Break Away (The Moore Brothers Book 4) (6 page)

L
ilah scrubbed
the last remains of her dinner off her plate and fit it into the dishwasher. As she fished out one of those little packs of detergent from a container under her sink, she heard her phone buzz from the living room. She dropped the detergent pack into the dishwasher, closed the door and turned the thing on, smiling at the rush of water and hum of energy. Doing the dishes wasn’t so bad after all.

She dried her hands on a towel she had hanging near the sink and wandered into the living room to check her phone where it sat on a brand new end table she bought just last week. It wasn’t high end. And it wasn’t exactly beautiful. But it was functional and it was hers and she loved the hell out of it. She unlocked her phone and found a text from James.

Lilah dropped onto the couch and perched on the edge, elbows on her knees, phone in her hands. The news was more exciting than she had expected it to be. James was about to be a dad. Ellie was about to be a mom. And she herself was about to be an Aunt. She typed out a response.

James’s response came in right away.

Damn. Lilah shook her head. James was going to be a father. She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of her brother, all muscles and tattoos, cradling a tiny human being in his arms.

She had intended to spend the evening curled up on the couch watching Netflix on the tiny TV she had found at a Goodwill, eating too many chips and drinking too much wine. Instead, she decided to head out and buy her new nephew a few gifts. Things at the diner had been going better lately. She could afford a little splurge to celebrate something as special as a brand new family member.

Lilah got dressed and swiped on some makeup and, noticing that her clothes basket was getting pretty full, decided to fill up her laundry bag and hit the laundromat while she was out. Baby shopping and laundry wasn’t quite as good as Netflix and wine, but it would have to do. Besides, she loved spending money. So she wasn’t as stoked about shopping for baby stuff as she would be if she were shopping for herself, but shopping was shopping, right?

She slung her laundry bag over her shoulder, grabbed her purse, and stepped out into the blistering heat. Gotta love South Carolina in late July. Hot as hell even as the sun goes down. As Lilah turned to lock her door, she heard Cole’s door thump closed. She turned, surprised by how eager she was to see him. They hadn’t crossed paths since he waited for her to come home from work so he could make sure she got her tips and her thoughts had been wandering around his stormy eyes and vivid smile more often than she liked to admit.

Her heart sank when she saw a tiny woman closing the door behind her. Lilah rolled her eyes. At least this one figured out Cole actually meant it when he said he didn’t do the girlfriend thing before she spent the night with him. Lilah was still staring when the woman turned around and she quickly dropped her eyes, only to look back in confusion.

This was not one of Cole’s bimbos. This woman, though tiny, was older, and life had etched itself into the deep wrinkles on her face. She caught Lilah staring and smiled, and Lilah knew without a doubt that this woman was his mother. He had her eyes.

“Hey there, 3B.” Cole’s mom waved. “I wondered when we’d cross paths.” She crossed the dried bit of grass that separated their doorsteps and held out her hand. “I’m Maggie Bennett, Cole’s mom.”

Lilah shook her hand, amazed at the rough callouses on the other woman’s skin. “Lilah Moore. It’s really nice to meet you.” Once upon a time, Maggie had been beautiful, but life had worn down her edges. Lilah studied her. Maggie had the same stormy eyes as Cole, wary and alert even though the smile on her face was doing it’s best to look friendly. A faint remnant of a fading bruise circled Maggie’s left eye and trailed down her cheek and nose.

Maggie shifted an empty backpack up on her shoulder. “Nice to meet you, too. Doing some laundry?” she asked, eyeing Lilah’s bag.

“Yep. And a little bit of shopping. My nephew is coming into the world as we speak.” How very un-Lilah of her. Normally, she would have made some caustic remark about the powers of observation and just walked away.

Maggie’s eyes softened. “I miss babies.”

“This little guy is a first for me. I’ve actually never been around a baby before.”

“You’re in for a treat. Make sure you smell his head the first time you hold him.” Maggie sighed. “There’s nothing like it in the whole wide world.” She shifted her empty bag again. “Well, I should let you get going. Got a little shopping to do myself.”

Lilah said her goodbyes, climbed into the rust bucket and brought the thing to life with a twist of the keys. As she buckled her seatbelt, she watched Maggie take off down the sidewalk, hands in her pockets, empty bag bouncing lightly with each of her steps. Was she walking to the store? Lilah watched her a little longer as she passed several cars in the parking lot and realized that yes, Maggie Bennett intended to walk the several miles to the store in this breath-stealing heat.

Without thinking, Lilah pulled up beside her and rolled down the window. “You need a ride? It’s too hot to walk.”

Maggie slowed but didn’t stop. “You go on. A little heat never stopped me.”

“I bet we’re going in the same direction. It’d be silly to pass up a ride.”

Maggie stopped and hit Lilah with a discerning look. For a second, she felt like a stranger trying to lure a kid into a van with some candy.

“Look, I owe Cole. He saved me from a real jerk last week. Maybe I can repay him by helping you?”

Maggie shook her head. “Seems like that’s Cole’s lot in life, saving women from jerks,” she muttered, almost to herself. “Okay, Lilah Moore. I’ll let you drive me to the store as long as you promise to let me repay you by cooking dinner.”

“But that doesn’t do anything for me repaying Cole for saving me. It just puts me right back in his debt.”

“Seems to me that you driving me to the store doesn’t actually do anything for Cole in the first place. That’s you helping me and I always pay my debts. You drive me to the store, I cook a dinner for you. That’s the deal.” Maggie smiled at Lilah from the sidewalk. “You can figure out how to settle up with Cole later.”

“Fine. Deal.” What the hell was she doing, offering this woman a ride? Accepting a dinner invitation from a near stranger? Her brothers wouldn’t know what to do with this story if she told them.

Maggie crossed in front of the car and pulled open the passenger door. “You want to repay Cole, I’ll tell you what you can do,” she said as she buckled herself in. “I’ll make you that dinner when he comes back from this run he’s on and you bring the dessert.”

“Run?” Lilah tried to make sense of Maggie’s statement as she pulled out onto the road. There was just too much going on there to digest all at once. What kind of run? Like exercise?

“Yeah,” Maggie turned those laser-focused eyes of her on Lilah. “Cole’s a shrimper. Didn’t you know that?”

“We haven’t had many chances to talk.” Lilah shrugged. “A shrimper, huh? Aren’t those a dying breed?”

“That they are, especially shrimpers like Cole.”

“What kind of shrimper is Cole?”

“One who makes a living off it.” Maggie laughed at her own joke, a thick sound that somehow lacked humor. When Lilah looked at her, the woman’s eyes were filled with pride. “My boy is good at what he does.” Maggie cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. I just figured that if he was in the business of saving you from jerks, then you guys had gotten the chance to get to know each other.”

“Nope. But come to think of it, I owe him twice over. He saved me once by jumping this rust bucket here when the battery died.” Lilah paused and patted the dash of Ellie’s Neon. “And then again when some guy put his hands on me at work.”

Maggie set her jaw. “Cole’s not big on men putting hands on women.”

The statement hung oddly between them and Lilah couldn’t think of anything to say. She flicked on her turn indicator and the heavy clicking seemed at once too loud, and also somehow drowned out by all that Maggie wasn’t saying.

“How long are his runs?” Lilah finally asked after a few awkward seconds of silence.

“Depends,” Maggie said. “Cole will stay out there till the hold is full. How long does that take? That’s up to the shrimp and whether or not his crew was sober enough to show up.” Maggie shrugged. “He’s been gone a few days. I’d expect him tomorrow sometime.”

Lilah had to give it to a man who spent days out on the water, with or without a crew, working until the job was done. That was a Moore trait right there, one she admired in her brothers. “Well, I work most evenings.” Lilah glanced at Maggie as she turned into the shopping center parking lot. “Tips are better at night,” she said and Maggie nodded knowingly. “But I’ve got Wednesday off this week. If he’s back in time, I would be glad to make a dessert and come on over.”

“I’m sure he’ll be back by then. Why don’t you plan on it and I’ll let you know if he gets held up for some reason.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lilah said and pulled into a spot and turned off the car. Lilah told Maggie that she would get her laundry started at the laundromat and then walk next door to do her shopping for the new baby. They agreed to meet back at Lilah’s car in an hour.

“Hey,” Lilah said as they headed off in their separate directions. “Any idea what dessert I should bring? Any favorites?”

A devilish glint lit up Maggie’s eyes. “Bring cookies.” She smiled widely, that smile that reminded Lilah of Cole. “Cole’s my cookie monster.”

Lilah giggled as she crossed the parking lot. Cole Bennett, the cookie monster. She couldn’t quite marry such a big man, all hard eyes and rough skin, to such an adorable nickname. Maybe she would end up enjoying this dinner with Cole and his mom. Get to know the guy who was the source of so much pride in his mother’s eyes. The guy who stayed out on the water until the job was done. The guy who somehow made it his lot in life to save women from jerks.

“
I
don’t do
the girlfriend thing. You know that, Ma.” Cole leaned against the doorway to the kitchen and watched his mom buzzing around, making a meal big enough to feed an army of girlfriends.

“Just because she’s a
girl
and she’s coming over as my
friend
doesn’t mean you have to
do
anything to her.” Maggie stopped what she was doing and turned around, her eyes gleaming with a vibrancy he hadn’t seen from her in a long time. “But, she’s cute enough that I bet it’d be fun. You know. Doing her.”

Cole pushed off the wall and shook his head. “Geez, mom. There are some lines you just shouldn’t cross.” So that’s what the gleam in her eyes was all about. His mom fully intended for him to fall head over heels with the girl he had once called the bitch in 3B.

He couldn’t quite figure out how he felt about Lilah coming over for dinner. On the one hand, she was awfully cute, if you went for that whole stuck up thing, and she put up with his sharp wit and even threw back a few barbed comments of her own. On the other hand, something told him she was a handful and not only did he not do girlfriends, he
really
didn’t do handfuls. He was just about to head into the bathroom and wash his hands again—didn’t matter how hard he scrubbed, they always smelled like shrimp—when there was a knock at the front door.

“Can you get it?” his mom called from the kitchen. “I’m elbow deep in chicken.”

“It’s my own damn door,” he called back with a laugh. “Of course I can get it.” As Maggie giggled and muttered something about sons becoming men, Cole threw open the door. His breath caught in his throat.

Lilah looked lovely. More than lovely. Gorgeous. Sweet. Sexy. And slightly embarrassed.

“Hey,” she said, holding out a plate of something covered in tinfoil as if it were a peace offering. “I come bearing cookies.” Her eyes flickered to his and she offered up a weak smile, a flush rushing up her cheeks.

Cole realized he was glaring at her, all six foot four inches of him filling the doorway like some hulking viking. He smiled and stepped aside, gesturing for her to enter. “Cookies?” he asked, smiling wide enough to erase any lingering remains of the angry neanderthal who had opened the door. “Of course you can come in if you’re bringing cookies. Hey Ma?” he called back into the apartment as he shut the door. “Why haven’t we invited 3B over before tonight?”

A look of relief washed across Lilah’s face. She looked so pretty tonight, with her hair down and her cheeks matching the soft pink of her dress. “They’re fresh from the oven,” she said, looking up at him through her eyelashes. “But I’ve got to warn you, these are the first cookies I’ve ever made, so I make no promises as to how they taste.”

Maggie peeked her head out of the kitchen. “You made it all the way to womanhood without knowing how to make cookies?” Shock lifted her eyebrows. “What kind of childhood did you have?”

A funny look crossed Lilah’s face and her cheeks grew even pinker. “Oh, you know, just the normal kind,” she said, looking around the apartment. “So, can I put these down or do you just want me to stand here with them for the rest of the night?” She lifted an eyebrow and hit Cole with a look that would have had a lesser man’s testicles crawling up into his belly.

“I think you’re good to just stand there,” he said and dropped himself down onto the couch with a sigh, propping his feet up on the coffee table and crossing his arms across his chest.
Gives me a chance to keep looking at you,
he thought and inwardly cursed his mom. That plate of cookies in Lilah’s hand was the final bit of proof he needed. His mother had orchestrated this night because she fully intended him to do the girlfriend thing with Lilah.

“Cole Bennett!” His mother poked her head out from the kitchen again and scowled at him. “You take those cookies from Lilah and offer her a drink.”

Well, hell. So much for looking tough and in control. Nothing like having your mother put you in your place to take you down a notch. Cole looked at Lilah, who was busy biting back laughter, her eyes made all the prettier by the smile on her face.

“Here, princess,” he said, taking the cookies from her and gesturing to the couch. “Please, have a seat. Would you care for a drink?” He made sure to enunciate his words clearly, infusing as much sarcasm as he possibly could into them.

Lilah shrugged and lowered herself onto the couch, crossing her legs and folding her hands on her knees. “What do you have?”

“Beer. Water. I think there’s some Coke in there, if you’re into soda.” One look at her trim figure and prim posture told him she wasn’t going to ask for a beer or a soda.

She squinted her eyes and gave him a look he couldn’t quite read. “I’ll have what you’re having,” she said.

He had planned on having water with dinner. His nightly beer had felt more and more like playing with fire after what happened with his mom. But for some reason, he wanted to watch Lilah squirm. “If you say so,” he said and grabbed two bottles of beer from the fridge and wandered back out to sit on the opposite end of the couch.

He handed her one and then twisted the cap off his own and took a sip, watching Lilah intently. She read the label and took a peek at the cap before wrapping her delicate hand around the top and giving it a twist. She grimaced and pulled her hand away, looking at her palm for any signs of injury.

“Ow,” she said and gave it a shake before trying again. She looked so cute, with her perfect posture and her pink dress, struggling with a twist off cap on a bottle of beer like she had never opened one before, he could barely stand it.

He reached out and took it from her, removed the cap in one quick movement and handed it back to her. “There you go, princess.”

“Thank you.” Her fingers brushed his as she took the beer from his hand and damn if she didn’t have the softest skin he had ever felt. She brought the bottle to her lips and took just the tiniest of sips, swallowed with a thoughtful look on her face. She made an appreciative look and shrugged her shoulders before taking another drink, longer than the first.

Cole watched those shapely lips wrap around the mouth of the bottle and had a flash of what she would look like with his dick in her mouth, those pretty eyes looking up at him as he thrust himself to the back of her throat. Damn if his cock didn’t jump to attention and double damn if she didn’t make matters worse by licking her lips and smiling across the couch at him. Cole took another sip of his beer and focused on his mother in the kitchen, humming away, happier than she had been in a long time.

Cole was certain of two things. First, Maggie Bennett was busy playing matchmaker, happily ignoring the fact that her son wasn’t in the least bit interested in making a match. And second, he was going to spend the whole night arguing with his dick because he wasn’t going to be able to get the image of Lilah sucking him off out of his head for the rest of the night.