Oh, man. She really liked his smiles and the way he treated her son. In fact, she’d even begun to find his blushing kind of sweet. She, Kayla Malone, ordinary nobody from a small town in Iowa, had the power to make this gorgeous man blush. Gah! Stop it. He was already taken, and she didn’t want a man in her life. She needed time to be on her own, time to grow up, to get her life together and start her career. Then and only then would she be ready to enter into the world of dating.
“I’ll be down in a few minutes.” Taking Brady’s hand, she climbed the rest of the steps to her apartment.
“I’m hungry,” Brady announced once they were inside.
“Me too.” Kayla let him go, and Brady made a beeline for his toy box. “Let me change my clothes, and then I’ll figure something out for dinner.”
Kayla changed out of her scrubs and into comfortable shorts and a T-shirt before going to the kitchen to see what might be scrounged from the fridge. Three beers remained from the night of the fire. Not much else filled the shelves. She’d have to go grocery shopping soon. Three beers. Pizza. She had offered Wyatt a rain check. “Brady,” she called.
“Yeah?”
“Let’s bring that cord back to Wyatt, and we can ask if he wants to have pizza with us tonight. If not, you and I will call for delivery anyway. Can you last that long?”
He joined her in the kitchen. “Can I have a snack?”
“Sure.” She checked a cabinet. “You’re in luck. I have one chewy granola bar left to tide you over.” Yep, she really did need to get to the grocery store. She took the six-pack holding the three beers, and then she draped the coiled cord over her shoulder. Grabbing her wallet out of her purse, she stuffed it into her back pocket. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go.”
On the way downstairs, her stomach fluttered. How awkward would it be if he had plans with his whomever, or if he turned her down even if he didn’t have plans? She shook that notion off. This was a friendly gesture to repay his kindness. Rejection had no place in the equation. Either he accepted or he didn’t.
Brady beside her, she knocked on Wyatt’s door. A few seconds passed, and she heard his approaching footsteps. He opened the door. A pleased expression suffused his features, along with a fresh rush of color. “Hey,” she said, holding the three beers aloft. “Are you free for that beer and pizza I owe you?”
One side of his mouth turned up. “Sure. Come in.” He held the door wide and took the cord from her shoulder as she passed.
Curious, she entered her shy neighbor’s apartment and surveyed his living room. Wyatt Haney was a neat freak, and he liked tasteful, contemporary furniture. A sectional couch and a large square coffee table faced an entertainment center bracketed by matching bookshelves. A really nice area rug covered a large portion of the oak floor, and the colors in the rug accented the soft brown of the sectional. Two matching antique floor lamps stood at opposites sides of the seating arrangement. They shouldn’t go with the modern furniture, but they did. Somehow the two lamps, with their heavy glass shades of cream swirled with browns and russets, pulled the room together.
Colorful framed pictures hanging on the wall caught her eye. She set the beer on the coffee table and moved closer to get a better look. Comic book superheroes in vivid ink filled each frame. None of the characters were familiar to her.
“Brady,” she said, glancing at her son. “Come look at these.” He ran to her side, and she hoisted him to her hip so he could get a closer look. She noticed a signature in the lower right corner of each of the illustrated pieces. “Wyatt R. Haney,” she exclaimed. “Wow. These are yours?” He had a bold, angular style with heavy black lines used to add depth and shadowing. “Your work reminds me of the Adventure Comics produced in the late 1930s, early 1940s.”
Wyatt came to stand behind her. “You know comic books?”
“Some. My dad and granddad are both collectors. It’s kind of a bonding thing for them. My brother and I were always in trouble because we got into their comic books all the time. He and I loved reading them, which caused my dad and granddad all kinds of grief. “ She grinned at him over her shoulder. “These illustrations are amazing.” Inordinately pleased by the blush her praise elicited, she couldn’t tear her eyes from him.
“Who’s that one?” Brady asked, pointing to the largest of the illustrations.
Kayla’s attention returned to the piece her son asked about. In the upper left corner of the drawing, a man in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, all but his strong jaw hidden in the shadows of his hoodie, seemed to walk right off the paper. The effect was practically 3-D. A man in a dark blue superhero-type costume took center stage. The superhero had a bolt of lightning emblazoned down the front of his chest. He held his arms out, palms up, and bolts of lightning streaked across the paper. She studied the figures. What did this particular illustration say about the artist?
“That’s Elec Tric, the main character in the comic book series I’m writing.” Wyatt pointed to an illustration in a different frame. This one held a buxom female figure with long purple hair and black eyes. Dressed in dark purple trimmed in black, this character projected a dark vibe. She also had black-tipped purple horns growing out of her temples and curving upward. “This is Tric’s archenemy, Delilah Diabolical. DD for short.”
“You write comic books?” Appreciation for her shy neighbor grew by leaps and bounds. “Are you published? Can I see them?”
“Um . . .” His expression turned to consternation, and his face flushed with a fresh shade of red almost as vivid as the red ink in his drawings. “How about you order pizza, and after we eat, I’ll gather a few finished panels for you to see. But first”—Wyatt tousled Brady’s thick hair—“wait until I show this guy what I have here for him to play with.”
Her curiosity once again piqued, Kayla set Brady on the floor and followed Wyatt with her gaze. He disappeared into his walk-in closet, reemerging a few seconds later with a wooden treasure chest with thick rope handles on either side—a really cool, realistic-looking pirate chest. Where could she get something like that for Brady?
“Wow.” Brady dashed across the room to his side.
Setting the chest on the floor by the couch, Wyatt turned to Brady. “Do you like to play with superhero action figures? I noticed you have Superman and Spider-Man at your house.”
Brady nodded, his eyes wide. Wyatt glanced at her. “The pizza takeout menus are in the drawer to the left of the fridge. Choose anything you know Brady will like. I’m not picky.” He turned back to her son and opened the lid, and that’s all it took. The two of them were lost to her. Boys and their toys.
“Oh. OK.” Don’t include me. She went to the drawer in his kitchen and sorted through the takeout menus. Dang, she wanted to see what was inside the really cool pirate chest too. Kayla chose the pizza place she was most familiar with, the place where they knew her by name, because she ordered pizza delivery so frequently. They ought to give her a frequent-buyer discount. Running her finger down the menu options, she opted for the large, thin-crust sausage pizza and made the call.
By the time she returned to the living room, Wyatt and Brady had taken out several action figures, and they were playing together on the floor rug.
“I got you, bad guy!” Brady said, his young voice forceful and determined. He pushed his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle into Wyatt’s DC Comics Green Lantern figure.
“Augh!” Wyatt’s figure fell to the ground backward. “Can’t . . . beat . . . you, Donatello!”
“Well,” she said, her insides turning to mush, “since you two children are playing so nicely, I’m going to have a beer.” There was so much more to Wyatt than met the eye, so much he hid under those hoodies. He was creative, funny, sweet . . . If she got any closer, she’d be in trouble. Serious, distracting heart-at-risk kind of trouble, and she wasn’t ready to set herself up for any chance of being hurt again. She hadn’t gotten over her disastrous marriage yet. “Want a beer, Wyatt?” she asked, taking a bottle from the six-pack.
“Sure,” he said, grinning up at her, his brown eyes warm and . . . sexy.
Gah. Kayla’s insides quivered. She twisted off the top of the bottle and handed it to him. Their fingers touched, sending a current of electricity zapping through her all the way to her toes. Elec Tric indeed. She jerked her hand back and reached for a beer for herself.
“Mommy, do you want to play with us?”
“No, you two go ahead without me.” She sat on the sectional and picked up a magazine from a basket on the floor, a National Geographic. Interesting. What did his choice of reading material say about him? That he had a natural curiosity and intelligence? Yep. Wyatt Haney was turning out to be way more complex than she’d suspected. She paged through the magazine and listened to Brady and Wyatt as they did battle and forged alliances with the plastic toys.
She snuck peeks when she could and studied the scars his hoodie failed to conceal. Once again she wondered how he’d gotten them. His profile, strong and exceptionally masculine with his slightly darker five-o’clock stubble, held her attention way more than the magazine in her lap ever could. As if he felt her eyes on him, Wyatt turned and caught her staring. Her turn to blush.
Kayla dropped the magazine on the couch, got up and wandered over to the bookshelves. Family photos grouped together on various levels begged for a closer look. One of the pictures was from a long-ago Christmas, a family portrait by a decorated tree, with Wyatt, an older brother and sister, and his parents, all bearing a strong family resemblance. Wyatt might have been about Brady’s age in this photo. No scars back then. No hoodie either.
She moved on to another. This one held four figures: Wyatt, and the brother and sister all grown up, plus a petite, pretty brunette. The four had their arms around each other’s waists, and all of them smiled broadly for the camera. The brunette stood between Wyatt and his brother. Her heart dropped. This had to be Wyatt’s fiancée. She was about to ask him when the door buzzer went off.
“That’ll be our pizza,” she said, as Wyatt started to get up. “Stay where you are. I’ll get it—my treat, remember?” She set her beer on a coaster on the coffee table and hurried out of Wyatt’s apartment, a mix of disappointment and relief churning her insides. Probably a good thing he had a fiancée, because Wyatt Haney was far too distracting for her peace of mind. She didn’t need or want to complicate her life right now, or for some time to come. After tonight she’d steer clear of the shy, sexy, creative, playful, intelligent, sexy—had she already mentioned sexy?—good-looking man with his bedroom brown eyes. BAM.
Chapter Three
Once Kayla left his apartment to get the pizza, Wyatt could finally draw a breath. The entire time he’d played with Brady, his senses had really been attuned to her. He’d noticed her studying him more than once. It had to have been the scars that drew her attention. What else? People were always curious about stuff like that.
“What’s this?” Brady asked, pulling out Wyatt’s red cape from the toy chest.
Wyatt took the superhero cape and fastened it around the little boy’s neck. “This is my Superman cape. See the symbol on the back? My mom made it for me, and my dad made the toy chest.” His dad had given him the pirate trunk on his tenth birthday, the last birthday he’d celebrated with his parents before the single-engine airplane accident that took them from him.
“Wow.” Brady’s eyes saucered as he fingered the red cloth. Then he lifted his skinny arms over his head and ran around the living room while making whooshing noises.
Wyatt chuckled, remembering all of the times he’d flown through the air in the very same way. He’d also jumped off couches, coffee tables and beds in his efforts to become airborne, much to his mother’s aggravation. A soft knock on his door, and his heart rate surged. “That’ll be your mom with pizza. Are you hungry, Superkid?”
“Yeah.” Brady came to a stop by Wyatt’s door. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me,” Kayla’s muffled voice came through the door.
Brady grinned at Wyatt, before calling back. “Me who?”
Laughing, Wyatt opened the door. The delicious scent of pizza wafted over him. “Do I smell Italian sausage?”
“You do. Awesome cape, kiddo.” She nodded, her eyes on her son. “Do we want this in the dining area or on the coffee table?” she asked, lifting the large pizza.
Was she avoiding eye contact with him? “Let’s eat at the kitchen table.”
“OK.” Her posture slightly stiffer than before, Kayla carried their meal to the kitchen.
Had something changed between the door buzzing and Kayla’s reappearance in his apartment? Her vibe was different, and her expression had gone from open to reserved. His stomach knotted. What had he done to cause her to go from friendly to not so much? She wasn’t angry, just . . . she’d withdrawn somehow.
Having a shy brain had given him his own kind of superpower—a super sensitivity when it came to reading body language and other people’s moods, and Kayla’s had definitely altered where he was concerned. Things had been going so well, and now? His mouth dried up and his tongue flat out refused to form words. He followed her and Brady, confused and hugely bummed. He’d been making progress with her. Eh. With her son, anyway. He’d never had a problem with children.
“Do you happen to have any juice or milk?” Kayla asked, setting the pizza at the center of the table. “If not, I can run upstairs to my place to get something for Brady to drink.” She cast him a brief look.
Wyatt nodded and went for the carton of milk in his fridge, while she retrieved their beer bottles from the living room. Had the demons from his comic book world accosted her on the stairs, casting aspersions on his character or something? He poured Brady a glass of milk and set it on the table, then he took three plates down from a cabinet and placed them on the table next to the napkin holder.
“Do you mind if I help Brady wash his hands in your bathroom?” she asked, her tone awkwardly polite.
His face flamed. “Course not,” he mumbled. Wyatt busied himself with washing his own hands at the kitchen sink, all the while trying to puzzle out what could have possibly gone wrong between the front door to their building and his apartment.
Kayla returned, and Brady flew circles around her, his arms in the air and the cape billowing. “So,” she said, “when’s the wedding?”
“Huh?” Wyatt frowned, once again knocked off balance.
“You had to leave the afternoon of the fire because of your wedding-planning thing. When’s the happy day?”
“Oh. This coming New Year’s Eve.”
She smiled. “That’ll make it easy to remember anniversaries.”
Why did she want to know about his brother’s wedding? “I guess, but—”
“Wyatt, can I keep this cape?” Brady flew into him, bumping against his legs.
“Whoa, Superkid.” Wyatt hoisted him into the air and plopped him on the seat where he’d just placed a fat electrical supplies catalog as a booster. At least he could talk to children. “Hmm, afraid not, buddy. You can always play with the cape when you visit, but like I said earlier, my mom made it for me. I lost her when I was ten, and this cape is kind of special to me.”
“Oh.” Brady’s face fell. “Your mommy died?”
“Yes, and my dad too. They were in an accident.”
Brady’s brow scrunched. “My daddy died in a accident too.” He glanced at Kayla. “Right, Mommy?”
She placed a couple of pizza squares on Brady’s plate and grabbed a few napkins for him. “That’s right, sweetie.” Another brief glance at him. “He was in the army, stationed at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.” She sat down and took a plate for herself. “He died in a freak accident.”
“How old are you?” The words left his mouth before he had a chance to think about how rude they sounded. The fact that they flew out of his mouth at all was a first for him. Kayla Malone seemed way too young to be a widow, or a mother for that matter.
Her chin raised a notch and she met his g
aze dead on, a glint of defiance in her eyes. “I’m twenty-four. I had Brady when I was nineteen. OK?”
Heat flooded his face. Nodding, he helped himself to pizza.
“Did you get those scars from a accident too?” Brady asked around a mouthful.
“Not the same accident as my parents’, but yeah, I did. Listen up, Superkid, and don’t be stupid like I was. When I was a few years older than you are now, I decided to find out what would happen if I squirted lighter fluid onto hot coals in the barbeque grill, and—”
“What’s lighter fluid?” Brady asked, curiosity lighting his features.
“It’s a liquid people squirt onto charcoal to help it catch fire.” His answer seemed to satisfy the little guy, so Wyatt continued. “Anyway, the stream of lighter fluid caught fire, the can exploded, and I got burned.”
“Oh, Wyatt.” Kayla’s expression softened, and her pretty blue eyes went from defensive to sympathetic. “That must have been awful.”
“It was. I have more scars along my left side where my clothes caught fire. It all happened so fast.” He preferred her open friendliness to pity, but at least the distance between them had closed—for a few seconds anyway.
After the three of them had made a good dent in the large pizza, Wyatt reached into a kitchen cabinet for the package of Oreos he always kept on hand. “Is it all right if Brady has a couple of c-o-o-k-i-e-s,” he spelled out.
“S-u-r-e.” She laughed. “You must spend a lot of time with children.”
“I have loads of cousins who have children, and I’ve done my fair share of babysitting over the years, plus family gatherings for holidays and stuff. I love kids. They’re so”—nonthreatening—“funny and honest.”
“Can I see your comic books now?” Brady asked. “Will you read one to me?”
“Sure. I’ll go get the first in the Elec Tric series while you eat your cookies.” Wyatt handed Kayla the package of Oreos, taking one to stuff into his mouth on his way down the hall. How would she react if she saw the Mysterious Ms. M?
Whatever You Need (The Haneys Book 2) Page 4
