The First Time Again: The Braddock Brotherhood, Book 3 (14 page)

“Not yet,” Baylee muttered. She turned on the hot water, squirted soap suds into a pan and began to scrub.

Trey leaned against the counter, cradling his nearly empty coffee mug. Wow. He barely knew her, but he could tell by the set of her shoulders and her grim concentration on the pan she was scrubbing that something was bothering her.

His gaze flickered once more to the view from the window. “Do you know him?”

“Yes.”

That probably shouldn’t have surprised Trey, but it did. Where would Baylee have run across a kid like Matty? “How?”

Baylee let a beat pass before she said, “He’s my brother.”

Trey took another good look at Matty, who had picked up a pile of weeds and dropped them into the wheelbarrow. He moved to a new section of the garden and started pulling. Trey brought his gaze back to Baylee. “Funny, he doesn’t look anything like you.”

“He’s adopted.”

“You’re not pleased I gave your brother a job.”

“You don’t know anything about him.”

“I didn’t know much about you when I hired you,” Trey pointed out.

Baylee rinsed the pan and upended it on a towel she’d laid on the counter before she turned toward him.

“How’d you meet him?”

“At the animal shelter. I started my community service there on Saturday.”

“Uh-huh. Do you know why Matty was there?”

“He’s doing community service, same as me.” Trey was mystified.
What
was her problem?

“Did he tell you he’s on probation?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know why?”

“Doing stupid teenage stuff and getting caught.”

“That’s right. He keeps doing it. Cutting school. Breaking his curfew.”

“School’s out now, so that’s hardly an issue, is it?”

“My point is that Matty doesn’t recognize authority. He’s a loner and you need to watch out.”

“I wasn’t planning on giving him the PIN numbers to my bank accounts.”

“Ha ha.”

“All I’m doing is giving the kid a summer job doing menial labor at minimum wage so he can earn a little bit of money. I like him,” Trey added, although it had nothing to do with anything.

Baylee glanced wistfully out the window once more. “I like him too, but—consider yourself warned. I’m going to start the laundry.”

Trey lingered at the counter, watching Matty as he worked. What was it, he wondered, that Baylee wasn’t telling him? “I think I’ll go see how he’s doing.”

After she put in a load of laundry, Baylee went in to the dining room to organize Trey’s mail. There were several bank statements and correspondence from a law firm in Jacksonville; a few ten-by-thirteen-inch envelopes with the return addresses of investment firms; bills from credit card companies and local utilities; and several envelopes that held checks from various entities.

Nothing of a personal nature from what she could see. She opened them and arranged them in individual stacks. She dusted the table’s surface as best she could, maneuvering around the organized piles of papers and mail and magazines before moving on to the bookshelves.

Trey had unpacked more of his belongings since she’d been here last. She paused to check the titles of some of the books he’d arranged on the shelves. Several on Eastern religious practices, Zen and Tao for the most part. A few biographies written by or about American business leaders or political figures. Some that appeared to deal with addiction and recovery as well as a few with self-help titles. “Huh,” Baylee said to herself as she flicked her duster over them.

On a low shelf was a stack of black-and-white composition books. She lifted them up and set them on the corner of the table. She opened the cover of the top one and leafed randomly through it. The pages were filled with Trey’s scrawling, loopy handwriting.

A passage jumped out at her, and she paused to read even though she knew she shouldn’t.
Hayley doesn’t love me anymore. Not that I blame her. I lost the best thing that ever happened to me and yet I still can’t figure out how I fucked it all up so bad.

The entries weren’t dated and seemed to free-flow from one into the next. Baylee set the notebook aside and picked up another one, opening it at random. She darted a glance over her shoulder before she gave in to the urge to read one more entry.
My fucking knee is killing me. Jesus Christ could they give me something? Anything? An aspirin for Chrissakes. How do they expect me to live like this? I want to kill Brad. He lets me yell at him all I want and he just sits there. When I calm down he says, “How do you feel right now?” And I tell him. I feel like a caged animal. I hate you but I hate myself more—

Baylee slammed the notebook shut and put it back in the stack when she heard the back door open.

She placed the entire stack back on the shelf and sped to the other side of the room, pretending to busy herself with dusting the windowsill. A flash of guilt shot through her for invading his privacy. She had no right.

When Trey’s footsteps stopped, she turned to see him leaning against the doorway, arms across his chest, watching her.

The thought of how close she’d come to turning down this job returned. Trey’s mere presence sent a sort of sick, fluttery feeling of anticipation through her. She had the feeling he was studying her while he kept his distance. Like she was a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

She ran her dust cloth along the window frames, then moved on to a small walnut cabinet nearby. “Fine.”

Her back was to him, but she knew Trey hadn’t moved. Her senses prickled with awareness of him. She stopped dusting and turned. “Was there something…?” She lost her train of thought, derailed by the intent gaze which belied his relaxed stance.

“Something?” A corner of his mouth quirked up.

“Sorry. It’s your house. Do whatever you want. I’m not used to being watched while I work.”

“Then none of your clients are male.”

Baylee frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Trey blinked. Straightened. “Uh, nothing. Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No. You didn’t. Never mind.” Baylee reached for a different rag from her carryall and picked up a bottle of glass cleaner. She moved back to the china hutch, spritzed the glass and started to wipe.

Trey moved into the room behind her and took a seat at the table. In the mirrored glass at the back of the cabinet she could see him staring at the littered dining-table-cum-desk.

“I opened the mail,” Baylee told him. “And organized it. I’ll write checks for the bills after you check them over. Those investment reports can be filed. There are some checks there that should be deposited. I can drop them off at the bank on my way home if you want. I wasn’t sure what to do with the legal correspondence.”

She’d finished with the glass, and there wasn’t anything left to clean except the floor, which she’d do last along with all the others. She turned to find Trey’s speculative gaze directed at her. He rubbed a thumbnail along his bottom lip, drawing her attention there.

There was a glint of something in his eyes, but she wasn’t sure what it was. “What?” she asked, hoping he’d shed some light on whatever was going on his head.

He gave her his easy grin as if he was quite pleased about something. “I think you might be the best thing that’s happened to me since I’ve been back.” A jolt of pleasure washed through Baylee before he abruptly squashed it by gesturing at the neat stacks of paper she’d created. “Do you have any idea how much I appreciate this?”

Baylee pinned a smile on her face while swallowing her disappointment. His words had nothing to do with her personally. “Just doing my job.”

Chapter Twelve

Baylee stared at herself in the bathroom mirror of the New York hotel room. Was she seriously going to parade in front of Trey in this nightgown? She loved the chocolate satin trimmed in champagne lace. There was a matching robe. It wasn’t like Trey was going to see anything more than he’d ever seen. Arms and legs—she wore shorts and tank tops to work almost every day. If she put the robe on, which she certainly intended to, all he’d see would be her legs beneath the short hem.

You are being ridiculous,
she warned her mirrored reflection. Trey wouldn’t care. He probably wouldn’t even notice. She could hear the drone of ESPN alternating with the announcers from a baseball game on another channel as Trey flipped between the two. She’d have to pass in front of him to get to her bed, but so what?
Not like you’re sexy, or anything,
she reminded herself.
Not like guys ever think of you that way. Especially not guys like Trey.

Besides, she was the one who had screwed up the hotel arrangements, somehow making an online reservation for one room with two queen beds instead of two rooms with king beds. The hotel was booked solid, but the desk clerk had offered to obtain a room for her at the hotel’s sister accommodation two blocks away. She and Trey had engaged in a brief, loudly whispered discussion in which he’d stated his objection to her staying elsewhere. He obviously saw some need to protect her here in the big, bad city, and Baylee had called him on it.

“I’m a grown woman, Trey. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I’m the one who screwed up the reservation. I’ll be perfectly fine in the other hotel.”

Trey wasn’t convinced. “No.”

Baylee threw up her hands. “It’s either that or we can share your room.”

Trey cocked his head. “Good idea.”

Before she could voice an objection to her own solution, Trey had turned back to the clerk and was signing forms. He handed her one of the key cards and turned toward the bank of elevators.

We’re both adults
, she told herself now. She could platonically share a hotel room with Trey for a couple of days.

She put her glasses back on and slid her contact lens case into her toiletry bag.
Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.
She grinned at her reflection. She had absolutely nothing to worry about. She opened the bathroom door, navigated the short hallway to the bedroom area and thought,
Wrong!

Trey’s focus wasn’t on the television, which he’d muted when he heard the bathroom door open. His gaze lasered her as soon as she reached his line of vision. Her steps faltered slightly before she strode as nonchalantly as she could to her bed about three feet from his. She bent to pull back the covers and felt the heat of his gaze all along the backs of her thighs, even as the lace hem tickled her right below her buttocks.

What am I doing?
she screamed internally. The sick sense of anticipation that Trey would make some kind of move on her had her on a roller coaster from which she was certain to fall. Her warnings to herself weren’t doing her any good at all. Because the truth was, she wished he wanted her.

She slid between the sheets and grabbed the extra pillow to stuff behind her head, yanking the sheet up to her armpits.
Sex-y!
She stared at the now silent television set, where an ad for one of the male sexual enhancement drugs played itself out to its final tag line of “Ready when you are.”

From her peripheral vision she knew Trey was also staring straight ahead, but he made no move to change the volume setting. He’d also propped himself up with both pillows behind his head. He was still fully dressed except for his shoes and socks.

Baylee stared at his bare feet. No woman in the history of mankind got turned on by a guy’s feet. Except for her. A guy’s feet were hardly considered an erogenous zone. Why then was sucking his toes all she could think about at the moment? She could use her mouth and her hands and her tongue—

Fingers snapped nearby, yanking her out of her fantasy. She turned her head to stare at Trey. He’d extended one arm toward her. Was this the invitation she’d hoped for? To join him in bed? Might her fantasies turn into reality?

“I’m going to go take a shower. Do you want the remote or not?”

“Oh, uh, sure.” She took the remote she now saw was in his hand. When his fingers brushed hers, another minitingle slid through her. Her gaze locked with his until she forced herself to look away. She pressed the volume button on the remote control to bring the sound back. She could feel Trey studying her. Feigning nonchalance, she changed channels until she found a
Sex and the City
rerun. How apropos. She could use some tips from the pros right about now.

Eventually Trey swung his legs over the side of the bed and pushed himself up. She watched him make his way to the bathroom, his limp barely noticeable. Only when she was certain he’d closed the door behind him did she let out a long shaky breath. Sharing quarters with Trey wasn’t going to be quite as easy as she’d thought.

Trey stripped and stepped under the spray before it warmed up. Good, he thought. What he needed was a nice cold shower to get rid of the hard-on he’d evidently developed for Baylee.

She’d somehow sneaked under his radar and wormed her way into his existence, tearing his defenses down as she went. She wasn’t his type for damn sure. She wasn’t even classically pretty. She had a slender, coltish body, when he’d always gone in for the more voluptuous, curvy types. Her boobs weren’t big, although they were certainly more than adequate.
Don’t need more than a handful
, he reminded himself. Except he’d always liked an overflowing handful.