by T. J. Kline
What had he been thinking? This spontaneity wasn’t like him. He usually thought everything through.
“What are you doing here?”
Grant heard Bethany’s voice and spun to see her looking prim and proper, albeit slightly shocked, in her frilly peasant blouse and jeans. Grant couldn’t stop himself from letting his eyes travel the length of those long legs, taking in every curve she didn’t seem to realize she showed. Her hair was pulled back into a tightly restrained ponytail again and he wondered if it didn’t speak to her personality.
“Oh, Ms. Mills, have you met Mr. McQuaid? He’s one of our local celebrities.” Raif rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Surely, you’ve already heard about him from Ms. McQuaid. She’s pretty proud of him.”
Bethany’s eyes shifted from Grant to her boss. Confusion flickered over her face before fire sparked in her eyes, igniting her anger, and he could practically feel the tension emanating from her.
Great. What in the world did I do now?
“FROM MS. MCQUAID?” she repeated.
Heat flooded her face as Bethany nodded, trying to ignore the sharp slice of envy coupled with the shame at having had dinner with a married man. She didn’t remember hearing in the news that he’d married, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. She didn’t pay much attention to gossip about the private lives of football stars, and there were always those guys who kept their family lives hidden. She recalled the phone call he’d received at the park and cursed her naiveté. Now with the article in the paper, everyone would think she’d been trying to steal her co-worker’s husband. The nightmare just seemed to get worse.
Indignation rose up in her as she glared at Grant. He was the one who’d cheated on his wife. She was grateful now she’d insisted that their trip to the pizza place was not a “date.” Although, terminology had little to do with the disappointment she wanted to deny right now. Mr. Hunt cleared his throat and she realized she was staring at Grant, silently.
“Huh, I probably should have made the connection but I don’t usually spend much time in her office. As a matter of fact, I’m seeing your wife today with James.”
Grant couldn’t hide his shameless grin and Bethany thought about smacking him for a brief moment until Mr. Hunt choked as he laughed aloud.
“Oh, no. Ms. Mills, Maddie, is Grant’s sister.”
Grant cocked his head at her, his dark eyes glinting with humor. Bethany had no idea it was even possible to blush more than she was. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this embarrassed. Unless it was after her father’s comment last night. It appeared she was bound to make a fool out of herself repeatedly in front of this man.
“Mr. Hunt,” Mrs. Bale, the school secretary, interrupted. “I’m sorry, sir, but you have Mrs. Davis on line two. She says it’s important.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m sure it is. With her and her son, everything is. Ms. Mills, would you mind taking Mr. McQuaid on a quick tour while the kids are at lunch? I’ll meet up with you at the kindergarten classroom in a bit so we can figure out a good day and time for an assembly.”
Bethany opened her mouth to protest but Mr. Hunt had already vanished into his office, shutting the door behind him. Mrs. Bale shot Bethany a look of pure jealousy, practically swooning as Grant opened the door for her.
“Ladies first, Ms. Mills.”
Sighing in resignation, Bethany ducked through the doorway, scooting past him. “You never answered my question,” she muttered as the door closed behind him.
“And which question was that?” She cocked her head to one side, crossing her arms over her chest. Grant chuckled at her disapproval. She might be used to this tone working on kids but he was no child. “You mean, why I’m here? Maybe I came to see Raif.”
She continued to glare at him silently, waiting for n better answer. “Okay, you want the truth?”
Bethany couldn’t hide the irritation in her voice and arched a brow high on her forehead. “No, by all means, please lie to me, Mr. McQuaid. That’s exactly why I asked, for you to lie.”
Grant shook his head and tried to bite back his laughter. “Why, Ms. Mills, do I detect a note of sarcastic smart ass in you after all?”
“Watch your language,” she chastised. “There are kids here and the last thing I need is a parent complaining because you want to mock me.”
He frowned and she could see the remorse in his face. “Sorry, I didn’t think.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. I thought after last night—” Bethany planted her fists on her hips, letting her words fall away. She hadn’t done much thinking either, if this morning’s front page was any indicator. Parents were likely to be far more upset about her extracurricular activities than his language.
He held his hands out in front of him. “Trust me, you made your position very clear. I’m not here to ask you out again.”
She glanced at the long fingers extended out in front of her, noticing the callouses on his palms. Her father always told her you could tell a hard-working man worth keeping by the callouses on his hands. She wondered what he’d say about Grant.
He’d love him and you know it.
She felt disappointment course through her as she thought about how many women would have reacted differently to Grant’s dinner invitation. Hell, Julie had practically throttled her this morning. But, as much as she might want to date this attractive, hard-working, kind man, she had to think of James first and what was best for her son.
Grant’s words sank in slowly. He was making it clear he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. She’d had her shot at this guy and had thrown it away with both hands.
“I was with my brother at the fire station and was actually heading to my car when I noticed James playing out in the field alone.” He clenched his jaw and she wondered at his sudden obvious aggravation. “I don’t know what I was thinking I could do, but it bothered me to see him off by himself. The next thing I knew, I was in the office with Raif and you walked in.”
Bethany couldn’t help but be touched by his heartfelt honesty, feeling the wall around her heart chip slightly. Regret assailed her as she realized how unfairly she’d judged him, without any indication he deserved it. She couldn’t believe how arrogant she must sound, assuming he’d come here to see her.
“You really came over here just to see James?”
He ducked his head slightly. “Look, Bethany, I swear I’m not some creepy stalker, but that kid of yours has gotten under my skin. He just looked so sad out there by himself and—”
She could see from the look on his face that he really cared about James. Not just as a fan, but on a personal level. Bethany didn’t need to hear any more. “Come on.”
She hurried with him toward the open field. Scanning the area, Bethany saw her son near the fence on the right, tossing the ball high into the air and dancing beneath it. He missed more often than he caught it but she didn’t doubt for a second that he was acting out some brilliant Super Bowl fantasy in his imagination.
“Here.” She reached into a bin nearby and pulled out a worn youth-sized football with tattered laces barely hanging on. Her fingers brushed over his and she tried to ignore the sizzle of pleasure that skirted up her arm. The ball was tiny in Grant’s hands but smaller than the one James was trying to catch now. It would be just the right size for him. “Go out there with him. When the other kids see you, they’ll come over but don’t tell them you know me. Let them see you as James’ friend.”
The corner of Grant’s mouth turned up when he comprehended why she was sending him out to James without her. It would give James more credibility with the other kids to be seen with a football hero that was his friend rather than one that his mother knew.
“You’re a good mom, Bethany.” His gaze caressed her face, warming her cheeks.
He didn’t touch her but the tenderness she could see in his eye
s shot straight to her heart, and she returned his smile. His gaze heated, smoldering slightly with what looked like longing, before it was gone and he spun on his heel, jogging out to the field where James played.
She felt the butterflies in her stomach bounce wildly against her ribs as she tried to catch her breath. Goodness, what have I gotten myself into now?
GRANT WAITED AT his car for Bethany and James to finish up inside the classroom. He’d spent the rest of lunch recess entertaining nearly forty kids who’d come running over when they realized James knew a professional football player. The smile that lit James’ face when he introduced Grant had been well worth the discomfort he’d faced trying to explain why he was at the school to Bethany.
He couldn’t blame her for being standoffish with him when she first saw him there. What kind of weirdo showed up at your job the day after you told him to take a hike? But something had shifted in her today. He’d seen it in her eyes when he tried to explain why he’d come. Enough that he was willing to push his luck and see if she wasn’t up for having ice cream today.
Grant saw her heading toward her older model sedan in the school parking lot, juggling an armload of books, papers and teaching supplies. James wore a small backpack with a cartoon character he didn’t recognize on his little shoulders but Bethany carried an overfilled tote bag that had to weigh more than she did.
“Hey! Here, let me get that for you.” He hurried to her side, sliding the bag from her shoulder. Apprehension colored her hazel eyes and, for a moment, he wondered if she wasn’t going to tell him to leave again. Instead, she unlocked her car.
Grant wasn’t sure if he should ask but knew it would look far more suspicious if he didn’t now. “What are you guys up to? I thought maybe I could convince you to get that ice cream today.”
James’ face brightened and he looked up at his mother. “Can we?”
Bethany bit her lower lip. “We can’t.”
Grant tried not to take the second rejection to heart and nodded in understanding.
“Our downstairs toilet broke this morning and I had to turn it off. Now I’ve got to run to the store for the part and figure out how to fix it,” she explained.
Relief he hadn’t expected coursed through him. Maybe she wasn’t shooting him down after all. He let the corner of his mouth tip up playfully. “Ms. Mills, that sort of sounds like a load of C-R-A-P,” he spelled, laughing at his bad pun.
Her eyes widened but she smiled at his audacity. “Mr. McQuaid,” she scolded.
James giggled beside her and Grant immediately realized his mistake. “Mom, he spelled a bad word.”
“How did he . . . never mind. I should have known this genius could spell that,” Grant said, trying not to laugh. “How about if I help you fix your toilet?”
She popped open the truck, indicating that he should set her bag inside. “You want to fix my toilet?” Bethany crossed her arms and leaned a hip against the side of the car as she closed the trunk. “Really? That’s the line you want to go with?”
Grant shrugged but the smile never left his lips. What was it about this woman and her kid that made him feel so comfortably at ease? He hadn’t felt this relaxed in a long time. She made it easy for him to forget about his injury, the pressure of his upcoming training camp and his possible job loss.
“What do you say, little man? You think between the two of us men, we can fix the toilet for your mom?”
“Yes!” he yelled cheerfully. James climbed into the back seat of the car and buckled himself into his booster seat.
“I’ll meet you at the hardware store.” Grant turned to walk back to his car.
“I’m not going to get rid of you, am I?”
Grant paused and looked back over his shoulder at her. “Why would you want to?” he asked with a wink and jogged the rest of the way back to his car.
THE THREE OF them stood in front of the plumbing display in the hardware store as Bethany’s gaze slid over the rows of pipes, valves and fittings that might as well be car parts as far as she could figure out what to do with them. She had no idea what part to get, what size or where any of it would go, let alone how to install any of it. She’d hoped it would be far less complicated than this and that she could fix it herself. Spending several hundred dollars on a plumber was the last thing she could afford when her car was already making some strange grinding noise that she needed to get checked out.
“So what do you need?”
Bethany bit the corner of her lip and turned embarrassed eyes toward Grant and shrugged. “I literally have no clue.”
His laughter was the last reaction she expected. Irritation for wasting his time, maybe. Annoyance for being a helpless female, likely. Probably even some frustration for her lack of plumbing knowledge. But instead, his rich laughter carried across the nearly empty aisle, surround her in warmth and making parts of her body tingle in ways she’d forgotten they could.
“So what you’re saying is you’ve got a broken toilet and no idea why it’s broken?”
Bethany looked down at James as if he were going to offer her some assistance, but he only laughed along with Grant. She wouldn’t have thought her boy would turn on her quite so easily. She smiled down at James. “Other than the fact that I managed to turn off the water, yes, I guess that about sums up the situation.”
“Why don’t we start with how you know it’s broken,” Grant suggested.
“There was water everywhere, spraying from the back,” James said, his little hands moving quickly as he signed while he spoke. “My shoes got all wet and I had to find my other ones. And Mom got sprayed in the face.” He tried unsuccessfully to hide his giggle as he looked up at her. “Mom said there wasn’t pee in it but—”
“Okay, that’s enough James.” She arched a brow at him but Grant didn’t even bother to control his laughter and she found herself giggling with them at the recollection. “It was just water coming from the wall.”
Grant nodded, trying to hide his grin and appear solemn, before grabbing a couple of items from the brackets on the wall. “Was it leaking in the wall or outside of it?”
“Outside, where it goes into the back of the toilet,” she clarified.
Grant nodded. “That’s a pretty simple fix. And, for the record, there’s no pee in the water that got on your mom, buddy.”
James frowned and Bethany shook her head, poking her fingers into his ribs, making him squeal. “Don’t look so disappointed that your mom just had regular water spray her, you stinker.”
James laughed, wiggling and squirming until he hid behind Grant, peeking at her from behind his legs. Bethany tried not to notice how muscular Grant’s thighs were when James arms wrapped around them or the jealousy that crept in when James reached his hand up and tucked it into Grant’s much larger one as the pair headed for the cash register at the front of the store. As she reached the clerk, she saw Grant already paying for her purchases.
She tugged her wallet from her purse. “I’ve got it.”
“It’s fine,” he said, barely looking up at her.
“No,” she argued. “You’re already fixing it for me. You have to let me pay.”
“Too late.” He accepted the receipt from the clerk and glanced back at her. The glare she shot him didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest as his lips curled up in that charming boyish grin that deepened the dimple in his cheek. His gaze swept over her. “You’ll learn pretty quickly that I tend to get my way most of the time.”
“I’ve noticed,” she muttered, following him and James as they led the way out to the parking lot, wondering why his comment didn’t have her running for the hills the way it would have with anyone else.
Chapter Seven
BETHANY WATCHED FROM the doorway as Grant McQuaid, star running back, lay on her bathroom floor repairing the seal on her toilet. Thank goodness she’d cleaned the tile
after the water had soaked it.
“That should do it,” he announced, standing up and handing James the wrench he’d purchased. “Go put that in a safe place so your mom has it when she needs it next time.”
His shirt had several wet spots on it from his less-than-stellar handyman skills, plastering it to him in several places and making it difficult for Bethany to keep from staring at the way the muscles of his upper body shifted, flexing with his every movement. Her fingers itched to run down the lines of his rib cage where the shirt clung to him like a second skin.
“Ice cream time,” James announced, running past her into the hallway.
“Put it into the drawer by the phone, baby,” she called after him.
Grant washed his hands at the sink and wiped them on the towel sitting on the counter before he turned toward her. “Ice cream time,” he repeated, his voice low and husky.
It didn’t sound like a fun outing when he said it. It sounded like a dark promise of sweet, sinfully dangerous things to come. He took a step toward her, eliminating any distance between them and looked down at her, his dampened chest only inches from her face. Her fingers twitched, desperate to reach out and touch his skin, to see if it was indeed as hot and hard as it looked.
“Are you ready?”
Bethany glanced up at him, the heat from his skin warming her without a touch, setting every nerve ending in her body on high alert. She felt his breath wash over the top of her head. “Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to.”
The smile that spread over his lips was warm. And slightly wicked. “Bethany, there is nothing I’d rather do right now.”
His eyes met hers and he lifted a finger under her chin. His hand was cool and still slightly damp from washing up but his gaze was hot. Bethany felt the sizzle of electricity from his touch as it stole her breath. She licked her lips, wondering what she could say, if she could even form words to speak.
