When They Weren't Looking: Wardham Book #3 (10 page)

BOOK: When They Weren't Looking: Wardham Book #3
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She wanted to close her eyes and have a mini-nap. On her towel, out of the wind, the sun was deliciously warm. Tempting. But her mom training ran deep, so she propped herself up on her arms to ward off the nappy feelings, and fixed her gaze on the boys at the water’s edge.

In the distance, a small, dark, bobbing figure grabbed her attention. A familiar tingle began to buzz across her skin as he came closer and she recognized the sharp cut of his jaw. The expensive aviator sunglasses and the panty-dropping grin. It didn’t take long for the waves to deliver Liam, and a kayak, not ten feet away from where the boys were now building a robot factory out of sand. He deftly unseated himself from his craft, hauled it onto the sand, then sauntered in her direction. He was wearing……not very much. Glistening drops of water covered acres of firm, tan, naked skin, and she wasn’t sure where to look first. The last time—the only time—she’d seen this much of him, she’d had beer goggles on. Well, bellini and shots of something purple goggles. In theory, those should have enhanced his attributes.

Nope. If anything, they’d dulled her memory of Liam’s perfection. An abdomen carved out of wood, decorated with a touchable layer of warm skin and a focused line of hair that disappeared into his tight spandex swim shorts. On anyone else, they’d look ridiculous. On Liam, they just made sense. Athletic, utilitarian, and drool-inducingly hot. She tore her gaze northward, but got distracted again around the tight brown nipples that she suddenly remembered nibbling on……

“You need to stop looking at me like that,” he muttered under his breath.

“Like what?” It was a stupid question. They both knew—

“Pretty much how I’m looking at you, I’m sure.” Well, shit. She hadn’t noticed, but now that he brought it up, she was suddenly conscious of what her bikini covered…and what it didn’t. He puffed out a sigh and nodded toward her towel. “Room for me to sit, too?”

She scrambled up to a sitting position and nodded—then grabbed her t-shirt from the bag and threw it on.

“Your boys are building something impressive over there.”

Shit. Her kids. She flushed, and from the embarrassed nod Liam gave her, she was sure her cheeks were a deep scarlet.

“Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have come over.”

That would’ve been easier, since obviously she couldn’t control her physical reaction, but they needed to get used to a new normal—one where Liam would be around, maybe a lot, and she didn’t treat him like a slice of apple pie with vanilla ice cream. “No, it’s okay.”

“How are you doing?”

Well, now I’m vaguely turned on and I have to go teach Pilates to a bunch of nosy parkers…
“I’m starting to get nauseous. But so far, crackers and an afternoon nap have worked to keep me going.”

“I got your email about the midwife’s appointment next week, thank you for that. Should we drive together?”

When she hesitated, he lifted his hand as if to wipe away the invitation. But it made sense—there was no reason for them to take two vehicles from Wardham to Essex. And this way, if he had questions afterward, they could deal with them on the drive back. “Yes, let’s do that.”

From her bag, the alarm sounded on her cell phone. She cupped her hand around her mouth and projected her loudest Mom voice toward the water. “Connor! Max! Time to go in five minutes.”

In perfect chorus, they both voiced a loud protest. “We just got here!”

“Leaving so soon? Was it me?” Liam’s voice was low and warm, but there was a thread of something uncertain that she wanted to smooth away.

“No, not you. I have a class to teach in thirty minutes.” She raised her voice again. “We’ll come back later today.” She turned to Liam again. It was hard to look at him and not let herself get carried away with a fantasy of the two of them together. It had been a mistake to kiss him again. The taste of his mouth and the feel of his skin under her fingers, now refreshed in her memory, messed with her focus. But if she could get over that, it was good to see him. Good for the boys to become tangentially aware of Liam as someone in their lives. “Maybe…do you want to come over for dinner after the appointment?”

He lifted his eyebrows, clearly surprised at the invitation. “Yeah, sure. That sounds good.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, and she reflexively licked her lips. His growl was so quiet, she almost missed it in the ambient beach sounds. Her pulse picked up. Dinner with Liam sounded good—too good. This was going to be a test of her resolve, and she wasn’t confident she’d pass.

She pushed herself up off the towel, kicking up a bit of sand in the process. Liam’s hand shot out of nowhere to curve around her calf, brushing up and down twice in an innocent gesture that almost brought her crashing back to the ground. The lick of his fingers against her skin triggered a wave of heat that gathered steam as it surged through her body. She jerked away, much to his amusement, and before she could say anything, he’d jumped up and grabbed the towel, moving a few feet to shake it out. Funny guy. Sexy guy.

Off-limits guy.

As he handed the rolled up towel back to her, she reached out and grabbed his hand. “It’s just dinner. So the boys get used to you.”

His response was a slow, easy grin that crinkled his eyes and made her stupidly wet. “Sure.”

“Liam—”

“Evie, I get it. You don’t want life to be any more complicated than it needs to be.”

She stammered a few nonsensical noises, then cleared her throat. “Yes, exactly. But it doesn’t feel like that’s settled.” She waved her hand between them. Seriously, he was going to make her spell it out? “It still feels like there’s something between us.”

His impossibly wide grin widened again. “Oh, yeah. There’s something between us. But we’re adults, Evie. We might not be able to control our chemistry, but it’s entirely up to us if we act on it.”

Oh. Exactly the right thing for him to say. So why did it feel like she’d just been dunked in the lake?

“Anyway, you have to get to work. I’m really looking forward to dinner, and meeting the midwives, and…being adults together.”

And with a single wicked glance down to her bare legs, he’d restored both her frustration and heated desire.

This would be dangerous territory, spending time with Liam.

She couldn’t wait.

 

The boys were surprisingly cooperative, so they had time to stop at Bun for muffins before she had to be at the studio. They set their bikes in the rack outside the sporting goods store a few doors down, and were in and out of the bakery in record time.

On their way out, they bumped into Megan and Paul, and before she could say anything, Max had invited himself over to their house. Connor waited until Paul acquiesced, but then he crowed right along with his brother.

“You don’t need to…” Evie started to apologize to Paul, but he cut her off with a gentle squeeze of his hand on her arm.

“Happy to help out.” His smile was understanding and kind, and for a second she wondered if he could know…but how? Carrie hadn’t told Karen, she knew that for a fact. And yet there it was again, a glimmer of worry in his eyes that he quickly masked.

“Well, I owe you one. A few, actually. I was just thinking this morning that I should make you cookies or something. And I’m starting to worry that Max has magical abilities, because it’s like he summoned you out of the blue.”

“Pretty safe bet that we’re here on a day off, Megan’s fallen in love with this town. And Carrie’s muffins.” Paul laughed and nodded to the kids. “I’m glad she’s made friends here. There’s only so much of her dad she can take.”

“Isn’t that where Karen comes in?”

“Don’t joke, I think everyone likes Karen more than me.” He grinned, obviously not minding that fact.

“You guys are good together.” Evie smiled. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or something like that.”

“Something like that, yeah.” There was more there, but it wasn’t Evie’s place to explore that.

“If you tire of them, bring them to the studio, okay?”

“You got it.”

Once at work, Evie checked on the stock of clean towels in the basket along the wall, took a microfibre cloth to the mirrors to make them smudge-free and sparkling, and changed into her own workout wear. Amazing how fifteen kid-free minutes could feel like an hour. Once again she regretted not yet ordering internet service for the studio. She couldn’t really afford it, but oh how she’d love to steal a few minutes to check in with her parenting and fitness forums.

But she needed to save all the pennies she could. Maybe next summer.

The door chimed, and she looked up, expecting one of her regulars. Instead, Stella Nixon came in, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Evie raised a hand in greeting.

“You going to take up Pilates, Stella?”

The younger woman blushed. “Well…”

Evie leaned over the counter. “Are you here for something else? I’ve got a class starting in five, but if you wanted to talk, I’ll have half an hour afterward.”

“No, I came…” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of newsprint, a coupon Evie had run in the Wardham News for a free class. “I’d like to take one of your classes, but I’m not new to Pilates.”

“Oh, yeah? That’s cool.”

“I’ve been doing a couple of routines for a while on my own, at home. YouTube videos.”

Evie kept her face neutral. It was a reasonable way to get some exercise, although she felt strongly that working with a trained instructor pushed most people to the next level, where they needed to be to see results.

“And the thing is,” Stella continued. “I really like it. But I need more. And I can’t afford your classes on a regular basis, but I thought maybe…”

Spit it out, honey.
But Evie knew from personal experience that asking for favours was hard. Finding the words was the easy part. Admitting you needed something others didn’t…that was the killer. “I know all about not being able to afford things. Tell me what you had in mind.”

Stella outlined a plan where she helped out in the studio in exchange for a series of free classes, which Evie would have agreed to anyway because she liked the young woman, but then Stella gave her a gift. “If you think I’ve got potential, I’d like to train as an instructor. And I’d teach classes for you, once I’m ready, as payment for the training.”

A freaking gift, because if this worked out, Stella might be able to teach Evie’s classes in the immediate post-partum period. She had to restrain herself from leaping over the counter and kissing the shy girl.

“You think you’ve got what it takes?” Neutral face, neutral face…damnit, the grin was splitting already.

Stella returned the smile. “I’ve tried a dozen different things at college, one of which was a semester on health and recreation. To be honest, of all the things I’ve studied, it was the most interesting. But I talked myself out of it and went into the emergency dispatch program.”

“You aren’t enjoying that?”

“It’ll be a good job, and it’ll pay the bills.” She brightened up. “And if I can get 12 hour shifts, it’ll leave more time for this!”

Evie laughed. “Honey, if you pull 12 hour shifts, I doubt you’ll want to do this. When do you graduate?”

“Next June.”

“Perfect. Let’s give this a shot.”

CHAPTER NINE

 

“You want to see if we can hear a heartbeat?” The midwife, Donna, raised her eyebrows in a teasing offer.

“We might not, right?”

“Wait, why not?” Liam’s own heartbeat picked up in a way he really didn’t like.

Evie squeezed his hand. “Baby’s still pretty low, just might not be able to pick it up yet.”

“You’ve got a real pro on your hands here, Liam.” The midwife moved to the sink and washed her hands as Evie jumped up on the exam table. The room was almost like a doctor’s office, but all the little details were different. A cotton sheet covered the table instead of a paper roll. Kids’ books littered a side table instead of outdated news magazines. The medical practitioner was wearing Birkenstocks and a peasant skirt.

Okay, maybe doctors also wore sandals in the summer. But really, if you drew a cartoon of a hippie midwife, Donna was it. Her confident, quiet voice belied any stereotypes, though, as she deftly answered each of Liam’s researched questions. Evie had already answered half of them on the drive to Essex, but she encouraged him to take all the time he needed to get comfortable with Donna and the style of health care Evie had chosen for herself and the baby.

Evie pulled her shirt up, baring her still flat stomach. A mile of pale skin, dotted here and there with freckles. His fingers itched to cover her lower abdomen in a ridiculous show of possession. This was a medical appointment, for Christ’s sake. But then she was inching her yoga pants down, first revealing her hip bones, and then lower still, and her abs dipped in the most delicious way into a subtle shadow that couldn’t hide her tan lines from that damn bikini, and still she wiggled the fabric southward.

Jesus. He was going to pop a boner in front of the hippie.

He shifted his gaze up to Evie’s face. “So this is old hat to you, eh?”

She sucked in a deep breath. “Still a little nerve-wracking. I’m feeling sicker each day, so that’s a good sign, right? But it’ll be nice to hear that he or she’s ticking away.”

BOOK: When They Weren't Looking: Wardham Book #3
6.29Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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