“For ice cream,” Nicholas explained.
Her gaze flitted to Wyatt again, and then back to Nicholas. “Oh, no, I don’t need to interrupt boys’ night.”
“You’re welcome to join us,” Wyatt told her.
She sucked her lower lip into her mouth.
Uncertainty wasn’t her color.
He shouldn’t have told her how he felt.
“No, go ahead,” she said. “I have some work to catch up on.”
“Nicholas, do your parents ever work on vacation?” he asked.
“Once Mom threw Dad’s iPhone out the window when we were driving to the zoo. He was really mad, but she was right. She told me so. Vacation is for family time, not work.”
“Kid knows what he’s talking about.”
“You should come, Miss Skye.” Nicholas leapt across the room and tugged on her hand. “You can help me talk Uncle Wyatt into going to see Phoebe Moon and the Sneeze Snatcher.”
“Is it playing here?” she asked.
“I saw the sign yesterday,” Nicholas said.
“Phoebe what again?” Wyatt said.
“Phoebe Moon,” she said. “She’s this orphan girl whose mad scientist uncle steals all the sneezes in the world, and she has to get them back. Total fun.”
He opened his mouth, then clamped it shut.
Fun didn’t sound like the right word, but he was hardly an expert in kid movies.
But sitting next to Skye in a dark theater for two hours sounded like torture.
“You guys should go,” she said. “Tell me all about it when you get back.”
Because she was a chicken?
Or because she was done with him?
She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ears, exposing the pink tint in her cheeks. “I, ah, need to call and catch up with an old friend.”
She was lying.
But he didn’t call her out.
Because it wouldn’t do either of them any good.
* * *
After a long soak in the big whirlpool in the master bedroom—with the door locked and a note taped to it, just in case, even though the boys had left for ice cream—she slipped on another soft Giovanni & Valentino T-shirt and her favorite pajama pants. After a bit, she heard Wyatt and Nicholas come in. A while after that, she heard steps overhead, but no voices. Considering it was after nine, she assumed Nicholas was in bed now.
So she went in search of Wyatt.
Because she was a grown-up.
And she’d needed to talk to someone for a long time, but she’d refused to talk to her parents, her brother, even her closest friends.
He was sitting on the couch thumbing over his phone, legs propped up on the ottoman. He’d drawn the curtains over the bay windows. A single table lamp lit the cavernous open space.
“How was the movie?” she asked.
“Missed the early showing so we just hung out instead,” he said. “Brought home some extra ice cream. It’s in the freezer if you want it.”
“Thanks. You two have fun?”
“Yeah.” He paused. “Love him to pieces, but that kid talks a lot.”
She chuckled. “Most kids do.”
“Memory or experience talking?”
“Both.” She settled onto the other end of the couch and tucked her legs under her. He’d opened himself up to her twice in the last twenty-four hours. If she wanted to get to know the real Wyatt Owens, she owed it to him to do the same.
Besides, she was overdue to talk to a friend about what had happened.
Even if this friend was a relatively new friend, with a chest she’d been fantasizing about way more than she should’ve.
“My ex-fiancé had a twelve-year-old,” she said.
He set his phone aside. “He’s why you won’t go home.”
“When the most popular mayor in history dumps you because his kid hates you, it’s kinda hard to want to stay.”
She was surprised to realize she wasn’t bitter.
Simply sad.
“Why didn’t he like you?” he asked.
“I don’t think he would’ve liked anyone his dad dated.” She pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging herself because she knew touching him instead would derail this conversation.
And she needed to get it out.
Especially if there was something here with Wyatt.
He needed to know she wasn’t always lovable.
“Steven was divorced before he ran for mayor, and his ex-wife was very supportive of his campaign. It seemed like an amicable split, but you know how spin goes when you’re in the public eye.”
He inclined his head. Even though he’d been off in college, and then in the military when Beck and the rest of the guys were touring, she knew he’d been tracked down by a few reporters for comments on their lives too.
Everyone who’d ever known them had, it seemed.
“I met Steven at a fundraiser a few months after he was elected,” she continued. “We dated quietly for a while, and when we went public, his ex-wife wished us well. But I think she always thought they’d get back together, and she didn’t like him moving on. I tried. I tried hard to get along with her. To get along with Matthew too. But I never quite got it right. After we got engaged, Matthew started acting out. He called me names. I caught him going through my purse. Steven got a call from the principal one afternoon, spent three hours at the school, and all he’d tell me was that Matthew was having a hard time adjusting to a few things. I didn’t want to be paranoid, but it was hard not to assume I was those things.”
And there had been guilt.
An entire ocean of guilt, and she’d been drowning in it, because she’d resented a twelve-year-old boy with divorced parents.
What kind of person resented a kid?
Wyatt’s lips were pursed together.
“I tried,” she said softly. “But he picked his son over me. He did what he needed to do, and I don’t fault him for it. I kept wondering what I could’ve done differently, if I’d said something wrong, or done something wrong, or even just looked at him wrong.”
“You didn’t,” he said with that firm authority of his.
“Two sides to every story, and you’ve only heard mine,” she said lightly.
“You miss him?”
“I work too hard to miss anyone.”
“Not working now.” He shifted his hips and sunk deeper into the couch. “You wish he was here?”
“No.”
That earned her a half-smile. “Because you’re mad at him, or because you don’t miss him?”
“Look at you, being all intuitive about people. Wyatt Owens, you have hidden depths.”
A real smile crept up her lips in direct proportion to his not-amused scowl. “I don’t think I miss him,” she said. “I loved him, but I’m not built for that obsessive, can’t-live-without-you, think-about-you-every-minute kind of love.”
“No?”
“Definitely not.”
He gazed at her, those dark blue eyes boring into her as though he were searching her heart’s answer rather than her brain’s answer.
As though he were calling her out on her bullshit.
Because she’d been rather obsessed with him the last three days.
“Huh,” he finally said. “That’s too bad.”
Her pulse ticked up. “What, you’re built for huge, obsessive, fairy tale love?”
He held her gaze a moment longer, and she didn’t have to hear his answer to know.
Because it was all right there in the intensity of his eyes, in the set of his jaw, in the raw, harnessed power radiating from his body.
Wyatt Owens was the type of man who would fall in love heart, body, and soul, and when he fell in love, all of him would fall in love.
Completely.
No reservations.
No hesitation.
And he would put everything, everything, right up to his dying breath, into worshipping the one woman he loved. The only woman he would ever love.
Her breath hitched. Her heart drummed on her rib cage.
How could one man have that much capacity to love another human being?
Was it possible?
Was it real?
“You know what you were doing the first time I saw you?” he said.
She mutely shook her head.
“You were probably seven, holding Cash’s signed Eddie O’Bannon baseball and threatening to chuck it in the creek if he didn’t apologize for breaking your friend’s doll. He had you by four years, eighteen inches, and probably thirty pounds, but you didn’t back down. You stood your ground. You got him to apologize, and then promise to replace the doll, even though he could’ve flattened you.”
She started to smile. The memory was hazy at best—she’d fought Beck and his friends countless times.
“That courage, Skye? You still have it. Go home. Own it. Don’t let him make you less than what you’ve always been.” He swung his legs down and stood. “Picked up butter pecan. Found the caramel sauce in the cabinet, so I put it on the counter for you. Night, Superwoman.”
“Wyatt—”
He paused with his thumbs in his belt loops and looked down on her, one solid mass of a man in the dim light of the evening. Protector and guardian, but also the danger in the room.
Steven hadn’t ever noticed her favorite way to eat ice cream.
And the thought that Wyatt cared enough to notice because she could’ve been his obsession had her skin buzzing and her heart fluttering.
He’d noticed her.
Well over twenty years ago, he’d noticed her.
And he still kept noticing. And caring. And…obsessing?
“Thank you,” she breathed.
He nodded.
“You don’t—you could stay,” she blurted.
“I could.” His voice was husky as the night, swirling through the air around her and igniting her long-neglected femininity. “But then we’d never know, would we?”
“Know what?” She barely recognized the breathy quality in her own voice.
“If you’re right about you.”
And with that, he turned, his powerful legs carrying him out of the room and up the stairs, leaving Skye pondering the mysteries of the intriguing man she’d taken for granted and overlooked her entire life.
And yes, obsessing about him.
Chapter Eight
The scent of pancakes hit Skye’s nose as soon as she turned onto the stairs the next morning.
She hadn’t slept a bit.
Because she’d had Wyatt on her brain.
Being wanted was a strong aphrodisiac.
But playing with him, just to see where things might go, wasn’t an option.
He was one of her brother’s best friends.
If she and Wyatt were incompatible, if they dated and had an ugly break-up, she wouldn’t be the one who suffered.
He would.
Because when push came to shove, Beck put family first.
She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed.
“Miss Skye! Come see the pancakes Uncle Wyatt made!”
Nicholas danced at the top of the stairs in sweatpants and an Air Force T-shirt. His brown hair stuck up at adorable angles, and even from one floor below, she could tell he had syrup on his glasses.
“First thing we do is offer the lady coffee, Nicholas,” Wyatt said from somewhere behind the boy.
His voice sent a happy shiver down her arms.
Did her voice do the same for him?
She shuffled upstairs and accepted the warm mug Wyatt offered. She sniffed the liquid life, and a whimper slipped through her lips. “Mmmm.”
His eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled, and for a moment, she wondered if he would smell better than the coffee. “Drink up, Ryder. Nicholas and I are going to kick your ass in a game-athalon.”
“Language,” she said automatically. Then everything else filtered into her brain. “Wait, what?”
“It’s a tournament.” Nicholas hovered at her elbow in the kitchen. “You against me and Uncle Wyatt. If me and Uncle Wyatt win, you have to take me to see Phoebe Moon and the Sneeze Snatcher while Uncle Wyatt stays home and takes a nap.”
“And if I win?”
“Then Uncle Wyatt has to take us both.”
She laughed into her coffee. “So you and I get to go either way, hm?”
“Yep. I was going to just go with you if we won, but Uncle Wyatt thought the stakes weren’t high enough.”
“Or Uncle Wyatt secretly can’t wait to see the movie for himself,” she murmured.
He held out a plate of pancakes for her.
Chocolate chip pancakes.
With the chocolate chips arranged into a smiley face. “Is there a secret potion in there that’ll render me unable to use a pool stick in an hour?” she asked.
His smile went warmer. “Absolutely.”
“Oh, that’s mean.” But even without her coffee kicking in yet, she found herself smiling at him. “Making me choose between my game and chocolate chip pancakes? You probably made Nicholas do push-ups for his, didn’t you?”
“I did eighteen,” Nicholas said proudly. “Watch! I’ll do more.”
He dropped to the ground in the middle of the kitchen, pushed up on his arms, and dipped his waist toward the ground, his arms still straight as sticks.
“Oh, lordy,” she murmured.
“I was joking,” he said softly to her.
Nicholas continued to pump the ground, hips and waist first.
“Pretty sure the joke’s on you,” she replied.
He chuckled, and she went as warm and gooey as the melted chocolate in the pancakes.
No doubt, he’d learned that chuckle trick in the military. Because his laughter—and his voice, and his shoulders, his arms, his ass—had never been sexy before.
But when had she taken the time to pay attention?
She took the poisoned pancakes, and was up on her toes brushing her lips against his scruffy cheek before her better sense kicked in. She dropped back onto her heels and ducked her head. “Ah, I mean, thank you.”
“Sure.”
She nearly tripped over Nicholas when she turned around to make her way to the table.
“See?” he said. “I just did twenty-two.”
“You are unstoppable, Nicholas!”
And oh, the pancakes were delicious. Buttery and fluffy and chocolately, drizzled with caramel sauce.
If Wyatt didn’t want things to go anywhere, he needed to stop giving her all her favorite foods.
A quiet smile crossed his features when his eyes met hers.
Not a big smile, not arrogant, not I know what I’m doing, but a soft, friendly, I like seeing you happy smile.
Her pancake got lodged behind her heart on the way down.
Or maybe that was an unfamiliar swelling caused by simple affection from a man who might’ve irritated her most of her life, but whom she still knew, without a doubt, that she could trust with her life.
And probably her secrets too.
* * *
Wyatt scribbled the score from the last darts game on his notepad, then added up the standings so far. They had one pool game left to play, and yep—the score was practically tied.
If Skye won, he’d be taking all of them to the movies.
She’d have to sit in the middle.
Unless Nicholas wanted to sit in the middle.
He frowned.
What were the odds his nephew would keep him from sitting next to Skye in the dark theater?
“Ah, so you’re losing.” She bumped his hip, her pretty grin lighting the room. “Surrender now, and I won’t have to mop the floor with you.”
“Dream on,” he said. “You’re going down.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Her sassy hip cock said she wouldn’t give up, but he’d seen her pull back her game so Nicholas could keep up too many times this morning for him to believe she’d follow through with her threa
ts.
“I’ll rack. You boys pick your cues.”
He couldn’t understand how anyone—man, woman, or child—couldn’t adore her.
Even when she frustrated the hell out of him, he still wouldn’t have wanted to be with anyone else. That a kid not much older than Nicholas was the reason she didn’t want to go home had been eating at him all night and all morning.
He wanted to fix this.
He wanted to take her home himself. Show her that she still belonged there. That there were plenty of people who still loved her.
Copper Valley wasn’t small.
Sure, their neighborhood was tight, but the city was a booming metropolis. Even if Skye ventured outside of their neighborhood, she’d have tons of friends and acquaintances who still loved her.
“We should go easy on her, Uncle Wyatt,” Nicholas whispered.
Skye put a hand on her hip and gave him a don’t you dare warning glare.
She still didn’t believe he hadn’t been going easy on her in air hockey the other night.
Not that she was wrong.
Because while she was usually a good sport, she also had a stubborn streak. He’d known he couldn’t outright beat her.
But he’d wondered if making her think he wanted her to leave might convince her to stay out of sheer obstinacy.
She was still here, wasn’t she?
He sidled up to the table. “Ladies first.”
“Yeah, ladies first,” Nicholas said.
Her lips pursed, but her eyes softened when she glanced at his nephew.
She would win this game.
But odds were good, she’d be the one going easy on them.
* * *
“Utterly ridiculous,” Wyatt muttered as they left the movie theater a few hours later.
“Oh, come on.” Skye bumped her shoulder to his arm, and it took everything he had to not wrap his arm around her while they walked. “It’s a kids’ movie. Fiction.”
“I don’t care. A general would never be that careless with an orphan girl. Hollywood always gets the military wrong.”
She stopped and tilted her head at him, then burst out laughing.
Nicholas tilted a funny look at her. “Uncle Wyatt knows about the military, Miss Skye.”
“The whole movie was about a girl whose mad scientist uncle steals people’s sneezes, and your issue with it was that a general wouldn’t have been outsmarted by a thirteen-year-old girl?”
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