by Kristi Gold
Now he looked confused. “Sorry, but I don’t know anyone named Bette.”
This was getting stranger by the minute. “Then who sent you?”
“You’re here, Mr. O’Brien!” came from behind Erica right before Stormy unlatched the screen and rushed onto the porch. Suddenly, it was very clear how this man ended up on her doorstep, although the details were still sketchy.
“I take it you two know each other,” Erica said, after her daughter finished giving Kieran O’Brien a voracious hug.
Stormy grinned, looking altogether pleased with her little surprise. “Happy birthday, Mom!”
She had no clue how Stormy could have possibly hired this man. Personal trainers were costly, and her daughter simply didn’t have any real monetary resources. “It’s not my birthday yet, and would you care to explain how you managed this, young lady?”
“Lisa’s mom told me about Mr. O’Brien today when she took us to the gym. That’s when I hired him.” She glanced up at Kieran with pure adoration. “Isn’t that right?”
He patted her cheek. “That’s right.”
Erica was surprised that Candice Conrad, who’d barely given her the time of day aside from arranging playdates for their daughters, had some role in this plan. Or Candy, as her friends called her. Ironic, considering the woman had probably never eaten an ounce of chocolate in her entire life. Or if she had, she’d managed to surgically remove the effects. But that wasn’t exactly fair. After all, Candy dropped Stormy off at the spa almost every afternoon after school. For that reason, Erica should be a bit more benevolent. Then again, Candy had obviously taken it upon herself to impose her own fitness standards on poor, overweight Erica.
Regardless, Erica still had questions to ask Kieran O’Brien…alone.
After opening the door, Erica pointed inside. “You need to finish your homework before the pizza arrives, sweetie.”
Stormy scowled. “But, Mom—”
“No arguments, Stormy. I need to talk to Mr. O’Brien for a few minutes.”
“To set up the training sessions,” Stormy said with certainty.
To tell him thanks, but no thanks, something Erica chose not to mention at the moment. “We’ll see. In the meantime, your homework is waiting.”
Stormy walked back into the house in a huff and as soon as Erica was assured her daughter wasn’t within earshot, she turned back to Kieran. “I happen to know Stormy doesn’t have enough money to pay for your services.”
“Actually, she gave me all her allowance.”
A meager allowance her child must have been saving for quite some time. “What was that? Fifty dollars?”
He fished in his pocket and pulled out a few bills. “Eighty, to be exact.”
She rolled her eyes. “I suspect you make that much in half an hour.”
“Normally, but I’m willing to give her a cut rate. In fact, you can have this back now.” He opened her hand and laid the bills in her palm, then folded her fingers around them before releasing his grasp on her wrist. “In case she needs something special. Just don’t let her know I returned it.”
His simple touch threw Erica for a loop, almost enough to prevent her from speaking. “Why would you even consider doing this for free?”
“Because she seems like a good kid and this means a lot to her. You might want to think about that before you turn down the offer.”
He definitely had a point, although Erica wasn’t inclined to accept charity in any form. Yet she saw no harm in at least carefully considering the gesture before she told her daughter how much she appreciated her concern, but why she couldn’t commit to a fitness program right now. “Do you have a number I can call if I decide I want to do this?”
After he pulled a card from his jeans’ pocket, he gave her a long once-over that made her want to unbind her waist-length hair from the back of her neck, but that would only conceal her upper torso. “Give me a pen and I’ll write down my cell number,” he said. “It’s easier to reach me that way.”
She had no pockets in her tattered sweats, which meant she could leave him standing on the porch while she searched for a pen, or be courteous and invite him inside. Oh, what the heck. She’d write down the number and send him on his way.
Erica flattened herself against the door and waved him forward. “Come in while I find something to write with. The den’s to your right.”
Despite a solid effort to keep her eyes centered on his back, her gaze took a downward trek as she followed him through the small foyer. As predicted, his butt could only be deemed delicious. She seriously needed to get a grip.
In the den, Erica sidestepped over to the corner desk to prevent Kieran from getting a gander at her hips that had widened considerably since Jeff’s death. That extra width was a direct result of taking comfort from food to ease the sadness, and admittedly some latent anger over being left alone to raise her daughter. She’d basically remained in emotional limbo for almost six years, even if that wasn’t exactly logical. But neither was her fascination with the beautiful stranger who wandered around the room while she squirreled away the money in the desk drawer and rummaged for a pen, without success. No doubt her offspring had pilfered the last one.
“Mom! I need your help!”
Speaking of offspring…“I’ll be with you shortly, Stormy.” She sent a sheepish glance at Kieran, who’d paused his pacing to stand near the sofa. “When she wants something, she only knows one tone of voice—loud.” Like he hadn’t noticed that.
He sent her a curious look. “Is that how she came by her name?”
She leaned back against the desk and folded her arms across her midriff. “Actually, we were under a thunderstorm warning in Oklahoma the night she was born.”
“Mom, if you don’t come help me, I’m going to throw my math book out the window!”
“Hold your horses, Stormy! And bring me a pen.” She shrugged. “As it turned out, the name fits her well.”
A few moments later, Stormy walked into the room from the hall, her lopsided ponytail swaying back and forth like a pendulum. After smiling again at Kieran, she strode up to Erica and pointed a pencil at her. “Now can I get some help with my math?”
“I can try, Stormy, but I have trouble balancing a checkbook.” She did know enough, though, to realize her finances were rather slim these days.
“I’m pretty good at math,” Kieran said.
Stormy glanced back at Kieran, her eyes wide with wonder. “You are?”
“Believe it or not, I was an honor student in high school,” he said. “I was also a business major in college. I know math. Give me a shot and I’ll prove—”
“That you’ve got brains to go along with the brawn?” Erica blurted without thought.
He grinned. “Something like that.”
“My homework’s in the kitchen,” Stormy tossed out before skipping into the hallway. Apparently she had no qualms about taking Kieran on as a tutor.
Erica offered Kieran the pencil and an apologetic look. “You really don’t have to do this.”
“Not a problem,” he said as he jotted down his number on the card with the pencil and laid both on the desk.
“You don’t have any pressing issues awaiting you?” Like pressing his killer body against some willing woman.
“I have to meet my parents for dinner in about an hour, so I have some extra time.”
This man was much too good to be true. “What about your wife?”
“No significant other right now,” he said, seemingly undisturbed by her semi-interrogation.
Very interesting information, and somewhat problematic for Erica. If he’d been involved in a serious relationship, she could easily ignore him. Absurd. She could still ignore him. “If you insist on helping my child, I won’t complain. It will save me a lot of grief, but you’ll probably receive some in return.”
“I’m tough enough to handle a ten-year-old. And like I said, she seems like a good kid.”
We’ll see about that
after the homework process, she wanted to say but instead led him into the kitchen where Stormy sat behind the small dinette table, rapping her pencil impatiently on her open book.
Erica tried not to stare when Kieran shrugged off his jacket and draped it over the back of the chair that he then turned around and straddled. She tried not to ogle his prominent biceps. Tried not to gawk at the size of his hands, which he rested casually on the table before him. To say he met her expectations would be wrong. He more than exceeded them. What she wouldn’t give to get her paws on all that incredible muscle mass. Professionally speaking, of course.
Jerking herself back into hostess mode, she said, “Since you don’t drink coffee, is there anything else I can get you?” She’d offer him a brownie, but she’d already eaten the last one of the batch she’d made two nights ago.
He scooted the chair closer to the table. “I’m fine.”
She wouldn’t argue that point. “Just let me know if you need anything. I’ll be right over here.” Engaging in busywork while sending covert glances his way.
Erica absently swiped at the countertops with a damp cloth while Kieran went over a few problems with Stormy. Amazingly, her daughter hadn’t issued one complaint. On the contrary, she actually remained silent and listened for a change.
After wiping her hands on a dish towel, Erica turned and said, “You missed your calling, Kieran. You should have been a teacher.”
He looked up from the book and trained his dark eyes on hers. “No thanks. I’m better with weights.”
“And I’m finished,” Stormy said, then sat back and sighed. “If Mom would’ve helped me, we would’ve been sitting here until midnight.”
Erica playfully slapped Stormy’s arm with the towel and then checked the clock on the wall. “Time to wash up for dinner since the pizza should be here any minute. But first, you need to thank Mr. O’Brien.”
“Thanks, Kieran,” she said, as if she had the right to call him by his given name.
He pushed back from the table and stood. “No problem, Stormy. Good luck on the quiz.”
“I’m sure I can pass it now,” Stormy replied with clear confidence, topped off with a look of gratitude aimed at her new hero. “I’ll let you know how I did when I come with Mom to the gym.”
Unable to voice a response, at least not one that her daughter would care to hear, Erica ushered Kieran back into the den and once there, he paused at the shelves beside the fireplace to study a framed photo taken during her gymnast days. A picture depicting a much, much thinner version of herself. “That was my senior year in high school,” she said, feeling somewhat self-conscious. “I competed for a year in college before I got pregnant with Stormy.”
He turned his attention from the photo to her. “You were young when you had her.”
“Barely twenty,” she said. And ill-prepared for Stormy’s congenital heart defect, the reason she and Jeff had moved to Houston—to be closer to her doctors. She briefly wondered if Stormy had mentioned the condition to Kieran, then decided she probably hadn’t. Out of respect for her daughter, who wanted badly to be viewed as perfectly normal, she wouldn’t mention it, either. “I married the summer after I graduated high school, in case you’re like most people and believe the baby came before the nuptials.”
“My sister married young and she wasn’t pregnant, either,” he said. “Unfortunately, her marriage didn’t last long.”
“Mine didn’t, either.” Through no fault of her own. “My husband died in an industrial accident when Stormy was four.”
“She mentioned that,” Kieran said as he glanced at the picture of Jeff set out not too far away. “I’m sorry.”
So was Erica. Sorry that she’d had so little time to know her husband. Sorry that her daughter had had even less time to know her father. “Sometimes things happen we can’t control.”
He streaked a hand over the back of his neck. “Guess you’re right, but it’s still got to be tough to deal with.”
Erica decided to move past the sad subject. “Anyway, I intended to teach gymnastics after college. Circumstances forced me to find a more lucrative way to make a living, which is how I ended up as a massage therapist.” A decision she had made in the two-year delay in receiving Jeff’s employer’s minimal settlement, most of which had gone to pay off Stormy’s astronomical medical bills that weren’t covered after Jeff’s death.
Kieran replaced the photo and said, “Can you still do back flips?”
Erica smiled in response to his winning grin. “Only if I want to hurt something vital.”
“After I’m done with you, you’ll be able to tumble again.”
She only planned to tumble into bed—alone—as she did every night. “Don’t count on me doing even a simple cartwheel.”
“Then you’re going to go through with the training?”
Oh, he was good. “I didn’t say that.”
“But you haven’t ruled it out yet.”
“Not yet. Obviously I haven’t been able to lose the extra pounds on my own. And believe me, I’ve gained more than a few extra pounds.” As if he hadn’t noticed that in spite of her loose clothing.
“Some weight gain is understandable,” he said. “You’re not sixteen anymore. Body weight increases with age.”
Her body had expanded more than she’d thought possible, and on a five-foot, two-inch frame, it wasn’t pretty. “That’s true, but come to think of it, I doubt a few training sessions will make all that much of a difference.”
“A couple hours a day, five days a week, will get noticeable results.”
She did a quick mental calculation. “You’d have to be darn good to whip me into shape in five sessions.”
“That’s for an entire month, which means at least twenty sessions. And I am good.” He said it with all the assurance of a man who had no qualms about selling his skills, and not necessarily those limited to the fitness field. “But a lot will depend on your commitment after we’re finished working together. I’d be willing to throw in a six-month membership at one of my clubs.”
Erica would rather drink salt doused with vinegar than walk into a room full of nubile young women. “I’m not overly fond of gyms these days.”
“The sessions will have to take place at the gym.” He took a quick glance around the small den. “Unless you have your own equipment around here somewhere.”
She had a stationary bicycle gathering dust in the garage, but that was the extent of her equipment. “No, I don’t. But I really hate the thought of working out with a bunch of people looking on.”
“That’s not a problem,” he said. “I have my own fully equipped, private area that I’d be glad to let you use until you’re more comfortable.”
“How convenient.” Both for him and all the other women he’d probably enticed into an intimate workout. Erica could just imagine it now—a few free weights, a few minutes on the rowing machine, a lot of cardio under the supervision of a guy who probably had the means to send a heart rate to maximum level in minimal time. The vision bouncing around in her head gave a whole new meaning to the term push-ups.
Shaking the unwelcome fantasy away, she said, “I’m still not ready to agree to this.”
Oddly, he looked almost disappointed. “Suit yourself, but you’re missing a prime opportunity. I don’t make this offer to just anyone.”
“You’re doing it for my child, remember?”
“Yeah, but I see potential in you.” He raked his gaze down her body again—slowly. “A lot of potential, if you have the guts to see this through.”
The challenge in his sexy voice and seductive eyes made her want to twitch and throw herself at him like some crazed hormonal harpy.
Erica led him out of the den and strode to the door, holding it open before she agreed for all the wrong reasons. “Tell you what. I’ll let you know in a few days.”
“Don’t take too long,” he said as he stepped onto the porch. “I’ve got a business to run and my time is in demand.�
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She just bet it was.
Erica felt a brush against her ankle and looked down to find the family cat winding his way through her legs. She bent, picked up the gray tabby and held him like a baby. “I was wondering where you were, Diner.”
Kieran frowned. “Diner?”
“We found him behind a diner where we stopped for lunch on our way back from a trip to Oklahoma. He was scrawny and underfed, so we brought him with us, took him to the vet and got his mind off the girls.”
“You had him neutered.”
“Yes. Amazing how a simple procedure can improve a male attitude.”
He looked pained. “Do you apply that practice with all men?”
She laughed. “Only alley cats, so don’t worry.”
“That’s good to know. Otherwise, I might rescind the offer.” He stepped off the porch and began to back down the walkway. “I expect to have an answer in two days.”
A demanding kind of guy, which might have ticked Erica off if he hadn’t smiled again. “Fine. I’ll call you in two days.”
“You do that.”
While Erica remained planted firmly on the porch, Kieran turned and strolled to the sleek black sports car parked at the curb. She couldn’t make out the model in the dark, but she presumed it probably cost as much as her modest three-bedroom house. And although she should go back inside, she waited until he was safely seated behind the wheel and well on his way down the street.
As tempting as Kieran’s proposal might be—as tempting as he was—she didn’t need any one-on-one program to help her lose weight. She could buy a DVD and some hand weights. She’d take a daily walk to get reacquainted with endorphins. She’d stop eating to fill the void.
But tonight, before she crawled into her vacant bed, Erica planned to treat herself to several slices of pizza. At least that would take care of one craving.
