The Temptation of Sean MacNeill (6 page)

She handled it for him, and that was maybe worse.

Stepping away from him, she tugged at the waist of her white blouse, restoring order. Composure. Distance.

"Hello," she said. "You must be here to see Sean. He's all yours."

She opened the screen door and went in, her straight back disappearing into the shadows of the house.

Lori sauntered down the walk, moving well on her three-inch heels. Sean appreciated the picture she made, even as it failed to grab him at the level Rachel did in her long skirt and sensible school shoes.

Stopping at the bottom of the steps, Lori waved a white envelope at him. "I brought you your last paycheck."

He reached and stuffed it into his back jeans' pocket. "Thanks. I take it Walt wants me off the site, huh?"

"You got it, big guy." She raised penciled eyebrows. "So, I guess you're not going to be coming around anymore."

She was talking about more than the job, and they both knew it. Sean was grateful for the tactful exit. But then, they'd both known going in that there would be good times and no strings.

"Looks like it," he said.

"Well." She hesitated, shading her eyes with one hand against the sun. "It's been fun."

"Yeah, it has." As she turned on her stiletto heels to go, he took one long stride off the porch and stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Lori … thanks."

"Anytime, big guy. Call me, if you get free." She waggled her fingers at him. "Bye."

Was he out of his mind? Why was he exchanging a neat little package like Lori for the messy bundle of warmth and responsibilities that was Rachel?

Assuming he was making any such exchange. He didn't know what significance their full-body-contact kiss carried for Rachel.

Heck, he didn't know what to make of it himself. His body yelled,
Full speed ahead
, and his mind screamed,
Turn back now
. But whether he listened to his body or his mind, it wasn't fair to Lori to pretend his attention was with her right now.

So he watched the real estate agent twitch down the walk in her pretty power suit and wondered what the hell he was doing.

* * *

One kiss didn't mean anything, Rachel lectured herself as she wrung out the children's wet washcloths and folded them over the towel bar by the sink. Sean probably kissed women all the time. He probably did more than that with the tousled-haired shark who'd strutted up her sidewalk.

It was Rachel's own fault that she was so lonely, so desperately in need of comfort, that she imagined Sean's kiss was something more than a knee-jerk response to any breathing female wearing mascara.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the sink and winced. Her own mascara, carefully applied for school, had smudged, leaving big bags under her eyes. She looked tired and felt about a hundred years old.

I'm ancient
, she'd told him the first night they'd met, and it was true.

She was tired. She was sick of being scared and weary of managing by herself. But that was no excuse for fantasizing about her mother's boarder. A twenty-nine-year-old, out-of-work carpenter with an earring couldn't help her, no matter how broad his shoulders were. Maybe mailing her monthly check to Carmine Bilotti had been enough to satisfy the racketeer. Maybe Sean's blunt intervention hadn't provoked him into sending the debt collectors after her like
Hollywood
hit men. Maybe. And maybe she was as blind as an owl in daytime because she didn't want to see what a mistake it would be to get involved with somebody like Sean MacNeill.

What did she tell her high school students? Sex doesn't solve your problems. It just hands you a whole set of new ones.

She pulled a face at the mirror. Let them put that on a T-shirt.

Rinsing the toothpaste from the sink, she went along the hall to kiss her children good-night.

Chris bounced into bed as she came through the door. Rachel smiled. "Teeth all brushed?"

"Yep."

She glanced at the narrow empty bed on the other side of the room. "Where's Lindsey?"

"I, uh…"

Secrets, again. They were everywhere, wrapped around the fragile pieces of their lives like the paper they'd used to pack up the contents of the old house.
Don't tell on Lindsey. Don't worry the children. Don't burden Mama.

"Chris," she warned.

He squirmed under the covers. "She went to see Sean."

Oh, no. "To see Mr. MacNeill? Why?"

"Well, you said I shouldn't bother him anymore. And I finished that comic book, and I thought maybe he'd let me have another one."

And so he'd begged or bribed
Xena
Warrior Pre-Teen into marching over there for him. Rachel sighed. "Oh, Chris."

"You didn't say she couldn't."

"No, but I thought you both understood… Never mind." Why should her children be any more able to resist Sean than she was?

She brushed Chris's hair back from his face and kissed his forehead. "'Night, honey. God bless you."

"God bless." His arms came around her neck.

Tears rushed to her eyes at the simple contact. Oh, God, she was some kind of emotional mess when a reminder of past cuddles could make her weepy. No wonder she'd been all over Sean MacNeill. She was obviously starved for human contact.

How humiliating.

"Sleep tight," she said with effort, and went to collect her daughter.

Myra
was singing softly along with the radio in the kitchen. Rachel opened the screen door—it didn't stick anymore—and stepped over the newly installed threshold onto the porch. She could almost hear her mother say it.
So nice to have a man around the house.

And it was, damn it. Nice to have the gutters cleaned and the dripping faucet silenced and the radiator level checked on her mother's car. Nice to meet his wicked dark eyes in the morning and hide her blush behind a coffee cup, and feel, for brief seconds, as if she wasn't one of the walking dead.

She stood a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the moonless night. Above the dark trees a nimbus of humidity wrapped each star, and from them, a chorus of cicadas rose and fell like the sea at high tide. The big overhead doors of the garage stood open, spilling light and paint fumes and admitting the warm evening breeze.

Bugs, too, probably, Rachel thought, deliberately resisting the pull of the soft summer night.

But mosquitoes didn't seem to bother the man kneeling on the tarp-covered floor. Under the white shop lights, Sean was painting a tall, narrow cupboard with even brush strokes, his face hard with concentration and his dark hair escaping its stubby ponytail.

Yearning took her by the throat, not so much for the man as for the girl who might have let herself fall for him, the girl who might have believed in that teasing smile and those concerned eyes and the strength implicit in his wrists and his voice.

Stupid, Rachel scolded herself. She hadn't been that girl for a long time now. She started down the walk.

She was halfway to the gravel drive when she spotted Lindsey, like a ghost from her own childhood, curled up on the dragon-claw sofa, watching Sean paint.

"You're dripping," Lindsey said.

The brush lifted, paused, and then resumed. "No, I'm not. Don't you have homework to do?"

"You asked me that already. I finished."

"Didn't take you long."

"No. It was easy. The kids here are really dumb."

Rachel bit her lip in distress. It had been a tough week for all of them, but toughest for Lindsey. "Fifth graders rule!" she'd crowed last June, with summer spread before her and a return to her old school at the end of it She wasn't in command at Davis Elementary; and Rachel knew her daughter felt the loss of power keenly.

Sean continued to stroke paint on the cupboard, his attention apparently on his work. "Dumb, how?"

"Just dumb." When that failed to get a response, Lindsey elaborated. "They're all a bunch of hicks, anyway. Brittany Lewis made fun of my notebook. And Heather Mills said I talk funny."

"You do." When she glared at him, Sean shrugged. "So do I. All us Yankees sound different to them."

"Not Mom." Lindsey's voice was accusing. "Since we got here she sounds just like Grandma."

"Not exactly," Sean said, but Lindsey wasn't listening. "I hate it here," she said. "There's nobody I like and nothing to do."

Rachel's heart constricted.

Sean's brush moved up and down. "There's a Labor Day carnival in town on Saturday," he said at last.

Lindsey rolled her eyes. "Oh, whoopee." She waited. He didn't reply.

"Would you take me?" she asked in a small voice.

Sean dipped his brush in the paint can. "Hell, no. 'Maybe you should try being nice to your mom for a change, see if she will."

"But I won't know anybody."

"So, it takes time to make new friends."

"I don't want new friends."

"Well, with an attitude like that you won't have to worry about it, will you?"

Rachel, listening in the darkness, stiffened in her child's defense.

But Lindsey grinned. "You stink," she said amiably.

Sean raised his eyebrows. "That's the paint,
dollface
."

Their momentary rapport made Rachel uncomfortable. Lindsey still wasn't over the loss of her father. She couldn't afford to fall for a transient carpenter with a commitment problem.

And neither could Rachel.

She stepped forward into the swathe of light, trying for casual even when the words stuck in her throat like crackers. "Here you are, sweetie. I thought I told you the garage was off-limits for now."

Lindsey squirmed. "You told Chris."

"Which naturally brought her out here hot-foot to see what the big attraction was," Sean said.

But Rachel already knew what—or rather, who—the attraction was. Averting her gaze from his hard, broad shoulders, she said politely, "I hope she didn't interrupt your work."

He waved his paintbrush at her. "Not too much."

"Well…" She stood uncertainly. "Thank you. Lindsey, bedtime."

Her daughter's lower lip protruded. "I don't have to go to bed yet."

"It's almost nine-twenty."

"I don't want to go to bed."

"Show's over, kid," Sean said. "Scoot. Take the comic book with you."

Lindsey tossed her head and scrambled off the couch. With a look at her mother—
I'm going, but you didn't make me
—she scooted.

Sean set his brush across the can of red paint. He stood slowly, wiping his hands on his thighs. Rachel's mouth went dry. The gesture called attention to, oh, to everything: his height and his lazy grace and the way his damn jeans fit. God save her from a man with a high, tight butt in a pair of well-washed denims.

She looked up to meet his wicked dark gaze, and her cheeks burned.

"You wanted me?" he drawled.

Chapter 6

«
^
»

H
e stood there with the shop lights throwing his body into bold relief, sliding over the muscles revealed by his sleeveless T-shirt.

Rachel couldn't do anything about the color burning her cheeks, but she'd be damned before she'd gulp. She cleared her throat instead. "Nice line. Does it work often?"

Humor flashed in his eyes. It was hard not to like a man who could laugh at himself.

"You'd be surprised," he said.

"Not really," she muttered.

"What?"

"I really came to get Lindsey. I hope the children aren't bothering you."

"Not much." He took a step closer. "Not like you do." The safest way—the only way—to deal with that was to ignore it. She retreated, skirting the edges of the tarp-covered floor to his workbench. His tools hung in orderly rows, arranged by size. His organized work space contrasted with his dangerous looks, his half-bare chest and raffish earring. Who was he? The conscientious workman or the careless pirate? Her heart tripped faster. Which did she want him to be?

"I was thinking about what you said. About Chris needing a chance to get away from the house?"

"From the henhouse, I said."

It was payback, she decided, for her "nice line" crack. She waved it off. "Anyway, I never meant he couldn't even see you to return a comic book. if you don't mind him stopping by…"

"I told you I don't mind."

She turned to face him. "No power tools, though."

He took another step nearer. "No. Rachel…"

Her back was up against the workbench. She grasped the edge with both hands, determined to keep control of the subject and herself. Chris. They were talking about her son.

"Both children saw a therapist after Doug—after. Chris seemed to be coping."

He dipped his head. A strand of his hair slipped close to her cheek. His breath tickled her ear. "Coping is good."

Her eyelids felt weighted. She fought to keep them open, like a child struggling against sleep. Like a swimmer in danger of drowning. "Yes. But he's been very… It seems silly to complain, but he's been almost too quiet. Too obedient. That's why I was so surprised when he did that awful thing to your chair."

"He's dealing with a move and a whole new set of rules and people. He's probably just…" His warm lips brushed her cheekbone. "…acting up for attention."

She inhaled sharply, smelling paint and lumber and man. "That doesn't mean you should put yourself out."

"I won't."

"We can manage on our own."

"Sure." His mouth glided down to the curve of her jaw, found the pulse point just below her ear. "But if there's anything I can do to help…"

It wasn't just the suggestion of sex in his voice that loosened her knees and made her go all soft and liquid inside. It was the
undernote
of humor, the promise of shared fun. As if. as long as he held her, she could shed the worried caretaker with tired eyes who'd taken control of her mirror and become someone else. Someone a gorgeous man in a sleeveless T-shirt could tease and make love with. Someone warm and urgent and alive she might have been once upon a time.

Someone stupid.

This time she did gulp. "I think you've probably done enough."

"Lady, I am just getting started."

She knew better than to let him. Really, she did. But when he rested one hand alongside hers on the workbench, her arm prickled at the nearness of his. Her body shivered at his closeness. Little zings and tingles chased under her skin, calling attention to places she'd neglected for months. Years. He pulled back and met her gaze, with laughter and something else in his eyes, and she noticed that his lashes were unfairly long and thick for a man's and that he needed a shave. Common sense screamed at her to be good, to be careful, to get back inside the house where she belonged.

Rachel stayed right where she was.

He leaned into her and kissed the arch of her brow and the space between her eyebrows where her headache lurked and the tip of her nose. His breath was warm and coffee-scented. His lips were soft and practiced. Every place his mouth touched set up a little chorus of agreement that drowned out the cautionary voices in her head. Yes. You
betcha
. Please.

She waited for him to get on with it. She wasn't making this difficult. He probably didn't have much time to spend seducing a thirty-four-year-old widow and mother of two. But he continued to caress her face with slow, warm, open kisses, slowly leaching the tension from her muscles and building the anticipation under her skin. Her heart tripped faster. She was either going to jump him or lose her nerve.

She turned her head abruptly, engaging that tempting mouth. With a jolt, he complied with her silent demand, giving her his heat, filling her with the slick pressure of his tongue, bringing her up close against his long, warm body. He felt solid and strong against her. He felt aroused, and she closed her eyes at the wicked pleasure of it, the pleasure of arousing him.

They kissed, progressively slower. Deeper. Wetter. He tasted so good she could actually tune out the busy whispers in her head, blanket them with the electric sensations of body-
tobody
contact. He was reassuringly hard. She felt her insides contracting and her breasts tightening in need. It was almost like an itch, insistent, impossible to ignore. She rubbed against him, and he groaned encouragement into her mouth.

His hands moved over her, his wide-palmed, long-fingered hands. He closed one over her breast as if he knew what she needed. She almost whimpered in relief as his blunt, clever fingers stroked and shaped and tugged.

With his hand between their bodies, their hips pressed closer together. She tried to widen her legs, but the workbench was hard against her back and he was tight against her front. She made a small, frustrated sound in her throat and wiggled in protest.

His free hand fisted in her hair and pulled their fused mouths apart.

His eyes were dark and hot. "What do you want to do?"

"I…"

"What do you want, Rachel?"

As if he actually saw her. As if what she wanted mattered.

And she knew, with enormous regret, that the Rachel reflected in his eyes absolutely could not go through with … with whatever she'd thought she was about to do.

The change must have registered in her face, because his mouth tightened. His grip in her hair loosened.

"Lose your nerve?" he asked, almost sympathetically.

It was so close to what she'd actually been thinking that her denial died unspoken. "That, or my mind."

"Want me to try to change it for you?"

She was almost unbearably tempted to say yes, to let him take over, to let him take the responsibility for what happened between them. She shook her head. "I need to go in."

"Running away?"

"Certainly not," she lied. "Lindsey will be waiting for me to tuck her in."

"I could wait for you to tuck me in, too. if you want to come back."

"It's not a question of what I want. I have obligations."

"Responsible Rachel." Was he making fun of her? But his eyes were warm.

"Yes," she said baldly.

His knuckle brushed her cheek. "Okay. Good night."

She swallowed disappointment. "You're taking this awfully well."

He laughed shortly. "Beautiful, I'm hard enough right now to pound nails. But nothing's going to happen you're not ready for."

His blunt admission was as arousing as his touch, his consideration more devastating than his kisses. Both made it even harder to walk away. But she did.

She walked back alone, feeling his gaze like a hand on the small of her back. She didn't turn around. When she reached the porch she could hear the rumble of a police drama from her mother's TV and Lindsey shouting at the top of the stairs for Chris to get out of the bathroom.

This was what she had. This was all she had. It was time she made the best of it.

Taking a sharp breath, Rachel pulled on the screen door and went inside the house.

* * *

The town of
Benson
's Labor Day celebration wasn't a bad fair, Sean thought, strolling the makeshift midway. Not as neighborly as the parish carnival at
St. Ann
's, not as big as the old Marshfield Fair south of
Boston
, but it had all the required elements: a rickety row of game booths, a 4-H exhibit, and a lot full of rattletrap rides. In the field below the high school, a rash of craft tents had sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.

A fire truck gleamed to a spit-polish shine and bicycles decorated with crepe paper were parked on the sidewalk in front of the school. The marching band had already performed on the main stage. A row of little girls in sparkling leotards twirled for their parents on the platform, and a sandwich board announced the Starlight Swing Band scheduled for
seven o'clock
.

Yeah, a good fair. And since breaking up with Lori Tucker, it was the closest thing to excitement Sean was likely to find. Despite his outsider status in town, he was enjoying the racing kids and the waving flags, the smell of grilling sausages, the pastel puffs of cotton candy and the bright lights of the Ferris wheel doing their valiant best against the sunshine and dingy paint.

Of course, normally he'd have somebody beside him to share it all with, to squeal on the roller coaster and give him a reason to try for one of the giant prizes hanging from the booths. Somebody female, and older than his niece Brianna. But Lori was history, and the only other candidate had made it plain she wasn't in his future.

He stopped at one of the stands to buy beer in a plastic cup. He'd had a close escape there, he thought Rachel, with her warm eyes and her hot mouth and her stubborn independent streak, had blown his cool and his mind. Even the memory of her, eager and strong in his arms, made him ache. A woman like that could make him forget every rule he had about dating women with kids. Yeah, a real close escape, he told himself, and tried to ignore the nagging emptiness he felt.

In the meantime, drinking a cold beer in the hot sun with dust and straw and popcorn underfoot was a thousand times better than sitting alone in a bar.

And he didn't have to stay alone. With more experience than purpose, he eyed the holiday crowd. Pretty teens in skinny tank tops. Too young. A chattering group in lawn chairs, their flowered skirts bright in the shade. Too old. A good-humored, sharp-featured policewoman patrolling the fair gave him a nod and got a smile in return. There was a nice-looking blonde at the bake sale stall and a glossy brunette with great legs leaning over the counter at the milk can toss…

Rachel.

Before he could think better of it, he crossed the midway to her side.

* * *

Chris had won a plush green dog, and Lindsey was wild with wanting one.

"Please, Mommy.
Pleeeease
? Just one more. Let me try just one more time."

Mommy
. Not Mom. Rachel smiled down into her daughter's pink-cheeked, pleading face. It was worth the money already gone on games and greasy food, worth the hours she would be up preparing lesson plans tomorrow night. Definitely worth another fifty cents for a chance to knock the milk cans down.

"Well…" she drawled, pretending to consider.

The booth attendant, an old hand at spotting an easy mark, plunked three balls down on the counter. "Here
ya
go."

"Yes!" Lindsey crowed, and made a grab for them.

Rachel dug in her shorts' pocket for her shrinking wad of tickets. "Take your time. Aim."

Lindsey nodded, weighing the ball in her hand, judging the distance to her target. She threw. The top four cans tumbled.

"Good girl!" Rachel said. Chris jumped up and down. Lindsey glowed. She threw again. Another can fell, leaving five: a straight row across the bottom and one on top.

"I can't do it," Lindsey said.

But she tried. Her ball sailed uselessly to the right of the top can and smacked into the canvas at the back of the booth. Her shoulders slumped.

"Not bad," a male voice said appraisingly behind them. "A little lower and you would have taken them down."

Rachel recognized that lazy, deep voice. Her heart thudded. She turned and saw Sean, thumbs stuck in his jeans' front pockets, dark hair brushing the back of his neck, earring winking like a promise. He grinned as if he were glad just to see her, and she grinned foolishly, helplessly, back.

"Sean!" Chris said.

He nodded. "Hey, sport."

"Can you hit them?" Lindsey demanded. "I want a dog."

Rachel pulled herself together. "Lindsey, it's not polite to ask—"

"'S okay. It's a male prerogative, winning prizes for pretty girls at fairs."

"Don't be sexist. I could get one for her."

He tipped his head back, regarding her from under thick, dark lashes. "Could you now? Care to make a bet?"