by Paige Tyler
Besides, if he left now, she’d never know he was standing here like some kinky voyeur.
But then, Peyton twirled around to face him. She jumped, her eyes going wide. Color crept into her cheeks as she yanked the buds from her ears.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “I heard noise and came up to check on you.”
“Oh.”
She transferred her phone and buds to one hand, then reached up with the other to tuck her long hair behind her ear. Noah wondered if it felt as silky as it looked. The urge to find out was so strong he had to shove his hands in the front pockets of his jeans so he wouldn’t do something crazy.
Peyton gave him an embarrassed look. “When I get stuck while I’m writing, I usually get up and dance. Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “You dance very well.”
She blushed again, deeper this time. “Now you’re making fun of me.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not. You have some serious moves.”
She ducked her head a little “Thank you.”
With the apologies and compliments out of the way, Noah knew he should go back downstairs, but he couldn’t make himself move. That probably had something to do with the way Peyton was standing there gazing into his eyes, her lips slightly parted, her face still flushed.
He wasn’t even sure how many times his phone rang before he realized what the hell was making so much noise.
Shit.
Noah dug his phone out of his pocket and put it to his ear without even checking to see who it was. “Chase.”
“Noah, thank God you answered!”
His hand tightened reflexively on the phone. “Mom, calm down. What’s wrong?”
“The sink in the kitchen started leaking and I’m afraid it’s going to flood the whole house,” his mother said in a panicked voice. “Can you come over and fix it?”
Noah glanced at Peyton. She was regarding him curiously, concern in her blue eyes. “Mom, I’m on a job I can’t leave. You’re going to have to call a plumber.”
“A plumber?” His mother sighed. “I’ll take forever for one to get here. What am I supposed to do until then?”
“I’d come over myself if I could, but I can’t,” he said again. “It’ll be fine until someone gets there. If you’re worried about it, turn off the water.”
Another sigh. “You know I don’t know how to do that. If it floods the house, it floods the house. But if I drown, it will be your fault.”
It was Noah’s turn to sigh. His mother was always so dramatic. “Mom, it’s not going to flood the house, and you’re not going to drown. I’ll call to check on you later, okay?”
“What was all that about?” Peyton asked as he hung up.
Noah quickly filled in the parts of the conversation she hadn’t heard.
Peyton frowned. “Your mom’s right. It could take hours for a plumber to show up. Besides, they’ll charge a fortune. It’s silly for her to pay all that money if you can fix it.” She eyed him. “You can fix it, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then it’s settled. Call and tell her we’ll come over.”
He lifted a brow. “We will?”
Peyton nodded. “You said you go where I go, right? That means I have to go with you.”
“What about your writing?”
She made a face. “I’m stuck anyway. That’s why I was dancing around before, remember? Getting away from it for a while might help. Call your mom while I go change.”
Noah opened his mouth to stop her, but she’d already left the room. Damn, she could be like a force of nature when she wanted to be. Shaking his head, he took out his phone and called his mom, then went downstairs to wait for Peyton.
She came down ten minutes later dressed in a long, flowy, colorful skirt and sleeveless top.
“Do you have your hard drive?” he asked as he held the door open.
She patted the huge purse she had slung over one shoulder. “It’s like that credit card commercial. I never leave home without it.”
Crap, between her coming with him to his mother’s house and him making sure she had her book with her, it really was like they were a couple.
As they walked to his SUV, Noah automatically checked the area for threats. He didn’t expect anyone to try anything with him there, but years of training didn’t simply disappear because he was no longer a SEAL.
He glanced at Peyton as he backed out of the driveway. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Running over to my mom’s with me. I’ll try to fix the sink as quickly as I can.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Peyton said. “I kind of got the feeling from what you said last night that your mom is very important to you.”
Noah felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah. It was tough on her after she and my dad got divorced. He never gave her any child support, so she had to work a lot of double shifts at the hospital for us to make ends meet most of the time. She wouldn’t even let me get a part-time job so I could help out until I was sixteen because she was afraid it’d interfere with school. Things are definitely better now, but I like doing what I can as a way to repay her for everything she did for my sister and me, you know?”
Peyton smiled. “I can understand that.”
They drove for a little while in silence before Peyton spoke again.
“Do you see your father a lot?”
Noah tightened his grip on the wheel without even meaning to. The subject of his dad had always been a sore one. “Not since he walked out on us sixteen years ago. Last I heard, he was shacked up with some woman in Vegas.”
“His leaving must have been hard on you,” Peyton said quietly.
“I got over it,” he said.
Peyton must have figured out he didn’t like talking about his dad because she fell silent. Noah glanced over to see her gazing out the side window. When he’d read her books yesterday, he’d noticed this was the part where the guy opened up about whatever was bothering him to the girl he liked. There was one problem with that. He wasn’t big on sharing. That’s what he got for working in a shop full of guys for the past ten years.
“Tabitha and I used to go to Town Point Park all the time when we were in college,” Peyton said.
“Oh yeah?” He looked over at her again. “What kind of stuff did you do?”
Located on the Elizabeth River in downtown Norfolk, Town Point Park was well known for its festivals and concerts. He’d gone to a beer festival there once when he was home on leave a few years ago, but Peyton didn’t seem like the beer type to him.
“Whatever events they had going on,” she said. “Shakespeare in the Park was my favorite.”
Well, that was about as far from a beer festival as you could get. “I can see that. Where did you go to college?”
“Virginia Wesleyan.”
“Huh. My sister is starting school there in the fall.”
“That’s fantastic!” Peyton said. “She’ll love it.”
Noah chuckled as he pulled into the driveway. The two-story house he grew up in looked the same as it had when he’d joined the Navy ten years ago, only with a fresh coat of paint and newly planted flowers in the front. As much as he’d loved moving out and being on his own, it was a damn nice place to come home to now and again.
“Actually, I think my mom will love it more,” he said as he turned off the engine. “She wants Erin to go to any college that isn’t too far from home. My mom’s kind of overprotective.”
“I think it’s in the job description.” She smiled. “If my mother knew someone broke into my house, she would have hired you to be my bodyguard herself.”
Noah hurried around the SUV so he could open the passenger door for her, but Peyton was already climbing out. She fell into step beside him as he led her around to the back of the house. The big oak tree that had been there since forever still hung over the small patio like it had when he was a kid. While it provided a lot of shade, h
is mom had never put any furniture out there. She’d never been the outdoor type.
He knocked once on the back door, then tried the knob. It opened right up. His mother had a bad habit of not locking it.
“Mom,” he called.
Even though she knew he was coming over, he didn’t want to freak her out.
“In the laundry room!”
Noah gestured for Peyton to go ahead of him, then followed her inside and closed the door. The kitchen wasn’t huge, but the white cabinets and light-colored walls made it seem bigger than it was. The thing his mother had always liked best about it was what she called its country charm. He didn’t know about that, but he definitely appreciated the aroma coming from the crockpot on the counter.
“I wanted to have more towels handy in case the pipe burst,” his mother said as she walked into the kitchen. “I don’t know…” Her voice trailed off as she caught sight of Peyton. “Oh!”
“Mom, this is Peyton Matthews,” he said.
Peyton smiled and held out her hand. “Nice meeting you, Mrs. Chase.”
“Call me Eileen, please. It’s so nice to meet you.” His mother hurriedly put the towels on the kitchen table so she could shake Peyton’s hand. Petite with shoulder-length dark hair, she gave him a quick glance before turning back to Peyton. “You’ll have to forgive me. If Noah had told me he was bringing his girlfriend, I would have straightened up the house some.”
Noah did a double take. Whoa. “Mom, she’s not my girlfriend. Peyton is a client. I’m her bodyguard.”
His mother looked from him to Peyton and back again, disappointment clear on her face. “Oh.” She offered Peyton a small smile. “I’m sorry. I assumed.”
“It’s okay,” Peyton laughed. “Don’t worry about it.”
Noah stepped forward. “Why don’t you show me the leak, Mom? Before it gets any worse.”
Not to mention before this conversation got any more uncomfortable. He should have anticipated his mother’s reaction. She was always on him about finding a nice girl and settling down. She’d probably taken one look at Peyton and started mentally planning their wedding—and counting the grandkids.
Chapter Six
Luckily, reminding his mother about the leak under the sink did the trick. She immediately snapped out of matchmaking mode and went into a long explanation about how she’d come home from work to a dripping faucet and water puddling in the cabinet under the sink.
Noah crouched down to take a look under the sink when the back door burst open and the whirlwind known as his eighteen-year-old sister stormed in.
“I’ll be in my room,” Erin called as she slammed the door and headed for the living room and presumably the stairs. “Call me when guys learn to grow up and—”
Erin stopped, her dark eyes going as wide as saucers as she stared at Peyton. Noah’s mother looked at him in confusion, but he could only shrug.
“Oh. My. God,” Erin breathed. “You’re Peyton Matthews. The Peyton Matthews.” She shot Noah an accusing look. “Some brother you are! Why didn’t you tell me you were dating the Peyton Matthews?”
Noah ground his jaw. What was it with the women in his life assuming if he was with a woman, he must be going out with her? “We’re not dating, Erin. She’s a client. I’m providing personal protection for her.”
Erin frowned. “Like a bodyguard?”
“Yes,” he said. “Exactly like a bodyguard.”
He expected his sister to ask why Peyton needed a bodyguard, but his sister was nodding, her ponytail bouncing up and down.
“I should have figured that out. I mean, it makes sense. She’s a huge celebrity.” Erin turned back to Peyton, her face beaming. “I absolutely love, love, love your books!”
Noah blinked. Well, that explained why his sister was so pissed when she thought he hadn’t mentioned knowing Peyton. His mouth twitched as he listened to her rattle off the titles of Peyton’s books and that they were all her favorites. Then Erin started talking about characters from the books like she actually knew them. It was fun seeing his sister go fangirl like that.
He turned his attention to the leak under the sink. From the stack of towels his mom had brought into the kitchen, he expected to find the Niagara Falls in there, but when he bent down and took a look, all he saw was a slow trickle of water dropping into the plastic container she’d put there to catch it. Yeah, that was his mom—drama queen. Even so, the container was almost half full, so the leak still needed to be fixed. He’d need tools to do it, though.
He was a little nervous to leave Peyton alone with his mother and sister—there was no telling what they’d say to her—so he ducked downstairs to the basement and grabbed the tools as quickly as he could. When he came back up a few minutes later, Erin was taking selfies with Peyton, their heads together like they were old friends.
“Let me get one with my phone, too.” Peyton rummaged around in her monster purse, then frowned. “Well, crap. I can’t find it. I hope I didn’t leave it somewhere. I’m always doing that.” She looked at Noah. “Can I use your phone to take the pic?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Noah pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to her. His breath caught in his throat as she snapped the pic of her and Erin. Damn, Peyton had a gorgeous smile.
She walked over to him, her fingers flying over the screen as she typed something into his phone. She emailed herself the picture, then connected to iCloud and clicked on the Find My Phone app. A moment later, a map came up on the screen.
“Figures.” She handed the phone back to him with a smile. “I left it at home. Sometimes I think I’d leave my head behind if it wasn’t attached.”
Abruptly aware of his mother eyeing him, Noah quickly climbed under the sink and got to work. He figured out pretty quickly the problem was nothing more than some loose fittings, and as he tightened the valve, he heard Erin ask Peyton if she’d sign her books. A moment later, the two of them disappeared upstairs, leaving him alone with his mother in the kitchen.
He mentally counted the ticks on the clock until she got around to mentioning the beautiful writer.
“Peyton is a very sweet girl,” his mother said conversationally. “Not to mention extremely pretty.”
Well, that took all of five seconds.
“She’s also the woman I’m protecting,” he said drily. “I’m her bodyguard, remember?”
“So? Honey, lots of people meet at work. And you two make such a cute couple.”
Under the sink, Noah rolled his eyes. He counted to ten before coming out from under the cabinet and getting to his feet. “Maybe so, Mom. But in a situation like this, I have to be on my game. I can’t be thinking about how pretty my client is. One misstep could prove deadly for Peyton.”
His mother folded his arms and leaned against the counter like she was considering that as he turned on the water and let it run.
“What kind of danger is Peyton in?” she asked.
He slanted her a look. “You know I can’t tell you that, Mom.”
She sighed as he crouched down to check under the sink for leaks, but waited until he stood and ran the water for a while to check for others.
“Noah, you’re not in the SEALs anymore. You don’t have to worry about leaving a wife at home while you go off to God knows where.”
He scowled. “Did you miss the part where I said I’m her bodyguard?”
His mother returned his glower with one of her own. “Right now. But I’m sure she won’t need a bodyguard forever. When she doesn’t, ask her out.” When Noah didn’t say anything, she added, “Unless Peyton has a boyfriend you haven’t mentioned.”
It’d be easier to lie and say she did, but with his luck, his mother would probably ask Peyton, too. He let out a sigh as he dried his hands on a towel. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
His mother smiled. “I knew you liked her. And don’t try to deny it. If you didn’t like her, you wouldn’t bother finding out if she had a boyfriend or not.”
&nb
sp; Noah opened his mouth to tell his mom she was wrong, but ended up chuckling instead. He shook his head. It was useless. His mother had always been able to see right through him.
He was gathering up the tools he’d used to take them back to the basement when Peyton and his sister came downstairs, laughing like a couple of teenagers. He couldn’t resist glancing at Peyton as they walked into the kitchen.
“Did you fix the sink already?” she asked.
He smiled. “All fixed. Let me put these tools away and we can get out of here.”
“Noah, you and Peyton should stay for dinner,” his mother said. “It’s white chili, and I made plenty of it.”
His mother didn’t give up, did she?
“Thanks, Mom, but—” he began, only to have Erin cut him off.
“Noah, you have to.” Erin looked imploringly at Peyton. “Please say you’ll stay for dinner. I have so much I want to ask you.”
Peyton glanced at him, then turned to his mother. “Actually, I’d love to stay for dinner. If you’re sure it isn’t any trouble.”
His mother smiled broadly. “It’s no trouble at all. Noah, you’re outnumbered. You’re staying. Go put those tools away and wash up. Erin, set the table, please.”
Noah shook his head, torn between trying not to laugh and reminding his mother a SEAL was never outnumbered. In this case though, he didn’t mind acquiescing. The chili did smell great. Besides, his sister would be crushed if he took her favorite author away from her. And if Peyton was okay with staying, then so was he. He could guard her here as well as at her place on the beach.
As his mom busied herself with the crockpot and his sister began setting the table, Peyton walked over to him.
“You’re okay with staying for dinner, right?” she asked softly.
“Yeah.” He grinned. “Though I gotta warn you. My sister is probably going to talk your ear off about your books the whole time.”
Peyton laughed. “I don’t mind. That’s why I have two ears.”
Dinner wasn’t as awkward as he’d anticipated. He’d been half afraid his mother would pull out photos of him as a baby or something equally horrifying. But thankfully, his mom was on her best behavior. And while Erin did monopolize Peyton for most of the meal, Noah would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy listening to them talk about her books. He found himself tempted to jump in and take part in the conversation a few times, but caught himself. His sister would never let him live it down if she knew he’d read the same new adult romances she had. So instead, he kept an ear out for anything that might give him a clue as to what the hell was going to happen in the next book in the series. Peyton was very careful about not giving away any spoilers though, no matter how hard Erin begged.
