Guarding the Single Mother: SEAL Endgame Book One

by North, Leslie

  Nope. Totally off-limits.

  It had been so long, too long, since she’d been with a man. Mike had been her one and only.

  That had to explain her strong reactions to this guy, right?

  Horniness and stress. Not a winning combination.

  While Clint finished cleaning the kitchen, she went into the guest room and opened the box against the wall, laying out all the pieces of the crib on the floor, then grabbing the directions to put it together.

  Clint joined her a few moments later and chuckled. “You don’t need those. I can figure it out. We’ll need tools though. Let me grab some from the garage. Be right back.”

  He disappeared through a door down the hall and returned a moment later with a toolbox. Men. She always followed the directions. A by-the-book kind of gal. Then again, look where it had gotten her so far in life. Perhaps Clint had the right idea, following his gut and instincts. If only her own instincts were safe for her to trust.

  She carried Thomas from the kitchen to the guest room and got his carrier settled on the floor nearby before kneeling down next to the parts on the floor. Her son had always been a good, solid sleeper from six months on. A blessing, according to her mother, since apparently Leila had been a bit of a handful herself.

  Clint carefully laid out screwdrivers and wrenches and even a hammer. He glanced over at the carrier then back to her. “Will we wake him?”

  “I doubt it,” Leila said, picking up the direction sheet again, ignoring his raised brow. “I know you think it’s silly, but I like knowing what to expect.”

  “I get that.” Clint shrugged and began picking up pieces and trying to fit them together. When one didn’t work, he went with the next one until he found one that did. “I’m that way about neatness.”

  “Yeah? From your SEAL days?” she glanced around at the mess currently on his floor. It must be driving him nuts. As a single mother, she’d become used to the chaos a baby brought to one’s life and surroundings on a regular basis, but he was used to living alone. Or at least she thought he was. He’d never answered her question from earlier, she realized, so she tried a different tack. “Well, whoever cleans your place keeps it super nice.”

  “Thanks. It’s just me, so it’s easy.”

  A swell of joy crested inside her before she tamped it down. Don’t care. Don’t care.

  Except she did, more than she wanted to admit.

  Leila grouped the assorted pieces and parts into piles while Clint assembled it all together. They worked well as a team, she noted, despite her wishes to the contrary. Before long, the travel crib was ready to go.

  Clint stood and held out his hand to help her up. She took it, ignoring the frisson of awareness that sizzled up her arm from their point of contact. He met her gaze and she’d swear she saw an answering heat in his eyes before he hid it away again. It was the same heat she’d sensed back in the parking lot when they’d shaken hands the first time, the same heat she’d felt at the shooting range the day before when she’d turned and found him close—so close, that they’d nearly kissed…

  Oh, Lord. She was in major trouble here.

  Clearing her throat, she busied herself by walking around the crib and checking it all for safety. “Thanks for helping me get this together,” she said at last, her voice gruffer than usual due to the constriction in her throat. “Would’ve taken me hours by myself.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and helped him maneuver the crib over against the wall. “Thanks for your help with this. We’ll try and stay out of your way now.”

  Clint stopped fussing with the crib placement. “You’re welcome. And you’re not in my way.” He watched her, the length of the crib between them. “It’s nice having someone else here besides me for a change.”

  A pang of sympathy stabbed through her at the hint of loneliness in his tone. She knew that feeling. Most nights she was so busy with her son or exhausted from work that there wasn’t the time or energy for socializing. Didn’t mean she still didn’t stare at the ceiling late at night, remembering what it was like to have another warm body beside her in bed.

  Time seemed to slow and her breath hitched as he leaned in, closer, closer, so close she could see his pupils blown wide, nearly obscuring the blue of his irises, could feel his warm breath stir the hair near her temples. He was going to kiss her. She was going to let him. This was going to happen…

  “Waaaahhh!”

  A plaintive wail issued from the floor and snapped Leila from her erotic haze in a second. She switched from wanton woman to devoted mother instantly. “Oh, Thomas. Baby. What’s the matter?”

  She crouched to pick up her son, aware of Clint walking out of the room. Leila exhaled slow, the tension inside her easing as she held her son close, feeling like she’d dodged a bullet of forbidden temptation once more.

  6

  “Sorry. Excuse me,” Leila said, sidestepping around Clint in the kitchen.

  It had been several days now since she and Thomas had moved in with him and things had settled into a regular, if unsettling, pattern. Get up, get ready, get to work, get home, get to bed. Normal as it all sounded, there were new elements to it now that were a bit horrifying for a guy who prided himself on keeping things orderly and spic and span.

  Where his house had once been neat as a pin less than a week earlier, now there were toys and nappies and just general stuff everywhere. The SEAL in him cringed at the mess. The man in him found it oddly…welcoming.

  “No problem,” he said, moving to the side while waiting on his bread to get done toasting. His plan was to drop Thomas off at the day care then Leila off at the dental clinic before heading into the gun range. After she got done at four, he’d pick her up again and take her to Ask Questions Later for another shooting lesson before picking Thomas up at five.

  As he watched her feed her son breakfast at the breakfast bar across from him, he couldn’t help smiling. She was getting really good with a weapon. Almost as good as she was at being a mom. He’d didn’t remember much about his own parents, but he liked to think his own mother would’ve been a lot like Leila—kind, caring, patient, with a backbone of pure steel. And if thoughts of their second almost-kiss kept him awake at night, fantasizing about what she might taste like, how her skin might feel, the sound of her sighs as he licked and nibble his way down her body, from her neck to her breasts, lower still… Well, that was his problem, not hers.

  He didn’t do love. Didn’t do relationships. Had no business getting involved with her now.

  No matter how glorious it sounded.

  Though nothing had happened, the tension and connection between them lingered. Enough that they’d both started talking about themselves a lot more to try and avoid the white elephant of desire shimmering around them. She’d told him more about her childhood. He’d told her about his time in foster care. She’d asked him why his place was so bland. He’d invited her to decorate it up a bit.

  And boy, had she. From art on the walls to throw pillows. He still didn’t understand the purpose of those, but hey. They made her happy, so whatever.

  Mike hadn’t shown his face since vandalizing her car, but that didn’t mean Clint wasn’t ready for him when he did. The guy would turn up. It was just a matter of time. Because of that, Clint made a regular drive-by of the dental clinic twice a day—without Leila knowing—and also had made sure the garage where her car had been towed for repairs parked the vehicle inside at night, where Mike couldn’t tamper with it anymore. He didn’t trust that asshole any farther than he could see him and at the moment, that wasn’t far at all.

  His toast popped up and he grabbed the slices. “Want some?”

  Leila glanced over at him, cheeks pink and hair still damp from her shower. The purple of her scrubs brought out the creamy bronze perfection of her skin. “No thanks. I had an energy bar earlier.”

  “Yuck.” He scrunched his nose and spread butter and strawberry jam on his whole wheat toast. “Those things taste like sawdust.”
>
  “True.” Leila laughed, the sound brightening his day. “But they’re good for me and fast.” She managed to get the last spoonful of cereal into her son’s mouth before he turned away to focus on the toy car in his hand again. “These days, I’m all about fast.”

  Clint shook off his unwanted thoughts of him pressing her up against the wall and taking her quick and hot, showing her the true meaning of fast. He’d already decided to keep his hands off of her. And when he made a decision, he stuck to it, dammit.

  She moved around him again, her sweet cinnamon scent buzzing around him. “Let me just clean this up and finish getting ready and we can go.”

  He nodded, not daring to look up at her for fear she’d seen the naked want in his eyes.

  This thing for her was crazy, reckless, and more intoxicating than the finest whiskey.

  If he wasn’t careful, Clint knew he’d have both his heart and his emotions engaged in this situation and that was a sure-fire way straight to a world of hurt and pain.

  * * *

  At dinner that night, Leila found herself relaxing for the first time since her ex had gotten out of prison. Mike hadn’t shown up again since that first horrible encounter in the parking lot and her car was due to be out of repairs by the end of the week. Thomas seemed happy too, cooing and gurgling at Clint who was talking to him and making funny faces.

  Things were…nice. Normal. Better than they’d been in a long time.

  If she wasn’t careful, Leila could see herself wanting to stay here a good long time.

  Clint glanced up and caught her staring at him dreamily and she looked away fast, concentrating on the plate of baked pasta in front of her. He wasn’t going to let it go though, apparently. He sat back and took a swig from his beer bottle. “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said, scrambling for a lie that sounded convincing. She certainly wasn’t going to tell the guy she’d been daydreaming of the two of them having a life together, a real one. Raising Thomas, perhaps even making a new brother or sister for him too. Nope. Not saying that at all, no matter how her heart squeezed with yearning at the idea. So, instead, she narrowed her gaze on him. “Where’d you get the scar?”

  “Huh?” He frowned.

  “The one through your left eyebrow,” she said, smiling at his confused expression. “Piercing accident?”

  “Oh, that.” Clint reached up and brushed his fingers over the white line bisecting his dark left brow. “No. Happened so long ago I forgot about it. It’s from a firecracker when I was a kid.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Yeah. The foster family I was living with wasn’t exactly big on safety. Our foster dad bought a bunch of illegal stuff at one of those roadside stores and we took it all out into a field on the fourth of July and lit the place up.” His deep chuckle as he remembered the events of his past made her toes curl beneath the table. “Don’t get me wrong. That family was great. Positive, loving environment, just particularly lax when it came to rules. There were two other foster kids there at the time besides me and while I did my best not to light anybody else on fire, one of the other kids wasn’t so careful. He lit off a roman candle. You know, the ones that shoot the fireballs into the sky, without warning anybody to step back. One of the lit ones exploded and a hot spark grazed my eyebrow. The hair never really grew back.”

  “Man,” she said, eyes wide. “You’re lucky you didn’t lose an eye.”

  “Tell me about it.” He smiled and twirled his half-empty bottle between his fingers. Such long, lovely, tapered fingers. Leila found herself mesmerized by them, thinking how they might feel against her skin, skimming through her hair, down her neck, lower and lower…

  She looked up to find him watching her expectantly.

  Crap.

  He’d obviously asked her something and she had no idea what. Swallowing hard, Leila gave him a small smile. “I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?”

  Clint tilted his head slightly, his expression amused. “Distracted much?”

  Heat prickled her cheeks and she focused on her plate again, silent.

  “Everything okay at work?” he asked after a long moment. “No problems I should know about, right?”

  “No. Everything’s fine,” she said, reaching over to fiddle with Thomas’s sock-covered toes, making her son giggle. “Just tired, I guess.” She gave herself a mental shake and concentrated on what he’d said, hoping to get the spotlight off herself. “So, it sounds like your time in foster care wasn’t all bad then?”

  “Nah.” Clint shrugged, running his fingers through the condensation on his bottle. “Foster care gets a bad rap, but honestly most of the people in the system are decent. The hardest thing for me to deal with was feeling like I didn’t have roots. It’s hard, being untethered. But I adapted, became used to it.” He snorted. “Maybe too used to it, some might say, considering I’m such a loner now. Childhood shapes us more than we think, I suppose.”

  “Hmm.” Leila sipped her water and toyed with the few remaining bites of pasta on her plate, feeling a bit of the tension easing inside her. “That’s true. Growing up with a single mom, I saw how hard she worked to support my brother and me. I guess that’s why when Mike got sent to prison, I knew I could handle it, since I’d grown up without a dad.” She sighed and looked back at her son. “But I want more for Thomas. I want him to have a good father figure. I want him to have everything I didn’t growing up.”

  “Understandable.” He drained his beer then tossed it across the room into the recycle bin. “Three-pointer.” Clint grinned, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. “I have to say, it’s been nice having you guys here.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” she teased. “We aren’t that bad, are we?”

  “Other than stuff everywhere, no.”

  “Stuff?” Leila gave him a look. “I’ll have you know I clean up after myself and my son all the time.”

  “I know. It’s just different is all.” He sat back and rubbed his eyes. “I’m used to living by myself.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.” She finished her food then helped him clean up the table. “You don’t really go for much decoration around here do you?”

  “Not really,” he said, rinsing the plates and sticking them in the dishwasher while she wiped the table. “Part of it is my time in the SEALs and foster care. Like I said before, when you’re constantly moving, there’s not much time to settle in.”

  “What’s the other part?” she asked, wanting to know more about him.

  “Mementos are about helping you remember—but I prefer to keep the past in the past.”

  “Huh.” She carried Thomas into the living room and put him in his portable play pen. He started banging around with the plastic building blocks in there, happy as a clam. “So, you don’t have any reminders of your parents?”

  “Not really.” Clint closed the dishwasher and turned to face her, wiping his hands on a towel. “Well, there is this one thing.”

  “What?” She found herself grinning back at him. He looked so adorable, all rumpled hair and easy smile. She remembered the feel of his chest against her back from the gun range earlier. He’d been working with her on her aim and her stance, his warmth surrounding her, his muscled body hard and strong brushing her back. Leila bit back a groan of frustration before focusing on him again. “Tell me.”

  He held up a finger and tossed the towel aside, striding out of the kitchen and over to a small closet in the corner. “Probably easier if I show you.”

  Clint rummaged around, giving her a fantastic view of his taut butt in those faded jeans of his, then turned. In his hands was a raggedy-looking stuffed rabbit. One of its eyes was missing and the ears showed signs of several repairs, but it also appeared well-loved, carefully preserved. Her heart melted at the sight. “This is Trixie. She’s the last toy my parents ever bought me.”

  “Oh, my goodness.” Tears stung the backs of Leila’s eyes before she blinked them away. “How precious is that? And you kept
it all these years. It must mean everything to you.”

  “It’s important, yeah,” he said, watching her closely. “But not the most important.”

  Thomas rattled off some gibberish words in his play pan, clapping his hands and staring expectantly at the bunny.

  “He thinks that’s for him,” Leila said, walking over to her son. “No, no, honey. That belongs to Clint.”

  The little boy frowned and reached toward the rabbit again, fussing.

  Clint leaned in beside her at the playpen, his arm brushing against hers. He didn’t pull away. Instead he met her gaze, his warm blue eyes flickering to her lips before he looked down at Thomas and handed him the stuffed toy. “Hey, gifts are meant to be shared, right?”

  “Right,” she whispered, feeling herself falling for this man a little more. Clint turned, putting their faces so close that if she leaned in, just a tiny bit, she’d kiss him. Electric desire sparkled between them and time seemed to slow as Leila slowly, slowly closed the gap between them and brushed her lips over his. Soft, warm, infinitely inviting. He reached up and brushed the backs of fingers down her cheek, turning slightly to slip his arm around her waist and pull her to him. His fingers traced from her face to the nape of her neck, tilting her head back to deepen the kiss and…

  “Mama!” Thomas yelled, thrusting his new toy up at her and jolting her out of the kiss.

  Leila stepped back and touched her still-tingling mouth, feeling as stunned as Clint looked. That kiss had been earth-shattering. World rocking. A mistake.

  She turned and picked up her son, using him like a shield between herself and the man who had her body throbbing with need. “I, uh, need to get him ready for bed. Excuse me.”

  7

  “No, keep that arm straight,” Clint said, the next day. He nudged Leila’s left elbow. “Make sure your sights are lined up.”