“Hey, you’re pretty good at this,” he lied. He’d have been done with this crib twenty minutes ago, but maybe that part didn’t matter as much as the look on Carly’s face.
“Well, I don’t want to brag, but I know my way around a sewing machine. Mine breaks down a lot.” She nodded in the direction of the machine in the corner.
She leaned forward to reach in front of him and her low-riding jeans slid down just enough to reveal a beautifully curvy patch of smooth skin rounding out to a perfect ass. He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly parched. If she kept this up, he would soon tease himself into oblivion.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour of torture, she’d put together the crib. She then checked the sturdiness by tugging on the rails several times, making him smile again.
“Hey, look, I did it.”
“You did.”
“With your help.”
She left the room and came back a few minutes later, a pad of paper and a pen in hand. “I need to write some thoughts down.”
“Is this for your blog? Because if it is, I agree with you that this diagram looks like someone on crack drew it.”
She laughed at that, scribbling something down. “So glad it’s not just me. Sorry, Cribs for Mommies, I’m going to say it’s a two-person job.”
“So does it work?” He stood up to stretch his legs. “Do they take your advice when they read your blog?”
“I don’t really know. They used to take my mom’s advice.”
“But not yours?”
She lifted a shoulder. “My mother was the real baby whisperer.”
“Baby whisperer. I could use me one of those.”
“I do have her baby bible. But it’s incredibly disorganized, and sometimes it’s hard for me to understand. Of course you need to put a baby on a schedule, but it doesn’t say what to do when your baby is too tired to stay awake because they’ve been up all night.”
“Exactly.” Finally, someone got it. “I have it on good authority she’ll sleep through the night. When she’s a teenager.”
He wasn’t going to be one of those parents who wouldn’t let their teenager sleep till noon. Figured she’d have a lot of catching up to do.
Carly jotted something down on her pad while he checked the baby monitor. Grace slept peacefully. Still, he should get out of Carly’s house right now before he had any more random thoughts about kissing her. Because at the moment, it would be nice to find out if the rest of her was as soft as her rosy pink skin. Like her lips. For starters.
Carly met his gaze and caught him staring at her lips. He didn’t bother trying to hide it. She smiled and looked away first. Back to her notes.
He understood. That was a lot safer than dealing with...whatever this was. There was a definite pull between them, and he didn’t know what to do about that. Acting on it would probably be stupid. But face it, stupid was pretty much his calling card when it came to women. Still, the appeal didn’t make sense to him. She’d normally not be his type at all, but he felt a magnetism that had to do with a lot more than her looks. Even though she was incredibly pretty. Naturally beautiful. Yeah, that was the thing about it. She didn’t try very hard. It was just...there.
He took a step closer, telling himself he wanted to see what she’d written down about the crib. “What are you writing?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
But his height gave him an advantage. “Because from here it looks like a doodle.”
A floor-length dress, which had pretty much nothing to do with the efficacy of the directions to this crib. Unless he was missing something.
“It’s a sketch.” She pulled it away from him.
“Cool,” he said. “You don’t have to be shy about it.”
She blushed again and gnawed at her lower lip. “I’m not shy about it. It’s just not... Never mind.”
“Already forgot all about it.”
She folded up the piece of paper. “Let’s talk about you. Have you decided if you’re going to retain my services yet?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Your services?”
“My baby help.” She put her hands on her hips. “I don’t offer any other...services.”
Shame. “You’ve got the job. You didn’t realize it, but this was your interview. And you passed.”
“I did?” She smiled, clutching the folded paper against her chest.
“I like to make sure that my nannies can put together a crib. Just because. I’m weird that way.”
“That is weird.”
“Yeah. You’ll do just fine.”
“You won’t be sorry.” She traced the edge of the crib rail with one finger. “I’ve got a lot of baby knowledge.”
He took a step closer, just to make sure he’d chosen the correct three-point level for the mattress rise, he told himself. “When they’re infants, you use the highest level. This adjusts for later, you know.”
She came up beside him. “Good to know.”
It occurred to him that he possibly stood a little closer than he should. Somehow that didn’t bother him at all as his eyes met hers. He was close enough to see every tiny speck of green. When his gaze slipped to her lickable lips, he knew he was in trouble here. She was sexy and pretty. Real. Not at all stuck-up as he’d previously assumed. And she was one hell of a complication in his already chaotic life.
But he’d be lying if he didn’t admit he wanted her.
He reached out to tug on a lock of her hair. Silky soft, too. Her eyes were shadowed with lust, making him feel like a superhero for the first time in a long while. He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d seen a woman look at him that way. This was good, because damned if he didn’t want to be alone in this...whatever this was. With his hand on the nape of her neck, he pulled her close enough that they shared oxygen. Her eyes were warm and fluid, showing him all the things he wanted to see. An invitation. A welcome.
He kissed her, deep, long and lingering. When her tongue met his, soft and tentative, he tugged her closer still. Took the kiss deeper and wilder.
She pulled back, a bit out of breath. “What was that?”
“I kissed you. And I think you liked it.”
As if to acknowledge that, yes, she liked it, she kissed him this time. Her hands were on him, clutching his T-shirt, hanging on. He clung, too, one hand dropping to her hip, where he pulled her closer. The other he used to grab a handful of her wild hair in his fist.
From the monitor, Grace wailed. And every good part of him froze.
Carly tensed under his fingertips and he lowered his forehead to hers. “I should go.”
“Yeah. Y-you should.” She stepped away, an unreadable gaze in her eyes.
Relief?
Disappointment?
He didn’t know which one of them was more frustrated, but he’d lay bets in Vegas on himself.
CHAPTER SIX
WHEN THE PAPER airplane hit Levi’s forehead on Monday, he was awake, though definitely not firing on all cylinders. So what else was new?
He crumpled the paper in his fist. “Which one of you ladies did this?”
His bet was on Matt, who sat a few feet away from him in Stone’s office, making no effort to conceal his smile. “Wouldn’t need to ask if you were paying attention.”
Levi would grin like that, too, were he engaged to Sarah Mcallister, spending nights wrapped in those mile-long legs.
Damn, he was horny. It had been so long. He wouldn’t mind a sweet woman lying under him or on top of him. Just...not Carly.
This morning when he’d dropped Grace off at Carly’s, she’d been wearing a short dress that showed off a pair of wickedly curvy legs he couldn’t have even imagined. Her hair wasn’t pointed in different directions like it had been the first day
she’d watched Grace. She’d put some effort into her appearance this morning, maybe to reassure him that he’d made the right choice.
So he had a new nanny, and he wouldn’t kiss her again. Levi didn’t need someone like Carly in his life. She had the power to draw him in and suck him dry when he had so little left to give these days. Right now he needed easy, casual and definitely no more life-altering situations.
The three of them, Stone, Matt and Levi, were having one of many meetings to work toward the achingly slow progress of turning a small county airport into a regional one. Even if all his synapses were optimal, he had nothing. He was a pilot, not an administrator. But when Stone needed help, a friend didn’t say no and live to tell about it. So Levi had come to the meeting and nodded in what he hoped were all the appropriate places. A regional airport would mean the pain of TSA but also more traffic, more flights and, most important of all, more money. He sure as shit could use more money. He could also use at least one decent night’s sleep. Just one, please.
Levi squashed a yawn.
“Hey, I can’t have you up there if you’re not on track,” Stone said. “Fresh as a daisy.”
“No worries, boss.” Levi saluted. “I’ve got this. I was with the air force. You may have heard of it?”
“You’ve got to fix it, bro.” Matt leaned back in his chair and studied Levi.
“What am I supposed to do? Order her to go to sleep? It doesn’t work that way.”
“Hell if I know,” Matt said with a shrug. “But you can’t do this on your own. You know that, right?”
“Why the hell can’t I?” There again, he resented the fact that no one seemed to have the slightest bit of faith in him as a father.
While he told himself that they were all trying to help, when Matt and Sarah or Emily and Stone showed up on the occasional weekend and shoved him out the door for some R & R, he fought it every time. Grace was his deal, his responsibility, and not theirs. And he did not fall down on his responsibilities. Plus, he could handle it, lack of sleep included. He already had enough of the lack of confidence in him from Sandy’s parents and didn’t need his buddies questioning him, too.
“You’re a guy.” Stone slid him a look as if those three little words explained everything.
“Wake up to the twenty-first century. There are single dads doing this every day, and doing it well.” He tore off a piece of paper from the airplane and wadded it up between his fingers.
“Maybe so, but it wouldn’t hurt you to think about settling down now. With a good woman.” This was from Matt. “And I don’t mean the beach babes you normally hang with.”
“What the hell? That’s my favorite kind.”
Matt quirked an eyebrow. “You need a woman with an IQ bigger than her tits.”
Levi scoffed. “This is about what I expected from you whipped fools. Never would have thought I’d see both of you settled down like a couple grandpas.”
“Hey, life is good.” Matt crossed his arms behind his head, his I-got-laid grin full throttle.
Stone gave Matt a censuring look, and Levi took that time to wet his spitball.
“You going to see Lily again?” Matt said. “Who knows. Maybe this could be the one.”
Lily did seem nice, so too bad he didn’t believe in the one. She worked events at the ranch Emily’s family owned, and they’d been introduced a week ago. They’d had coffee at the Drip, talked for a couple hours. Levi was supposed to call her next week to set up dinner. He didn’t expect much. In fact, he’d had more chemistry with Carly while bonding over a baby crib, which said something.
“I’m never getting married. It’s the single life for me.” Levi scoped out his aim and best shot. It was looking like Matt for the win, which was perfect.
Most of his friends wanted him to slow down. And he understood the reputation he had, though much of it had been greatly exaggerated. For instance, it wasn’t true that he’d taken two women home after a bar fight in Yonkers, New York, two years ago. The bar fight part was true, since some jackass had been slapping a girl around. But the rest of it? Levi had never found out how that particular rumor started.
Matt opened his mouth as if to add something when the spitball Levi aimed hit him square in the nose and fell to his lap. “Well, shit.”
The conversation went downhill from there.
A few minutes later, Emily opened the door and caught all three of them in the middle of Spitball War Z.
“Not again.” She shook her head. “You’re cleaning that up.”
“Enough.” When Emily shut the door, Stone threw his last volley, which Levi caught in midair.
After the meeting in which they’d discussed the planes that most needed work, picking up more plane inventory and how they might best accomplish that with little or no money, Levi had a flight lesson scheduled with a retired software CEO from the valley who’d recently purchased his own plane. Before that, he grabbed his phone to check in with Carly.
When he heard Grace crying in the background, it was all he could do not to run out like a jet at Mach speed. “Something wrong?”
“She’s okay. Okay, that’s okay, baby,” Carly said, sounding a little frantic herself.
He got that. Grace’s wailing could even make him break out in a trickle of sweat when she carried on for hours.
“I’ll get her down for a nap now,” Carly said. “Don’t worry. She’s fine.”
He hung up and found a desk to check his email. As anticipated, another one from Frank Lane. God forbid he should pick up his phone even one of the many times Levi had tried to call him. This one suggested that Levi retain a lawyer, because Frank would sue for custody if it came to that. To pile on the guilt, he mentioned that Grace’s grandmother cried for her daily. He hoped Levi felt good about that.
Levi felt like a pile of dog shit.
Of course, he couldn’t afford a lawyer. Levi fired off a response, inviting both of them to visit him in Fortune yet again, but clearly stating that he would never give up his daughter.
Maybe this time the message would get through.
* * *
SO FAR, ALL was not going according to plan for Carly.
Why was Grace always crying? That couldn’t be normal. Carly consulted the baby bible section on teething. Grace had gone through no fewer than five cold rags she gnawed until they were no longer cold. They entertained her but did nothing to stop the crying.
She had growing sympathy for Hot Dad. If he had to deal with Grace all night, he had to be working on fumes. A girl wouldn’t know that, though, if she went by the way he kissed. That kiss had scared her a little bit, given that she’d been hot and bothered within seconds. Not the reaction she’d expected. Loneliness and desperation had weakened her. That, and the way Levi had checked her out, his heated gaze sliding over her as if he’d seen a cookie he wanted. As if he’d die without a bite.
But she needed to stay away. After months of juggling nothing but responsibilities and heavy commitments, she would sell this baby business and pursue her own dreams. Her life. Besides, she and Levi both had people who depended on them and who needed to be put first. She had her father, and Levi had Grace.
They’d settled into a bit of a routine after that hot kiss, one that didn’t include any more of those kisses. Every afternoon Levi picked Grace up right on time, threw her up in the air, then caught her. Grace would squeal and laugh for the first time that day. Carly would pretend it didn’t scare her to see Grace airborne. They’d talk a little bit about his search for a permanent babysitter—which, frankly, was not going well—and about Grace’s day, then go to their respective corners. He and Grace to his house. Carly to her sewing machine, where she had a little fun before hitting her business chores after dinner.
Interestingly, he’d not taken her up on her offer to babysit evenings. She suppose
d that meant he wasn’t dating anyone yet. Thank God for that, because she’d offered in a moment of over-the-top selling of her idea. She didn’t want to facilitate his getting laid. Carly was the one who needed to get out more. She missed her clothes. Marc Jacobs, Kate Spade, Louis Vuitton and all their cool friends were sitting in her closet collecting dust.
Carly sat at her laptop to do what she did best. Also known as stalling. In the background, an old but favorite episode of Never Wear This played. On one hand, she wasn’t sure why she bothered with the blogging. The posts took forever to compose, and her post on the best diaper for babies’ skin had a whopping one comment. It was from someone who claimed to know the secret to making a million dollars, tax-free. Not one comment from a weary parent looking for advice. Or hope.
As usual, she squeezed the words out one by one. She’d put a sentence together, living by spellcheck, and hoping her grammar was decent. It was never simple, not for her, and felt like being in high school again. Insecure. Inadequate. This wasn’t what she should be doing with her life anyway. She’d always wanted to pursue graphic arts or fashion design. That was in her blood and, though hard work, was something she could do well. She’d gone away to school to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. Everything had been going so well there, too, but then even that had blown up in her face. Something she didn’t want to think about right now.
Giving up on the words after a few minutes, she padded into the spare bedroom and her sewing corner—the place where dreams went to die. The half-dressed mannequin wore part of the design she’d been working on before Pearl passed away. Despite her failure, she’d kept at it, the pleasure at creating never completely leaving her. Only her confidence had been shattered. And unfortunately, her fashion prowess, should she manage to get it back, would not be of much help when it came to the world of baby products. But frankly, if she had to choose between an empty screen and playing on her sewing machine, the choice was a no-brainer.
It had been far too long since she’d torn something apart and put it back together again. Levi had been right in that the red baby dress was beautiful but impractical. She’d seen a lot of that in the months since she’d taken over RockYourBaby. Carly held up another one of the baby dresses from the lot that had been shipped to her.
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