DAC_II_GenVers_Sept2013 (2 page)

And why couldn’t Walter have been older than twenty-six? His name sounded older. If she hadn’t met Harrison first, she would have thought a guy named ‘Walter’ was someone’s grandfather. As a ‘II’, he was hereditarily numbered. Why hadn’t Walter chosen to be called Harry? Lots of younger men who looked as fantastic as he did were called Harry.

“Trouble keeping up with your toddler, lady? Good thing I decided to come by for lunch after all,” he said.

Walter’s smile deepened as he watched Jane’s breasts moving up and down with her out-of-breath panting. He promised himself that one day soon he’d be causing that reaction.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” Jane declared, staring into Walter’s dancing gaze while trying to ignore the way it kept dropping to her heaving chest. Unfortunately, her breasts loved the attention and decided to get all perky and happy to see him. She was going to have to have a serious talk with her girl parts about letting Walter affect them that way.

“Hi Jane. I’ve been missing you too,” Walter said, grinning when she covered her breasts with crossed arms. Even her sports bra and shirt couldn’t hide her whole reaction. Turning Jane on was never a problem. Getting her to admit he caused her arousal was the bigger challenge.

“I didn’t say I missed you, Walter. I said ‘hello’. You need to quit hanging around Harrison so much. He’s trying to pass along his delusions,” Jane said.

Distracted by the Greek god statue laughing at her with lust in his eyes, she had momentarily forgotten about the toddler climbing to his unsteady, but very fast feet. Fortunately Walter had a keen eye, and obviously the ability to think clearly despite his wicked gaze dropping to her breasts every few seconds. It was a split focus she evidently lacked where watching him was concerned. Walter snatched JD up mid-sprint just as the toddler tried to run again.

“
Whoa there.
Your escape is foiled, dude,” Walter announced, deepening his voice as he tried not to laugh at JD’s squirming protests. He wondered if all kids were like this one. If so, he could see how they could be a lot of work.

“Hep, Gamma. Hep. He got me!” JD wailed, kicking his feet as he dangled in the air.

Jane turned to see Lydia walking calmly toward them, a toddler leash in her hand. “
I be good. I be good
,” JD pleaded dramatically when he saw what she held.

“You know the rules, young man. You run away. You get put on the leash,” Lydia said in her best scolding voice.

Walter laughed, then coughed, trying to cover it. Jane put a hand over her mouth as she giggled again. They exchanged guilty looks as they tried to hide their amusement from Lydia, but as usual the older woman was way too sharp.

“Wait until you have children of your own one day, and then we’ll see how much laughing you two do. Walter, hold JD out for me so I can fasten this on him,” Lydia ordered.

“Yes ma’am,” Walter said politely, biting his lip as he held a now subdued, sniffling JD out to his grandmother.

Lydia fastened the straps around JD’s chest, and then nodded for Walter to set him down on the ground. Once there, JD tugged against the restraint, wanting to run again, but Lydia held him back. “Not just yet, boy-o. Apologize to Jane first for making her chase after you.”

“
Orry
,” JD said softly, still sniffling as he tugged against the leash.

Jane stooped down and smiled into JD’s pouty but charming face. “No worries, buddy. I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”

She was caught off-guard when JD hurled his whole body into her arms. His fierce hug almost toppled her backwards, and then he surprised her further with a loud, smacking kiss on her cheek before turning loose. All that male enthusiasm was certainly appealing, Jane thought as she hugged him back. Lauren was going to have her hands full when her son one day used that move on some unsuspecting female his own age.

“Okay. Okay. We’re good, JD. Let’s all go have some lunch now,” Jane said, petting the boy’s hair.

JD nodded in reply and turned to put his hand into his grandmother’s.

Standing again, Jane sighed as she watched Lydia and JD walk away. She heard Walter laughing softly beside her. Why did he have to be so masculine and appealing? His appeal was worse than JD’s, and his low laughter had her wondering if he possessed any moves that might surprise her. Curiosity was her major problem with him.

Despite the risk of her girl parts betraying her further, she studied Walter’s amused eyes, his smooth skin, and the way his hair fell perfectly into place. He seemed to have no awareness of how great he looked, no false bravado about the muscles bulging from his sleeves. Why couldn’t the younger man have just been a little bit older? Thirty-one or two would have been okay. She could have handled that. But he was only twenty-six. It would take him four more years to even become thirty. Pushing her regrets over their age difference aside, along with all her fantasies, she turned and started walking back.

“I’ve dubbed him
Super JD
in my head. Lauren and Jim have my utmost respect. I don’t think I could survive mothering a child like that,” she said.

“If it’s any consolation, I’m sure any child of ours would be much better behaved,” Walter replied, sliding a look sideways to watch Jane’s reaction to his comment. As he knew it would, her suspicious gaze came immediately to his. She gave him the same look she always did when he started talking about the life they should have together.

“I think my mothering years are behind me, Walter. I’ve decided to settle for being an aunt,” Jane said.

“Super JD’s aunt?” Walter asked, snickering as they walked. “I can see how being around a child like that for very long might tempt a woman to put a gag on her biological clock to keep it from ticking too loudly.”

Jane chuckled at his surprisingly astute statement, wishing she didn’t find him so likeable. “Yes, exactly. Plus, Super JD won’t necessarily be my only nephew. I have a younger brother, so more are possible. I haven’t seen Elijah in a while, but I get an email from him now and again. He’s at seminary.”

“Studying to be a priest?” Walter asked. “No. . .wait. . .that’s not right. A rabbi?”

Jane nodded as she smiled. “You’re at least in the right religion, but Elijah is not planning to become a rabbi. Dad was going to be one when he was young, but then he met Mom and changed his mind. He said having a family and pursuing that calling full time were too much for him to contemplate. And now that he has Lydia. . .”

She shrugged away the inference and the complication. Her dad hadn’t talked about being a rabbi in years anyway. “Life goals change, I guess. Elijah might be considering such a leadership role in our faith, but he hasn’t said.”

Walter nodded to let her know he had heard and was taking it all in. The ability to carry on a serious conversation was one of the things he liked most about Jane. Every moment with her counted, even if they were only talking about each other’s families. He wanted Jane Fox
and
he liked her. She was the combination of female traits that just completely worked for him. Now he just needed to find a way to convince her of that fact.

“So what is your brother studying at seminary, if not to become a rabbi?” Walter asked, hoping to distract himself from wanting to wrestle her arms down and find out what secrets her crossed arms were hiding from him.

Jane slowed her steps as she considered the question. “I think Elijah is trying to figure out how to get over his broken heart. His fiancée broke up with him around the same time my marriage ended. He left for seminary the week after and hasn’t been home since.”

“Tough break for both of you,” Walter said quietly, thinking about what he would do if Jane were to try to marry someone other than him. As much as he wanted her, it would probably be something that would get him arrested, or at the very least disowned by his conservative parents. Regardless, he would do whatever necessary to stop it from happening.

“Yes, it
was
a tough break. His breakup was worse than my divorce in some ways. Even though Mom and Dad set a good example for us, Eli and I just haven’t been as lucky in love as they were,” Jane said.

“Not lucky until now, you mean,” Walter corrected. “You’ve found the perfect pot of gold at the end of the rainbow with me, Jane. I’m going to make you a great husband.”

“Do you have any idea how much you sound like one of Harrison’s crazy schemes when you talk like that? Give it up, Walter. I haven’t gotten any younger since the last time you flirted so hard with me. There’s no audience for the joke, and we’ve had this discussion too many times,” Jane said wearily.

Sure, a few months ago she had joked with Lydia’s daughter and her friends about becoming a
cougar
, but inside. . .
inside
Jane knew she was not equipped to date someone as young as Walter. She just wasn’t the same kind of woman as Alexa Ranger. Her self-esteem wasn’t strong enough to deal with the difference in their ages. . . or their bodies.

Thirty-nine was around the corner. Turning forty next year was an even stronger motivation to keep her distance. She was already going soft in the waist. When the lines and wrinkles started owning the rest of her body’s real estate, she didn’t want to see pity in some younger man’s gaze every day. No matter how outstanding Walter might be as a sexy guy, she preferred to avoid the inevitable crash and burn that any smart older woman would see coming from involvement with someone as young as him.

Her ex had found her lacking when she was young and at her best—perpetually perky breasts included. Maybe Walter was a very different sort of man, but could a woman really tell with a man under thirty? Too bad she hadn’t met Walter before she had married Nathan. Things might have been different when she was still young and optimistic herself.

Well, except that Walter would have been a teenager and she’d have been put in jail for molesting a kid. Jane rolled her eyes and shook her head at that particularly awful thought.

“
Jane.
. .” Walter said her name loudly, hoping to interrupt whatever thoughts were making her frown so hard. What the hell was it going to take to convince her that he had a serious admiration for her, as well as chronic lust? If the words existed, he hadn’t found them yet.

“No matter what you say Jane, I’m not giving up on us,” he insisted, despite hearing Jane sighing over his statement. Maybe it had not been the most erudite declaration he’d ever made to her, but at least the determination in his tone matched what he was feeling. Jane’s adamant rejections of his overtures always shook his faith a little, but not enough to quit.

“Walter, you need to stop teasing me,” Jane ordered.

“Oh, I am definitely not teasing. Have you found an older guy who turns you on as much as I do yet?” he asked.

Jane huffed out a breath. She wasn’t sexually stupid, and neither was the man beside her. Walter wanted her sexually. And there was plenty of chemistry between them to make that potentiality appealing to her too. He’d already gotten her to admit it once. Maybe if they weren’t practically living in each other’s pockets with their families so close. . .but no. She just couldn’t go there either. Not even in her imagination.

It was better to keep her relationship to Walter like it was. Innocent. Friendly. Familial.

“I’m hungry. Aren’t you? I think I’ll go help Lydia set up lunch,” she said, hoping she sounded casual and undisturbed, despite her rapid, excited pulse proving otherwise.

Picking up her pace, she headed toward the picnic table where a repentant, restrained JD played with his toys under his grandparents’ watchful eyes. It was always tough to turn her back on the attraction that drew her to the man following slowly behind her.

If her dating life didn’t start to improve soon, it was going to get much harder to do, especially if Walter kept talking about babies every time he saw her. Not that she wanted babies with Walter. Babies just made her think about how they were made, a process she would definitely like to explore with him.

“I’m hungry too, Jane. Starved in fact,” Walter called loudly, not missing Jane’s stumble as she heard his words. It made him grin to see she hadn’t become immune to him yet, no matter how much his pursuit of her warred with her logic. Why was the woman fighting the attraction between them so hard? If he ever got her in bed, he was going to make sure that Jane stopped thinking of him as a kid.

Shaking his head over his carnal thoughts of how he could prove himself, Walter let his gaze follow Jane’s shapely rear to the picnic area. Her shorts showed off her muscular, attractive legs to perfection. Her streamlined thighs and toned calves offered convincing evidence that she worked out to achieve them. Admiration filled him, along with visions of Jane in a gym. She’d be sweaty, but her eyes would be twinkling. Her mouth would be firmed as she worked. Her seriousness was a constant challenge to him. It was also one of the things that turned him on most. Would he ever discover anything about the older woman that he didn’t like? Somehow he doubted it.

But obviously, he needed a better plan for finding out.

“Thank you all for volunteering. You need to lose your shirts and see Megan in the kitchen to get oiled.
Mr. January
you’re up first, so head to the front of the line please.”

Walter grinned at the shock on some of the firefighters’ faces. Then he watched the photographer adjust his camera on the tripod, grinning harder when the man looked up with a frown.

“Can somebody
not
in the calendar please go stand by the fire engine? We’ll get through this faster if I can preset the height for the shots. I’d like to get these done before you all have to take a call.”

Glad he had opted out of the list of guys posing for the calendar, Walter dipped his head and grinned at the black soot smear on his white t-shirt. He had been tasked with collecting the heavy but apparently un-photogenic water hoses from the side of the newly washed engine to move them out of the camera’s sight.

Besides, his parents would kill him if he ended up bare-chested and shiny for all of Falls Church to see. Leland and April Graham still hated to see their only son wearing his regulation uniform even for parades and festivals.