Single Mom Seeks... (7 page)

“I said, I want one, too. Can I have one?”

“We’ll see, Stace. We’ll talk to Daddy and look at the trees in our backyard, okay?” Marcy turned back to Lily and was practically fanning herself. “Is this his line of work? Construction? Is he taking orders? Not that I’m sure I could handle having him in my backyard, looking like this. I might forget my look-but-don’t-touch policy, which would be a shame, because I really do love my husband.”

“I know you do. And don’t worry. Nick is just doing us a favor. He doesn’t work in construction. He’s an FBI agent,” Lily told her.

Marcy gave one of those aching sighs again, like it hurt almost, just to think of Nick, gorgeous and some kind of cool, dangerous government agent. “This man just gets better and better.”

Which was the last thing Lily needed to hear or think about, because she was afraid she felt the same way. The more she saw and knew, the more she liked.

“So, why did you not tell me all this?” Marcy demanded.

“Because…I just didn’t. I wasn’t sure what I thought about the whole thing yet myself, and—”

“You don’t know what you think about having this beautiful specimen of man living right next door to you? Lily, are you absolutely nuts?”

“No. I’m sure I have all the appropriate thoughts a woman might have when someone like him shows up next door.”

“And they’re all decidedly inappropriate, I hope.”

“Yes, Marcy. Yes.” Lily’s face flamed, and she got even more flustered. “I am having decidedly inappropriate thoughts.”

Marcy’s lips spread into a wide, satisfied grin. “I take it he’s single?”

“Yes.”

Marcy’s gasp was practically orgasmic.

Lily buried her face in her hands and wished she could disappear right then and there.

“Oh, honey,” Marcy said. “I think this man is your reward for all you suffered through with that pig, Richard.”

“My reward?”

“Yes. You don’t think the universe sends us little presents from time to time? Because you’ve been through such a hard time, and you’ve worked so hard to keep the girls happy and out of the nastiness between you and Richard. You’ve been a great mother, but you’re still a woman, and this beautiful creature is your reward.”

Lily had never known the universe to offer such a reward, never imagined it delivering a man to her, to meet her womanly needs.

Oh, she thought she was a lucky woman, despite all the mess with Richard. She had her wonderful girls and a job she enjoyed and they were all healthy and happy most of the time. She had a big, loving—if nosy—family, and she thought she was blessed in many ways.

But to deliver her a man like Nick?

“Marcy, you can’t possibly think the world works that way.”

“Sure I can. He’s here, isn’t he? And looks to be the perfect…Fudge Man.”

“Somebody say something about fudge?” a decidedly male voice asked.

Marcy’s and Lily’s heads both swung around to see Jake, a thinner, younger version of his uncle, heading from his garage to Lily’s backyard, a power saw in hand.

“Lily, you’re going to make more fudge?” Jake asked hopefully.

“Uh…sure, if I have everything I need, I will,” she said.

Jake grinned widely. “Lily makes killer fudge.”

Marcy shot Lily a knowing look. “You already made him fudge?”

“For Nick and his nephew, Jake, as a housewarming gift,” Lily said, once again daring Marcy to say anything else before turning to Jake to introduce him to Marcy.

Marcy pumped Jake for as much information as she could before getting onto the subject of how Jake came to live with his uncle, and then Lily stopped her as fast as she could.

“Jake, I think your uncle needs that saw.”

“Oh, sure,” he said, nodding his head to Marcy. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“Ma’am?” Marcy said woefully. “Oh, my God, I’m getting ‘ma’am-ed’ by pretty boys. My life has come to this.”

“You poor thing,” Lily said. “Maybe you could just not talk to Jake anymore.”

“Well, I had to try to find out some things. I know I can’t trust you to tell me anything,” Marcy reasoned.

“I will tell you that his parents were killed in a car accident two months ago, and that’s why he’s now living with his uncle, so try not to ask him about it, okay?”

“Oh. How awful for him. And how wonderful that the gorgeous man in your backyard is the kind of man who’d step in and raise his nephew like that,” Marcy said, showing new interest in Nick.

Lily groaned.

“What? He’s obviously a nice guy, not just a gorgeous one. Responsible, kind, likes kids—”

“Marcy, stop.”

“Do you know how rare this is in a man?”

“I know my ex-husband hasn’t been gone a year, and he didn’t have all those qualities, and I’m not sure if I believe any man really does,” Lily told her.

“Oh, honey.” Marcy sighed and put her arm around Lily’s waist. “We’re just going to have to work on that, because a man like this does not come along every day.”

“So, he’s gone from being my gift from the universe to fulfill all my womanly needs to being family-man material in…what? Two minutes? Honestly, Marcy. Slow down. I barely know him.”

“Well, you’re just going to have to fix that. Women are going to be showing up in droves to snatch him right out from under your nose.”

“They already are,” Lily admitted. “I swear, the temperature rose ten degrees in a six-block radius the moment he moved in. You wouldn’t believe how many women showed up on his doorstep bearing gifts and looking like they were dressed up for New Year’s Eve or something.”

“See, you have no time to lose! You have to grab this man before anyone else does.”

“I don’t grab,” Lily insisted, as she saw Nick striding toward them, having finished whatever he’d been doing with his two-by-fours. “I’m not a man-grabber.”

“Well, it’s time you started,” Marcy said, as Nick came to stand by Lily’s side.

Lily shot her sister one more warning look, then tried to appear as composed as she could manage and said, “Nick, this is my sister, Marcy, and the little girl is her youngest, Stacy. Marcy, this is Nick.”

Nick held out his hand and shook Marcy’s.

Marcy managed not to melt at his feet, but just barely. “Hi,” she said, a silly, breathy sound she used to make when she was sixteen and in complete awe of a boy. “I’m so glad Lily has a man next door.”

She made the word
man
sound like
Greek God.

All because he had a few muscles and a nice tan.

Lily tried to tell herself that and the fact that she was not a man-grabber. She just didn’t have it in her. Never had, never would. And the competition for this man was sure to be fierce.

And yet, the man was obviously much more than a few muscles and miles of gorgeous skin.

He was a nice man.

A really nice man.

And gorgeous.

Lily couldn’t deny that part.

He was building her daughter a tree house, saving Brittany’s birthday weekend, and had stood up for Lily and Brittany to Lily’s ex, which had been really, really nice. And he smelled really good, especially when he’d nuzzled her neck the other day.

Lily had given a great deal of thought to that neck-nuzzling, despite how hard she’d tried to forget it.

Gorgeous, nice to small children and his nephew, handy around the house, great-smelling, single and a neck-nuzzler.

Marcy was right.

Where would she ever find another man like that?

A
little more than twenty-four hours later, Nick was stretched out in a surprisingly comfortable wooden chair in Lily’s backyard, the masterpiece of a tree house completed.

Nick was now pleasantly sore from using muscles he hadn’t used in a while, enjoying a perfect fall evening in Lily’s backyard, complete with pleasantly cool temperatures, a bright, starry sky and a full moon.

The girls were playing happily in the tree house. Jake had gone to his room to play video games. Lily had grilled steaks to absolute perfection and served them for dinner.

When she showed up in the backyard a few minutes later with a small cooler with two ice-cold beers in it for Nick, he decided his life was complete at the moment.

“Lily,” he said, sighing happily. “I have to say, you really know how to treat a man. And your ex has to be an idiot.”

She laughed, as he’d hoped she would, and settled into the chair beside him, holding a glass of wine for herself. “I fed you and gave you a couple of beers.”

“Fed me extremely well,” he corrected.

“It was a steak on the grill,” she reminded him.

“Yeah. What do you think a man really wants? A hunk of red meat, a big baked potato, a few icy beers, and we’re happy. Very happy. Plus, it was a great steak. What did you do to it?”

“Marinated it in some teriyaki sauce for an hour and threw it on the grill. Surely you can grill a steak.”

“Not and have it turn out like that.”

“So you’re completely hopeless in the kitchen?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“How did you survive all these years?”

“Takeout, the deli counter at the grocery store—”

“Women to take pity on you and feed you?”

“There weren’t that many women,” he told her, taking a nice, cold drink of his beer.

“I have trouble believing that,” she said. “Especially given your reception in this neighborhood.”

“You forget, normally I would never be in a neighborhood like this.”

“Okay, but still…”

Did she really want to know about him and the women he’d known? Nick supposed he should tell her, just so she knew what she was getting into.

If she was even thinking of getting into anything with him.

He was sure thinking of getting into some things with her. Maybe it was inevitable. She was right next door, right here all the time, and so appealing.

“I spent all but the last three years in the army, all over the world, really. It’s not exactly the kind of life that makes for stable relationships,” he told her. “I’ve seen more marriages break up from the stress of it all than most people have seen get started.”

“It sounds like you liked the all-over-the-world part.”

“Who wouldn’t?” he asked, but then could see the idea didn’t particularly appeal to her. “You never wanted to just get away from everything and keep on moving?”

“Every now and then, for a little while. I’d love to go to Florence and Rome for a couple of weeks. Not for my whole life.”

He shrugged, then admitted, “Okay, yeah. I liked it. I liked it a lot for a long time.”

“So what happened? Why’d you stop? Seen everything there was to see?”

“Maybe.”

“Didn’t ever find what you were looking for out there?” she tried.

“That’s what my sister said,” he said. “I never told her she was right. I’m not even sure myself if she was right. I just…I was ready for a change, and it was nice, the last three years to be in D.C. with the Bureau and be able to get down here to see more of her and the boys. Now that she’s gone, I’m really glad we had that time. I never really understood how she did it—made a marriage work with the same man for twenty-three years—but she was a happy woman. She loved her husband, and her boys are great. She would have said she loved her life.”

“And she thought your life needed to be more like hers?”

“You have a sister like that?” he asked. “Who thinks she knows everything, especially what you need?”

“You’ve met mine. What do you think?”

He nodded. “Yours is…interesting.”

“Bossy, interfering, nosy,” Lily added. “I mean, I love her, but sometimes I imagine just being able to block all her calls for a while without her just showing up on my doorstep and demanding to know what’s going on with my life.”

“Annie was more subtle than your sister, but she did have a way of making you understand what she thought you weren’t doing what you should be doing with your life. She just kept waiting for me to…I don’t know. Figure it out? She was sure I’d get tired of roaming the world one day, and I guess I did, finally. But she was still waiting for me to do…I don’t know. Something different. Something more,” he admitted. “And she was always trying to fix me up with women.”

Lily laughed. “She didn’t approve of your choices?”

“No.” Nick thought about it, going back and forth with himself, thinking back through the years over the ones he’d introduced to his sister. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I like women. But they can be a lot of trouble, a lot of work.”

Lily really laughed then.

“Maybe I just never found one I thought was worth all that effort.”

“Ooh.” Lily made a face.

“Okay, I sounded like a jerk. I didn’t mean it like that, really. I’ve just…I’ve never met a woman I couldn’t live without. Never met one who made me feel like it was absolutely necessary to have her in my life. That I’d be miserable without her. I’m not sure I ever will.” He shrugged. “Some people just don’t make those kind of connections, you know? Did you feel that way about your husband? Like he was the only one for you?”

“I thought he was in the beginning, but…maybe I just really wanted to feel that way about someone and there he was, right time, right place, right…I don’t even know now.”

“You must have been really young,” he said.

Lily nodded. “Richard and I met in college, got married right after we graduated. We’d been together for ten years when he left.”

Which had Nick wondering if maybe Richard was the only man who’d ever truly been in her life.

In her bed.

Which was a dangerously appealing thought.

It had him wondering if the man was as selfish and stupid there as he seemed to be in the rest of his life. Wondering if the man had taken as lousy care of Lily in bed as he obviously had out of it.

Which had Nick thinking about having Luscious Lily to himself, in his bed, showing her what it was like to have a man truly take care of her in bed, at least.

Would she be sweet and a little shy?

He’d bet she would.

She’d practically melted in his arms the day he’d done nothing but breathe in the scent of her and nuzzle her neck.

Ah, Lily. You’re killin’ me.

And then he thought, why did he have to fight so hard against this?

She was right here. He was here. They were obviously attracted to one another.

He just had to figure out how to ask for what he wanted.

Nick was up to something.

Lily knew it, and he was making her nervous.

He’d been half-naked and sweaty and grinning happily all weekend, as he worked to give her little girl a birthday weekend that was truly special.

For which Lily was grateful.

But now, it was just the two of them, Jake gone and the girls close but out of sight, playing inside the tree house.

Just her and Nick, and a dark, starlit, fall night, the man a little too close for comfort.

“So, it’s been just you and the girls since your ex left?” he asked.

Lily went still. Was he asking if she’d been with anyone else since her husband walked out on her?

Surely he wasn’t asking her that.

Maybe he just wanted to know that there wasn’t anybody else right now. Could that be it?

Oh, he was going to ask her out!

Lily grinned like crazy, hoping the dark was enough to hide it from him.

She felt like getting up and dancing around the yard, she was so happy. Forget being so cautious and scared. Richard had been gone for more than a year, actually for a long time before that, truth be told, and her sister was probably right. She couldn’t be alone forever. She had to get out there in the dating world sooner or later.

So, they’d have dinner or see a movie.

What was the big deal?

It was just a date.

“I haven’t dated or anything,” she said, trying for all the world to sound calm. “It took a while for everything to sink in, that Richard was really gone, and he wasn’t coming back. And then there was just so much to do, to make sure the girls were okay and deal with the separation and divorce, and make sure we’d be okay financially. I haven’t felt like I really had time to…do anything for myself.”

He nodded, going slowly, picking his words carefully. “And, I guess it would be hard to find time to get out and meet someone with the girls to take care of.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

Which made it so convenient that he’d just shown up next door.

Maybe Marcy was right. He was like a little present from the universe.

Which made her think of unwrapping him very, very slowly.

Bad Lily. Very bad Lily.

“And I imagine you might not want the girls to know you were seeing anybody? I mean, that you might not know how they’d take that?”

Lily nodded. “Or worry that they might get attached to someone and then see him leave, too. Honestly, I hadn’t given that much thought to the whole idea of dating. But it would be complicated with the girls.”

“And for me, with Jake,” he said.

“You think Jake would have a problem with you dating someone?” Lily was surprised. Jake seemed pretty reasonable.

“Oh, he wouldn’t have a problem with it. He just thinks we’ll have…open house, I guess you would say. I’m free to have my women sleep over, and he’s free to have his do the same thing.”

Lily burst out laughing, it was so ridiculous.

Nick looked pained, then shook his head and took another drink of his beer. “I think he was serious. He said it just like that. Like he didn’t expect me to have any kind of problem with it. What am I supposed to do about that?”

“You’re asking me? My girls are seven and nine. No one’s asking me for coed sleepover privileges. And I’m very glad about that right now.”

“I didn’t know what to say to him. I mean, I told him he was crazy if he thought he was bringing teenage girls home for the night—”

“Good. That’s exactly what you should have said.”

“But what if I want to start seeing someone? Do I sneak around behind his back? That seems kind of silly, too. I mean, he’s not a child, but he is only fifteen. I’m thirty-eight. Am I supposed to live like a monk or do I get some kind of pass on this?”

“I don’t know if I’m the person to ask about this,” Lily said. “I really don’t have any experience with this kind of parenting problem. I mean, I guess you could hope to find a woman with no kids and a place of her own and make an early night of it. So Jake isn’t home alone for long.”

Nick grinned and put his beer down in the grass beside him, then turned to look at her. “Not gonna work. The woman I’ve got my eye on has two little girls.”

“Oh.” Lily nearly dropped her glass of wine.

Nick saved her by taking it out of her hand and putting it down in the grass, too. Then he took her chin in his hand, and very slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wanted to, leaned in close, his nose nuzzling hers, lips practically on hers.

“It’s you, Lily. The woman I want is you.”

Lily might have grabbed him and kissed him then.

Or he might have grabbed her and kissed her.

Actually, now that she thought about it, he wasn’t a grabber.

He was exquisitely gentle and smooth and very, very sure of himself.

So it must have been her who reached out and wrapped her arms around him and hung on to him for dear life.

Anything to mean that he kept kissing her the way he was.

Warm, soft, sexy lips on hers, the heat of him seeping into her bones, his arms so strong and sure around her. Making her feel like it had been about a million years since a man had held her this way, kissed her this way, excited her this way.

She felt the same way she had when she’d looked out her kitchen window and seen him in the bright sunshine, all gleaming skin and muscles, dark golden hair and dark eyes, sexy as can be and a little bit scary.

Because it didn’t feel safe to feel this way about him or any man.

But at the same time, it felt so very good.

Lily sank into him, opening herself up to him, greedy for the taste and feel of him, like a woman who’d been alone for decades.

Honestly, that’s how it felt. Decades.

She clung to him, drinking in those sweet, drugging kisses of his, imagining hands all over her body, clothes stripped off, her welcoming him into her bed.

If they’d been alone, she feared that was where they’d be in five minutes flat.

The man’s appeal was that potent. Either that, or she had become the proverbial sex-starved divorced woman, sleeping alone in the suburbs for way too long.

He started pulling away long before she was satisfied, his arms slowly disentangling himself from her, taking her face in his hands, his lips grinning against hers as she tried to get in one more kiss and then another and another before this was over. Like she absolutely could not get enough of him.

“Lily, honey.” He laughed. “We can’t do this right now. Believe me, I want to. But we can’t. Jake’s at my house, and your girls on the other side of the yard, and you don’t want them to know anything about this. Remember?”

Lily laughed, too, because she was so happy. Because she felt alive again, after being half-dead for so long. Because a gorgeous man had moved in next door to her, and he was kind and sweet to her girls and good to his nephew, and right now, he did seem like a present from the universe, delivered right to Lily.

“Sorry. I…Oh, geez.” She was embarrassed now. Happy, but embarrassed.

“I know. Believe me, I know,” he said, drawing in a long breath and letting it out slowly. “At least, they have to go to sleep at some point. I don’t guess you’d feel comfortable with me slipping in the back door after you get the girls to bed tonight?”