by Skye Jordan
“What do you mean?”
“Your shirt’s untucked, your hair’s a mess. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve been manhandled by a woman.”
I push all ten fingers through my hair.
Jackie leans back against the bar and crosses her arms, grinning. “When I said introduce yourself, I didn’t mean quite like that, but I knew it wouldn’t take long. You’re a little too good-looking for your own good. Which one? KT or Chloe?”
I wander into the kitchen and pull open the fridge. “I haven’t met Chloe.”
Her brows lift. “So, KT. Interesting.”
I don’t take the bait. I grab the orange juice, pull off the top, and tip the bottle back. My blood sugar needs a spike if I’m going to get through this afternoon.
“How long has that been going on?” Jackie wants to know.
“Nothing’s going on.”
“Why haven’t I heard about you two in town?”
“Because we’re not dating. In fact, she claims to not be interested in dating at all. All she wants is a hookup.”
Jackie starts laughing.
I hold my arms open, the juice in one hand. “What?”
“I didn’t think that word was even in your vocabulary. How did you meet her?”
“She came into the ER, Christmas Eve. Needed stitches. Offered to help me put Jazz’s bed together.”
“Are you sleeping with her?”
“Why do you make it sound like that’s impossible?”
“Come on,” she says. We both know I’m not the sleeping-around type. I don’t argue, I just suck down more juice.
I cap the bottle and set it on the counter. “Guess I need to talk to Violet.”
“Still talking about KT here.”
“Is that really her name?”
“You’d know better than I would. What did her medical file say?”
“Just KT. Wouldn’t fess up to her real name.”
“You haven’t answered my question. You’ve danced all around it. Are you sleeping with her?”
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?”
My immediate answer is, I don’t know. But I think about it some more. Jackie doesn’t know about Jana’s affair, and there’s no point bringing it up now. “I’ve just never been that guy.”
“You never had a chance to decide what kind of guy you were. You were with Jana since you were nineteen. And no one is the same at nineteen as they are at forty.”
“That’s another thing. I’m ten years older than KT. In a totally different season of life.”
Jackie comes into the kitchen and leans against the opposite counter. “If you want to, you can come up with dozens of reasons not to sleep with her. But I could come up with dozens of reasons you should.”
She puts out a hand and starts ticking reasons off her fingers. “Stress relief, intimacy, connection. You’ll be more focused and positive, making you a better parent and a better doctor. And you might even be happy for a change.”
“I’m not unhappy.”
“You’re not happy either.” She doesn’t give me time to respond. “Besides, you don’t have time for a relationship. All you’ve got time for is sex.”
I look at the floor and shake my head. “I like her. I really like her. Sex will only pull me deeper. Then I’m looking at a disaster waiting to happen. It would be like bungee jumping knowing the line will break.”
“I feel the need to point out that your dating attempts haven’t exactly gone well.”
“That’s just what I need to hear.”
“My point being that taking women to dinner and talking about everything under the sun didn’t improve the outcome. You’re a guy. Start thinking like one. Get your mind around the just-sex of it and enjoy her while you can.”
“I’m happy to report you don’t have to come the rest of this week,” I say, smirking. “Isabel will be here.”
“Pfft. That won’t keep me from getting the information I want.”
I laugh. “But it will give me a break from the interrogation.”
7
KT
I pull my hoodie over my head and shake my sleeves down to cover my hands, then steer the Bayliner from the marina. The fishermen left long before midday, and it’s too cold for pleasure boats. I’ve got the whole lake to myself now at nearly six p.m.
“Okay, little lady,” I say to the Bayliner. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
I open the throttle in stages, sensitive to any hiccups or hesitation. Once that goes smoothly, I power down, then go from trolling to full speed. The boat performs perfectly, and I smile. A job well done. And, damn, but I do love a job well done.
Feeling accomplished but cold, I take the Bayliner back into the marina. I catch Chloe headed to her car, yoga mat tucked under one arm. “What are you teaching tonight?”
She turns toward me. “Hot yoga. Wanna come? Twenty-six poses over ninety minutes in one-hundred-and five-degree heat. A total detox.”
The heat actually sounds appealing in this weather, but no. Chloe makes it sound deceptively easy, but I did try it for a while when it was offered on the ship, and it’s probably the hardest workout I’ve ever done. “I’ll pass tonight, but another time. How’s the writing coming?”
“It’s messy but beautiful.” Chloe, a self-taught spiritual guru with a huge online following, has already had one blockbuster bestseller and is writing another, not to mention cultivating several membership-based subscription businesses online. She lifts her chin toward the boat. “How’s she running?”
“Great. Another one to check off the list.”
Chloe shakes her head. “I’ve never met anyone who works harder than you do.”
“I know exactly how hard you work.” This is a common argument among the three of us—we all think the others work harder than we do. “Go on, get out of here. Don’t keep your students from their torture.”
I shut down the boat and secure her in the slip, then pick up all my tools and start toward the shed. My cell rings while my hands are full, and I barely pick it up before it goes to voicemail. I don’t have time to look at the screen, but I’m hoping it’s Laiyla inviting me to have dinner with her and Levi. I’m starving, and I haven’t made it to the store recently.
I dump my tools on a workbench. “Hello.”
“KT? It’s Violet.”
“Hey, there.” My mind veers toward Ben. I haven’t seen or heard from him since he and I were right where I am now, kissing. And that was entirely too long ago. I’ve just about given up hope we’ll ever get past first base. “What’s up?”
“Um, well, our toilet is overflowing, and my babysitter doesn’t know how to stop it.”
“Dad’s at work?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Be right there.” My stomach is not happy with me, but it will have to wait. I grab my snake and a few other tools and head to their house.
Violet greets me at the door and waves me in. “It’s the downstairs one.”
A young woman is sitting on the sofa, her nose in her phone. When she looks at me, I see she’s more of a teenager than a young woman.
“Hi, I’m KT.”
Instead of responding to me, she frowns at Violet. “You shouldn’t just let people into the house.”
“I called her to help with the toilet,” Violet says.
The babysitter doesn’t seem to care either way.
Two young girls who could only be Poppy and Jazz lie on the floor in front of cartoons that are, in my opinion, inappropriate for their age.
I follow Violet into the bathroom and find water covering the floor of a half bath, the toilet bowl filled to the brim. But what is most puzzling is that the water is clean. And what annoys me most is that the babysitter is just letting water soak the floor and seep into the neighboring carpet of a bedroom. “Violet, grab me some towels.”
I take off the top of the tank and inspect the parts, which all look fine. Violet returns, and we lay down t
he towels to soak up most of the water.
“Daddy!” the two younger girls say in unison.
“Hey, munchkins.” Ben’s rich voice reaches my ears and makes my stomach squeeze in anticipation.
“Daddy’s home.” Violet’s smile is a little too bright, her eyes a little too wide.
I’ve learned to read her pretty well over the last week and something’s not quite right. She had to cut her time short at the marina today because she had homework to get done, and now I see this situation as staged a little too well.
She leaves the bathroom, and I move the towels around with my boot to continue soaking up the water. I hear Violet tell him about the toilet overflowing, and her story doesn’t hold up for me. Especially when she goes overboard about how I came to help. I’m also hearing the babysitter act concerned when she was anything but.
I’m smiling by the time he steps into the doorway. My stomach squeezes at the sight of him. That messy dark-blond hair, the scruffy jaw, those deep blue eyes. He’s wearing scrubs, his ID tag still hanging from the waistband of his pants. He’s frowning, hands on hips, and all three girls are crowded around him like ducklings.
“Hey,” he says to me, clearly concerned. “I’m so sorry she called you.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
He looks at his girls. “What happened here?”
They all profess ignorance, and by the look on his face, he’s as skeptical as I am.
“Go relax,” I tell him. “I have a feeling this will be an easy fix.”
“Girls,” he says, “get more towels from upstairs.”
He crouches and pulls up a soaked towel, then steps into the room and tosses it into the sink. His body heat wraps around me, his masculine scent filling my head like helium.
“Ben, you just got home.” I follow his lead and drop another towel, heavy with water, onto the other in the sink. “Go sit down for a minute.”
He shakes his head, still frowning. “Do you see anything wrong with this scenario?”
“As a matter of fact, I see several things.”
Another towel hits the sink, and then we’re just waiting for more dry towels. “She wasn’t happy when I told her she could only spend a couple of hours with you today.”
The girls all return with towels in their arms. Once we have a new layer laid down, I reach for my snake.
“Okay,” I say, glancing at the girls. “Let’s see what we’ve got in here.”
Ben’s scowling, arms crossed.
I pick up my industrial snake and feed the flexible end into the bowl. When I hit the block, I turn the handle to catch whatever is blocking the drain with the hook on the end of the snake. It takes a couple of tries, but I finally pull out the problem—a Barbie-type doll in a mermaid outfit with lots of red hair.
Ben lets out a huff and covers his eyes with one hand, rubbing at his closed lids before pinching the bridge of his nose.
I unhook it from the snake, lay it on the floor, and put the snake back in to make sure the toilet is cleared.
“Girls—” he starts.
“Wait,” I say. “There’s something else.” This something else takes longer to pull out, but I end up dislodging it from the drain, and out pops a blue fish with a big smile, floating in the bowl.
I have to pull my lips between my teeth and hold them there to keep myself from laughing.
“What in the heck happened?” Ben asks, looking down at his girls.
Jazz is the first to speak. “I was just setting Ariel and Nemo free. They wanted to go back to the ocean.”
A laugh pops out of me. I can’t help it. I press the back of my hand to my mouth to keep the rest inside, but it’s damn difficult.
Jazz looks at Violet, pleased with herself. “Did I do it right?”
“Jazz,” Violet says in that shut-up tone, her eyes wide.
“That’s what I was supposed to say, right?”
Ben rubs his face with both hands and growls. “Rooms. Now.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Poppy says.
“Rooms,” he repeats with patient determination. “I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”
“KT can stay, right?” Violet says, hopeful. “I mean, she should stay for dinner for helping us with the toilet, right, Daddy?”
“Don’t make me say it again,” Ben says.
Violet darts a worried look at me before Ben herds them out of the bathroom, and I barely keep my shit together until they hit the stairs. Then I double over, laughing, one hand on my mouth, the other arm across my stomach. And I laugh harder and longer than I have in a long damn time.
By the time I get myself together, tears leak from my eyes and my stomach burns. Ben stands there, hands on hips, a grudging smirk on his face, watching me laugh.
“I know you’ve got to be tired,” I say, “and it probably isn’t funny to you, but—”
I burst out laughing again. The more I laugh, the funnier it becomes. Then Ben takes one big step toward me, closing the distance, and frames my face in his hands. He’s smiling when he kisses me.
My humor melts into something that I can only describe as joy. It’s warm, sweet, and happy, and it fills my whole heart. After kissing me a few times, he pulls back. “Are you done?”
The question brings the humor back, and I sag against him, catching my breath and wiping my eyes. He’s got a firm hold on my waist, and his hard body feels good against mine. “I haven’t laughed that hard in so long. Your girls are too damn cute, I have no idea how you ever get mad at them.”
He releases me with a sigh, and, together, we finish soaking up the water. “I’m usually pretty patient, especially for true mistakes or accidents, but Violet, man, she’s pushing my buttons lately.”
“She’s quietly smart and cunningly crafty.”
“Exactly.” He looks at the pile of wet towels on the sink. “Leave them, I’ll get it later.” He reaches behind my head and pulls my ponytail gently through his hand. “I hate to give in to Violet’s sneaky plan, but I’d love it if you’d stay for dinner.”
“Mmm, I don’t know. What are you having?” He opens his mouth to tell me, but I jump in. “Oh, what do you know, that’s my favorite. I guess I can stay, not long, you know, because well, places to go, people to see, and I may or may not have been to the grocery store in over a week and may or may not have nothing but peanut butter and jelly in my fridge—”
He kisses me, still half laughing. Until he’s not. Until he slides his tongue across my bottom lip, begging me to open to him. And I do, because he’s irresistible. The next thing I know, I’ve got my hands under his scrub top, tracing his muscles. He’s got my back against the wall, his hands in my hair and an erection pressed against my hip.
“Daddy?” Jazz calls down the steps. “I’m hungry.”
He exhales and slumps, then turns his head and calls, “Dinner’s not ready. Go read a book.”
I snort a half laugh. “Like that’s gonna happen.” I take his earlobe between my teeth and murmur, “We really should just have sex and get it out of the way.”
He refocuses on me. “When we have sex, it’s not going to be to get it out of the way.”
“When, not if. We’re headed in the right direction.” I scrape my nails along the small of his back. “When can we make that happen, Dr. Latham?”
“As soon as I can install exterior locks on their bedroom doors.”
I give an as-if laugh. “Since that will never happen, it’s definitely not soon enough for me.”
8
Ben
I pry myself away from her, take her hand, and pull her from the bathroom and into the main living area before letting go to head toward the kitchen.
I flip on the oven, open the fridge, and pull out bowls and bags and Tupperware.
KT slides onto a barstool, props her elbows on the counter and her chin in her hand. “I could get used to this.”
“But this isn’t the real deal. The girls always help me make din
ner. It takes twice as long, but I’m hoping it will pay off when I’m old and they’re taking care of me. At least they’ll be able to feed me well.”
That makes her laugh.
“And, as you told Violet, if you’re gonna stay, I’m putting you to work.”
“You might want to rethink that. I’m a master at peanut butter and jelly, but that’s about it. I was always fed by the chefs on the ship. I haven’t cooked since my dad died.”
I put a bowl in front of her and pile of salad ingredients on the counter—lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, carrot, cheese, raisins, sunflower seeds, croutons, chia seeds, hemp hearts. Then put out a cutting board and a knife. “You really can’t mess up a salad.”
“Good God, you’re serious.”
“Those three will be whining for food in fifteen minutes.” I usually start dinner right when I get home, and having the girls cook with me distracts them from being hungry.
KT stares at the ingredients in horror. “What happened to the ones where you open a bag and dump it in a bowl?” Then she slides off the stool and moves to the sink to wash her hands. “You’ll be sorry. Just sayin’.”
This probably wasn’t my best idea. She looks good in my kitchen. I stop what I’m doing to slide up behind her, wrap her in my arms, and kiss her neck. The woman makes me crazy. I feel things for her that I never felt for the other women I’ve dated.
KT shuts off the water and dries her hands on a kitchen towel, then reaches back to run a hand through my hair. “I like this kind of dinner way better.”
God, this woman. She makes me want things I was beginning to believe I’d never feel again.
I press my face to the hollow between her shoulder and neck and breathe deep of her natural scent. She’s intoxicating. I want to sink into her and rest. Until the heat kicks up too high to ignore. Then I want to let that fire rage until the flames are doused, then bask in the embers.
But I’ve got too much responsibility on my shoulders for any of that. So, I let her go and start making lasagna from the ingredients I prepared yesterday. I layer precooked noodles, sausage, and marinara with cheese and spinach. In seven minutes flat, I slide the pan into the oven.
