy sip. Swallowing, she stole a look at him, feeling helpless.
Now what?

“Do what you usually do at this time of day,” he said, as if she’d spoken aloud. “Don’t worry about entertaining me.”

Latching on to that idea with relief, she shifted toward the bi-fold doors at one end of the kitchen. They hid the tiny laundry area that was really only space for the washer and dryer with a closet pole installed across the top, convenient for hanging permanent press items and for hand-washables to air dry.

The doors opened with a loud squeak. Her heart jolted as she took in the enclosure.
Oh, God.
Not only had she mopped that morning, but she’d taken care of a small load of delicates. All her fancy—though small—stash of pretty underwear hung from the pole on padded hangers—panty and bra sets that even to her familiar eye looked disconcertedly sexy.

She slammed the bi-fold doors on the sight. “Um, laundry all done.”

On her way back to her wine, she dared a glance at him. He’d taken off his cap and she could see the layers of his dark, shiny hair as he smiled down at his glass.

He was laughing at her!

And, strangely, it made her laugh at herself. “Okay, that was embarrassing.”

Grinning now, he looked up. “I hate to break it to you, but I’ve seen items like that before.”

“I’ll bet,” she said, shaking her head. But no one else had ever seen
hers
. She’d been with Pete in the days of Fruit of the Loom, when she’d had little kids and no money of her own. During their long separation, she hadn’t had the time or the courage to step out on him, not knowing how he might accept the news if he found she’d been with another man.

Post-divorce, after this move to Southern California the only male she’d gotten remotely close to was the one she’d spoken to over the fence.

Who was now in her kitchen.

To calm her nerves, she busied herself again by returning to the refrigerator. It took a couple of minutes to make a small plate of cheese and crackers which she placed on the table after encouraging him to take a seat. When he did so, she couldn’t help but wonder why he was still there. Maybe she should tell him he was free to go, she thought, agonizing. Maybe he felt like he was stuck with the hard-up single mom and all he wanted was out, out, out.

A small pain started throbbing at each temple as she opened the stainless steel door and started yanking things from the fridge’s produce bin.

“You smell good,” Reed said.

She jolted, sending a head of cauliflower rolling along the countertop like a tumbleweed. Sure she must have misheard him, she looked over. He sat loose-limbed in the chair, his legs crossed at the ankles, his hands cupping the bowl of the wine glass. She stared at them, noting the lean, artistic fingers. The palms were wide, though, capable, reflecting the same dichotomy she noticed in him from the first.

The artist and the fighter, rolled into one. Tough, but…deep.

His expression was relaxed, his tone almost idle as he continued speaking. “I thought for sure you’d smell sugary, like cookies or cake, but it’s something else altogether. Feminine and flowery. Delicate, with just a smidge of sensual to give it a spicy note.”

Cleo could only stare at him as her mind replayed the words.
Feminine. Flowery. Sensual.
Baffled by it all, she tore her gaze away and focused back on her vegetables. “Um, thanks.”

Then, fortunately, came the thunder of the boys’ sneakers rushing into the room. Had an hour gone by already? But a glance at the clock told her the minutes had passed that quickly. Steeling herself for an argument, she turned to her sons. “Shower time. It’s Eli’s turn first today.” The bathroom at the guest house didn’t have a tub, so they’d learned to accomplish everything under the spray. Seven and eight might be young, but they’d handily learned to soap and shampoo on their own, and she was proud of them.

“Mom—” Obie began, a whine in his voice.

“You know where you keep screwdrivers, Obie?” Reed broke in. “I see a cabinet latch that needs a man’s touch. You can help me while your brother has the bathroom first.”

Like that, he diverted the usual evening meltdown over turns. Grateful, Cleo topped off his wine glass and then her own as he and Obie fiddled with the cabinet door that had listed since the day she’d moved in.

“I know how to do that,” she said, in token protest as she brought his glass closer to him

“Now Obie will too,” he said, showing her son how to tighten the screws.

Her youngest was strutting with accomplishment when it was his turn in the shower. Eli wandered back into the kitchen, dressed in his PJs. Cleo had found that accomplishing the pre-bedtime rituals before dinner worked better for their family. Sitting beside Reed who had returned to his chair at the table, her oldest pulled one of his books from the library stack and happily began reading without a word.

Cleo didn’t know what to make of this. Both kids had taken the intrusion of a near-stranger into their environment better than she would have expected. Maybe they missed masculine companionship. Pete hadn’t been any kind of father to them, but her ex father-in-law, Don, had often had them “help” in the garage or taken them on trips to the hardware store.

Impulse took over. “Can you stay for dinner?” she asked Reed.

His smile made her feel warm all over. “I don’t know,” he said, nudging Eli’s foot with his. “Does she make you eat a lot of icky vegetables?”