Worth the Wait (Picking up the Pieces #4) (3 page)

I offered a smile to placate her and answered, “Maybe one day, just not today, all right?”

She smiled reassuringly, letting me know the subject was dropped. “Okay.”

The rest of the day went off without any problems…well, except for the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking of my earlier conversation with Lizzy. And I couldn’t seem to keep my gaze from darting over to the man in question.

Brett Halstead, or as I’d begun to think of him since he started working on Lizzy’s expansion a week and a half ago, Mr. Hotty in a Tool Belt. HTB for short. The full nickname was too much of a mouthful.

If I had been honest with Lizzy, I would have admitted that yes, I was, in fact,
extremely
attracted to Brett. But admitting that to her, let alone aloud would have led to a panic attack, and I’d blessedly been without one of those crippling attacks for months. I didn’t want that to change.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that getting involved with another man made me want to run screaming for the hills, I couldn’t get my mind off of Mr. HTB in all his sexy, rugged glory.

Since he started construction on Lizzy’s salon, every waking moment seemed to have been dedicated thinking about him. The previous night, he’d oh so stealthily snuck his way into my dreams where the images of what he could do with those amazingly strong hands of his woke me up in a panting, sweaty mess. The dream had been so damn vivid. His brown hair tousled from my fingers running through it, his warm brown eyes staring into mine, that delicious stubble that always graced his cheeks rubbing against my skin, that hard, tight body pressed against me…

GAH! Get a hold of yourself, Kenz!

A spontaneous orgasm in the work place was not ideal, especially with the star of all my fantasies only a few feet away.

And all of this was without the two of us having spoken a word to each other! Knowing he’d been asking Lizzy about me, and that he was interested sent me into a tailspin.

I needed to get my shit together. And fast.

There was no place for a man in my life. I neither wanted nor needed one. I had no doubt Brett was a nice guy, but it became evident to me from a very early age that something about me brought out the worst in the men in my life. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that if I stupidly allowed something to come of me and Brett, I’d turn him from a good, kind man into a mean, hateful bastard in no time.

It was a gift. My very own special brand of fucked-up.

I wouldn’t allow myself or my children to be hurt again.

I also refused to allow a good man to be sucked down into my vortex of drama, only to come out worse for wear. It was best to just ignore our supposed mutual attraction and go about my new life as I had been.

I was making the smart choice—the
right
choice—for once in my life.

I pushed through the door of the daycare, silently counting down the seconds until I could get home, cook dinner, bathe my rugrats, put them to bed, and collapse on the couch for an hour or two of mindless TV before I finally crashed myself. Doing people’s nails for a living wasn’t the most strenuous job on the planet, but sitting hunched over for ten hours a day then having to wrangle two toddler tornados for hours on end, day after day, still left me exhausted.

“Hey, Ms. Webster. You have a good day?”

I looked up to see Lori, the daycare director, sitting at the front desk with a pleasant smile on her face.

“Hey there, Lori. It was good, how was yours?”

“Good, good. Just one more day closer to the weekend.”

I let out a small giggle as I hit the touch screen in front of me and began checking my kids out for the day. “Preaching to the choir, girl. I’m counting down the seconds until my next day off.”

“Any big plans?”

“Other than sleeping later than seven a.m.? Not one.”

We exchanged goodbyes before I headed down the hall to my kids’ classroom.

Peeking through the tiny window in the door, I took a second to watch Cameron and Callie before pushing it open and making myself known.

“Hi, Ms. Webster.”

I looked to the side to see their teacher, a pretty high school senior, wringing her hands in front of her.

“Hey, Megan, what’s up?”

“Well…we, um, had some…issues today with Cameron and Callie.”

Not good
.

“What happened?”

Just as I asked the question, Callie released a war cry that would have made a Viking proud and went charging straight at her brother, plowing into him and taking them both to the ground. It all happened so fast; there was no time to react. Cameron screamed out as Callie planted herself on his stomach and shoved her foot is his face.

“Kiss it. KISS IT!” she yelled at him as Megan and I ran into the chaotic fray.

“Callie Anne Webster! What on earth do you think you’re doing?” I reached down and scooped her up while Megan picked up a wailing Cameron and held him to her chest.

“Explain
now
, little girl,” I warned as I stared into my daughter’s face, not swayed whatsoever by the big hazel doe eyes she was giving me.

“I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong,” she pouted. “Ms. Lizzy told me boys is stupider than girls. That they’d be lucky to kiss our feet. That’s jus what I was doin’.”

“She put her stinky toes in my mouth, Mommy!” Cameron cried, not to be one-upped by his sister when it came to dramatics.

“Yeah, it’s kinda been like this all day,” Megan informed me with an apologetic smile.

“I’m so sorry—”

She raised her hands to stop me. “It’s okay, Ms. Webster, really. Some days are just more…tense than others. But we all know Cameron and Callie are good kids.”

I looked down at Callie in my arms with the sternest expression I could muster. “Well, I appreciate that, Megan. But we’ll still be having a talk about this behavior when we get home. Won’t we, Callie?”

At least she had the good grace to look properly chastised. “Yes, ma’am,” she answered with her little bottom lip poking out.

After making the kids’ dinner later that evening and getting them bathed and de-stickified, I dressed them in their jammies and tucked then into their twin beds in the second room of our tiny apartment.

“Now, you remember what I told you?” I asked Callie as I pulled the covers up to her chin and tucked them tightly around her body, making her into the little bedtime burrito that she liked so much.

“Never listen to anything Ms. Lizzy says,” she repeated.

“And?”

“And no more puttin’ my toes in bubby’s mouf,” she stated matter-of-factly.

I smiled and placed a kiss on her forehead. “That’s right, baby. Now, give Mommy night night kisses.”

She tilted her face up to me and planted a smacking kiss on my lips before I climbed from the side of her bed and went over to Cameron.

“Mommy, will you make me into a burrito, too?” I smiled down at him, brushing his sandy brown hair from his forehead. “You got it, bub.” I pulled his covers up and tucked them tightly around his body, just like I’d done to his sister, before giving him a kiss goodnight.

I reached up to turn off the bedroom light when Callie asked, “Will you read
Goodnight Moon
? Just one more time?
Pleeeeeease
?”

“I already read it three times, baby. Go to sleep now.”

I flipped the switch and pulled the door to, leaving it open just a crack. Walking into the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of iced tea, and curled up on the couch. My DVR was calling my name. I had about a million episodes of
The Mindy Project
and
New Girl
just waiting to give me a much needed hour or so of enjoyment.

My life was chaotic and every hour of my day seemed to be full, but I had my little ones, a job I loved, and new friends. Best of all, I was doing it all on my own, just me taking care of my kids and building a happy life for all of us.

Shooting up a quick prayer of thanks, I sipped my tea and queued up a mindless sitcom.

This was what life was all about.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Lizzy called as I walked through the door of Elegant Nail. She was in a chipper mood. I wasn’t sure if it had to do with the cup of coffee in her hand—no doubt her second or third cup—or the fact that she had that sexy blond man warming her bed, but I was still planning to rip her a new one after the little scene at the daycare.

“You have a good night?”

“You tell me,” I told her dryly as I propped my hands on my hips and stared her down. “First, I had to deal with Callie pile driving her brother into the ground like she was Xena the friggin’ Warrior Princess. Does that sound good to you?”

Lizzy choked on a surprised laugh.

“Or how about when she planted her little ass on his chest and tried to shove her foot down his throat, all because
you
told her boys are stupider than girls and should be kissing our feet?”

Her eyes grew wide in that
oh, shit, my bad
expression. I opened my mouth to lay into her when a deep, amused laugh from the front door caught my attention. I turned around to see Brett standing there, his gorgeous face alight with humor as he chuckled. That devastating smile of his momentarily short-circuited my brain.

“Sounds like your girl’s being raised right, if you ask me,” he joked as he took a step closer to Lizzy and me.

Giving my head a quick shake, I pulled myself from my lustful haze and narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m glad you find this funny.” It dawned on me in that second that those few words were the first we’d ever spoken to each other.

“Oh, come on, beauty. You have to admit, there are worse things than your little girl being tough.”

The first thought I had was how him calling me “beauty” caused a flutter deep in my belly—a flutter I hadn’t felt in more years than I cared to count. The second thought was how that flutter was
not
a good thing. I needed to stay away from this guy. Everything about him was just too tempting. I couldn’t risk letting myself feel any more for him than I already did.

Turning my back on Brett, I faced Lizzy and shoved my finger in her face.

“You,” I scolded. “No more teaching my kids bad habits or I’ll make sure to feed each of them a pound of candy before your next babysitting gig.”

Without another word to either of them, I walked away and started preparing for my first appointment.