Tempting Love - Haley & Eddie (2 page)

His muted voice drifted up to the window as he called out into the street. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but she figured he was probably calling in Miss Emily. His eyes lit up as he watched his daughter ride her bike up the driveway. Her heart skipped a beat as a small smile tugged on his full, perfect, panty-melting lips.

Bells started going off in her head. There it was. That was the reason, no matter how hard she tried, she could not get over her feelings for Eddie—because of the way he was with Emily. Haley had always had a crush on Eddie, but while watching him after he’d become a single dad, Haley had fallen irrevocably, madly in love.

Step away from the window
, a small voice inside her head piped up.
You are dangerously close to stalker status.

Begrudgingly adhering to the pesky little bugger inside her head, she took steps back, stopping in front of the mirror. As she studied her reflection, she tried to look at things logically. To take into consideration what her sister had so willingly and eagerly pointed out—that Eddie “was just not that into her.”

She knew that Krista could very well be right. He might not have any feelings for her. That was definitely a possibility. But deep down in her heart, she honestly believed that…he did.

* * *

“All right, squirt! Let’s bring it in!” Eddie yelled to his daughter as he wiped off the excess grease he had on his hands with a rag.

Changing the oil had taken longer than he’d anticipated. Glancing over his shoulder to the round clock that hung on the far end of his garage, he saw that he had about an hour until he needed to leave. Which meant a quick shower and then a fast and easy dinner for him and Em.

Emily happily rode her bike up the driveway, asking excitedly, “Is Haley coming over tonight?”

“Yep,” Eddie answered as he picked up the wrench and empty container of oil.

“Can I stay up until ten with Haley? I’ll do the dishes all week,” his daughter bargained, her large brown eyes beaming up at him. Her bedtime was firmly eight o’clock on school nights and nine o’clock on weekends.

“All right,” Eddie easily agreed, surprising even himself.

His parenting style normally didn’t include negotiations. If a rule was made, it was not up for discussion. When he found himself raising Emily on his own, he’d read every parenting book he could get his hands on. One thing they all seemed to agree on was that consistency was the key to raising a well-adjusted, disciplined, happy child.

Eddie wasn’t a pushover. When he said no, it was
no
. Big puppy-dog eyes, begging, crying, pouting—he’d seen it all after almost eight years and he was immune. In life, there were rules and there were consequences. As much as he would love to be able to protect Em from the real world, he knew that wasn’t his job as a parent, especially as a single parent. He had to prepare her for the world, not shelter her from its harsh realities.

After hearing that he was allowing her to push back her bedtime one hour, his daughter squealed with joy, jumped off her bike, and flung her skinny little arms around his waist.

“Thank you, Daddy! I love you!” Emily squeezed him tightly.

As he looked down at the top of her golden hair and felt her tiny arms wrapped around him, Eddie’s heart melted in his chest. These were the moments he lived for. The moments that put all the stress of life, the stress of parenting, and the stress of just plain living into perspective.

Eddie hugged her back. “I love you too, squirt.”

Loosening her grip, Emily looked up at him, wearing a very serious expression as she said, “I’m almost eight. I’m not a squirt.”

“You’ll
always
be my squirt.” Eddie picked his daughter up off her feet and spun her around several times. She giggled as she held her slim arms snugly around his neck. Setting her down, he ruffled her hair as he instructed, “Go wash up and set the table. I’m making mac and cheese and hot dogs right after I take a quick shower.”

“Okay!” Emily skipped happily into the garage to head into the house. Before she stepped inside, she paused and looked over her shoulder, a huge smile pasted across her little face. “You’re the best dad ever!” she proudly proclaimed before disappearing inside.

Eddie shook his head, smiling to himself. Of course she thought that. He’d given in and broken a rule. Maybe he
was
becoming a pushover. Or maybe he’d said yes because of the guilt he felt over going out and taking time for himself. Or maybe it was because he’d heard the same desperation in his daughter’s voice when she talked about seeing Haley that he felt every time he thought about their blond-haired, blue-eyed, sexy-as-hell neighbor.

Which was often. Way. Too. Often.

Especially considering the fact that he and Haley could
never
happen. For more reasons than he could count. Not the least of which was the fact that he was not going to get into another serious relationship, or any relationship for that matter, until Em was in college. He wanted her to have a stable home environment, even if that meant having only one parent. There was no way he was going to have a stream of women in and out of her life.

As Eddie was just about to close the garage, he saw the front door of Haley’s house open and his hand froze on the handle. A twinge of disappointment twisted in his chest when he saw red hair shining in the sun as Krista stepped onto the porch. He nodded in greeting as Haley’s sister waved on the way to her car.

Damn
, Eddie whispered under his breath as he pulled the heavy garage door shut. He seriously needed to get a grip on himself and his reactions in the Haley department. Since she’d returned from college four years ago, Eddie’s attraction, feelings, or whatever the hell it was that made him think about her constantly—against his will!—had become a serious issue.

He’d tried to deny it. Fight it. Ignore it. Nothing seemed to help. As in-control and self-disciplined as Eddie was, he seemed to have zero control and only a small thread of discipline when it came to Haley Sloan.

“Clean up your Barbies or no ten o’clock bedtime,” Eddie called out as he navigated his way around, what looked to be some kind of Barbie, G.I. Joe wedding that Em had set up on the stairway landing.

“Okay,” his daughter’s voice rang out from the kitchen.

At the top of the stairs, he found himself pausing and looking out the window that sat above the front door and had a direct line to another window—Haley’s bedroom window.

He could see her through the white wooden shades. She was looking at something. Studying it. Her head tilted to the side, and he couldn’t make it out clearly but he
knew
that she was biting her lip, the way she did whenever she was seriously considering something or concentrating. His body tensed in response to seeing her, the way it always did.

Forcing himself to move away, he pulled off his shirt as he stepped into his bedroom. He felt anxious. On edge. Irritated.

It seemed like he had perpetually been in that state since Haley had moved into the house across the street with Krista six months ago. Now, instead of seeing her around town, at Sloan family functions, and the one or two times a month she stayed with Em, he had the added torture of seeing her
every day
.

Add to that the fact that he now saw her doing things that up to this point, she’d only done as the star in his fantasies—but now—they were playing out in real time right before his eyes. For example, taking out the garbage in short shorts that left very little to the imagination, washing her car in tank tops she could easily have won any wet t-shirt contest in, or bending over to get her groceries out of the trunk in dresses and skirts.

Torture. It was pure torture.

Even when she wasn’t doing something that made his dick grow hard in .0002 seconds, he found himself watching for her, hoping to catch glimpses of her on her way to work, coming home from work, or—the worst—going out on dates with losers that Eddie wanted to pound into the ground.

It had been hard enough—literally!—when she’d started watching Emily for him and he’d see her in his home once or twice a month. Now, she stopped by a few times a week. She and Em colored, painted their nails, watched TV, and read books. Seeing her with his daughter did something to him. Made him feel things he shouldn’t feel and want things he couldn’t have.

Moving into the bathroom, Eddie reached in and turned the silver handle in the middle of the tiled wall. As the sound of water began rushing out of the showerhead, he stepped out of his jeans and into the stall. Shutting the glass door behind him, he stood under the hot spray and tried to clear his head of all things Haley.

But instead of that happening, flashes of her smile, her silky hair, her vibrant blue eyes flashed in rapid succession in his brain. He felt himself growing hard at the images.

Shit
. He didn’t have time to take care of his
growing
problem. Plus, he didn’t need to. He was seeing Claire tonight. Hot, sexy, kinky Claire. She was more than capable of handling things in his growing area.

So why did Eddie still feel annoyed and irritated? Why wasn’t he more excited at the thought having hot, dirty sex? Why wasn’t Claire the one on his mind?

Hell, if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t even looking forward to seeing Claire tonight. And last month, he had felt lukewarm at best at seeing Erica. Then there was Trish a few weeks before that. He’d had to talk himself out of canceling.

Eddie used to look forward to his nights off. He had decided about six years ago that the only arrangement that made sense for his life was to have sex-only, no-strings attached affairs in other towns. These affairs were only with women who knew that was all it was now, and that was all it was ever going to be. Over the years, the women had changed but the arrangement, the agreement, had stayed exactly the same. It worked for him. He got what he needed physically and Emily’s life was not affected by it.

Nowadays though, he felt like he was just going through the motions. Sure, he was attracted to the women he saw, and some of them were actually enjoyable company. But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked forward to one of these nights.

Well, that’s not entirely true—the past six months he had. Because since Haley had moved across the street, she’d begun staying after he got home and they’d have a beer on the back deck or sit in front of the fireplace. A couple of times, they’d even watched a movie.

That was the part of the night he looked forward to now. That he played over and over again in his head. The few hours when Em was in bed and he and Haley would just hang out. Talk. Laugh. Just be…alone.

Getting out of the shower, Eddie grabbed the towel that was hanging on the hook and quickly dried off. He didn’t want to put too much thought into what that meant; why a few totally platonic hours alone with Haley felt more
intimate
, more
real
, more
fulfilling
, than spending hours in bed naked with someone else.

Nope
, Eddie thought as he shook out his wet hair.
Not going there
.

He’d been wild in his teens and early twenties and he’d paid for it. Now that he was an adult and a single dad, he lived by an unbending set of rules. That was how he kept order and structure in his life.

There were other reasons too. Where women were concerned, rule
numero uno
was if you hadn’t attended high school within the same years he had…you were too young. Haley had been a sixth grader when he was a senior in high school. She might have been an adult now, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t still too young.

Also, she was the closest thing that his best friend Riley had to a little sister. She was his little cousin. Sure, Riley had impregnated and married Eddie’s baby sister, Chelle, but that didn’t mean that Eddie would do the same.

Rule number two was you don’t mess with your friend’s sisters, cousins, or exes. That was just guy code 101.

Emily pounded on the bathroom door. “Daddy! I’m hungry!”

“Be right out.” Eddie quickly got dressed, put on deodorant, and splashed on a little cologne.

Opening the door, he found a small female with her arms folded, wearing an expression that said she was not too happy.

“What?” he asked defensively as he crossed in front of her to grab his socks out of the top drawer.

He could feel Emily’s eyes boring into the back of his head as he sat down to put on his socks.

“Are you going on a date?” she asked.

“I’m seeing a friend.”

“A
girl
friend?”

“A
friend
.” He turned and looked down at his four foot six interrogator. Her big brown eyes were searching his as he stared down at her.

She wasn’t going to break him. Nope. She was seven. He was thirty-four. He didn’t owe her any explanations for his life.

Still, he had to admit that her assessing stare was making him feel a little bit uneasy.

Then, speaking in a very
adult,
slightly accusatory tone, Emily over-punctuated each word as she said, “Mandy Pollack’s mom says that you don’t have a girlfriend because you don’t know a good thing when it’s standing right in front of you.”