Living at 40 (Lakeside Cottage Book 1)

by L. B. Dunbar

  Now that he mentions it, I feel the same way, and it’s not just the announcement to move back here.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “He’s not drinking. Did you notice that? He opens a beer, but it just sits next to him.”

  “Are you thinking he has an issue?” Mason shakes his head in response. Out of all of us, Zack would be the more likely candidate for a drinking problem. Not that I think he has one, but he has a tendency to overindulge.

  “Do you think something’s going on with Anna?”

  Mason shakes his head again. “I’m pretty certain the happy couple is still the happiest couple.”

  “But do you think she’s pressuring him to stop drinking, or to move, or something else?” Anna McCaryn is the money in the relationship. The wealth of her family meant she’d never have to work if she didn’t want to, but her generous heart made her want to be a teacher and deal with other people’s children every day. Where she taught wasn’t in the safest of neighborhoods in the Chicago area, but she loved her job, or so I thought, before this announcement to relocate.

  “I don’t know what it is. It’s just a hunch.” Mason casually leans over the car door, lowering his chin for his crossed arms.

  “Hunch? Since when do you have a hunch?” I tease.

  “Since I see the way you’re nearly salivating over Autumn. Man, I get that you’re single again, but you can’t be desperate.”

  “Being with her isn’t desperate,” I defend.

  “I’m not saying it’s a desperate move. I’m saying you can’t be that hungry.” He eyes my body. “You still got it, right?”

  “Are we talking about my dick?” I snap.

  “Well. You certainly had me working a semi last night with that near kiss.” He’s teasing me. While there’s no doubt Mason would share a woman with another man, he would not be interested in the other man.

  “Fuck off.” I laugh, and he chuckles, swiping at his hair.

  “Seriously, what is it with her?”

  “It’s nothing,” I lie, downplaying my rising emotions and my heightening libido at the mere idea of being with her.

  “That’s right. It’s nothing. This is Ben’s sister. Plus, she wants a kid. Are you really thinking you’d be a dad again?”

  “Are you?” I bark. In my opinion, Mason’s a shitty father, but I’m not about to call him out on his responsibilities. He’s a grown man, and it’s not my place to tell him how to act. I want to hope there’s more to his story, but sometimes, I just don’t know that there is.

  “Autumn isn’t looking for a daddy for her kid. She just wants sex to make a baby.”

  Instantly, my teeth grind at Mason so casually discussing Autumn’s intentions and the fear that she and Mason have had a real discussion about the possibility of him fathering her future child.

  “Is that what you meant when you said you two would talk later? You’d be talking about sex to give her a baby?” The question comes out with all the passive-aggressive feelings I have on the subject of Mason hooking up with Autumn.

  He tilts his head, taking a second to ponder me. “Don’t you think we should leave it up to the lady to decide?”

  “Fuck,” I mutter again, turning my head from him. He knows she’d pick him over me any day, and I don’t want to have an age-old argument about him leaving some women for us lesser men. Autumn isn’t some woman. She should be someone’s person.

  “You really want her, don’t you?” I don’t see why he’s surprised. Autumn is a catch, but I’m not looking to release her. I want her in a way I can’t explain. Mason continues to eye me for a long time before he mockingly adds, “I’ll be the first to congratulate you when you get engaged.”

  “Who’s talking about marriage?” I scoff. “I’m not getting married again.” Pfft. Is he kidding me? Only, I see in his eyes, he’s not joking, and the retort tasted bitter on my tongue. Could I really have a baby with Autumn and walk away? Could I not marry her if I got her pregnant? Quickly, I remind myself I’d be doing what Autumn wants. She wants a baby, not a husband, and that’s my out.

  Mason tips his head in disbelief. “That’s why I’d be a better choice. We both know I can walk away from shit. I’ve been doing it since we were kids.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” My eyebrows rise, and Mason lowers his eyes. His head shakes slowly again, dismissing his admission.

  “Forget it, man. It’s never mattered.”

  “Mace, what are you talking about?” As I step toward the car door, he turns to retrieve the to-go cup from his roof and slips inside his fancy vehicle. I grip the door to stop him from closing it. “Tell me what you mean.”

  “I said it doesn’t matter. As for Autumn, ladies’ choice I say.”

  “Dammit,” I mutter as he tugs the driver’s door free from my grasp. Mason laughs, shutting me out with the click of the closed door. Staring after him as he reverses out of the lot, I fight old insecurities and talk myself into what I need to do.

  I need to prove to Autumn I’m the only choice for her.

  11

  [Autumn]

  The tension between Mason and Logan is titillating while frustrating, and I don’t have time to think about either of them touching my tits. Between the two, Logan is the one I’m attracted to most although Mason isn’t unattractive. He’s just more the annoying brother you hate but love at the same time. It’s all confusing, so at the end of the day, I gather around the two people who don’t stir me up.

  “Girls’ night out!” I cry out as Mila and Lorna exit my sensible Hyundai crossover parked before the nail salon. We’ll be getting manis and pedis in bright summer colors. It’s fun to listen to the girls giggle and chatter although sometimes a conversation with me can be stilted. Instead, they whisper to each other about girly things, and it makes me smile. I don’t recall being like this with girlfriends when I was a kid, but I must have been. Eventually, I was more the girl who had boyfriends. The one who dated for longevity but never ended up with the engagement ring. I was loyal to a fault which might strangely explain my still lingering crush on Logan despite what happened back when he was in college.

  Dinner with the girls is ice cream although I’m certain it’s not enough of a real meal, and they’ll be looking for snacks later in the evening. This night is about breaking all the rules, though, with blueberry-flavored ice cream and a stroll down to the public beach in town. Deciding we don’t want to ruin our freshly painted toes, we stick to the boardwalk before deciding to head back to the house. I promise the girls cartwheels on the beach before sunset after our toenails have dried.

  As we return to the cottage, I glance at Mila in my rearview mirror. “Should we drive by the house?”

  My niece smiles back at me. She knows which one I’m talking about. There’s a little cottage home, not a sprawling one like the McCaryn family, that has my name on it someday. It’s been on the market a while, but I can’t afford it yet. It needs some TLC, but it’s perfectly situated. You can see over the house across the street and out to the lake from the second-story window. It’s not exactly lakefront, so the cost is much less than the neighbors across the street, but it’s still the perfect house for me and a baby one day.

  “There she is,” I tease as I drive by the place, pausing to point out a swing dangling from a tree in the front yard.

  “There’s my swing,” Mila says, as both girls glance out the window.

  “Are you moving here?” Lorna asks.

  “One day,” I whisper, just like I’ve done about all my other dreams. One day . . . I will fall in love. One day . . . I will marry. One day . . . I will have a baby. I smile with hope in my heart that at least some of these one days will be sooner rather than later. After a final look, I return my foot to the accelerator and drive on.

  As we enter Anna and Ben’s, the guys are getting ready to head out. To give Anna a break, they’re going into town for burgers and beer. Logan sits alone at the kitchen island, staring at his phon
e, but he shifts at our approach.

  “Dad, look at my nails.” Lorna holds up the back of her hands for her father to see the bright blue coloring with a daisy painted on each ring finger. The nail tech really is an artist.

  “Blue? My favorite color.” He leans forward to tug her to him, but she flips her hands to stop him.

  “Dad, my nails.”

  Shaking his head, he dismisses her rejection. “Did you ladies eat?”

  “We had ice cream for dinner but don’t tell Mom,” Lorna says, dropping her voice. My brows pinch as I meet Logan’s eyes.

  “Does she have a food allergy?” I didn’t think to ask if she was allergic to dairy or any food for that matter, nor did I consider she might have a health restriction that doesn’t allow a cheat with ice cream.

  “No,” Lorna answers for herself. “I just promised Mom I’d eat a salad a day and not skip the vegetables at meals.”

  A deeper crease forms between my brows as I glance down at the beautiful eleven-year-old girl before me. Everything about her matches her father, which means she has broader shoulders and solid legs. It’s an athletic build, and she doesn’t need salads.

  Mila says something to Lorna, and they excuse themselves from the kitchen as Lorna calls over her shoulder, “See you, Dad.”

  “Bye, honey.” He waves although she isn’t looking back at him, and he watches her disappear in the front entryway. “I don’t know how I’m going to handle it when she turns into a teenager.”

  “I’m sorry about the ice cream. I just thought it would be fun to say we had it for dinner, but I’ll see that they eat something healthier later.”

  Logan waves a hand at me, and I take a moment to note his appearance. He’s wearing a dark tee and khaki shorts that droop on his hips. He looks sexy for the single dad at forty, and suddenly, I’m nervous that young things will hit on him when the guys go to the bar.

  “Don’t worry about the ice cream. I hate when Chloe enforces Lorna’s eating habits.” He air quotes the word enforces, further mocking the term as he speaks.

  “Right? Who wants salad at eleven?”

  Logan swipes a hand through his hair. “Chloe just worries Lorna will grow . . . large like I was and develop diabetes.”

  “She’s not fat,” I blurt.

  “It’s a sensitive issue. Even Lorna gets upset that she’s bigger than some of the other girls in her grade, but she’s also a year older than them with a late birthday, and she just has solid genes.” While Lorna might still have baby fat, puffing her knuckles and thickening her belly, she isn’t large by any means. She’s eleven. She’s healthy and active from what I’ve seen, and any concerns aren’t warranted. But I remember how I was when I was her age. I was fuller than others and self-conscious about it.

  “Has she gotten her period?” I ask although that’s a bit intrusive.

  “Not yet.” Logan looks at the ceiling. “God help me when that happens.”

  “You’ll be fine,” I tease, stepping toward him. With his foot planted on the footrest and his knee pointed to the side, I step into his space. “You’re a great dad.” My hand lands on his chest, smoothing down his tee. As if I can’t control my own body parts, my palm lingers on the warmth seeping through the cotton and the firmness underneath that I witnessed on our first day at the beach. My fingers splay over his pec and stretch toward his nipple. What am I doing? However, I can’t seem to pull my hand away until Logan catches my wrist. Slowly, he lifts my hand for his face and presses a kiss to my palm.

  “My nipples are sensitive,” he says in all seriousness while his eyebrows dance. Heat forms between my thighs. Logan lowers his fingers, reaching for the edge of my denim miniskirt, curling under the hem and playing with the frayed material at the edge. He’s also brushing his knuckles on the skin of my upper thigh, sending small currents of need straight to my core. It’s embarrassing to admit, but if his fingers drifted north under my skirt, he’d find me wet.

  “Again, I’m sorry about the ice cream.” Needing something to do with my own hands, so I don’t grab his wrist and force his fingers higher up my thigh, I reach around him, leaning my breast against his chest as I stretch for an apple in the permanently stocked bowl of fruit on the counter. As I lean back, my eyes lower for his crotch, wondering if our nearness is having any effect on him like it’s having on me. The knuckles just under my skirt intensify their stroking, and I take a bite of the crisp apple, eyes still focused on his zipper region. Here’s the thing, Logan is tall—like six-four—and if he’s proportional, he has to have a long thing behind those shorts. I’ve experienced where someone isn’t proportional, and let’s just say the relationship was short-lived, every pun intended.

  We remain quiet, although the sound of the crunching apple seems to echo around the kitchen. Logan watches me chew while I’m nearly salivating around the fruit on my tongue. I’m not a big one for giving head, but I really want a taste of him. I want to know if he’s salty-sweet and a little juicy as he hardens. My thighs clench, and Logan stills his fingers. We both breathe unevenly, staring at one another until he stands quickly. His hand rushes up my back and under my hair, curling around my neck, and my body is flattened against his. He leans forward, and I anticipate our mouths meeting.

  “Logan, are you . . .” The sound of Ben’s voice stills time, and then we break apart. Logan knocks the stool back, causing it to screech loudly against the wood floor before colliding with the one behind it. I step away from him and drop the apple I was holding, feeling as if all the blood has drained from my veins and the use of my muscles isn’t something I can control. What was I thinking? I almost climbed on his lap right here in the kitchen and begged him to take me.

  Briskly stroking his fingers through his hair, Logan’s eyes shift from me to over my shoulder, where my brother stands somewhere behind me.

  “Yeah, I’m ready.” His hand drops, and he adjusts himself, which would normally be inappropriate, but it’s an admission. He was getting as turned on as I was. Stepping up to me, he leans forward and offers a chaste kiss to my cheek.

  “See you later, beautiful. Behave yourself,” he murmurs before pulling away, and my eyes follow his retreat like a left-behind puppy.

  “You too,” I whisper, fear filling my belly that he’ll meet someone younger, hotter, and easy to please for one night, and I’ll be left with all these roiling hormones. Not to mention my desperate need to use said hormones and work on making a baby.

  The thought snaps me out of my lusty haze, and I turn my back on the guys as Logan follows Ben to the front door. Logan is not the man to sleep with me. I need a man who can let me go after giving me what I want, and I’m afraid I wouldn’t want Logan to leave if we’d done the deed.

  + + +

  After another evening down on the beach, where I prove I can still do a cartwheel at almost forty—although I give myself a little vertigo from doing one—the girls need showers, and then we watch a movie. I’ve given Anna the night off, telling her to go do something for herself while I cater to two little beings full of giggles.

  “I feel guilty not spending time with Mila,” Anna admitted. Calvin and Bryce have graciously agreed to take on Zack’s hellions and have them quarantined in the apartment above the garage for a night of video games.

  “Let me do this for you. I love playing the greatest aunt in the world because I can always return her to you,” I teased. The truth is I don’t want to have to return children to their parents, as wrong as that sounds. I want a child of my own, to keep close to me.

  As we watch some girly movie starring an actress I don’t know, I reflect on Logan’s interaction with Lorna. I realize one day a baby will grow into a teen and eventually leave me behind as my mother often complained Ben did to her. But I also accept that’s the way of things. If I do my job as a parent, I should be able to set the human being I’ve groomed and loved free into the world as a responsible citizen and decent person.

  Considering the ice cream dinner, I
question my ability to parent for a full three seconds. I’d never want to put a child in harm’s way. The fact I didn’t ask about allergies concerns me. There are a million factors that could go wrong in parenting. Not to mention, I’m aging, although I’m not ancient. Still, over thirty-five and pregnant is considered a risk, and I don’t like to think about how something might happen to my future child because I’ve waited so long to have him or her. The thought almost paralyzes me by the time the movie ends, and I’m saying good night to Mila and Lorna. I should seek out Anna, but she has enough on her plate, and this two-week holiday has already turned into a little bit of Autumn wants a baby more than Ben’s big hurrah.

  Slipping into my room, I change into the loose boxers I wear to bed and a thin cotton camisole. The breeze coming off the beach is pleasant, and I keep the windows open, listening to the rush of waves echoing up the cliff as I climb onto my bed. I try to read, but my thoughts keep wandering, so I skip back to a favorite in my ebook collection and find a section that’s hot torture. My sex pulses. My thighs clench, and I slip my fingers down my belly and into my shorts. I’m almost to the promised land when my door flings open and then quietly closes with a click. My hand moves so quickly out of my shorts it knocks into the ereader in my other hand, forcing me to drop it and smack my chin with the device. Glancing down the length of my body, I can’t move. My eyes find Logan standing with his back to my door. His head tips toward the ceiling. His chest rises and falls.

  “Was I interrupting something?” His teasing tone tells me he caught me, but his refusal to look at me hints he’ll let me deny it.

  “What are you doing in here?” I whisper although we’re the only two inside the room. Perching up on my elbows, I stare at him over my feet which seem to frame him in as he’s plastered to my door.

  “What the hell are you wearing?” He swallows hard, and I watch his Adam’s apple roll as I did the first day on the beach when he guzzled a beer. I want to lick him there. I want to feel the edge of his scruff against my tongue and then rub my cheek along his, allowing the soft scratch to tickle my skin.