“So, what do you do with Kimmie when you’re working the night shift?”
“She stays at her friend, Anesha’s. She’s just a couple of houses down the street.”
Sonny nodded. “Well, now that I’m here, I’ll be happy to keep an eye on her. That is, if she’s okay with it.”
“She’s only known you for two days and she already worships the ground you walk on. I think she’d be okay with that. Thanks for offering.”
She shrugged. “It’s no big deal. Kimmie’s a sweetheart.”
Moving over to where she stood, Ian perched a hip on the back of the sofa. “It is kinda crazy that we’re working for Trey and Kiera, isn’t it? They just got married this past New Year’s Day.”
She nodded.
“With what happened at The Corral on Monday, and you showing up yesterday to rent this place, it almost seems as if the universe is determined to get us together.”
“It would seem so,” she said.
Her eyes dropped to his mouth again, and Ian’s blood began to heat. He licked his lips. Taking another step forward, his voice lowered as he said, “Makes me wonder if it even makes sense to fight it.”
Her eyes remained on his lips. “Probably not.”
The screech of the school bus’s breaks grinding to a halt in front of the house broke the spell between them. Sonny jumped back.
“That must be Kimmie,” she said.
Shit. Ian released a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“Ian!” He could hear Kimmie’s glass-cracking scream from outside. “I won first place!”
He gestured to the front windows. “The science fair was today.”
“Sounds as if you have a reason to celebrate tonight,” Sonny said.
“I was prepared to celebrate even if she came in last place. She worked hard on the project.” He hooked a thumb toward the stairs. “I should get down there.”
She nodded.
He started down the stairs, but stopped when she called his name.
“Ian?” He turned to find Sonny at the top of the stairs. “Thanks for helping with the box,” she said.
“Anytime,” Ian said. “If you need me, you know where to find me.”
Then he continued down the stairs, while he was still able to make himself go.
Chapter Four
Ian glided his forefinger along the computer’s touchpad as he scrolled through the two-hundred-plus pre-formatted business card designs under the Automotive and Transportation heading. Was it presumptuous that he was already looking for letterhead even though he had yet to hear back from the bank? Maybe. But as a former Boy Scout, he still adhered to the ‘be prepared’ motto. He wanted as much in place as possible when it was time to get his bike shop off the ground.
It had been a week since his meeting with Mr. Babineaux. Ian could feel the call coming. Any day now, his phone would ring. It had to. He was running out of time.
Ian pulled his phone from his front pocket and read over the text message Vanessa sent late yesterday evening.
Met with the Miller Family today. They seem close to agreeing on a sale price. Around $400K.
Vanessa had given him a head’s up on the amount she’d advised the family to list the building, so that he wouldn’t lowball the amount on his loan application. She’d promised to let him know as soon as the property hit the market. He’d have to have Dale ask her about her favorite wine. She deserved a special treat for the way she’d gone above and beyond to help him secure his dream.
Ian minimized the window with the business card designs and went back to searching for Kimmie’s birthday present. He’d bought the Go Pro video camera and the new iPhone she’d been clamoring for since Christmas several weeks ago. Both were in the safe where he kept his important papers and extra cash, tucked in the back of his closet.
Picking out the phone had been the easy part. Finding the perfect phone case had turned into the biggest pain in his ass. He’d automatically gone for a Disney Princess, but he soon realized that as a thirteen-year-old, Kimmie may think she was too old for princesses.
The thought made Ian’s stomach twist. He wasn’t ready for her to be too old for princesses.
He’d searched through dozens of flower prints, skulls and crossbones, glittery ones covered in fake gemstones. How was he supposed to know what kind of phone cover to buy a thirteen-year-old girl?
You could ask Sonny.
No. No he could not ask Sonny. He’d taken an oath to avoid all possible contact with his tenant. Her nearness, even in the most innocuous circumstances, was too much of a temptation.
Why had he insisted on this hands-off thing again?
It had seemed like the adult thing to do at the time. He needed to be a good role model for Kimmie. What kind of example would it set for his sister if she caught him sneaking out of the garage apartment in the middle of the night?
Nevertheless, Ian was getting some serious pressure from his libido to say to hell with being a good role model, especially when he thought about the potential block of uninterrupted hours with Sonny’s naked body stretching ahead of him.
But the off chance of Kimmie catching him and Sonny in a compromising position was just one reason sleeping with his boarder again wasn’t the wisest idea. If he and Sonny started something up, how awkward would things turn when he had to collect rent from her at the end of the month? Could he really accept money from a woman he was sleeping with?
Yet, if they started sleeping together and he refused to take rent money from her, then it would seem as if he was paying her for services rendered by allowing her to live in the apartment for free.
Shit. He was finding complications and nothing had even happened yet.
Hearing the squeak of Kimmie’s bedroom door hinge knocked Ian out of his internal debate, and reminded him that he needed to hit those hinges with some WD-40. He quickly minimized the webpage with the iPhone cases. Seconds later he heard Kimmie pounding down the stairs.
She rounded the half wall separating the computer nook from the rest of the family room and hooked an arm around his shoulder.
“Hey, Ian, you know Anesha’s older sister, Tamika, right? Well, she’s home from college and she brought all kinds of videos from their homecoming party. Can I go over there and watch?”
Ian peered up at her. “Are these college party videos R-rated?”
“Noooo,” she answered with the requisite eye roll. “It’s a video of the step show between the college sororities and fraternities. Tamika’s sorority won first place. I’m going to join a sorority when I go to college, but I’m not sure I’m going to join Tamika’s. I like the one with the pink and green colors. I don’t know if they are as good in the step shows, but I don’t care. So, can I go watch the videos?”
She’d lost him at college. Ian was on the verge of hyperventilating whenever he thought about her becoming a teenager in a few weeks. He couldn’t handle thoughts of college.
“Be back by six,” Ian said.
“Siiiix?” She dragged the word out by four syllables. “But Anesha’s mom is making lasagna tonight.”
“If that’s the case, ask her to send me a plate,” Ian said. “But I still want you home no later than seven thirty. Mrs. Linh sent an e-mail about tomorrow’s social studies test. You need to make sure you’re prepared.”
That got him another eye roll as she slipped on the high-top Converse she’d brought down from her room.
The moment Kimmie was out of the house, Ian opened up yet another screen he’d minimized earlier, the Google search he’d been doing on birthday parties for thirteen-year-olds. The quest to find a phone case was nothing compared to the nightmare of planning a birthday party.
Kimmie hadn’t specifically mentioned that she wanted a party, but ever since one of her classmates had the “party to end all parties” at the skating rink, she’d been dropping subtle hints. Ian pretended he was only casually listening the fifty or so times she’d brought it up.
There was jus
t one problem. He didn’t know jack shit about party planning, especially a party for two dozen teens and preteens.
He and Michelle Foster, who’d treated Kimmie like a third daughter ever since Kimmie and Anesha became friends in kindergarten, discussed hosting a sleepover at her house. Ian figured that most parents wouldn’t be comfortable with their young daughters attending a slumber party in the house of a single, twenty-six-year-old bachelor. He sure as hell wouldn’t allow Kimmie to do so.
He’d assumed the sleepover was the end of it, until Michelle told him that once kids hit a certain age—thirteenish—it was an unwritten rule that they must have a coed party so that all of their classmates could attend. Ian balked at the idea at first, but then he remembered back when he was Kimmie’s age. Anyone who didn’t have a boy/girl party was teased. He didn’t want his baby sister getting teased. But damn! He absolutely hated the thought of this coed thing. Ian knew if he spotted one of those little punks even glancing at Kimmie the wrong way he was going for blood.
In the past Kimmie had been satisfied with cake, ice cream, and having a few of her girlfriends over for Disney movies. But his little sister had grown past the Disney movie stage. It was time for grown up parties. With boys.
“Shit,” he whispered.
Ian set his elbows on the computer desk and cradled his head in his hands. He wasn’t ready for this. Kimmie had only been nine-years-old when his mother left and he became his sister’s legal guardian. Ian hadn’t considered what was in store for him just a few years down the road. He hadn’t anticipated the cute little girl with a lopsided pigtail—lopsided because he sucked at combing hair—would grow up so quickly.
But she was growing up. And he’d soon have to deal with other things he didn’t want to think about, like boys asking her out on dates.
Ian’s hands balled into fists just at the thought.
A knock at the kitchen door wrestled his attention away from committing bodily harm on horny pre-teen boys.
He pushed away from the computer, his movements more energetic than they had a right to be as he headed for the kitchen. He already knew who it was. There was only one person who used that kitchen door.
He couldn’t help but to be excited at the thought of seeing Sonny, even if it meant torturing himself. It didn’t matter that he’d spent the past week trying to avoid her at all costs. Or that he had to constantly fight the urge to creep out to his garage, tiptoe up those steps, and join her in that tiny twin bed.
He really wanted to try out that twin bed with her. With its small size it guaranteed that one of them would have to be on top. He didn’t care which one.
Scratch that. He wanted her to be on top. For the past week his nightly fantasies centered on her riding him the way she had in her car. He wanted her completely naked this time, her skin slick with sweat, that tattoo he’d peaked at fully exposed.
A shudder tore through his body.
Managing to grab hold of his libido and find some semblance of control, Ian opened the door to find Sonny burdened by a massive mixing bowl, a rolling pin, and a canvas bag bulging with items he couldn’t identify.
“I hate to ask you this,” she said, getting a better grip on the bowl. “But I have to get this cake done and there’s not enough counter space up there. Can I please use your kitchen?”
“Uh, sure.” Ian backed out of the doorway and motioned for her to come inside.
“I was going to just stay late at Kiera’s, but the building is undergoing its annual fumigation, so it’s off limits. I know this isn’t a part of the deal, and I’m willing to pay a little more to rent the space in your kitchen, but I just have to—”
“Sonny, it’s cool. This kitchen is mostly used for heating up frozen pizzas and the occasional pot roast. I don’t have a problem with you using it.”
“Thank you,” she said, relief sparkling in her eyes. She deposited the supplies on the kitchen island, then held up a finger. “Be right back,” she said, before jogging out of the door. Several minutes later she returned with two round cake pans. “The baby shower I’m baking the cake for isn’t until tomorrow, but it’s in New Orleans and the mother-to-be is going out there a day early.”
“Take as long as you need,” Ian said. Then he added, “Just as long as I can get a taste when you’re done.”
Her head popped up. “A taste of what?”
Their eyes caught and held, and the temperature in the kitchen skyrocketed. Ian backed up against the counter and gripped the edge. He knew he was playing with fire, but he couldn’t help it. Just one look at her and all those reasons for not pursuing something with her flew out of his head. He wanted her, dammit.
“Of whatever you’re offering,” he answered.
Her gaze dropped to his chest, which jutted out because of the way he stood. Her eyes slowly trekked up to his face where they remained for several long moments before she finally tore them away.
She wiped down the counter and then laid a silicon mat over it. “So, where’s Kimmie?” she asked as she emptied the contents of the bowl onto the mat.
He decided not to call her on the deflection. After all, they’d both agreed to this hands-off pact. It wasn’t Sonny’s fault that he was having a harder time sticking to it than she apparently was.
“Kimmie just left for a friend’s. She’s having dinner there.” He paused for a beat, knowing that he shouldn’t continue, but unable to stop himself. “She won’t be back until after seven tonight.”
There was no need to point out that they would be alone in the house for hours, was there? That they were free to reenact that first encounter they had in the parking lot of The Corral in every single room if they chose to do so? It had to be as obvious to her as it was to him, right?
You said “hands-off.”
And he hadn’t given Sonny any indication that he wanted them to reconsider the arrangement they’d settled on. Maybe he did have to explicitly spell it out.
“We already decided it wouldn’t be a good idea,” Sonny said, as if she’d been reading his mind the entire time.
Ian wondered if she realized just how much that dagger she’d just stabbed straight to his heart pained him?
She stopped rolling out the fondant icing and looked up at him. “It would just complicate things, and neither of us need complications. Right?” She added, as if she wasn’t sure. He sure as hell had started to question that decision they’d made last week.
Ian wanted to argue that technically it wouldn’t be a complication since Kimmie wasn’t there, and thus technically, wouldn’t be influenced one way or another by any wild monkey sex they may have within the next hour. But that was his other head talking, and he wouldn’t allow himself to be controlled by that part of his anatomy.
“You’re right,” Ian said. He ran a palm along the back of his head, trying to rub some sense into what had become a one-track brain. “It kills me that you’re right, but…damn…you are.”
Ian pushed away from the counter and gestured to her cake. “I’ll leave you to your baking.”
Their eyes connected again, and the mixture of wanting and regret staring back at him nearly did him in.
“Thanks again for letting me use the kitchen,” she said.
He lifted his shoulders in a hapless shrug. “Like I said, anything you need, all you have to do is ask.”
~ ~ ~
Sonny slipped the muffin tin into the oven, then returned to the cake she’d been working on. With painstaking gentleness she carefully lifted the sheet of cotton candy pink fondant from the mat and draped it over the buttercream-frosted four-layer round cake. She gently glided the smoothing tool over the fondant, pressing away excess wrinkles. Spinning the cake around on the base, she did the same with the sides, until it looked flawless.
Then she paused for a moment to take a deep breath.
She’d had to do that off and on for the past twenty minutes, because just thinking about Ian in the next room, along with this big empty house they curr
ently had to themselves, literally made her breathless.
Why did this have to be so difficult?
Those complications they’d discussed seemed so insignificant now. So what if it would make things awkward between them? If ever someone had proven that they were worth a little awkwardness, it was Ian. Their encounter in her car was never far from her mind, and when he was sitting just a few yards away from her with a bed or a sofa or, hell, even the floor at their disposal?
Sonny shut her eyes and searched for her center of control.
She had a job to do. This was only the second cake job she’d scored since she arrived in Maplesville, but it was a start. She needed it to be as close to perfect as she could make it.
She was snipping away the excess fondant hanging from the bottom of the cake when she heard, “Hey, Sonny, can I bother you for a minute?”
She looked up to find Ian just inside the kitchen entryway, his shoulder leaning against the trim. She was not going to focus on the way his dark blue t-shirt stretched across his chest. She refused to even let her mind go there.
Of course, her mind had an agenda of its own, namely soaking in as much eye-candy as possible.
“Sure, what do you need?” she asked.
He huffed out an awkward laugh. “That’s a loaded question.”
“Ian—”
He held both hands up. “I know, I know. We’re avoiding complications. This is for something different,” he said. “I need some party planning advice. Kimmie’s birthday is in a few weeks and I want to throw her a surprise party.”
Totally not what she was expecting. Her heart may have melted just a bit.
“That’s so sweet.”
The way he shifted from one foot to the other, showing clear discomfort at her praise, melted Sonny’s heart the rest of the way.
“It’s nothing big,” Ian said. “I’m planning to just throw her something here at the house. She’s also going to have a slumber party at her friend’s, but I was warned that it would be a mistake not to have a party where boys were allowed.”
All You Can Handle (Moments In Maplesville Book 5) Page 6
