What a Woman Needs (7 page)

“I know. Besides, it’ll be fun sharing with me. We can have dueling spoons.”

“What’s that?”

He tapped her nose this time. “You’ll see.” He looked at Beth. “And what are you having, Beth?”

You with a big extra helping of hot fudge that I can lick off every inch—

“Um, just a glass of orange juice for me, thanks.”

“What? You’re not eating?” Bryan
tsk-tsked
. “That won’t do. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” He looked at Claire. “Beth will have some of our pancakes. Better bring extra.”

“Oh, but Bry—”

“And two cherries for her.” He smiled that dazzling million-watt smile at Claire, who looked dazed as she walked away to bring
the
Bryan Manley his meal.

The smile had enough wattage that it resonated with Beth as well. “You’re going to have to eat most of it, you know. My system can’t take all that sugar.”

“True. You’re sweet enough as it is.”

Okay, where’d her tongue go? She must have swallowed it. Or it’d dried up at his comment.

He thought she was
sweet
? In what manner? Sweet as in a “That chick is so freakin’ sweet!” sort of way that sent her hormones into a tailspin and her
what if
mechanism into high gear? Or an “Awww, aren’t you sweet?” meaning that would completely suck, but would at least get her off this vacillating do-I-or-don’t-I-allow-myself-to-be-attracted-to-him seesaw.

“Mommy’s not sweet, she’s a prickly pear. That’s what Daddy used to say.”

Maggie giggled while Beth’s mouth dropped open that her daughter remembered that. She’d been three when Mike had been killed; how could she possibly remember that?

Mike had said it out of affection—they’d gone to Mexico on their honeymoon and sampled the fruit. He’d said she was just like it: a tough exterior with a sweet heart inside. It’d been his term of endearment for her ever since.

Her heart twisted as she remembered that. So hard to believe he was gone. But at least Maggie had good memories of him; Beth had been worried she’d have no memories at all.

“A prickly pear, huh?” Bryan thrummed his fingers on the tabletop. “I’m thinking more along the lines of a star fruit. Sweet and being pulled in five directions.”

Beth laughed at that. “Definitely feeling that pull. More so as they get older.”

“I don’t know how you do it. Five kids would do me in.”

She shrugged. “You do what you have to. And they’re great kids. Really.”

“Not Jason. He’s moody.” Maggie wrinkled her nose. “And his room smells like socks.”

“All teenage boys’ rooms smell like socks, Mags.” Bryan put his arm around her and leaned in. “It’s what makes boys grow so tall. They want to get away from their feet.”

Maggie giggled again and Beth wanted to kiss Bryan for making her do so. Well, she wanted to kiss Bryan for other reasons, but this one, too.

Wait. She wanted to
what
?

She was still mulling that over when Claire returned with their food.

“Holy cow!” Maggie stood on the vinyl booth seat. “That’s a mountain of pancakes.”

It certainly was. There must have been a dozen buttermilk pancakes and a gallon of ice cream, and a whole canister of the whipped topping.

“Well, we have to keep up with those Hollywood folks, don’t we?” Claire said, her gaze firmly planted on Bryan.

His shoulders, Beth thought. Or maybe his chest. Good thing he was sitting down with a table over his lap, because Beth was sure Claire would be staring
that
down as well.

She blushed when Bryan raised an eyebrow at her. Oh God. She didn’t need him knowing what she was thinking. Or that she was jealous of Claire looking at him. She had no reason—no
right
—to feel jealous. Bryan was single. Unattached. And she . . . well, she was unattached at the companion-for-life level, but five kids were an anchor no man she’d dated had wanted to weigh in.

Which, really, was fine with her. She had more important things to fill her time than looking for a substitute father for her kids—namely, be a mom to her kids. That, plus everything else she had to do solo in life, was where she had to put her focus.

Other people stopped by their table once Claire had broken the ice, some asking for autographs, others for photos. Bryan graciously spoke to each person. Made them all feel as if they had his undivided attention, yet still managed to not exclude her and Maggie. He introduced them to people he’d known growing up—even garnered an invitation or two for Beth to join him at a party or get-together they invited him to. She wouldn’t go, of course. Bryan was here to clean her house, not
play
house.

That idea, however, didn’t go away, no matter how much she wished it would.

M
OMMY,
is Bryan coming to play today?” Maggie hopped onto the foot of Beth’s bed the following morning, her T-shirt on backward and her sneakers on the wrong feet, but her smile was so bright and sunny, Beth didn’t have the heart to tell her so.

She also didn’t have the heart to tell her that Bryan wasn’t here to be their friend. Though maybe she should; Maggie was becoming a little too attached to their temporary help.

Beth winced. Bryan was anything
but
“the help.” The day before yesterday, he’d been the plumber and the mechanic. Yesterday he’d been the handyman when they’d gotten home from the diner. All the little things Mike had planned to get to that he never had had become glaringly obvious to Beth over the two years he’d been gone. The crooked cabinet doors on the laundry room cabinets, the shredded rug edges from when Sherman had been a puppy that’d started to spread from the constant tromping-on from five pairs of scuffling sneakers. Then there was the loose railing on the stairs to the basement.

Bryan had started with that last one first. Said it was a safety issue, which it was. She’d been meaning to get to it, but by the time she got home from work, made dinner, supervised homework and baths, then set out clothing and lunch items for the next day, the last thing she’d wanted to do was household maintenance. She usually saved that for the weekends, but Jason had joined the football team this year and Kelsey had made cheerleading, and fall weekends had turned into tailgating extravaganzas—minus the booze. It’d been fun, and she’d loved cheering her kids on, but the time-suck was amazing. Single-parenting was definitely
not
for the faint-of-heart.

“I have a tea party all set up in my room. Do you think he likes girl-may or darling tea?” Maggie scrunched her little face and tapped her lips as if Earl Grey and Darjeeling tea decisions would decide the fate of the free world.

“You’ll have to ask him, Mags, but I’m not so sure Bryan likes tea. He didn’t have any at breakfast yesterday.”

But he
had
eaten most of Maggie’s pancakes—a good thing because Beth hadn’t relished the idea of a five-year-old’s upset tummy. But if she’d said anything to Maggie about eating too much, she would’ve been the bad guy. She was tired of being the bad guy, so it was great that Bryan had figured out how to solve both problems by eating the bulk of them. And lord knew, he could hide those thousand or so calories a lot better than she could.

Though, not if he wanted that washboard he’d had in his last movie.

Beth thrust aside thoughts of his last movie, otherwise she’d have to admit that she’d watched it last night on her iPad, courtesy of her online movie subscription, and had almost had the first non-self-induced orgasm in two years.

She climbed out of bed and busied herself making it to cool down the flush that suffused her body as images of her dreams kept popping up in her head. Just like something else had kept popping up on Bry—

“Are Mark and Tommy awake yet?” she asked Maggie, yanking her robe on over her T-shirt to cover her hardened nipples. It was senseless to ask if Jason and Kelsey were up; teenagers didn’t get up before the crack of two p.m. during the summer unless they were working. And even then it was a chore to get them moving. Beth hated to admit it, and felt like a bad mother for taking advantage of it, but it was a lot easier to let the two of them sleep most of the day while she dealt with the three younger ones’ schedules. She’d managed to set up carpools most of the time so that she only had one day of running everyone around. Nothing else got done that day, but that was okay. She enjoyed the time she spent with the kids and their friends. Life went by too fast to miss those precious moments.

Plus, Kelsey had had friends over last night. Beth had let the paltry excuse for a reason pass—Kelsey wanted to show Bryan off to a new set of friends, and while Beth wasn’t in favor of it, her daughter did deserve to have sleepovers. The Bryan-ogling was going to happen; might as well get it over with.

“Tommy took Sherman out.” Maggie hopped off the bed, dragging the comforter with her. That was Maggie, one disaster after another. And she was totally oblivious to all of it, which explained how she could live in the heap she called a room.

Beth never quite reached the same level of acceptance as her daughter.

She sighed and tossed the comforter back onto the bed. Maggie did have a point—why bother to make the bed when you were going to climb right back into it that night?

And maybe someone else would climb in, too
 . . .

Beth picked up a pillow off the floor and tossed it on the chair beside her bed. Great. Bad enough she was having erotic dreams about the guy, now her subconscious was inviting him into the room?

“Mom!” Mark hollered up from downstairs in the tone that could set Beth’s mothering instinct on red alert in one second.

“Coming!” She patted Maggie’s thigh. “Come on, sweetie. Tommy’s in trouble.”

“How do you know that, Mommy? From your third eye?”

Beth bit her lip. The kids had bought that story for as long as they’d believed in Santa. She’d miss the day Maggie grew up. “Yes, sweetie. So let’s hurry.”

She shoved her feet into her sneakers. Sherman’s trip to the vet had left him with an overactive digestion problem—probably still recovering from the shock—and she wasn’t about to run into the backyard without shoes on.

She did a double take as she passed Maggie’s room.

“Maggie?” She leaned against the doorframe and poked her head farther into the room.

“Yes, Mommy?” Maggie poked her head around the doorframe under hers.

“Your room.”

“Yes, Mommy. It is.”

“It’s neat.”

“That’s ’cause you painted it, remember?”

“No, I mean, it’s all cleaned up.”

“That’s ’cause Bryan did it.”

“Yes, but that was yesterday.”
Neat
didn’t stick to Maggie. It slithered off and shriveled up in a corner within ten minutes of making an appearance.

“Yes,” said Maggie so matter-of-factly, Beth had to remember that this was
Maggie
she was talking about. Tornado Maggie. Messy Maggie as Jason called her out of Mom’s earshot—or so he thought. Maggie didn’t know the meaning of the word
neat
unless it meant
cool
.

“Is something wrong, Mommy?”

Maggie’s erstwhile little face was turned up at hers with a smile so big Beth curbed her gut reaction—namely to ask if Maggie was feeling well.

“It looks very nice.”

“Thank you, Mommy. Bryan said little girls who take care of their rooms grow into very successful women. You must have had a really clean room when you were little, right, Mommy?”

Chalk up one more reason Beth wanted to kiss Bryan Manley.

 • • • 

A
NOTHER
one was added to the list when she got to the backyard and saw Bryan removing the slat in the wood fence that was pinning Sherman in place, Tommy on one side, Mark on the other, both ready to grab the hyperactive dog the minute he was free.

“This end of the hammer is used for removing nails. See this V here?” Bryan slid the curved end of the hammer along the wood and pried out a nail. “Be careful with it once you remove it. Rusty nails mean a trip to the ER.”

“Yeah, you have to get a big shot. Nick Miller had to do that when he stepped on one on the playground.”

Beth winced, remembering when that’d happened. The blood had scared the kids, and then one had shared the big needle myth, which set Nick and the rest of the kids off. It would be a birthday party Nick would never forget, but unfortunately not for good reasons. It was part of the reason her younger three were so terrified of needles.

“Like anything else, guys, you learn how to do it properly and you reduce your risk of injury.” Bryan pried out the other nail. “Now both of you hold on to Sherman ’cause he’s going to want to run when I lift this board off him.”

“I have his collar,” Mark said from the other side.

“I have his tail,” said Tommy trying to grab the stub that constituted Sherman’s wagging appendage.

“You can’t hold him by his tail,” said Mark scathingly. Amazing how the two minutes separating their births gave Mark the big-brother mentality.

“Can too.”

“Cannot.”

“Can—”

“Guys, both of you hold on. He’s going to want to get away. Ready?”

“Yeah,” they said in unison, a sound so sweet to Beth’s ears. Hadn’t been so much when they’d wailed in unison as infants, but this . . . definitely.

“One.” Bryan pried the board away from the one next to it with that curved end of the hammer. “Two.” He slid his fingers beneath it and set the hammer down, then grabbed the other side. “Three.” He pulled the board back just enough that Sherman could wiggle through, right onto Mark, who, thankfully, didn’t let go of his collar.

“Told you I could get him!”

“I helped!” Tommy was off and running toward the gate to get to the other side of the fence.

“That’s right, Tom. You did. Now hold on to him, guys.” Bryan set the board back in place, grabbed two new nails, and hammered them in.

“Bryan! You did it!” Maggie ran across the yard and flung her arms around his neck as she leapt onto his back. “You saved Sherman! Again!”

Again?
Again
? Beth admitted to a twinge of hurt.
She
was the one who’d found Sherman and untangled him from the clothesline.
She
was the one who’d puffed into his snout and carried him to the car.
She
was the one who’d been terrified she’d have to break the news to her kids that someone else they loved had died. Yet Bryan was the one getting the hugs?

“Your mom saved Sherman the other day, Maggie. Not me.”

Well, now he
did
deserve a hug for being so darn chivalrous.

Beth reached the two of them as he peeled her daughter’s arms from around his neck and stood up.

Her steps faltered. She’d forgotten how tall he was. How he filled out that shirt.

That’s because he wasn’t wearing
a shirt in your dream last night, sweetie.

How observant he was . . . His left eyebrow arched as she blushed yet again.

“Thank you.” She tried to keep the huskiness out of her voice.

“No problem. The dog managed to wedge himself in there pretty good.”

“Not for Sherman. Well, I mean, yes, for that but also for . . .” She glanced down at Maggie and cupped her daughter’s chin. “Why don’t you go help your brothers bring Sherman back home where he belongs?”

“Okay, Mommy.”

Beth gnawed on her bottom lip for a second as she watched Maggie skip off, then looked up at Bryan. “I meant for what you just said to Maggie. That I saved Sherman. I know it shouldn’t be a big deal, but—”

“Hey, you don’t have to explain. Or thank me.” He touched her arm in a companionable sort of way—until electricity shot up her arm. His, too, if his reaction was anything to go by because he yanked his hand away so quickly it was awkward.

“I—”

“I’m—”

“What were you—”

“You first.”

Awkward reigned supreme.

Of course Bryan would be the one to break it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“No. It’s fine. It’s just . . . I’m not used to—”

“Oh right. I hadn’t thought about that.”

She was lying through her teeth. She didn’t react that way to anyone else touching her. Hell, she hadn’t reacted that way to the few kisses she’d received on those dates that hadn’t worked out and they’d been a hell of a lot more sexual than a mere brush of his fingers. “No, it’s not that. It’s just . . .” Geez, what was she supposed to say that wouldn’t embarrass them both?

“Beth, I—”

And there he went with the touching thing again. Granted, this time it was her shoulder, but still . . . same reaction. Only this time neither one pulled away.

But she should. She shouldn’t be contemplating what she was contemplating.

But he looked as if he was contemplating it, too.

This was crazy. Insane. Foolish. It could go nowhere. And they were in her backyard where anyone could see them.

Including Jason and Kelsey if they looked out their windows.

“Sherman!” Maggie squealed from the other side of the fence.

Maggie. Oh God. And Tommy. And Mark. They couldn’t see her and Bryan this close.

“Sherman, no!” This from Mark, accompanied by another squeal from Maggie and a word out of Tommy’s mouth Beth hadn’t realized he even knew.

“I need to see what’s going on.” Yeah, it was an excuse, but it was valid. Amazing that
Sherman
was her savior.

“I’ll go with you.”

Bryan grabbed her hand and they ran around the gate, all the while Beth was desperately trying not to notice the fire blazing along her nerve endings from her palm up through her arm and searing all throughout her body at the thought of what could have been.

Then she saw Sherman. Nothing like a good dose of dog-rolling-in-compost to cool one’s sizzling nerve endings.

“Oh, Sherman, no!” all four of the Hamiltons said in unison.