Single Mom Seeks... (9 page)

“What’s wrong?”

“Jake has a girl here.”

“I know.” Lily laughed, because he sounded so flustered. Over a teenage girl? “It’s Andie Graham. I saw them talking outside.”

“Graham? Jake actually has Audrey Graham’s daughter here?”

“Afraid so.”

Nick groaned. “Is she anything like her mother?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Because Jake brought her inside and then made up some story about wanting to show her the house.”

“So? What’s wrong with that?”

“Why would he care what she thinks of this house, and why would she care what the house is like?” Nick reasoned. “Come on. He’s a fifteen-year-old boy. I know how they think. He walked her around the downstairs, and then they headed upstairs to the bedrooms and didn’t come back down.”

“Oh,” Lily said. Now she got it.

“Help me,” Nick growled. “What do I do?”

“You make sure the bedroom door stays open and you find excuses to walk upstairs every now and then and walk past the open doorway,” Lily suggested.

“That’s it? He can just waltz up to his bedroom with a girl?”

“I don’t know. Can he?”

“Oh, hell, I don’t know. Lily, I have no idea what to do,” Nick pleaded.

Lily looked out the kitchen window, to see if she could see anything, and there was Nick, standing in his own kitchen window, staring back at her. She missed him, she realized. Missed him something fierce.

Missed even talking to him.

“Come on, Lily. It’s for Jake.”

“I know. I’m just not at this stage of parenting yet. Let me think,” she said, trying to keep her mind on the problem at hand and not how much she missed him. “Did you ever tell Jake he can’t entertain girls in his bedroom?”

“I didn’t know I needed to. I mean, I told him he wasn’t having girls sleep over, but we didn’t exactly touch on the whole entertaining-in-the-bedroom thing. Do I have to tell him that?”

“Apparently, you do, since he’s doing that right now,” Lily said. “But don’t go tell him now. You’ll embarrass him. Wait until she leaves, and then tell him.”

“Okay, I’ll wait.”

“And I don’t think you need to worry that much. He barely knows Andie. He was scared to even talk to her earlier, so I don’t think he’s going to put the moves on her the minute they get into his room.”

“He’s scared of her?” Nick didn’t like the sound of that.

“What? You’re scared of her mother,” Lily said, not able to help herself from teasing him a bit.

“I am not scared of her mother. I’d just rather not have to have anything to do with her.”

And then, it wasn’t any fun anymore, teasing him.

It was hard, because she still felt like a fool, but she missed him, too, and she couldn’t imagine it would be hard for him to find a woman to give him what Lily wouldn’t.

“Audrey would let you slip in her back door after her daughter’s asleep,” Lily said.

Nick swore softly. “Audrey practically attacked me in my own kitchen while Jake was here. Not that it matters, because Audrey isn’t the one I want.”

To which, Lily had no idea what to say.

Did he expect her to believe she was the only one he wanted?

Because Lily would really love to believe that, much as it scared her at the same time.

She’d taken his offer to be nothing but the most casual of suggestions. He’d taken a look around the neighborhood and decided he’d rather have her.

But thought quite honestly that if she wasn’t willing, he’d simply find someone else. All very casual and adult and not what Lily was feeling at all.

She wouldn’t have been surprised to see him with Audrey Graham after that. In fact, she’d been bracing herself for that very thing to happen.

And now, he seemed to be telling her it wouldn’t happen, no matter what.

“Lily, we have to talk about this. We live right next door. Jake’s in and out of your house all the time, and we can’t go on ignoring each other when we’re living this close to each other.”

“I know,” she said.

“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. It was never my intention,” he said. “How about you let me deal with this girl in Jake’s bedroom, and later, we’ll talk.”

“The girls are here,” she said. “Richard backed out on them again—”

“Tonight. Will you meet me in the backyard after they go to sleep.”

Backyard.

Dark.

Alone, but not quite alone.

Surely Lily wasn’t afraid to meet him in the backyard.

“Okay. I’ll call you when they go to sleep.”

“Thank you,” he said.

L
ike someone whose radar had picked up a signal that something was up, Lily’s sister called as she was trying to get the girls ready for bed.

Lily rolled her eyes when she picked up the phone and saw who it was, then told herself not to be such a coward. How could Marcy possibly know anything?

Answer: Because she was Marcy, and Marcy just seemed to know Lily’s every secret.

“So, still hiding from that gorgeous thing next door?” Marcy asked, once she’d finished complaining about what a jerk Richard was for not coming to take the girls.

“No. I talked to him today, actually.”

“Oh. Good.” Marcy could purr when she wanted. “And what did he have to say?”

“He couldn’t really talk. He had something going on with Jake, who has a thing for Audrey Graham’s daughter. And he’s such a sweet kid. I’m afraid any offspring of Audrey’s could eat him for lunch. Poor Jake.”

“What’s wrong with Jake?” Brittany said, coming out of the bathroom after brushing her teeth and getting ready for bed.

“Nothing,” Lily said. “Jake’s fine. Promise.”

“I like Jake,” Brittany said. “And he likes me.”

“I know he does, honey.”

“He’s gonna teach me to ride his skateboard,” Brittany said, her face lighting up.

“No, he’s not,” Lily said.

“Huh? Why not?”

“Brittany. You remember what we talked about, when Mommy’s on the phone?” Lily said.

“Yes.”

“Well,” Lily held up the phone, so her daughter couldn’t miss it, “Mommy’s on the phone.”

Brittany pouted, but got into her bed. “I need to know how to skateboard.”

“Not tonight, you don’t. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” Lily kissed her daughter on the forehead and walked out, leaving the bedroom door cracked open. “Sorry,” she told Marcy.

“It’s okay.”

“We should be good to talk now. Ginny’s already in bed, reading. She probably won’t move for hours.”

“Good. And I don’t really care about poor Jake’s love life. I care about yours and your lack of any kind of life at all. What’s going on with you and the gorgeous one?”

“He wants to talk,” Lily admitted.

“Okay. When?”

“Tonight. Outside in the backyard.”

“In the dark?” Marcy’s grin came through the phone as easily as her words.

“Yes, it’s getting dark,” Lily admitted.

“Okay, just please, please, please, think about this before you turn the man down flat. Because I know you like him, and I know he’s gorgeous—and also nice—not an easy combination to find in a man. And he wants you. So what if it’s just sex? I mean, the man can even do home repairs—”

“I can do most any home repair,” Lily said, hardly able to believe she was having this particular conversation. “You’re not really going to tell me I should sleep with a man to get a leaky faucet fixed, are you?”

“No, I’m saying you should sleep with him because the last man you slept with was your jerk of a husband who left you feeling lousy about yourself and men in general. And that you’ve been alone a long time, and I understand that you’re scared to get involved with someone again and to trust anyone. Really, I do. But that doesn’t mean you have to be all alone right now.”

“I’m fine with being alone,” Lily insisted, walking into her own bedroom and shutting the door, so the girls wouldn’t hear any of this conversation.

“Of course, you are. I didn’t say you had to have a man,” Marcy reasoned. “I was just saying…why not let yourself have this man. Just because…Well, just because. Why not?”

“Maybe because my life is complicated enough—”

“Complicated? Your life is lonely. Your life is full of kids and your house and me. You can have more than that. I am here to tell you that you deserve more than that,” Marcy said.

“But I’m not ready to get involved with anybody. It’s way too soon.”

“Perfect. The man doesn’t want to start anything serious. He just wants to have sex, and I’m just guessing here, but I bet he’s really good at it.”

“Oh, just by looking at him, you figured that out?”

“No, by watching him build that tree house. He’s careful and strong and so sure of himself. He’s patient and kind. I heard the way he talked to the girls and was letting them help, and you said he’s so good with his nephew—”

“That’s how you judge how a man will be in bed? By how he is with kids?” Lily was highly skeptical.

“That’s how you judge how a man is at his core. If he’s that way in real life, he’ll be that way in bed.”

Okay, Lily had to admit, there was probably something to Marcy’s reasoning. She’d certainly imagined herself that he’d be kind and considerate and patient and…thorough. Lily imagined him being very thorough.
With her.

“The question to ask yourself, honey, is why not? Why would you not simply enjoy what this beautiful man has to offer? He’s already said you two can keep it quiet and private, so no one needs to know. It’ll be your little secret. And mine, of course.”

Lily rolled her eyes. Of course, her sister would want all the details.

“Think of it as part of the reclaiming-yourself-as-a-woman, post-divorce-recovery effort,” Marcy suggested.

“We’re making a recovery effort now? That makes me sound like a disaster area, and believe me, I’ve felt like one, but I didn’t imagine someone making a formal declaration. My life as a disaster area.”

“You need to know that not all men are jerks, and that you are a young, sexy, desirable woman, and that you will have a life again, and this man is ready to remind you of all that.”

Lily frowned.

Marcy made it sound so easy.

And so appealing.

“I guess…I’m just afraid,” she said.

“Of course you are. You got flattened by life, by a man you trusted who was supposed to be with you forever. But you’re not dead, honey, and it’s time to start remembering that,” Marcy said. “Are the girls down for the night?”

“I think so.”

“Then go call that man.”

Nick was literally pacing back and forth in the living room, willing Lily to call, when Jake came downstairs and found him.

“Is something wrong?” Jake asked.

“No,” Nick lied.

“Because, you look like something’s wrong.”

Nick took a breath and wondered how much to tell the kid. “Just waiting for a phone call.”

“Oh.”

Jake hesitated, looking unsure of himself. “Did something happen?”

“No,” Nick said. “Why?”

Jake shrugged, looking really young and maybe even scared. “Just…wondering.”

“Nothing bad happened, Jake,” he said, because Jake seemed to be waiting for the next bad thing to hit, something Nick forgot at times. “Sorry I worried you.”

Jake shrugged. “I’m gonna warm up some spaghetti from last night. Want some?”

“No, I’m good,” Nick said, then figured he really should talk to the kid about the girl and his bedroom being off-limits.

He followed Jake into the kitchen and tried to remember how his father would have handled something like this. He probably would have just barked out an order.
No girls in your bedroom!
And Nick would have said,
Yes, sir,
and left it at that.

Not that he hadn’t managed to sneak a few in.

Something he really liked thinking about now that he was the parent, at least temporarily, and was supposed to keep that from happening.

“Jake, about you and Mrs. Graham’s daughter…” he began.

“Yeah?” He’d been inspecting the contents of the refrigerator and didn’t even lift his head.

“She’s…uh…She looks a lot older than you are.”

“Only a year and a half,” Jake admitted, pulling out a plastic container of spaghetti leftovers.

“She’s…are you two…I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”

Jake laughed. “I’m not. She just…she’s having some trouble with some stuff and needed to talk. That’s all.”

“Oh.” That was a relief.

“Of course, I would love to do much more than talk to her. I mean…. She’s hot. Don’t you think?”

“I think a man my age could practically get arrested for even thinking that, so I’m going to pass on that question,” Nick said.

“You don’t think she’s hot?” Jake was incredulous.

Nick thought she was enough to scare the parents of a teenage boy half to death, to blank out all reason in the adolescent mind, which was already not that high in the ability-to-reason area, especially when anything female was within reach.

“I think you really don’t need to be entertaining girls in your bedroom, okay?”

“Entertaining?” Jake laughed. “We were talking.”

“Fine. Talk in the living room. Or the kitchen. Or outside. Not upstairs,” Nick told him, because a door cracked open and Nick pacing back and forth outside just didn’t seem safe enough.

“Okay,” Jake said. “No girls in my bedroom.”

“Okay. Good,” Nick said.

That settled that.

No argument. No harsh words. No big deal.

Good.

So why did Nick still felt like he was standing in a minefield, Jake and all these girls, all the possibilities for trouble.

Parenting, he decided, was terrifying.

Lily finally worked up her nerve and made the call, then realized it had started to rain while she’d been worrying and talking to Marcy.

Darn.

The backyard, while offering enough privacy to get into trouble, still seemed much safer than having him in her house.

Which was silly, Lily knew, but…she was looking for any sense of safety she could find, and she was pretty sure the man wouldn’t seduce her in the Adirondack chairs in her backyard.

Her kitchen was another thing all together.

Nick answered the phone, that deep, smooth tone of his enough to make her want him, despite how uneasy she was with the whole idea of letting another man into either her life or her bed.

“It’s raining,” she said.

“I know. Is that a problem?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“Are you scared to let me in your house, Lily?”

He didn’t say it in a teasing, flirty way, just completely matter-of-factly.

“No. I just…I don’t know how to do this,” she confessed. “I’ve been alone a long time. I feel like I’ve been alone forever, and at the same time, I feel like I’ve been married forever, and I don’t even remember how all this works.”

“I know,” he said, softly as could be, a world of understanding there.

Marcy was right. He was patient and kind and gorgeous, and Lily would bet money all that came into play in making him great in bed.

“And I’m tempted. Very tempted—”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, chuckling.

“But it’s just not as simple as that. Not for me.”

“Okay. I think I knew that all along, Lily, but you can’t blame a guy for hoping. So, what do you want to do? Pretend this never happened? Because if that’s what you want, I’ll do it.”

“What if I don’t really know what I want?” she asked.

“Well, that could lead to all sorts of things,” he said, sounding much more pleased with himself or her or maybe just the moment. “It could lead to me giving you some time to figure out what you want. Me trying to convince you that you want the same thing I do, which I am perfectly willing to do. In fact, I think that could be a lot of fun. Let me try to talk you into it—”

“Talk me into it? Because I didn’t think you were talking about a conversation.”

“Talking would be part of it,” he insisted, sounding like he planned on doing very little talking.

And the other part?

Lily had a feeling she’d really like the other part.

She stood at the window, looking out through the darkness and the rain, trying to see past it all to him.

He was grinning. She could hear it in his voice, and he was so cute when he grinned. It took all that toughness out of his face and made him look instead like a big, sweet, sexy man.

“I think you should let me come over and kiss you good-night,” he said. “To give you something to think about.”

Lily shook her head. “I have plenty to think about, and I’m not sure you coming over here is a good idea.”

“It’s a great idea. We’ll stay in the kitchen. How much trouble could we get into in your kitchen, with your girls upstairs and Jake over here, used to waltzing in and out of your house all the time? Besides, it’s just a kiss, Lily.”

Oh, but she’d been kissed by him before.

“Hang up the phone,” he said. “I’ll be there in a second.”

The phone clicked, connection broken, before she could protest.

She’d hardly had a chance to take a breath when he was there, opening the back door and letting himself in.

The rain must have picked up, because it was dripping off his dark, thick hair, had left wet splotches on his shirt, and the look in his eyes when he watched her was enough to make her sizzle.

His charm was a potent thing.

“Let me dry you off,” she said, reaching for a clean dish towel from the drawer beside her.

She reached up to press the cloth against the side of his face first and then his forehead, his other cheek, his lips, the touch somehow becoming more of a caress than anything else.

Lily caught her breath, not thinking until then that to take care of him in this way, she had to get very, very close to him. His hands came up to hold her loosely against him, the warmth of his big palms soaking into her back, making her want to do nothing but lean in even closer to him.

She tried to concentrate on the task she’d set for herself, moving onto his hair and then somehow it was her hands, not the towel, brushing the water from the dark strands.

“I’ve never had anyone dry me off before.” He grinned wickedly, not pulling her closer, but making no move to step back. “You’re making me wish I’d stayed out in the rain a while longer. If I’d known I was going to get this kind of treatment, I would have.”

Lily dropped the towel on the floor, embarrassed by what she’d done, not sure if it was a way to stall what he’d come here to do or just an excuse to touch him, which she found herself wanting very badly to do.