"How's it going, sport?"
The boy lifted one shoulder. "Okay."
Uh-oh. "You like your teacher? The other kids?"
The boy's gaze slid sideways. "They're all right, I guess."
Meaning, Sean reckoned, that the third graders of Davis Elementary had closed ranks against the Yankee invader.
"Give it time," he advised quietly. "It'll get better."
Chris nodded, but he didn't look up.
Rachel appeared on the step below her son. "Go on in the house, honey. Grandma will get you a snack."
She watched him disappear through the doorway, her smile too determined and her eyes too anxious. Sean felt another pluck of sympathy. "Are you sure about that?" she asked.
"That it'll get better? Oh, yeah," he said. "I'm a marine brat. I know."
She sighed. "Well, that's something. Thanks."
The words were pulled out of him. "Tough day?"
"I think we all had a case of new school nerves this morning. But it was nice to be back in a classroom again."
"If you say so."
"You didn't like school?"
Her assumption irritated him. Maybe he'd never been a boy genius like Con, but there had been a time… No regrets. Sean reminded himself.
"Not enough to finish."
Her teeth worried her full bottom lip. "I could help you," she offered suddenly. "If you wanted to study at home, I mean."
"Thanks. But—"
She spoke over him, her big eyes earnest, her voice urgent. General Rachel on campaign. It was cute. "You could still get your G.E.D. There are books—"
He'd earned his General Equivalency Diploma almost ten years ago. "No, thanks."
"It could help you find another job."
"No. Thanks. I don't want another job. Not right away, anyway."
Her brow furrowed. "Doesn't it bother you not to have a steady paycheck?"
"Some. But it bothered me more, working for some bozo who couldn't tell an awl from his— Well, anyway, I've been working construction for twelve years. I'm in no rush."
"So, you're just going to … hang around?"
"Maybe. Didn't you ever want to take some time off, Rachel?"
He could see her eyes widen with the possibilities. But she shook her head. "And do what?"
He shrugged. "Whatever you wanted. Sleep in late. Go on a picnic or to the movies. Take a break. Take a chance." He took a step closer, enjoying the hitch of her breath and the scent of her hair. "Make love in a hammock."
Rachel fought the longing he conjured with his words. She was the grown-up. She didn't have time for hammocks. "Parade around in silly T-shirts?" she asked dryly.
He glanced down at his chest. "You've got a problem with my T-shirt?"
"'Smile, It's The Second Best Thing You Can Do With Your Lips?'" She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. You don't think that's a little suggestive? There are children around. My children."
"It was a gift."
"You're not blaming your sister-in-law again."
"Absolutely. I wouldn't have put smiling that high on the list, myself. Third, maybe."
She looked at that clever, mobile mouth and wondered just what those lips could do to earn the top two spots on his list. Oh, dear Heaven. Her heart bumped.
She forced her gaze up from his warmly smiling mouth and found his eyes bright with amusement.
"Talking," he said. "That would have to be number two. The Irish are all big talkers. And aren't you the silly one now?"
"You set me up."
"Maybe. But from where I stand it's not the children we need to worry about getting the wrong idea."
"Don't flatter yourself, MacNeill."
"Yes, Teacher."
"And don't make fun of me."
"Hey." He stooped to peer at her face, frowned. "That wasn't making fun. That was banter."
His sudden concern brought an absurd ache to the back of her throat. She ducked her head. "Sorry. My bantering skills are a little rusty."
"That's okay. You can practice on me anytime."
Temptation dried her mouth. She moistened her lips. "So generous. And you have all that experience."
"My share."
"More than your share, I'd guess. Do you ever get your women mixed up?"
His eyes narrowed, but he responded easily. "Maybe I would, if I thought of them as 'my women' instead of as individuals I like to spend time with."
His sincerity abashed her. "I'm sorry." She sighed. "I seem to be doing a lot of apologizing today."
"Now, see, that's not on the list at all."
"Excuse me?"
"Apologizing," he explained. "It's not on the lips list. Let's see if we can't come up with something better."
Confusion backed up her breathing. It was just more banter, she told herself, watching his head descend. She was getting the wrong idea again, because he was sexy—beautiful, really, in a wholly masculine way, with his sin-dark eyes and perfect nose and luxurious hair—and close. Temptingly close. She kept her eyes open. That hard, handsome face blurred. It was almost as if he really intended to…
Kiss her.
* * *
Sean took his time, gliding his hands over and around her, feeling the smooth column of her waist and the moist heat of her skin under the proper blouse she wore. Nice. He aligned their bodies slowly, giving her time to draw back or participate, whatever she wanted.
She was tall. Even standing on the step below him, her head was on the level with his chin. He liked that, he decided, liked the way her curves fit his angles as he pulled her closer.
Not too close, he cautioned himself. Not too tight. Nothing too sudden, to scare her away. Her eyes were wide enough already. He could see the clear whites of them and flecks of green deep in the brown.
He closed his own and slid into the kiss. Her lips were moist and closed. She smelled damn good for a schoolteacher, like the warm scents in the air after she showered. The thought aroused him. The taste of her aroused him, and the warmth of her full breasts touching his chest, and the solid feel of her rib cage under his hands.
When she didn't protest, when she didn't pull away, he added pressure, teasing her lips apart. Her stubborn mouth was full and soft. Her tart tongue was sweet and velvet.
Oh, yeah, he thought. And then her breath shuddered into his mouth, and her hands tightened in his hair, and he didn't think at all.
He'd only intended to provoke her, to soothe her, to kiss her as he'd kissed a hundred or more women before. He wasn't prepared for the leap of hunger or the surge of possession. The two together battered at his practiced smoothness, tore from him an unexpected and not entirely welcome response.
Hot. Rachel Fuller was hot. And Sean was getting hotter by the second.
He changed angles and went deep, losing himself in her, like an explorer in the jungle tempted off familiar paths by the exotic. He was lured by the lush textures of her, dazed by the sudden rise in temperature. His heart pounded. His blood drummed in his head. And she cooperated, damn it, sucked him in, pulled him to her with those smooth, strong arms and devoured him as much as he was devouring her.
The drumbeat in his ears escalated and ran together in one long blare.
He ignored it. Ignored that they were standing in full view on her mother's front porch with her children inside the house. Ignored that he was grimy with sweat and sawdust and marking her pretty blouse. Ignored that desire was supposed to be a pastime and a pleasure and not a need fisting his gut…
Rachel's hands slid from his hair to his shoulders and pushed, too hard to be ignored.
Reluctantly he raised his head, separating from her in degrees: tongue, lips, torso. She looked almost as dazed as he felt, he noted with a spurt of masculine satisfaction. Her pupils were wide. Her mouth looked wet and well-kissed.
But she was already going away from him, rearranging her face in her schoolteacher's mask. She ran her tongue over already slick lips, glanced over her shoulder and back.
&
nbsp; "You have company," she said.
"What?"
"One of the individuals you like to spend time with just pulled into the driveway." Her voice was careful, dry. Was she mocking him or herself?
He looked, and there was Lori Tucker, leaning on the steering wheel of her red Miata, pulled up to the concrete walk behind Myra Jordan's old Buick.
The blare. A car horn. Right.
Aw, hell.
It should have been funny. Maybe with another woman it would have been funny. Growing up, there had always been enough women hanging around the old frame house in Quincy to keep all the MacNeill brothers busy. This certainly wasn't the first time two of Sean's had bumped into one another coming or going. He usually handled such encounters with a rueful grace that kept his partners civil, if not satisfied.
But right now, with his body at the ready and his mind blown and Rachel's eyes flat with hurt, Sean wasn't up to handling anything.
She handled it for him, and that was maybe worse.
Stepping away from him, she tugged at the waist of her white blouse, restoring order. Composure. Distance.
"Hello," she said. "You must be here to see Sean. He's all yours."
She opened the screen door and went in, her straight back disappearing into the shadows of the house.
Lori sauntered down the walk, moving well on her three-inch heels. Sean appreciated the picture she made, even as it failed to grab him at the level Rachel did in her long skirt and sensible school shoes.
Stopping at the bottom of the steps, Lori waved a white envelope at him. "I brought you your last paycheck."
He reached and stuffed it into his back jeans' pocket. "Thanks. I take it Walt wants me off the site, huh?"
"You got it, big guy." She raised penciled eyebrows. "So, I guess you're not going to be coming around anymore."
She was talking about more than the job, and they both knew it. Sean was grateful for the tactful exit. But then, they'd both known going in that there would be good times and no strings.
"Looks like it," he said.
"Well." She hesitated, shading her eyes with one hand against the sun. "It's been fun."
"Yeah, it has." As she turned on her stiletto heels to go, he took one long stride off the porch and stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Lori … thanks."
"Anytime, big guy. Call me, if you get free." She waggled her fingers at him. "Bye."
Was he out of his mind? Why was he exchanging a neat little package like Lori for the messy bundle of warmth and responsibilities that was Rachel?
Assuming he was making any such exchange. He didn't know what significance their full-body-contact kiss carried for Rachel.
Heck, he didn't know what to make of it himself. His body yelled, Full speed ahead, and his mind screamed, Turn back now. But whether he listened to his body or his mind, it wasn't fair to Lori to pretend his attention was with her right now.
So he watched the real estate agent twitch down the walk in her pretty power suit and wondered what the hell he was doing.
* * *
One kiss didn't mean anything, Rachel lectured herself as she wrung out the children's wet washcloths and folded them over the towel bar by the sink. Sean probably kissed women all the time. He probably did more than that with the tousled-haired shark who'd strutted up her sidewalk.
It was Rachel's own fault that she was so lonely, so desperately in need of comfort, that she imagined Sean's kiss was something more than a knee-jerk response to any breathing female wearing mascara.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the sink and winced. Her own mascara, carefully applied for school, had smudged, leaving big bags under her eyes. She looked tired and felt about a hundred years old.
I'm ancient, she'd told him the first night they'd met, and it was true.
She was tired. She was sick of being scared and weary of managing by herself. But that was no excuse for fantasizing about her mother's boarder. A twenty-nine-year-old, out-of-work carpenter with an earring couldn't help her, no matter how broad his shoulders were. Maybe mailing her monthly check to Carmine Bilotti had been enough to satisfy the racketeer. Maybe Sean's blunt intervention hadn't provoked him into sending the debt collectors after her like Hollywood hit men. Maybe. And maybe she was as blind as an owl in daytime because she didn't want to see what a mistake it would be to get involved with somebody like Sean MacNeill.
What did she tell her high school students? Sex doesn't solve your problems. It just hands you a whole set of new ones.
She pulled a face at the mirror. Let them put that on a T-shirt.
Rinsing the toothpaste from the sink, she went along the hall to kiss her children good-night.
Chris bounced into bed as she came through the door. Rachel smiled. "Teeth all brushed?"
"Yep."
She glanced at the narrow empty bed on the other side of the room. "Where's Lindsey?"
"I, uh…"
Secrets, again. They were everywhere, wrapped around the fragile pieces of their lives like the paper they'd used to pack up the contents of the old house. Don't tell on Lindsey. Don't worry the children. Don't burden Mama.
"Chris," she warned.
He squirmed under the covers. "She went to see Sean."
Oh, no. "To see Mr. MacNeill? Why?"
"Well, you said I shouldn't bother him anymore. And I finished that comic book, and I thought maybe he'd let me have another one."
And so he'd begged or bribed Xena Warrior Pre-Teen into marching over there for him. Rachel sighed. "Oh, Chris."
"You didn't say she couldn't."
"No, but I thought you both understood… Never mind." Why should her children be any more able to resist Sean than she was?
She brushed Chris's hair back from his face and kissed his forehead. "'Night, honey. God bless you."
"God bless." His arms came around her neck.
Tears rushed to her eyes at the simple contact. Oh, God, she was some kind of emotional mess when a reminder of past cuddles could make her weepy. No wonder she'd been all over Sean MacNeill. She was obviously starved for human contact.
How humiliating.
"Sleep tight," she said with effort, and went to collect her daughter.
Myra was singing softly along with the radio in the kitchen. Rachel opened the screen door—it didn't stick anymore—and stepped over the newly installed threshold onto the porch. She could almost hear her mother say it. So nice to have a man around the house.
And it was, damn it. Nice to have the gutters cleaned and the dripping faucet silenced and the radiator level checked on her mother's car. Nice to meet his wicked dark eyes in the morning and hide her blush behind a coffee cup, and feel, for brief seconds, as if she wasn't one of the walking dead.
She stood a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the moonless night. Above the dark trees a nimbus of humidity wrapped each star, and from them, a chorus of cicadas rose and fell like the sea at high tide. The big overhead doors of the garage stood open, spilling light and paint fumes and admitting the warm evening breeze.
Bugs, too, probably, Rachel thought, deliberately resisting the pull of the soft summer night.
But mosquitoes didn't seem to bother the man kneeling on the tarp-covered floor. Under the white shop lights, Sean was painting a tall, narrow cupboard with even brush strokes, his face hard with concentration and his dark hair escaping its stubby ponytail.
Yearning took her by the throat, not so much for the man as for the girl who might have let herself fall for him, the girl who might have believed in that teasing smile and those concerned eyes and the strength implicit in his wrists and his voice.
Stupid, Rachel scolded herself. She hadn't been that girl for a long time now. She started down the walk.
She was halfway to the gravel drive when she spotted Lindsey, like a ghost from her own childhood, curled up on the dragon-claw sofa, watching Sean paint.
"You're dripping," Lindsey said.
The brush lifted,
paused, and then resumed. "No, I'm not. Don't you have homework to do?"
"You asked me that already. I finished."
"Didn't take you long."
"No. It was easy. The kids here are really dumb."
Rachel bit her lip in distress. It had been a tough week for all of them, but toughest for Lindsey. "Fifth graders rule!" she'd crowed last June, with summer spread before her and a return to her old school at the end of it She wasn't in command at Davis Elementary; and Rachel knew her daughter felt the loss of power keenly.
Sean continued to stroke paint on the cupboard, his attention apparently on his work. "Dumb, how?"
"Just dumb." When that failed to get a response, Lindsey elaborated. "They're all a bunch of hicks, anyway. Brittany Lewis made fun of my notebook. And Heather Mills said I talk funny."
"You do." When she glared at him, Sean shrugged. "So do I. All us Yankees sound different to them."
"Not Mom." Lindsey's voice was accusing. "Since we got here she sounds just like Grandma."
"Not exactly," Sean said, but Lindsey wasn't listening. "I hate it here," she said. "There's nobody I like and nothing to do."
Rachel's heart constricted.
Sean's brush moved up and down. "There's a Labor Day carnival in town on Saturday," he said at last.
Lindsey rolled her eyes. "Oh, whoopee." She waited. He didn't reply.
"Would you take me?" she asked in a small voice.
Sean dipped his brush in the paint can. "Hell, no. 'Maybe you should try being nice to your mom for a change, see if she will."
"But I won't know anybody."
"So, it takes time to make new friends."
"I don't want new friends."
"Well, with an attitude like that you won't have to worry about it, will you?"
Rachel, listening in the darkness, stiffened in her child's defense.
But Lindsey grinned. "You stink," she said amiably.
Sean raised his eyebrows. "That's the paint, dollface."
Their momentary rapport made Rachel uncomfortable. Lindsey still wasn't over the loss of her father. She couldn't afford to fall for a transient carpenter with a commitment problem.
And neither could Rachel.
She stepped forward into the swathe of light, trying for casual even when the words stuck in her throat like crackers. "Here you are, sweetie. I thought I told you the garage was off-limits for now."
THE TEMPTATION OF SEAN MCNEILL Page 6
