“No you weren’t.” Garrett folded his arms over his chest. “You were flirting.”
“Flirting!” I looked at my oldest in shock. “Since when do you know about flirting?”
“I know things, Dad,” he replied, haughtily. “I’m not a little kid anymore.”
“You got that right. I guess that means you’ll take care of the bill?”
We laughed and joked as I paid, then walked back across the street to my office, where Amelia had parked beside me in the lot.
“You three be good for the rest of the day, okay?” I gave each of my kids a hug. “I’ll be home before you know it.”
In a series of shouted “thank yous” and “goodbyes,” the kids wrenched open the door to her car and climbed in. When I turned to Amelia, I noticed there was still a bit of frosting on her neck. Without thinking, I lifted my hand to her throat and brushed a thumb along the streak. My gaze dropped to her lips and the craziest urge to kiss her goodbye had my fingers lingering against her skin.
I dropped my hand and hers flew to her neck, her cheeks turning pink. “Guess I missed a spot,” she said quietly.
Heat flooded my body and desire heightened my senses. I still regretted not kissing her after Mike’s and I knew I’d regret not kissing her now—despite all measure of common sense telling me not to.
But, I’d built my life around listening to common sense, so I stepped back, adjusting my pants to hide my arousal. “See you tonight,” I said, and gave my kids a final wave goodbye before retreating back into the office.
“What the fuck was that?” I muttered as I closed the door behind me. I decided to bury myself in work and forget about Amelia, but for the rest of the day, I craved her, my thoughts returning to her taut stomach, imagining how her breasts would feel under my palms.
Chapter Eleven
Amelia
Days passed, but the chemistry between Jack and me did not. He hadn’t had a lot of luck finding a new sitter and that was fine with me. I’d go with the babysitting flow, especially because I liked where it was leading. Our conversations in the mornings before he left for work always seemed like we were communicating on two levels. One appropriate for the kids to overhear, and another that would set the room on fire if we gave in to it. Sometimes I’d stay for dinner, and others I’d go straight home, but always, we spent the evenings texting, flirting, and getting to know each other.
One afternoon at the end of June, I decided to take the kids to Sweet Stuff after lunch as they’d been exceptionally good the last couple days. The bells jangled as we pushed through the door, just in time to run into Jude as he was leaving.
“Well if it isn’t Wildrose’s sitter extraordinaire.” He grinned as the kids quietly filtered in. “Run out of cupcakes? You guys stocking up on ammo for the next great battle? I suggest you go with the gummy bears. Hard enough to make a point but soft enough not to start an actual war when someone gets beaned in the head.”
The door closed behind me and I gave Jude a onceover. His grin said he’d never met a woman he didn’t think was into him, and given his natural good looks, it was probably true—until now. He was sexy, but not sexy enough to win me over to the merits of business casual attire the way Jack had.
“I see you’re a follower of Greta’s Facebook page.” After I showed up at the office with icing-coated kids, the rumor had spread like wildfire.
“Of course I am, especially when my friends’ names keep showing up.” Jude folded his arms across his chest and leaned on the wall.
The ridiculous part of me wondered if he agreed with the town gossip.
The rest of me remembered that caring what other people thought was the fastest way to lose the best parts of yourself.
“At least Evie and Alex got good press. I’m the shameless newcomer taking advantage of a grieving widower.” I waved my hands in time with the words and widened my eyes in mock distress.
“Whatever. I haven’t seen Jack this happy in a long time. I say you aren’t taking enough advantage, if you catch my drift.” Jude waggled his eyebrows, then lifted a hand at Izzy before saying goodbye.
The kids wandered around the store, exploring the options as Izzy stared after him.
I was sure there was something between them. Something unrequited.
Or something secret.
Or something they’d accidentally given in to once and swore not to again…
“Have you ever thought of asking him out?” I indicated the door with a jerk of my head.
Izzy guffawed like I’d asked her an impossible question. “We have history. It just kinda…fizzled…and since then he’s made it pretty clear he isn’t interested.”
I thought back over the few times I’d seen Izzy with Jude. While her feelings were clear to me, men were dense. He could be seeing her actions as a stop sign instead of a ‘yes, please.’ “Maybe you need to flirt more?”
“Amelia flirted with my dad.” Charlie’s round face appeared at my side and Izzy gave me a wide-eyed look before turning to the little girl.
“You don’t say? I need you to tell me all about it. Don’t leave anything out.”
“First she showed him her belly button. Then she leaned in and whispered something to him like this….” Charlie gave a passable impression of my over-the-top-for-Greta’s-benefit giggle.
Connor put down a bottle of soda and nodded. “Yeah. We went out for pizza and they were flirting. Garrett said so.”
The eldest Cooper looked proud of himself as he perused rows of licorice in more flavors than I knew existed.
Izzy glanced at me. “Was that the day of the dreaded food fight?”
“You mean the bestest food fight,” Charlie said, then all three children chimed in to tell the story.
“But we had it all cleaned up by the time Dad got home.” Garrett shoved his hands in his pockets and lifted his chin, a posture I’d seen Jack use time and again.
“To hear the town talk about it, you’d think you buried the house in icing and set the place on fire.” Izzy shook her head as the kids went back to perusing the store. “Honestly, I’ve not seen them so calm in a long time. Whatever you’re doing, keep it up because I think it’s working.” She leaned in. “And that includes flirting with their dad.”
Jack
Jude: Heard you and Amelia took the train to pound town.
Me: Where in the world did you hear that?
Jude: Okay. I inferred it.
Me: Okay, so how did you infer it?
Jude: You guys are the talk of the town. There hasn’t been a scandal like this since Greta caught Norma Jean Reynolds smoking pot for her arthritis.
Me: So…because people are talking, that means I’m sleeping with the babysitter?
Jude: You saying you’re not sleeping with her?
Me: God no
Jude: So you’d be okay if I asked her out?
Jaw pulsing, I glared at the screen. That would be a hell-fucking-no from me, especially because I was considering doing it myself—assuming we could find time alone that didn’t include three little kids who magically knew what flirting was. I put the phone down to give myself time to think and jumped when it buzzed with a new message.