Now, he felt like things were quickly spiraling out of control. She wanted to go to sleepovers, wear makeup, get a bra. And the scariest want of all—to find out about her mother.
Eddie knew he needed to stop trying to avoid and prolong the inevitable. Facing all of this head-on was truly the only thing to do. But for once, he knew he couldn’t do it alone.
Turning back to Haley, he was momentarily sidetracked when he saw that she had propped her legs up on the chair sitting opposite her. Eddie’s hungry gaze traveled from her delicate ankles that were crossed one over the other, up to her slender, sun-kissed calves, to her sexy, toned thighs. Her dress cut off his sensual visual journey mid-thigh.
Damn. Eddie’s hands itched to run up under her dress. Every fiber of his being was burning with a primal need to touch her. A vision flashed in his mind’s eye of her straddling his lap, her dress bunched up at her waist, his hands roaming beneath it, touching the baby soft skin of her inner thigh, traveling farther to her…
“Eddie?” Haley’s voice snapped him out of his soon-to-be X-rated daydream. “Are you okay?” Her tentative, caring voice pulled at another part of his anatomy—his heart.
Haley didn’t just look after Emily, which would have been more than enough. She always wanted to make sure that he was okay. She regularly went out of her way to take care of him, like when she cleaned up, packed his lunches, and made dinners and put them in the freezer.
Eddie wasn’t used to that. No one had ever taken care of him. He’d always been the caregiver. First with Chelle, then with Lacey, and now with Emily. His mom had certainly not been the nurturing type. In fact, he remembered when he had chicken pox in first grade they had told him to stay in his room so he didn’t infect the house with his germs. His mom would leave his meals on trays outside his door and ask if he needed anything, but she wouldn’t even come into the room and check on him.
“Eddie,” Haley repeated, concern filling her soft voice as her face scrunched in worry.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry,” Eddie assured her as he shook his head a little. He seriously needed to snap out of it and get his head right.
“So…” Haley took another deep breath, and Eddie noticed that she was wiggling her toes. She was nervous.
“You don’t have to be nervous, Hales.” Eddie knew he wasn’t acting like himself tonight, but the last thing he wanted was for Haley to be nervous around him.
“I’m not nervous.” Haley looked at him like she had no idea what he was talking about.
“Okay.” Eddie sat back in his chair. He wasn’t going to push the point, but he knew she was.
Haley stared at him with an assessing look in her eye for a few moments before asking, “How did you know I was nervous?”
Eddie raised one brow in challenge. “I thought you said you weren’t.”
She tilted her head with an expression that clearly communicated, ‘Stop being a smartass.’
He smiled. Eddie loved the fact that whatever Haley was feeling or thinking was written clear as day on her face. Sadly, it made her poker game suffer. He’d seen her get slaughtered at the table during Sloan family game nights on more than one occasion.
And it wasn’t just her facial expressions that gave away her mood or thoughts. Haley had more tells than politicians had hookers. She was a walking, breathing, talking tell.
When she was nervous, she wiggled her toes and/or bit the inside of her lip. If she was thinking, concentrating, or working something out, she twisted her hair. When she was happy about something, her voice went up an octave. And after tonight, he knew that when she was turned on, her breathing became shallow and a light pink blush crept up her chest.
Eddie tilted his beer towards her feet before taking another swig. “You wiggle your toes when you’re nervous.”
Haley’s toes immediately stopped moving as she looked down at her feet, asking in disbelief, “I do?”
Eddie nodded. She did.
“How do you… I mean…who told you that?” Haley turned her head and narrowed her eyes, looking at him like she was a detective trying to get down to the bottom of a great mystery.
“No one,” Eddie answered honestly.
Tilting her head, clearly not convinced, she asked, “Then how did you know that?”
“I noticed it.” Eddie looked straight into her crystal blue eyes as he admitted, “I notice a lot about you.”
Haley’s eyes widened and her breathing once again came in shorter pants. That blush he had been thinking about appeared just above the swell of her breasts and continued up the smooth skin of her neck. Eddie should not have added that last admission. He could blame the alcohol, but sadly, he wasn’t even feeling the slightest bit buzzed.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He did feel a strong buzzing, but it was from arousal, not from the two beers he’d pounded back. Knowing that he needed to get this conversation back on track, Eddie asked, “So why were you nervous?”
“Oh, that.” Haley blinked and swallowed hard. “I just need to know how you want me to field the Lacey questions when they come up.”
“I think how you’ve been handling it up until now is fine. Honesty usually is the best policy.”
“Okay, but what about when she asks why her mom left?” Haley questioned.
“She’s asked you that?” Eddie was surprised that Emily had asked Haley that. She’d only ever asked him that once. And that was over a year ago.
“Several times,” Haley confirmed.
“Damn.” Eddie rubbed his hands over his face. “Well, I told her that, even though her mom loved her very much, she just couldn’t be a mom. But that she would always love her.”
“What did happen?” Haley hesitantly asked. “With Lacey.”
Eddie didn’t talk about this. Ever. But for some reason, tonight, under the stars, sitting in his backyard with Haley, it all just came flowing out of him like her three-word question had broken down the wall to an emotional dam.
“Well, I don’t know how well you knew her, but Lacey was wild. In high school, she experimented with drugs. I mean, a lot of us did, but she took it further than any of the rest of us. Her home life was bad. Really bad. And I think she used alcohol and drugs to escape it.
“Then, when we graduated, she left. Went away to college. You probably know I stayed here and started working for Sloan Construction. School was good for her. She got clean. We kept in touch. I still loved her. She said she still loved me. After college, she came back to town and we hooked up again. I honestly thought we had a real chance. She was different.
“She hadn’t been home more than a few months before I proposed. She accepted and moved in with me, but that was as far as it went. She didn’t show any interest in planning the wedding. Never talked about it. I thought it was a little strange. I had always heard girls lived for that stuff.
“About a year after she was back, things were getting a little rocky between us. I could tell she was restless. Every day, I expected to come home and see a Dear John note sitting on the kitchen table. Then one day, on a random Thursday, I came home and there was a note, but instead of saying she was leaving, it said that she was pregnant.”
“She told you in a note?”
Eddie had never told another soul what he was about to reveal to Haley. Not his sister, not Riley, no one.
“Yeah. It also said that she needed time to think. I didn’t see her or hear from her for three days. I tried all of her friends. They said they didn’t know where she was. I called and left so many messages I filled up her mailbox. She never called me back. I was going crazy. I didn’t know what her head space was like. What she might be thinking.
“Then, Sunday afternoon, she walked into the house. I remember how skinny she looked and that there were dark circles under her eyes. She told me that she’d decided she was going to have an abortion. That she’d already scheduled it for the next week.”
Eddie’s gut turned as he remembered that day. “I didn’t know how much
I had already fallen in love with my unborn baby until the moment she told me she wasn’t keeping it. I begged her not to do it. She told me she wasn’t ready to be a mom and I told her that it was okay. That I was ready enough for the both of us.
“It took a lot of convincing, but she finally agreed to keep the baby.” Taking a deep breath, Eddie looked down at the lines in the wood boards of his deck. “I honestly thought that once Lacey held the baby in her arms, her maternal instinct would kick in and everything would fall into place.”
Looking back up at Haley, he saw tenderness and compassion in her expressive baby blue eyes. “That didn’t happen. She just never bonded with her. I do believe she loved her, but she was right. She wasn’t ready to be a mom. After a few months, she started staying out all night. Partying. I wouldn’t even leave Emily with her when I went to work because I was afraid she would get high.
“Then she just left. I came home from work with Emily and all of Lacey’s things were gone. No note. Nothing. After a year of no contact with her, I filed for full custody of Emily. That’s it. I knew that she hadn’t been ready and I’d pushed her anyway. I just thought I could love her and the baby enough for the both of us.”
Haley sat forward in her chair and Eddie felt her hand on his knee. The innocent contact shot straight to his groin.
“Listen. You wanted Emily and you fought to keep her. How many dads can say that?”
Eddie looked up at Haley’s earnest expression and warmth replaced the hollow feeling that had taken up residence in his chest while he had been rehashing the past.
“That girl is lucky to have you,” Haley said with sincerity pouring out of her. “Any girl would be lucky to have you.”
Damn.
He really wished that she wouldn’t look at him like that—with hero worship in her eyes. She obviously had a very wrong impression of who he was. If she’d been back at that hotel room and seen how he had treated Claire, he knew that would turn the rose-colored glasses she liked to use while looking at him into a magnifying glass. His flaws would be on large display.
After several silent moments, she removed her hand from his knee. He immediately missed the contact. Sitting back, she spoke with a smile in her tone. “There is one more thing.”
“What?” Eddie wasn’t sure how much more he could take tonight. He’d already had to use more self-control than he had even known he’d possessed not to strip her out of her clothes and take her in the kitchen. Then he’d bared his soul for the first time in his life. ‘One more thing’ might be too much.
“Emily asked me to make her a bra for her birthday.” Haley sliced a look at him, and he could see that she thought he might lose his shit over that declaration.
“Yeah, she asked me if she could get one today.”
A smile crept up her beautiful face. “And you said ‘no’.”
“Yes,” Eddie stated firmly. “She’s too young for stuff like that.”
Haley sat quietly, and it made Eddie wonder if he was right. He didn’t really have a lot to go off of other than the fact that he was pretty sure that girls needed bras when they developed and Emily was far from developed. But with Haley not immediately agreeing with him, it made a niggling feeling of doubt take root.
Before he knew it, he asked, “Right?”
Actually it was more like he barked it but…
Haley looked as though she were choosing her words carefully. Sitting up a little straighter, she said, “Yes, I do think that she’s a little young still. I didn’t get my first training bra until I was ten. But—”
“Training bra?” Eddie interrupted. “You have to train them?”
Haley laughed as she took another drink of her beer. “No, but girls get them so that they get used to wearing a bra. Anyways, I think you should start thinking about it. Maybe give her a time frame that she can look forward to. That’s what my mom did. She chose ten, but it should be whenever you feel is appropriate.”
Never. He wanted her to stay his little girl forever.
As if reading his mind, Haley added, “She’s growing up.”
“I know.”
He didn’t like it, but he knew it.
Chapter Six
The sun streaming in through the open window warmed Haley’s cheek as she made her way to Bella. She luxuriated in its decadent warmth until she bounced right off her seat as her car flew over the new speed bump on Eleventh Street.
Shoot. She kept forgetting that it was there. Obviously, the city had installed it for good reason since each time it slipped her mind she was going way too fast when she hit it. And this morning¸ the last thing she was thinking about was the speed bump. Her mind was other places. It was probably best while behind the wheel that she at least attempt to concentrate on driving.
It was just so hard to think straight after last night. Her talk with Eddie was playing on repeat in her head. The whole night had had a surreal quality to it. Well, at least the part after Eddie had come home early and scared the living daylights out of her.
Some of it even seemed like she’d been dreaming it. It was hard to believe that Eddie had actually opened up to her about Lacey and his fears with Em. As far as she knew, he just didn’t do that. Ever.
Then there was his rather obvious, huge, 3D, eye-popping physical reaction he’d had to her in the kitchen. Haley was having a difficult time truly believing that she had been responsible for it. A little voice in her head kept saying that he had just come home early from a date. Maybe he’d gotten blue-balled.
But that was crazy. Completely and utterly ludicrous. Who in their right mind would turn down Eddie? Still, the idea that she’d inspired such a large reaction in him was just as crazy.
But all of that paled in comparison to him pointing out that she wiggled her toes when she was nervous. How could he possibly have known that about her? She considered herself a fairly self-aware person and even she hadn’t known that.
Then there were his cryptic words. “I notice a lot about you.”
Um, what?! Hold the phone. Hold your horses. Hold anything else you can.
Since when? Sure, she’d known that he’d noticed things about her car—oil, tires, etc. But this was about her.
A huge yawn claimed her as she turned down the side street that led to the backside of Bella. She’d probably only gotten a total of one hour of sleep last night. She’d gone home around midnight, after she and Eddie had sat and talked about random, not-so-heavy topics for a couple of hours. When she’d finally left his house, like always, he’d stood on the porch and watched to make sure that she got home safely. Which was ridiculous, she thought. She lived across the street, and it wasn’t like Harper’s Crossing was riddled with crime. But she did find it sweet and endearing nonetheless.
Last night though, when she’d made the short trip to her house, she’d felt his gaze on her like a blanketed caress. It had covered her whole body. She’d been practically breathless by the time she’d made it across the street just after twelve a.m.
Which meant she had made it home in plenty of time to fit in a good night’s sleep. It was just that she hadn’t. The plain and simple truth was she had not been able to switch her brain off.
Pulling into the back employee parking lot, Haley was surprised to see Amber’s car here. Normally, Sundays were her days off. Inventory had been done for the month, and Amber preferred to design at home, so Haley was at a loss for what she might be doing at the boutique.
Guess I’ll find out soon enough, Haley thought as she stepped out of her car into the already stifling heat of the day. It was only eight thirty in the morning, and if Haley had to guess, she would say it was already in the high eighties, low nineties.
It was going to be another scorcher for sure.
The heat radiated off the black asphalt, hitting Haley right in the face as she made the brief walk to the back employee entrance of the shop. In the few short steps it took to get to the shop, beads of sweat had already started forming on Haley’s fo
rehead. When she entered the store, the air conditioning hit her like a little piece of heaven.
“Oh, that feels so good,” she breathed to herself.
Haley opened the fridge and bent down, placing her lunch, which today consisted of a turkey sandwich and yogurt, inside. Just as she was shutting the door, she heard Amber’s voice coming from the doorway that led into the showroom.
“Man, can you believe how hot it is out there?”
Standing, Haley turned and saw her boss-slash-friend-slash-cousin-in-law looking like her usual self, which meant she could have just walked off a runway in Milan. The overhead track lighting bounced off Amber’s long, thick, glossy black hair, which was complemented by her flawless honey-toned skin. Today she wore one of her newest designs—an emerald-green jumper short set with tan wedges—showcasing her long, toned legs. She wore sparse jewelry that perfectly accented her outfit.
Haley remembered how intimidated she used to feel around the casually glamorous Amber Sloan. She figured most people were when they first met Amber. But that all disappeared once you got to know her.
Amber was one of the most down-to-earth, hardworking people Haley had ever met. So many people who met her were so taken by her outward beauty that they didn’t ever see beneath it. She was easily able to disguise what life had dealt her—the loss, the tragedy, the hardships. But Haley’s cousin Seth saw the real Amber, and she could not be happier that the two of them had found each other. Even if their road to happily-ever-after was one of the more unusual tales, it had worked. Perfectly.
“I know! I was dying just walking from the car,” Haley agreed as she placed her purse in her small locker. About a year back, they’d had a break-in at the shop. The police had apprehended the perpetrator, but since then, as a precaution, they’d kept everything locked up tight as a drum. “What are you doing here on a Sunday?”
Tempting Love - Haley & Eddie Page 6
