by Robin Kaye
“Stop it, Cam. As much as I’d like to blame the whole thing on you, I can’t. There’s plenty of blame to go around and I accept my part in it. If it makes you feel any better, I’m not proud to say I had sex with my boss either. What do you say we both stop beating ourselves up over it and put it behind us, for Janie’s sake. I have another three weeks on my contract, and if we both agree to forget it ever happened, we can get through it. Unless you’d rather I leave—”
“No.” Just the thought of Erin leaving had him reaching for her. Pinning her in place. Holding her felt so right, so natural; she fit against him like her body was specially designed for his, and all he wanted to do was kiss her. Okay, that wasn’t all. He wanted to carry her to bed, strip off that dress, and make her scream his name until she lost her voice. He wanted to erase the last twenty-four hours. He wanted to be inside her. He wanted to hold her all night long. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“Then I suggest you take your hands off me.”
***
The next morning, Erin woke to Janie bouncing on her bed. “Erin, you’re home.” Janie launched herself into Erin’s arms and hugged her tight. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too. Did you have fun with your dad yesterday?”
“Yeah, we went to the park and we played, then we went to Grandpa’s house and had dinner with Grandpa and my uncles—Miss Lolly was there.” She wrinkled her nose. “She treats me like a baby, but Daddy says she means well. Then when we came home we made sticky popcorn and watched Frozen.”
“Sticky popcorn?”
“Yeah, it’s popcorn with sticky stuff on top and you have to mix it around and let it cool. Daddy makes it. The sticky part is really hot so I can’t help.”
“Caramel corn?”
Janie shrugged, “It’s sticky popcorn and it’s yummy. I saved you some.”
“That was very nice of you, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Daddy made me promise not to wake you until eight o’clock, so I waited just like he told me.”
“Your dad’s not here?”
“No, he went to work early.”
Erin didn’t know if she was grateful or disappointed. “Well, in that case, I guess I should get up and make breakfast—”
“Not for me. Daddy poured me cereal and let me eat in front of the TV while I watched Frozen again. It’s my favorite movie.”
“That’s nice of him.”
“Oh, I forgot—be right back.” Janie jumped from the bed and raced down the stairs, her little feet slapping against the floor. She was back carrying a thermal to-go cup before Erin could finish finger combing her hair. “Daddy asked me to give this to you and tell you he said ‘Good morning.’”
“Thanks.” Erin opened the top, which, thank God, was shut tightly. The welcome scent of coffee hit her. She took a tentative sip and found it hot and fixed exactly the way she liked it. Cam certainly didn’t play fair. Being thoughtful enough to send a girl coffee in bed via the world’s cutest seven-year-old messenger was devious in the extreme.
Janie sat cross-legged on the bed beside her, staring. “So you’re not mad at Daddy anymore?”
Erin did her best not to choke on the coffee. “He told you I was mad at him?”
“Yeah, he didn’t mean to say something stupid and hurt your feelings. Did he apologize?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Did you forgive him?”
Did she? “It’s fine.”
Janie didn’t look convinced. She didn’t say anything, but then Janie could say more without words than anyone Erin had ever known, except maybe for Cam. His every look spoke volumes.
The night before Erin had barely kept her guard up while Cam did his best to knock it down. And when he held her, it was all she could do not to melt into him. The only thing that kept her from doing just that was fear.
Fear that she was the only one moved by their shared experience. Cam’s exclamation and the look of terror on his face was enough to make her consider entering a nunnery.
Fear of the pain—she’d known Cam a week, she’d slept with him once, and the free fall she’d experienced was one she never wanted to repeat. In the span of a few seconds she went from the stratospheric pinnacle of elation and feeling connected to someone like she’d never imagined possible, to the depths of despair that left her stomach in her throat, her mind reeling, and her heart shattered. The landing was a bitch.
Fear that she was one of a long line of women who had made that same free fall had overtaken her. At first she thought being together had been as meaningful and special for him as it had been for her, but then, what did she know? She didn’t have much experience when it came to sex, but what little she did have couldn’t be compared to her experience with Cam. She’d slept with two men. Neither had looked into her eyes and seen her, connected with her, touched her mind, her body, and her soul. No man before Cam had ever satisfied her, but then no man had ever hurt her before either.
Telling Cam to release her and pulling away from him both physically and emotionally had taken all her strength.
“Erin.” Janie’s impatient tone broke through the brain fog the coffee had yet to burn off.
The coffee might do the trick if she were to actually drink it; she’d been staring at her mug, which wasn’t much help. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Janie just shook her head as if resigned. “Dad’s been acting the same way you are now. Maybe you need to say you’re sorry too.”
“For what?”
“For whatever you did or said that’s making you sad.”
“Sometimes it’s the situation, and nothing you say or do can change that.”
“There’s always a way to change things.” Janie sounded so much older than her years; it was hard to remember she wasn’t even eight yet.
Could she change the situation? Yes, she could leave, but that wouldn’t change the fact that she was miserable. If she left, she’d also be leaving Janie, whom she’d had grown to care for more over the last week than she’d ever expected to. And leaving Janie would make her even more miserable than she was already. Plus, Erin had never walked out on a job for personal reasons. She was a professional as well as a woman of her word, and she’d told Cam she’d stay. She just needed to get past this uncomfortable made-a-mistake-and-fell-into-bed-together stage. She was sure she could, if only Cam would stop touching her and looking at her like he wanted to pick her up and drag her off to bed again. That so wasn’t going to happen. Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me.
Erin ran a hand over the peach fuzz on Janie’s head. “It’s nothing for you to worry about, kiddo. I’m very happy to be here with you, and that’s all that matters. The rest of it will work out too.”
Janie didn’t look as if she believed it, even if it was the God’s honest truth. And unfortunately, there was nothing Erin could do to speed up the process.
***
Cam had come home late off a bad job. The cause of the fire was arson—no question. The only thing left to discover was whether the poor sucker who’d been in the building had been murdered on purpose or if he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Cam’s mind, it didn’t much matter—dead was dead.
Instead of heading home and finishing up the report the next morning like he normally would, he’d called Erin and told her he’d be late. He’d have much rather eaten dinner with Erin and Janie, but the Boston PD had a case to work, and his report would become part of a homicide investigation, and in his mind, that took precedence over going home. He wanted to do everything he could to make sure the guilty party got good and nailed. So he’d sucked it up, finished his work, and turned it all over to the detective in charge.
By the time Cam returned home everyone had been tucked into bed. Not that he’d checked on Erin. No, Erin in bed or out of it was off-limits, much
to his dismay. He tossed his shirt and jacket in the laundry and headed to the shower to wash the stink of fire and death off him.
He pressed his hands against the cold tile, stretching his neck, shoulders, and back, and let the hot water beat away the tension. It had been five days since Erin had come home looking like a 1940s starlet. Five days since he’d held her in his arms. Five days of tiptoeing around each other, which, shit . . . wasn’t exactly the truth. He scrubbed the soot and smoke and sweat from his body and turned the hot water down enough to discourage his dick, but not enough for his balls to duck and cover. He’d been the one tiptoeing around Erin. He wasn’t sure what she was doing around him, other than keeping him awake at night. And as awful as it sounded, he knew she wasn’t doing it on purpose. It was in the tilt of her chin, the way her eyes shone when she talked to Janie. It was in the way she totally immersed herself in whatever she was doing, whether it be reading a bedtime story, cooking dinner, reorganizing his home and his life, or making love with him.
Erin Crosby gave one hundred percent with no thoughts of self-protection—she couldn’t help herself. And that was what made Erin Crosby the sexiest, most incredibly loving woman he’d ever known.
He understood why she’d left nursing. Sure, she’d told him at the interview, but after getting to know her, he realized the true depth of the problem. If Erin became one-tenth as attached to her patients as she was to Janie, then losing one would be devastating. And after his disastrous pillow talk, he understood why she’d kept her distance from him. It wasn’t because she didn’t want him; it was because he’d given her good reason not to trust him with her body or her heart. He’d given her good reason to feel the need to protect herself from him. Shit—just the thought of it was enough to make him want to bang his head against the wall, and not for the first time. He’d spent so much time kicking his own ass he probably sported bruises.
From what little Erin had shared about her life before coming there, it sounded as if she and her mom never had anyone in their corner. They had no one they could trust to care for and protect them. He’d do just about anything to prove himself worthy, to be that man for Erin.
Janie was thriving under Erin’s care, and for that matter so was he—except for the lack of sleep. He couldn’t blame his sex drive on Erin. She didn’t do anything to encourage it. She did just the opposite, in fact, but all it seemed to take was her nearness to get him going. He’d spent the last two years without so much as a thought about sex, but after Erin Crosby knocked at his door, he’d been able to think of little else.
He turned the water to frigid and did his best to think positive even though his balls were shrinking to the size of peanuts. In the last day or two, things with Erin had been looking up. He’d almost teased a laugh out of her before she remembered she was supposed to ignore him. And there were a couple of times when Janie said or did something cute and Erin would catch his eye and smile like one parent might to the other. Like they were connected.
Slowly but surely she was letting her guard down, and he was going to do everything he could to blast it out of existence. He just needed some time and he’d prove himself to her. Between now and the day Mrs. Truman returned, he would be the perfect gentleman if it killed him. Then once Erin was no longer his employee, he’d ask her out and, if he had to, he’d get down on his knees and beg for another chance.
With that thought firmly planted in his mind, he shut off the cold water, stepped out of the shower, and dried off, all the while trying to keep his thoughts off of Erin sleeping just down the hall.
His stomach grumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He tied the towel around his waist and considered checking out the leftovers, but couldn’t scare up the energy. No, he needed to sleep, so he grabbed his toothbrush, squeezed too much toothpaste onto it, and took his frustration out on his teeth.
When he opened the bathroom door, he walked right into a very sleepy Erin. Her hair was all over the place and her oversize boxers were slightly twisted as if she’d been tossing and turning.
“You’re home. I heard the water running and I thought it was Janie.” Her gaze traveled from his feet, pausing at the waist, and then continuing slowly up to his face. “I came to check on her.”
“I’m sorry I woke you.” It was a lie. Waking her was the highlight of his day, but he hoped she was too tired to notice. Still, the sight of her all warm and sleepy and sexy, with those boxers hanging crookedly off her hips, made it a pretty sure bet he would be doing anything but sleeping soundly.
“It’s really late.”
God, she was beautiful. “You should go back to bed.”
She shook her head—her hair flying around her face. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Okay, what did you mean?” Was she trying to kill him or give him reason to become hypothermic? He couldn’t help himself; he tucked the strand of hair that fell in her eyes behind her ear. She didn’t shy away. Progress.
“I’ve been worried. You’ve been gone so long—longer than usual. The investigation—was it bad?”
“It was as bad as they get. Arson and murder. We don’t have enough information to know if it was premeditated.”
“Oh, Cam. I’m sorry.” She ran a hand down his arm, slipping it into his palm and squeezing.
“I needed to get the report to the detective taking over the case so I didn’t hold up the investigation.”
“Are you okay?”
He’d never had anyone worry about him before—well, he supposed his dad worried about the physical job, but not about how any of them felt. Men were supposed to buck up and take it. He hated that he’d worried her, but he loved that she’d cared enough about him to worry. He didn’t release her hand, and it was all he could do not to pull her into his arms and crush her against him. She looked fragile, and as she stared at him, her eyes glassed over like she was fighting tears. God, she was sweet. “I’m fine.”
She stepped closer and looked up at him as if she were trying to decide whether or not to believe him. “Are you sure?”
Hell no, he wasn’t sure. He took a deep breath of Erin-scented air, and all he knew for sure was that he wanted to wrap his arms around her and bury his nose in her hair, her neck, her cleavage. He’d thought he was fine, but maybe he’d been wrong. Standing half naked in the hallway, whispering to her and holding her hand, loosened what he thought were permanent knots in his neck and shoulders. Stress he hadn’t realized he’d carried slipped away, only to be replaced by a very different kind of tension. Damn, he needed to get away from her bedroom eyes, sexy tank top, crooked boxers, and long, long, long legs. The woman was enough to tempt a eunuch. “I’ll survive.”
“Do you want to talk about it? Have you eaten? I can heat up your dinner or fix you an early breakfast.”
“Thanks, but no. We both need to—” Go to bed. Together. And not get a wink of sleep for the next few hours. But since that couldn’t happen again, he blew out a breath. “Get some sleep. Janie will be up with the birds.”
“Cam.” She reached over and cupped his cheek in her hand, while her other hand squeezed his.
God, the way she said his name, all low and throaty and sounding softly intimate, mixed with the touch of her hand to his roughened cheek had his dick searching for a way out of the towel.
“I’m here if you need me.”
He kept telling himself she didn’t mean it the way it sounded. His throat was raw and tight. He wasn’t sure if it was from the smoke he’d inhaled or the look in her sea-glass green eyes so full of compassion and something else he refused to label. The last time she looked at him like that, he’d kissed her.
He didn’t trust his voice, so he nodded, dropped her hand, walked to his room, and forced himself to close the door. Sleep was a fantasy and apparently, so was Erin.
Chapter Seven
“Cam, Janie, come inside and wash up. Dinne
r’s almost ready.”
Erin identified two sets of footsteps running through the mud room. “Take those muddy shoes off and make sure you stop in the bathroom and wash your hands. Both of you.”
She’d spent half her time preparing dinner and the other half watching the two of them wrestling with a tire and trying to turn it into a swing. Janie was having a great time helping Cam, and he seemed to enjoy her antics, even though she did everything but help. The man had the patience of a saint. He’d bundled Janie up so she looked like a pink version of the Michelin Man along with a scarf and gloves, or as Janie called them, glubs. Cam had gone out in a T-shirt, albeit a long-sleeved one. He only sported a hoodie because Erin had brought it out, insisted he wear it, and threatened to stand out in the cold, refusing to return to making dinner, until he’d donned it. Stubborn man.
She stepped out of the kitchen and watched them together at the sink of the half bath. Janie stood in front of Cam, her armpits hitting the edge of the sink. Cam’s hands surrounded her smaller ones and scrubbed. Janie’s giggling floated down the hall.
Cam caught her spying and winked. “Good enough for you, Nurse Crosby?”
“Make sure you wash your faces too—they’re both covered with mud.” She turned to leave and heard Janie’s muffled laughter and wished she’d stayed to watch Cam try to wash her face. The girl hated it.
A minute later Cam stomped into the kitchen carrying a still squirming Janie. “I did the best I could. The towel’s toast though.”
Erin pulled it off Cam’s shoulder and swiped a spot close to his ear that he’d missed. “Who would have thought that installing a tire swing would be such a dirty job?”
Janie jumped in her stocking feet. “It was fun. I got to try it out and everything.”
“I saw.” There was dried mud on Janie’s jeans—Cam’s too, now that she was looking. “It’s a good thing it’s bath night.” Erin pulled the platter of fried chicken out of the oven and set it on the table with the rest of the dishes.
Cam and Janie’s eyes widened.
