Single Mum Seeks…

Chapter Two

Jake was shoving fudge into his mouth like there was no tomorrow when Nick finally got into the kitchen of their new house. He stopped only long enough to hold out his now empty glass, wanting Nick to refill it for him before putting the pitcher down on the counter.

“Hey, she was kind of cute for somebody’s mom,” Jake said. “And she can really make fudge.”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had any yet,” Nick said, hoping his voice wasn’t too gruff.

He didn’t mean for it to be. Too many years of snapping out orders to soldiers in his command. It was habit now, though he tried his best to tone it down for Jake and his brothers. They really didn’t need anybody who sounded like they were yelling at them or mad at them, and Nick knew he could sound like that without even trying.

Jake handed over what was left of the fudge and Nick bit into it, a flavor akin to ecstasy exploding in his mouth.

“Oh…sh…man!” he said.

He was trying to quit cussing, too, trying to set a good example for the kid. Not that he was doing all that well with the noswearing bit, either.

“I know,” Jake said appreciatively. “What do you think we’d have to do to get her to make us dinner?”

“Doubtful. She’s a single mother with two little girls,” Nick said, still savoring a mouthful of fudge. “She probably doesn’t have a lot of extra time.”

“Still,” Jake said hopefully. “I bet she’d do it for you. Did you see the way she looked at you? Like she didn’t really mind that you’re—”

“Old?” Nick guessed.

“I was going to say practically ancient.” Jake grinned, reaching for the last piece of fudge.

“Touch it and die,” Nick growled. “You already had a plateful.”

“I know, but I’m still hungry,” he complained.

And it wasn’t even ten o’clock.

Lily Tanner knew what she was talking about. Teenage boys were bottomless pits. Nick hadn’t noticed so much in the first week or so after his sister and brother-in-law’s death, because neighbors kept bringing over food. It seemed like a mountain of food, but it hadn’t lasted long with the twins and Jake in the house. It seemed nothing, even grief, dimmed the appetite of a teenage boy for long.

“Let’s finish getting everything out of the truck before it gets any hotter, and then we’ll go find something to eat,” Nick said. “Who knows? Maybe by that time, another one of the neighbors will show up with lunch. Just try to look pitiful and weak and underfed.”

“I can do that,” Jake said, guzzling another glass of tea and then heading outside.

Nick put down his own glass, grabbed the last piece of fudge and popped it in his mouth, then looked around the house, empty of everything but boxes and furniture that hadn’t yet been put into place, and he hoped for what had to be the thousandth time that he was doing the right thing in coming here to Virginia and trying to raise this kid.

And wondered what in the hell his sister had been thinking of to name him the boys’ guardian in her will.

They got everything out of the truck by noon, and then went inside and moved just enough boxes to allow them room to collapse on the sofa that had landed temporarily right under a ceiling fan.

Nick had to hand it to the kid. He could do some work, and he was really strong, although Nick had to think he could take the kid in a fight, if he really had to. And from the mountain of unsolicited advice he’d received in the last few weeks on raising teenagers, Nick had been led to believe it might just come down to who was stronger physically at least once. Although, he couldn’t see Jake refusing to listen to him to the point where the two of them got into a fight.

Still, what did Nick know? Next to nothing about raising kids.

Thank God they were boys.

If they had been girls, he wouldn’t have had a prayer.

Of course, if his sister had daughters, she probably wouldn’t have left them to Nick to raise.

“I’m starving,” Jake said, sprawled out on the couch, eyes closed, head resting heavily against the back, long legs stretched out in front of him.

“Tell me something I don’t already know,” Nick said, thinking of what kind of fast-food restaurants he’d seen on the drive over here in the truck.

And then, the doorbell rang.

Jake sat up and looked insanely hopeful. “Do you think it might be more fudge?”

“I think we could use something more substantial than fudge. Don’t you?”

“Guess so,” Jake said, dragging himself up to answer the door.

Which was a good thing, because every muscle in Nick’s body was protesting the very idea of moving, which the kid would no doubt give him hell about.

Nick didn’t want to be fifteen again for any amount of money in the world, but the body of a fifteen-year-old…That, he could handle, especially on days like today.

Jake opened the door and grinned like crazy.

Must be food.

Nick forced himself up and to his feet, trying to make it without a grimace as his back protested fiercely. At least the kid didn’t see. He was focused completely on the baking dish placed in his outstretched hands.

They made nice to the neighbor lady with the chicken cheddar noodle dish for a few minutes, then headed for the kitchen and scarfed it down right out of the pan, leaning over the kitchen countertop with a fork for each of them and nothing else.

Jake’s mother would be appalled, Nick was sure, but hey, the kid was hungry and he was being fed.

They washed it down with some more of Lily Tanner’s tea, Jake all but licking the chicken pan clean, like a puppy who hadn’t been fed in days.

“I think I like this neighborhood,” he said. “Do you think someone will show up with dinner?”

“We can hope,” Nick said.

Lily had meant to get some work done that day. Truly, she had. She’d come home from next door and taken her temperature again, finding it still oddly normal, but still felt all flushed and shaky and…weak.

Was she coming down with something?

Had to be, she decided.

What other explanation could there be?

And then she went to work in her dining room, where the walls were nothing but Sheetrock, ready for taping and spackling, then wallpaper, paint and wood trim.

She’d been an interior decorator before the girls were born, then a stay-at-home mom and then kind of fallen into the whole rehabbing thing. She’d convinced Richard they should sell their smaller house and buy a larger one in need of remodeling three years ago and hadn’t looked back since.

A year there and a lot of work, mostly on Lily’s part, which she found she truly enjoyed, and they’d sold the house at a nice profit and bought another one.

This was their fourth, bought just weeks before Richard announced he was leaving her, and as part of the divorce settlement, she owed him half the equity they had in the house when they’d first purchased it. But she had a full year in which to finish renovating it and she got to keep everything she got over the original purchase price.

She’d worked hard to get that agreement and was counting on the profits from the house to allow her to outright buy a much smaller house for her and the girls to live in.

So she did not lack work to do that day, but the phone never stopped ringing. It seemed half the neighbors in the cul-de-sac had seen her talking to that gorgeous specimen of man next door and wanted to know a) If he was really moving in, b) If the teenager was his son, and c) If the gorgeous man could possibly be single.

Having all the answers to all three questions, Lily was a very popular woman that morning. Not to be outdone by a gift of fudge and iced tea, her neighbors promptly went to work.

By noon, there was a veritable parade of women marching to the house next door, casserole dishes in hand, bright smiles on what looked to Lily like perfectly made-up faces and clothes more suited for a fancy lunch out than a casual drop-in on a new neighbor.

“Shameless,” Lily muttered to herself, again at that kitchen window, watching Jean Sumner from three doors down show up in a low-cut sweater that hugged her more than ample curves. “Absolutely shameless.”

Her new neighbors would enjoy the view much more than what Lily would bet was Jean’s curried turkey, which Lily knew from experience tended to be quite dry.

Sissy Williams just happened to drop by in her little white tennis outfit, practically bouncing in enthusiasm as she presented them with what looked like a cake.

Jake would like that.

But the most shameless one of all, as far as Lily was concerned, was Audrey Graham, showing up at their front door in jogging shorts and a jog bra!

“You could at least put a shirt on!” Lily muttered, knowing good and well the woman couldn’t hear her.

At least Lily had shown up with all her clothes on, and she hadn’t dressed up. She felt vastly superior to the parade of neighbors she’d seen so far just because she hadn’t fussed over her appearance or shown an excessive amount of skin.

She wondered if her neighbors, too, had felt a little feverish after their visits, because Nick’s shirt had come back off while he was unloading the truck. Lily couldn’t help but notice, being right next door and all.

But she hadn’t gawked at him or anything like that. It was just that in passing by her kitchen window, which she did on a regular basis on any given day, she happened to glance out and there he was, him and Jake and a parade of food-bearing, scantily clad women.

Lily had never known her neighbors to behave in this way. This was a very respectable street, in a well-respected neighborhood, after all.

Lily’s sister called again, but Lily got away with being remarkably vague about her day, and there was no more talk about fudge of any kind. The girls came home from school, happy and full of energy until after she fed them and mentioned homework. At which point, they pled an overwhelming case of fatigue and collapsed on the floor of the family room, watching a Disney Channel movie until she shooed them off to bed at eight-thirty.

Lily was loading the dishwasher a few minutes later when she caught sight of Jake cutting through the side yard and heading for her kitchen door.

She didn’t fuss. Not really.

Patted down her hair, checked her shirt to make sure she wasn’t dusty or really dirty, because she had gotten a little work in on prepping the dining-room walls that day, and then she pulled open the door.

Jake stood there about to knock, looking like a giant puppy, all hair and ears and feet.

“Hi. Get everything moved in?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, coming inside.

“You must be tired,” she said.

“A little,” he admitted, like it would take more than a day like this to make a boy his age actually tired.

“What can I do for you?” she offered.

“Well…I kind of messed up, and I’m not sure what to do about it,” he confessed. “See, we had all these people come over and bring food. All kinds of good food—”

“Yes. I noticed,” Lily admitted.

“Nothing as good as your fudge. But good stuff, and my uncle told me to keep a list of who brought what and what it was in, so we could get the plates and pans back to everybody and thank them, and I…well, I kind of have a list, but…not really.”

“Ah.” Lily nodded. “You got hungry and got distracted and…”

“Yeah. I did. And now, I’m not sure what to do. I have cards and things with names on them, but they’re not all attached to dishes anymore, and I think I remember what some of the women looked like who brought certain things…”

Like Audrey in the jog bra.

Lily bet Jake remembered her.

“I can probably match up most of the dishes to the cards,” Lily assured him. “We tend to bring over the same recipes when we do meals for people. I know everyone’s specialties.”

He looked so grateful she wanted to hug him.

Poor baby.

He must have had a long day and a really bad six weeks or so.

“Look, my girls are upstairs asleep—”

“I could stay here, in case they wake up,” he offered.

“Okay,” Lily said. “It won’t take me a minute. Everything’s in the refrigerator?”

He nodded. “And the cards and stuff are on the counter by the refrigerator. I left the side door open, and my uncle went to drive the truck back to the rental place, so the house is empty.”

“Okay. Be right back.”

She knew the house from when the last couple lived there, and her kitchen faced theirs, so all she had to do was get around the low row of bushes and she was there. And everything was right where Jake said it would be.

Sissy had indeed brought a cake. Something fancy with fruit and glaze on it.

“No way you made that yourself,” Lily muttered. Sissy wasn’t much in the kitchen. And she should have known it was much fancier than a teenager boy cared for it to be.

Jean’s turkey looked tastier than usual. It was easy to match that dish with Jean’s card. A half-dozen others, and Lily was left with only Audrey’s card and one with absolutely awful handwriting that looked like it might even be the work of teenage girls.

Even the teenagers were flaunting their baked goods along with their bodies these days?

The two dishes left were a container of homemade macaroni salad and a baked chicken thing.

With that body, Audrey probably didn’t touch carbs, Lily reasoned. The baked chicken was likely hers.

She decided to ask Jake just in case. After all, he wouldn’t have forgotten Audrey in that little outfit. Whether it had blinded him to everything else, including what she brought, Lily didn’t know, but she’d find out.

She took the container of baked chicken to show Jake, opened the kitchen door and there was Nick.

She had to work fast to keep the chicken from landing on the ground. He was more worried about her landing on the ground, because while she caught the pan of chicken, he caught her with lightning reflexes and the kind of strength she couldn’t help but admire.

She’d have pitched backward, if not for him.

As it was, he had her, his big hands on her upper arms holding her easily, a wry, maybe slightly amused expression on his face.

“Lily,” he said, much too close. “You okay?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Sorry I startled you.”

His hands lingered for a long moment, her arms feeling odd and tingly. Only once he was sure she was firmly planted on her feet, did he let her go and he step back.

“No. It was me. I wasn’t looking where I was going,” she admitted, a funny little catch in her voice, finding herself oddly breathless and seeing nothing but wide shoulders and wellmuscles arms.

Feeling pure heat coming off his body.

Not such a shock, she decided.

After all, she hadn’t been this close to a man other than her ex-husband in years. So she supposed it wasn’t all that surprising.

She blinked up at him, a little confused and a lot embarrassed and…she wasn’t even sure what else.

What had she been thinking? Doing? Saying? Her mind was a blank.

“I doubt you’re the kind of woman to come over here and steal baked chicken, so…”

“Oh,” she rushed in. “No. I wasn’t. I swear.”

“I didn’t think you were, Lily.”

No. He just probably thought she was nuts. “Jake got a little confused about which dish came from who, and I told him I’d help him sort it out.”

“Yeah. He ripped off the cards and lids and was eating out of the pans before he even thought about keeping track of who brought what.”

Lily nodded. “He seems like a really sweet kid. He’s at my house, to make sure my girls don’t wake up and find themselves alone. I’m sure I know who brought everything except this and one other thing.”

She held up the baked chicken.

“I remember that one,” he said.

“A woman wearing…”

“Next to nothing,” he said plainly and if anything, a bit confused by it all.

“Shorts and a…”

“Bra-like thing,” he said.

“Audrey Graham,” Lily said, turning around and heading back into the kitchen. “I’ll just put her card with this dish, and—”

“Does she often show up at strangers’ doors dressed like that?” he asked.

Lily laughed, couldn’t help it, then reminded herself that she might not have dressed as provocatively as Audrey and the rest of the neighborhood ladies, but she’d been first in line at his door this morning.

What did that say about her?

What did it make him think about her? That she was just like all the others?

“Well…Audrey is…I guess you could say…she’s turned into a physical fitness buff since her divorce was final.” It was the kindest thing Lily could come up with to say. “She runs most every day now, and it’s been so hot, so…”

She turned around, having finished labeling dishes, and found Nick Malone leaning against the kitchen counter, looking like a man with a lot of questions he wasn’t sure he wanted answered.

“Friendly neighborhood,” he said.

“Yes. Very.”

“I’ve never lived in a place like this. Didn’t expect such a welcome,” he said carefully, like they were treading all around all sorts of subjects now. “Is it always like this when someone moves in?”

“Well…” She supposed she should warn him. Or give him the good news, depending on how he felt about things. “There aren’t a lot of single men in the neighborhood.”

“Okay,” he said, looking even more confused.

“Mostly married couples and divorced mothers,” she explained.

Lonely, divorced mothers.

Mothers with certain unmet needs.

Of which, she wouldn’t have said she was one. Would have said she was fine. In need of nothing. Wanting nothing except a long, hot bubble bath and a good book.

And now here she was, with a gorgeous neighbor and that funny, slight fever again that she’d proven to herself wasn’t a fever. At least not the first two times she’d taken her temperature today.

Lily looked up at him as innocently as she could manage.

“And all those women who showed up today are single?” he asked, like the idea frightened him a bit.

“No. Not all of them,” Lily said, and then thought that meant she’d spent all day watching his house from her kitchen window.

Wait…no. That she’d looked at all the cards that came with the food.

She hoped that’s what he thought she meant.

Not that she was spying.

“They’re just…always happy to welcome a new neighbor,” she said.

New man, she’d meant, but hadn’t said it. Though he had to know that’s what she meant. He could have a different woman for every day of the week, if he wanted, if she was any judge of what just happened today.

Did he want that? A rotation of different women from Sunday to Saturday?

Was he that kind of guy?

And what about Jake? Surely he wouldn’t have women parading through the house with Jake here?

“Well, Jake is certainly happy,” he said finally. “Unfortunately, I’m not much of a cook and neither is he.”

“So, this is a good thing. All this…friendliness and neighborliness.”

Was that even a word? Neighborliness?

Like this was about nothing but food.

Lily was embarrassing herself and a little confused.

Did the man not know how good he looked? Especially with his shirt off? Surely this wasn’t the only place where women flirted with him?

Was there a world out there somewhere, outside of Lily’s existence in the suburbs, where this man wouldn’t be admired for his physique?

She couldn’t imagine that there was.

Granted, she’d lived a fairly sheltered existence of kids’ birthday parties and neighborhood cookouts and volunteering at her kids’ schools, but she wasn’t that out of it. Was she?

Not that she was going to ask him about any of this.

He probably thought she was one of them.

Not as blatant as Audrey Graham and her little jog-bra, but still one of them.

And maybe Lily was.

“Well, I’d better get back,” Lily said, slipping past him and out the door, trying not to look like she was fleeing.

“Thanks for everything,” Nick said.

“You’re welcome. I hope the two of you like it here.” Not a woman-a-day kind of like it here, but…like it. She blushed just thinking about him and what he might do with all those women. “I’ll send Jake right home.”

Chapter Three

Four days later, Nick waited just inside the front door of his new house. It was just before sunrise, and he was dressed to go running, but instead he was peeking out the front window like a man expecting to be accosted in the early-morning light, right here in one of the quietest subdivisions in town.

Not by a mugger, but a grown woman in a jog-bra.

She’d followed him for the whole five miles he’d run two days ago, followed him through the quiet streets, talking the whole time, when he’d been counting on clearing out his head of everything, on having a time when he had to do nothing but keep breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. And if that wasn’t enough, the woman had followed him home, followed him inside.

Before he’d known what she was up to, she’d been all over him, right there in the kitchen. Okay, he’d been pretty sure what she was up to. He just didn’t expect to be attacked in his own kitchen that morning, and before he could do anything about it, Jake had walked in. Though starving and still half-asleep, the kid had nearly gotten an eyeful.

Something Nick did not care to repeat.

He also didn’t want anybody chattering to him the whole time he ran.

Which was why he was staring out the window, wondering if Audrey Graham was out there, waiting for him, despite the fact that he’d told her—politely but plainly—that he wasn’t interested.

Obviously, whatever he’d said, it hadn’t been enough.

“What are you doing?” Jake asked from behind him.

Nick nearly jumped out of his skin.

Too many years in the army before he joined the FBI.

Jake yawned. “Sorry. I forgot.”

“One day, you’re going to sneak up on me, and I’m going to crush your throat before I figure out who you are,” Nick told him.

“You can really do that?” Jake asked admiringly.

“In a heartbeat,” Nick boasted, hoping the kid would believe him and remember the warning next time. He’d really come close to hurting him once already when Jake startled him.

“Sorry. I thought you heard me.” Jake shrugged, like the possibility of a crushed throat was no big deal. “So, what are you doing? Did you go run?”

“Not yet.”

All of a sudden, Jake looked very interested. “Wait a minute? You’re not…you know. Sneaking somebody out of the house, are you?”

“Sneaking someone out?” Nick repeated.

“You know. Like…a woman?”

“No, I am not sneaking a woman out of the house,” Nick said.

“’Cause, if you want somebody to sleep over, I’m fine with that. Is it that Audrey woman? The one with the giant—” Jake lifted his hands up and held them about a foot away from his chest. “And the really cute daughter? ’Cause, I’d really like to know the daughter.”

“No, it’s not her. It’s not anybody.”

“Not anybody I know, huh? Okay—” Jake looked way too interested.