Searching for Sunshine

by Linda Seed

  He leaned in and looked at her thoughtfully. “Actually, I did.”

  “You did?”

  A tattooed guy with an apron around his waist showed up with their pizza, and Breanna waited until he’d set it down and left.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I had an idea,” he said.

  He’d mentioned an idea in his text message, but she’d forgotten that in the haze of lust she’d felt after watching his ass. Now, she was intrigued.

  “Okay, shoot. What’s the idea?”

  * * *

  Jake wasn’t sure what Breanna would think of his plan. He wasn’t sure if he was stepping into something that was none of his business, or if his concept would even work. But it seemed like a way to kill two or more birds with one proverbial stone. He could see Breanna more often. He could get to know her family. He could maybe even help her out with a problem that was bothering her.

  It was a win-win.

  Or a lose-lose, depending on how it went.

  “I wondered if maybe Michael could help work on the house,” he told her.

  She sat back, eyebrows raised. “You did?”

  “Sure.”

  “But—”

  “Just listen for a second.” He explained his thoughts. If Michael could spend some time working on the Moonstone Beach house, it would accomplish several things: He could learn some new skills. He could work out some of his aggressions by hammering nails. He could get to know Jake a little, which would help if he and Breanna continued dating. And, most importantly, he could develop a sense of personal investment in the house that would soon become his home.

  Having laid out all of his arguments, Jake sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “So, what do you think?”

  Breanna didn’t answer right away. She looked at him for a moment, then picked up a slice of pizza and took a bite.

  “Isn’t that going to make your job harder?” she asked after a while.

  “Maybe a little,” Jake allowed. “I mean, yeah, I’m going to have to take the time to supervise him, teach him a few things, keep him safe on the job site. But he’s not a little kid. He should manage fine.”

  Jake had no idea if that last part was true. Michael was old enough to do the work, but the question of how he would manage remained to be seen. Though it seemed like it was worth a shot, at least.

  “Hmm,” Breanna said. “It’s an interesting idea.” She took another bite of her pizza and chewed thoughtfully. “A very interesting idea.”

  * * *

  Later, at home, Breanna reflected that her pizza meeting with Jake hadn’t exactly been a date, but it had been both enjoyable and intriguing.

  What if she let Michael work on the house? Jake was right—if Michael put some of his own time and effort into the renovations, it might make him feel that the house was really his. Plus, Breanna had been babying Michael. He needed more hard work in his life in the Delaney tradition.

  Michael had been rude and unpleasant whenever the subject of Jake arose. She’d tried to reassure him that there was nothing serious going on—at least, not yet—but he was hostile toward the very idea of his mother having a man in her life. If he got a chance to know Jake, it would be a lot harder to hate him.

  Of course, there was another side to that part of it. What if Michael got to know Jake and started to really like him? Then, what if things didn’t work out? Would she be introducing a strong male role model into her son’s life only to yank him away?

  The boys were in their rooms, each of them flopped on their beds looking at their cell phones. Breanna went into her own room and took out her own phone.

  “You’d have to keep our relationship out of it,” she said, without introduction, as soon as Jake picked up the phone. “Not that we have a relationship, exactly. Yet. I mean, we might. But …”

  “Go on,” he prompted her.

  “You’d have to keep it about the house, the work, that kind of thing. Chatting about school. Keep it light.”

  “You don’t want me presenting myself as his new future stepdad,” Jake put in.

  She let out a little gasp. Stepdad? Did he think she wanted marriage? Was he worried that she was taking things too far too fast? “Wait, wait …”

  Jake laughed. “Don’t worry. I was joking. I just meant that I get it. We don’t know what this is yet—this thing with you and me. So there’s no need to bring him into it.”

  She let out a breath and relaxed a little. “Right. That’s exactly right. But if you’re willing to give it a try, I’m open to it.”

  “Ask him what he thinks,” Jake said. “Put the balloon out there and see if it floats.”

  17

  The balloon didn’t float at first—it sank like it was made of bricks and fruitcake. So Breanna decided to get it up in the air by any means necessary—even if she had to use a catapult.

  “I’d like you to give it a try,” she said mildly as Michael sulked at the breakfast table. “You might even enjoy it.”

  “Sure. Right. I’m going to enjoy hammering things and carrying boards and stuff around so we can move out of our home.” He said the last word with so much pathos that Breanna almost faltered. Almost, but not quite.

  “You said you don’t want to go to school,” she reminded him. “If that’s the case, then you’re going to have to learn a trade. Maybe construction will be an option if ranching isn’t to your taste.”

  She delivered the lines straight, with no hint of sarcasm or irony. She could tell from the look on Michael’s face that he was trying to figure out whether she was playing him.

  “It’s not like you’re going to let me stop going to school anyway,” he said, wary.

  “Probably not,” she admitted. “But there’s the question of college. If you decide not to go, you’re going to need a backup plan.”

  He seemed to consider that. After a while, he looked at her hopefully. “Do you think I’d get to use a nail gun?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Breanna said.

  * * *

  Michael started work on a Tuesday after school. His last class let out at three p.m., and Breanna had him over at the Moonstone Beach work site by three thirty.

  That schedule worked, Jake thought, because they usually knocked off at around five, and an hour and a half of hard labor was probably all he could expect out of a thirteen-year-old with an attitude.

  And anyway, if the kid held him back, it would only be for a small part of the workday.

  The boy had his mother’s dark hair and deep brown eyes. But unlike his mother, Michael wore a pissed-off scowl that made Jake begin to reevaluate whether he really wanted to work with him.

  “Hey, there, Mike,” Jake said in his best friendly adult voice.

  “It’s Michael.” Fair enough, but the kid said it like he meant go fuck yourself.

  “Michael it is, then.” Jake put a companionable hand on Michael’s shoulder, and the boy shook it off.

  “You’re being rude,” Breanna told her son.

  “Whatever,” the kid said.

  * * *

  Jake pretty much figured the boy would do nothing but sulk. But to his surprise, Michael did what he was told, even if his attitude didn’t improve much. Jake was in the middle of framing a wall for the addition to the guesthouse, so he gave Michael a hammer and some nails and showed him where to use them.

  As Michael moved, he gave the impression that his body was too long and skinny to fit him—a sure sign that he’d just been through a major growth spurt. Jake remembered that awkward period from his own adolescence, when his pants were perpetually too short and his facial features looked like they’d been cobbled together from spare parts.

  “You’re choking up too much on the hammer,” Jake told him. “You need to hold it closer to the end of the handle, like this.”

  “I thought there was gonna be a nail gun,” Michael groused.

  “There is,” Jake said. “But not for you.”

 
“Why not?”

  “I’m afraid you’d shoot me with it.”

  Jake thought he caught a hint of a smile—not that Michael would ever have admitted it.

  * * *

  At the end of the workday, Jake drove Michael home to the ranch, Sam whining in the back seat because he usually rode shotgun and had been displaced. Jake could have just dropped Michael off, but he walked him to the front door instead, in hopes of seeing Breanna.

  As it happened, she was the one who answered the door, and Jake felt himself flush with pleasure at the sight of her. Which was probably a bad sign in terms of the potential anguish and heartbreak in his future.

  Right now, none of that seemed to matter.

  “I told you I’d bring him back in one piece,” Jake said, pleased with himself.

  “So, how did it go?” Breanna asked her son.

  “Fine.” Michael pushed past her and into the house.

  “He actually did pretty well for his first day,” Jake told her. He was standing on the front porch, sunlight slanting onto him through the trees. Breanna looked fresh and young, her face bare of makeup, her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. He wanted nothing more than to pull her to him and kiss her, though he managed, just barely, to keep the urge in check.

  “Did he behave himself?” she asked, coming out onto the porch and closing the front door behind her.

  “He did okay.”

  And he had, Jake figured. He could deal with a pissy attitude as long as the kid followed directions and stayed safe—which he’d done. And anyway, Jake knew better than to criticize a mother bear’s cub, even when the mother bear was as appealing as Breanna.

  “Do you think he liked it?” she asked.

  Jake let out a laugh. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. But this was just the first day. I’ll bring him around.”

  He had no idea whether he would, in fact, be able to bring Michael around. But it sounded good when he said it, so he just went with that.

  “I don’t know if I should laugh at your naïveté or be grateful,” Breanna said.

  “Laugh now, then be grateful if I actually manage it,” he suggested.

  They’d begun drifting closer to each other as they talked, and now they were just inches apart. Jake imagined that he could feel the warmth of her body from here, though that probably was wishful thinking.

  “How was your day?” he asked. His voice was low, a kind of sexual purr that he hadn’t intended but couldn’t seem to prevent.

  “Challenging.” She said the word with a whisper of a smile that he imagined she might have on her face during sex. Not that he should be thinking of sex—though right now, with her standing so close to him, the thoughts flew into his head unbidden.

  “Yeah?”

  “I couldn’t keep my mind on anything I was doing. I seem to be easily distracted these days.” She touched the neckline of his T-shirt with her finger, then drew the fingertip slowly down his chest.

  * * *

  Breanna hadn’t meant to touch him, but here she was, doing it. She hadn’t meant to flirt, but she’d thrown out that line about being distracted, a distinct sensual caress in her voice when she’d said it.

  Why didn’t she just strip down and throw her naked body at him, for God’s sake? And now that thought was in her head, making it even less likely that she’d start acting like the responsible grown-up she wanted to be.

  “I … uh …” He cleared his throat. “I might be a little distracted myself.”

  They were supposed to be talking about Michael, weren’t they? Her son? The reason Jake was here?

  But the way Jake was looking at her, slightly mussed from work, his T-shirt clinging to his hard, muscled body, his mouth …

  Oh, God, his mouth …

  Later, she would not be able to say which one of them had kissed the other first. She only knew that the kiss was happening, warm and urgent, his arms wrapped around her, her body pressed tightly against his.

  She forgot everything, all thoughts of responsibility and parenthood, everything but the feel of being held in his arms and being completely, thoroughly kissed.

  * * *

  “We’re on your parents’ front porch,” Jake murmured against Breanna’s neck. His heart was pounding and his body was reacting to her in ways both intense and predictable. But somewhere in the middle of the kiss, some dim, distant part of his mind was calling for caution.

  “Hmm?” Breanna seemed to have barely heard him.

  He nuzzled her ear with his lips. “Your family …” he tried again.

  “Oh.”

  The response indicated that she’d heard him, and yet neither of them seemed to be pulling back.

  “Breanna.”

  “Hmm?”

  His lips were on her neck, and he felt the vibration through her skin. “It’s just … I think … someone’s watching.”

  That got her attention. Her eyes, which had been at half-mast moments ago, flew open, and her head snapped around as she looked back at the house.

  A curtain at the window next to the door had been pulled aside, and Gen was grinning, flashing Breanna a double thumbs-up.

  “Is that general approval of the two of us, or a commentary on our technique?” Jake wondered.

  * * *

  Jake seemed amused by the situation, but Breanna wasn’t. It didn’t matter what Gen saw; Gen knew everything anyway and had been urging Breanna to throw off her inhibitions and go for it. But what if that had been Michael at the window? What if it had been Lucas?

  She didn’t imagine either of them would be scarred by the sight of someone kissing. But Breanna hadn’t yet told them that Jake was more than a friend. She wanted to introduce them to the idea in her own time, in the right way. She didn’t want them to find out like this.

  Breanna waved Gen away, then turned to Jake, feeling the flush of embarrassment on her cheeks.

  “I … kind of forgot where we were,” she said.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  They stood a couple of feet away from each other, him with his hands stuffed into his pockets, her with her arms crossed over her chest as if to ward off any further uncontrolled passion.

  “If one of the boys had seen us …”

  “You’ve told them we’re dating, right?” Jake asked.

  “Well … not exactly.”

  The look on his face—was that just surprise, or was he hurt, too?

  “Jake—”

  “Yeah. All right.” He rubbed at the stubble on his chin with his hand. “I get it.”

  “We should talk about this.”

  “That’s all right. Hey, I guess I’d better go.” He turned and walked down the steps and off of the porch, then got into his car and left without another word.

  18

  Jake felt like an idiot.

  She didn’t owe him anything. They’d only been out a few times; it wasn’t like they had some kind of commitment. So why was he bent out of shape that she hadn’t told her kids she was seeing him?

  He was acting like they were sixteen and she’d refused to wear his letterman’s jacket.

  Don’t be an asshole, he told himself. Grow the hell up.

  But as much as he didn’t want to feel hurt, it didn’t change the fact that he did. Because it all came back to the question of why she hadn’t told them, and he didn’t like any of the potential answers.

  One: Maybe she didn’t think they’d last. If she didn’t tell her kids and things didn’t work out for them, she could pretend it had never happened. And, hell, it was true that maybe they wouldn’t last. But it sure as hell was happening, and he didn’t like the idea of it being erased from her reality—a fact so insignificant it was like it didn’t exist.

  Two: Maybe she thought her family wouldn’t approve. And why the hell should they, now that he thought about it? They were, collectively, billionaires—or so he’d read on the financial websites he’d found when he’d Googled her. He was just a contractor, a blue-collar guy with
modest credit card debt and furniture that was either secondhand or from Ikea.

  Or three: She was embarrassed by him, and she didn’t want to be seen with a working-class stiff like himself.

  Rationally, he didn’t believe either of the last two options. He knew enough about the Delaneys to know that they lived simply, like regular people who didn’t have a net worth equal to the GDP of a small country. They didn’t seem like rich people, and they didn’t seem like snobs.

  Still, the idea nagged at him that he wasn’t good enough—or that Breanna thought he wasn’t.

  He drove away from the ranch cursing himself for being such an imbecile, his truck bumping over the rough unpaved road that led off of the property.

  What did he expect? They’d had a few dates, they’d made out a couple of times. Did he expect her to present him to her family as her significant other?

  Which led him back to the idea that he wasn’t significant—not to her.

  “Man, I’m losing it,” he said to Sam, who sat happily in the front seat now that it was once again available. “I’d better get a fuckin’ grip.”

  Sam didn’t disagree.

  * * *

  Breanna wasn’t sure what had gone wrong with Jake, but she knew something had. He’d left so abruptly, with his entire demeanor transformed from just moments before.

  Surely it wasn’t because she hadn’t told the kids about him.

  Was it?

  She went back into the house, where Gen was waiting for her.

  “He left in a hurry,” Gen commented. “It seemed like things were going well. What happened?”

  “You were spying on us,” Breanna said.

  “Maybe a little,” Gen admitted. “So, what was that about?”

  Breanna’s shoulders slumped. “I told him that the kids don’t know we’re dating.”

  “Sure they do,” Gen said. “They’ve got eyes. They’ve got ears. They’re not dumb.”