The Temptation of Sean MacNeill (9 page)

"Some." When she merely waited, he shrugged and added, "There's a guy on the craft show circuit who takes a couple pieces from me. A shop in Boone that sells to tourists."

"How much do they sell?"

 
"As much as I give them, I guess."

"Have they asked for more?"

He rounded his shoulders, plainly uncomfortable with the shift of the conversation. "Sometimes. Commissions."

She studied this new view of him. "You build custom furniture."

"When I have time."

"Well, you should make time." She sat up, pleased to have a new direction for her thoughts, heartened now that she was encouraging someone else. "You could start your own business."

"It's a hobby."

"It's more than that. You could really make something of it."

He turned his head. His lips curved, but his brown eyes were hard and shrewd. "I'm not one of your students, Rachel. And I won't be one of your projects."

She flushed. "Really? You seem eager enough to make me one of yours."

"One of my what?" His voice had a dangerous edge.

"One of those women you care about as individuals."

"You're too smart to play victim, Rachel. Face it, you didn't come in here to talk about furniture."

Her heart began to slam inside her chest. "I came in for coffee."

"Maybe." He glided to his knees, facing her as she sat on the green velvet couch, his bare chest brushing her thigh. "Or maybe you came in for this."

He leaned forward. His mouth covered hers warmly, surely, before she had a chance to react. Before she could decide how she wanted to react. He tasted like coffee and smelled like sleep, and his skin was hot. Her body tightened. Her eyelids dragged shut as he took the kiss deeper, and then they popped open again.

"No," she said.

His lips cruised up her cheek. He kissed her temple. His tenderness was heartbreakingly sweet and mind-bendingly seductive, but she figured she was on to him now.

"I mean it. If you don't want to talk about it, I understand, but don't distract me with sex."

Sean pulled back. "What are you talking about?" Her dark eyes were earnest. "As soon as I started to discuss your work, you changed the subject."

He hadn't done that. Sean frowned. At least, he hadn't been aware of doing that. "I did not change the subject."

She flapped away his objection. "Made a pass, then. Same thing."

He was offended at having his lovemaking waved off as a red herring. "The hell it is."

"It's all right," she assured him sincerely. "I understand if you're not ready."

"Beautiful, I am more than ready."

She gave him that schoolteacher look, the one that made him want to kiss her until her eyes crossed. "For sex. But not to talk about something that's obviously important to you."

He stood. She wanted to share? Fine. "So, let's talk. You go first."

Her gaze fell. "I don't know what you mean."

He admired her nerve, but she was a crummy liar. "Who's Frank, Rachel?"

Chapter 8

«
^
»

R
achel's chest caved. She'd prodded Sean to share his hopes and plans with her. She'd needled him to see her as something other than the latest in a string of sexual projects. But now that he'd turned the questioning back on her, she couldn't talk to him.

She closed her eyes in despair. "Oh, God."

"What? What is it?" His voice was deep, concerned. She loved his voice. It sounded more reliable than he looked.

Here was her chance to stumble off the tight little circle of fear and isolation she'd been spinning in like a rat in a wheel since Doug died. And she couldn't do it. Because however important Sean might become, the children came first.

You gonna get other people involved, somebody's gonna get hurt.

Her fingers slid down, tugging at her cheeks, leaving them drawn and old-looking. "You were right," she said. "Maybe talking isn't such a good idea."

He studied her a moment, bare-chested, thumbs hitched in his belt loops. Two sharp lines dug between his brows. But he asked her lightly, "Does that mean we can have sex now?"

She almost cried. She laughed instead, and some of the worry left his eyes.

"Thank you for your very nice offer," she said. "But—"

"Sounds like no to me."

"I'm concerned about the children, Lindsey especially." That much, at least, wasn't a lie. "I can't do anything that might hurt them."

"Is it just the kids?"

"No. It's everything. I'm muddled enough right now. Sex would confuse things even more."

"We could keep it simple. You. Me. A mattress…" It was so much less than she wanted. It was more than she could let herself have. She shook her head. "I don't think I could. Keep it simple, I mean."

He inhaled sharply. She watched his chest expand and his muscled stomach contract, and tightened her hands in her lap to keep from touching him.

"I'm supposed to let you go after that?"

She didn't answer.

His breath sighed out. "Yeah. I'm supposed to let you go."

He bent, and his warm hands enclosed her clenched ones as he pulled her to her feet.

"You know where to find me if you change your mind. The offer stays open." He brushed one knuckle down her cheek. The casual tenderness of the gesture almost made her weep. "Both offers, if you want to talk."

She managed to nod. "I'll think about it," she said.

Not that it was a good idea, but he was making it real hard for her to do anything else.

* * *

Patrick slammed the tailgate shut, patting the red metal absently, the way he would have patted his plane or his dog. "Got everything?"

"For this trip," Sean said. He came around the back of the truck and stuck out his hand. "Thanks."

"No problem."

They stood in the driveway as eight-year-old Jack retrieved his basketball from the shadow of the bam and drove for the lowered hoop. Sean watched his nephew score in the final seconds of the game for an imaginary stadium of fans.

"Nice shot."

"Yeah." Patrick frowned. "You know, bro, you can still store wood here. Tools, too, if you need to."

"No. You'll need the room for another bicycle soon. The soccer goal. The batting cage. The—"

Patrick raised both hands in uncharacteristic surrender. "All right, all right. Don't remind me."

Sean grinned. "Truth is, I'm outgrowing my space as fast as you're outgrowing yours."

"Thinking of expanding?"

"Could be. I figure as long as I'm unemployed, I might as well give the furniture thing a shot." Sean ran a hand through his hair. This is what came of listening to a woman with a warm heart and big ideas. He looked to the big brother who had been his model all his life. "Dumb idea?"

"No," Patrick said instantly. "I've been wondering when you were going to take the plunge. Talk to Con. He can get you set on the financing."

Sean was mildly stunned. "You two talked about this?"

"You've got the talent. We figured you were just waiting for the right opportunity."

Brianna, an imperious toddler with her father's dark curls and her mother's assessing brown eyes, marched over and threw her arms around her uncle's leg.

"Up," she commanded.

Sean complied, swinging her comfortably onto his shoulders. She shrieked with delight, clutching his hair. Wincing, he carefully shifted her grip.

"She misses having you around," her father observed.

"I miss her, too. She's my best girl."

Patrick lifted an eyebrow. "Yeah? So the new landlady doesn't have anything to do with the change in plans?"

Sean swore. "Somebody's got a big mouth."

"Watch it," Patrick warned. "That's my wife you're talking about."

"And my landlady's got nothing to do with it." Patrick said nothing, just leaned against the side of the truck and waited.

"It's the daughter," Sean said at last. "Rachel."

"Kate made it sound like you could be serious this time."

"Checking up on me, big brother?"

He shrugged, not denying it.

Brianna drummed her heels against Sean's chest. He flipped her, set her on her feet and watched her run after Jack, disturbing his fantasy game in the middle of a full court press.

"It wouldn't work out," he said.

"Not your type?"

Sean had a sudden uncomfortable vision of Rachel's lush, disciplined body, the humor sparkling at the back of her dark eyes, her sharp tongue and eat-me-up mouth. The man who didn't find her to his type would have to be dead.

"She's a teacher. High school English. Can you see me with a high school English teacher?" He tried to make it sound like a joke.

But his brother wasn't laughing. "It doesn't much matter what I see. The question is, what do you want?"

"She's got kids." Sean threw out the information almost desperately.

Patrick looked out across the lawn, where Jack was attempting to lift Brianna so she could drop a ball through the goal. "Yeah. I know how much you hate kids."

Once upon a time Sean had dreamed of a little girl growing up to call him Daddy. He shook his head. "Hey, yours are great. But the family thing … it's not for me. I'm young yet."

"Thirty next month," his brother observed. "Old enough to take on a wife and kids."

Patrick had always been able to do that, level him with one well-placed punch. When he'd turned thirty, Patrick was already a marine hero running a successful charter flight company. Middle brother Con was a Harvard grad with an office overlooking
Federal Street
. All Sean had to show for his first thirty years was a brand-new truck and a state-of-the-art table saw.

Never mind. As his teachers had always been quick to point out, Sean wasn't like his brothers. His truck suited him fine. His
life
suited him fine.

"I tried that once, remember? With Trina."

"Wrong woman," Patrick said briefly. "And as I remember it, it wasn't your kid."

Sean moved his shoulders uncomfortably. "That's the problem. I don't know if I want to go through that again, fall for somebody else's kids. Hell, I don't know if I can."

Patrick's pilot eyes saw too much. "Then before things go any further, bro, you'd better find out."

Sean expelled his breath. "Yeah. Guess I'd better."

* * *

He felt like a pervert, hanging around the school, waiting for the kids to come out. He wasn't anybody's daddy. He didn't feel like anybody's daddy, and any minute now one of the nice ladies from one of the family sedans or minivans parked around him was going to rap on the window of his truck and demand to know what he was doing in the car pool line.

Rachel's voice whispered in his head.
I'm concerned about the children, Lindsey especially. I can't do anything that might hurt them
.

Sean set his jaw and stayed. Maybe he wasn't sure exactly what he was doing here, but it had something to do with making things right with Rachel and her children. He'd made an okay start with Rachel. Remembering her warm eyes and her hot mouth and her cool assumption that he could support himself making furniture, he corrected himself. He'd made a great start with Rachel.

But her kids were something else.

Obviously, they were a package deal. He respected that. Admired it. Even envied it, a little, because he'd never had that bond. Oh, his parents loved him. And his brothers had stood with him and by him since he was old enough to stand. But Sean had never had the tie that came from taking care of another person, from being necessary to the well-being and happiness of someone smaller and dependent.

Only once, for three short mouths. And what a disaster that turned out to be.

Before he got in any deeper with Rachel's kids, he needed to know how he felt about them. He needed to find out how they felt about him, and he needed to do it away from the distracting presence of their mother and the well-meant interference of their grandmother.

The sound of the dismissal bell floated over the parking lot. Doors bumped open. A stream of children poured from the school, building from a trickle to a steady flow. Sean squinted through the windshield, trying to pick out Lindsey's dark ponytail, Chris's narrow shoulders, in the crowd.

The kid in blue? Nah, he was too short. The brunette in purple
Keds
was too young, and the boy sprinting along the sidewalk wore glasses. Sean drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Maybe this was another dumb idea. He'd never been all that great at planning.

He glanced idly toward the buses waiting in a yellow line at the side of the school. And there on the sidewalk, a tall girl with dark hair and a thin boy carrying a green backpack were talking to a blocky guy in a gray silk shirt. The carnival guy. Frank.

Sean was out of the truck so fast the driver's side door hung open.

He took five quick strides up the concrete, wading through kids, dodging a boy on a bike. Chris clutched his book bag as he stared at the man looming over them. Lindsey had her chin up and her arms crossed and her brother safe behind her. Sean wanted to hug them. He wanted to snatch them out of harm's way.

He came up to them in time to hear the man say, "…don't have to come to the house to find you."

Sean held his hands away from his sides and said, easy so as not to scare the kids, "Hi, guys. Who's this?"

The man twisted his head toward Sean in a way guaranteed to make him want to knock it off his shoulders. "Friend of the family."

"We don't know him," Lindsey said, looking so much like her mother that Sean wanted to cheer.

"Yeah, well, I knew your pop real well."

The information didn't appear to reassure the two children. It decreased whatever respect Sean still held for Rachel's late husband considerably.

"What do you want?" he asked.

The man spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture as false as a three-dollar bill. "I just wanted to meet the guy's kids."

"You've met them," Sean said. "Now beat it."

"I want to talk to them first."

Sean hitched his thumbs in his front pockets and looked at the children standing on the sidewalk, at Chris's pale face and Lindsey's scowl. Not his kids, he reminded himself. Not his choice. "Do you want to talk to this guy?"

Chris looked at Lindsey. She shook her head.

Sean nodded, satisfied. "Fine. Get in the truck."

Chris's brows pulled together. "Mom said we weren't supposed to accept rides from strangers."

His sister grabbed his hand. "Come
on
, Chris."

She pulled him away, off the curb and toward the truck.

Frank hunched his shoulders and called after them, "See
ya
, kids. Don't forget to give that message to your mom, now."

Children still ran and chattered along the sidewalk, a bright-colored stream that parted around them.

Sean took a step closer, speaking low. "You stay away from them. You stay away from their mother."

The man's eyes glittered. "Who's gonna make me? You?"

"If I have to. What's your problem? We're on a playground, so you feel this need to sound like a bully?"

Frank swore.

Sean shook his head. "I bet the nuns washed your mouth out for that one." He took a step back, keeping an eye on the man's hands. "Stay away from the Fullers."

When he got back into the truck, the guy was still watching him. Lindsey had this look on her face, like she was reserving judgment, and Chris was practically bouncing on the bench seat in excitement. It made it hard to shift gears.

Sean pulled out of the parking lot carefully because of the other cars and the walking kids and the crossing guard directing traffic.

"Chris doesn't have a seat belt," Lindsey said in a small voice as they pulled onto the road.