The Daughter He Wanted (16 page)

He caught her studying him and offered Paige a smile. Her belly flip-flopped and she pretended interest in the already-clean saucepan in the sink. God, the more she was around him, the more her body seemed to be training for the Olympics.

She finished the lunch dishes while Alison tucked leftovers into plastic containers and put them into the fridge. Tuck refilled glasses and Alex entertained Kaylie with more of his park adventures. A little piece of her wondered if it could always be like this—friends having a meal, talking about nothing. Tuck slid his hand over Alison’s hair and Alison shot him a smile.

No, their little group wasn’t just friendly. Alison and Tuck were obviously involved in more than a couple of casual dates. Alex wasn’t just Kaylie’s friend and based on practically every conversation they had he didn’t want to be just friends with Paige.

But she needed to know that she and Kaylie weren’t substitutions for the family he’d thought he would have four years before.

A glass slipped from her hand and shattered against the stainless-steel sink. Alex was out of his chair and across the room in a heartbeat.

“I’m okay,” she insisted but Alex still took her hands in his, examining them for cuts or pieces of glass in her skin. Heat drenched Paige from the contact and she pulled away.

Wanting Alex was...like breathing lately. Thoughts of him interrupted her work at school, distracted her when she should be working on Kaylie’s painting. Paige wiped her hands on the dish towel and then grabbed the rubber cleaning gloves from the under the sink to start cleaning up the mess.

“Dang it, I loved that glass.” She didn’t know how she would replace it. Alison had picked up the painted frog glasses in Mexico a couple of years before.

Alison held up her hand. “I volunteer to hop down to Playa Maya to find another set. She’s okay, right, Alex?”

“I’m fine—” Paige began, but Alex took her hands in his again, inspecting them once more.

Finally satisfied she wasn’t in imminent danger from glass shards, Alex put the rubber gloves on his own hands and began picking up pieces of glass. The pink gloves should have looked odd on him, but they didn’t. Instead, the pink seemed to accentuate the size of his hands, the strength of his wrists. Paige swallowed and looked away. But her gaze was drawn right back to the man at the sink, cleaning up after her.

“You don’t have to do that. I made the mess.”

He shrugged and plucked the last big shard from the sink before pushing some of the smaller pieces together in the middle. “Happy to help.”

Kaylie parroted, “Happy to help, happy to help,” in a British accent she’d picked up from a morning cartoon.

Okay, then. Paige grabbed the dustpan from the closet and set the edge so Alex could sweep the tiny pieces into it. Tossed them into the trash and then her gaze clashed with his again. She was mesmerized by his hazel eyes. Wanted to know what he was thinking. He pulled one pink glove from his hand and then the other and Paige licked her lips. Time seemed to stand still as he looked at her over the bin. Alex swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding down and then back up.

The back door closed and the sound was loud in the room. It snapped Paige out of the trance she’d been in. She dumped the pan into the trash and turned away. Three shadowy figures played on the deck outside: Alison and Tuck distracting Kaylie from the tension in the room. How she wished she could be four and oblivious. But she was twenty-nine and Alex was the biggest distraction she’d come across in ages. She needed to put some distance between them.

“We should go. I have papers to grade and I’m sure Alison and Tuck would like some adults-only time.”

“This is your house.”

Right, her home. Her hands flexed at her side. God, she was losing it. “I meant—”

Alex reached for her and Paige forgot what she was going to say. She knew she should shake off his hand but she didn’t want to.

All the reasons they were a bad idea were still in her head. In her heart. But she was tired of thinking about all the different ways this could go wrong. Tired of wondering when she would mess this up. She’d changed, damn it. She wasn’t looking to Alex to make her life complete or to get her parents’ attention. And as much as she wanted Kaylie to have a father, a real dad kind of man in her life, Alex was more than that.

He was funny and handsome and smart and she liked him. Until he’d come along it had been easy to ignore the men who flirted with her. Simple enough to assuage her physical needs on her own. He was here now, showing her all the ways she’d been missing out—on someone to laugh with, someone to light that fire in her belly.

No, she didn’t know how he really saw her, saw Kaylie.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she took just one step forward, to see if that fire and that laughter could grow into something more.

She turned and linked her hand with his. “So you were flirting with me. In email.”

“Seemed like the safest bet.” His deep voice rippled along her nerve endings, his hand light against hers. “Every time I tried to in person you shut me down. A man can only take so much rejection.”

Paige grinned. “Something tells me you’ve done your share of rejecting.”

Alex shrugged. He looked at their linked hands. “So is this a ‘yes’ to a date?”

“This is a strong ‘I’m thinking about it.’”

He raised an eyebrow. “Not the right answer.”

“It’s the answer you get today.” Her voice was nearly steady when she said the words. Thank goodness.

“Then I can’t wait for tomorrow.”

CHAPTER TEN

I
T WAS THE
best answer Alex had had so far. And who cared that they’d barely texted between Sunday and today? It’d been four long days when he’d been busy wrapping up end-of-the-season paperwork at the parks, anyway. She had school. He’d had a video chat with Kaylie on Wednesday after her swim lesson and the little girl had showed him the whale picture she’d finished during preschool. She told him she wanted to be Snoopy for Halloween but was worried they wouldn’t find a Sally or Lucy outfit for Paige. Which sent him online to find one. He’d found Snoopy, Sally, Lucy and a Charlie Brown costume. Added all four to the shopping cart because he didn’t know if Paige liked Sally or Lucy, and then had them express shipped.

He didn’t really expect to have a long, intimate conversation with Paige after she sent Kaylie off to brush her teeth, but it had been nice talking about her day. Nicer still when she blushed when he complimented the paint-speckled tee she’d been wearing. The very thin tee that left very little of her upper body to his imagination.

God, the mind was a horrible, terrible, so bad, very good thing.

A truck pulled into the parking lot and the shorts-wearing deliveryman stepped from his truck with several packages in his arm.

“Figured you were working today and I’d save you the trip to the distribution center.” Ron Cherry had been Alex’s favorite wide receiver in high school. He’d blown his knee out his sophomore year in college and come back to St. Francois County. His two boys were on Alex’s rec team last summer and were both talented athletes.

“I forgot to change the shipping address again, sorry about that.” Alex signed for the packages and set them on his desk.

Ron waved and returned to his truck.

Tuck returned from his hike around one of the shorter trails and pointed to the packages. “You didn’t order a decade’s worth of beef jerky again, did you?”

“No. Halloween costumes.”

“You hate Halloween.”

“I don’t hate it. It just seems odd that some adults need to have costuming and makeup to have a good time.” Actually, it was more that costumes and alcohol seemed to steal every inhibition from every person in the world for one night. Alex prided himself on his control, and watching other people willingly give it up made him twitchy.

“So you’re going to the party at the Low Bar this year?”

Alex shrugged and before Tuck could question him more, his cell buzzed.

“You should go, you know.”

Alex tuned Tuck out so he could read the message.

I hate to ask at the last minute, but my babysitter just bailed for this afternoon and I’m supposed to chaperone a lock-in for the third-grade girls. Any chance you could watch Kaylie? Just for a couple of hours?

“Yes!” It was another small victory but one he would take. Paige was reaching out to him.

“Sweet. I asked Alison last night. You should bring Paige.”

“What?” Alex shot back a quick yes to Paige and then put the rest of the paperwork in his desk drawer for next week. “You asked Alison what?”

“About the Low Bar Halloween party. You should bring Paige.”

“I don’t do bar parties, especially not adult dress-up bar parties.” Alex shook his head. He’d never gone barhopping on Halloween, not even in college.

Tuck folded his arms over his chest. “Damn, you act like you’re eighty. You just said you were going.”

“No, I didn’t.” Had he? Alex felt like he was in a bad Abbott and Costello routine only instead of baseball they were talking about costuming.

Tuck grabbed one of the packages. “You have a costume.”

A costume that would get him laughed out of the bar. Not that he went there often, anyway. “I’m not going to the Low Bar on Halloween night. Those are...something else.”

He couldn’t very well tell Tuck he’d purchased four Halloween costumes and might not need any of them. He waved his cell phone. “That was Paige, she needs me to watch Kaylie for a couple of hours tonight.”

“Okay, so the Halloween party is off the conversational radar.” Tuck turned the chair on the opposite side of Alex’s desk around and leaned his arms over the back as he sat. “So this is good. A step forward and all that.”

“Yeah. A step forward.” One that Alex was determined not to mess up. He typed “babysitting games” into a search engine and waited while three million results were returned. No way he could go through that many. He narrowed the search to games for four-year-olds but that only culled the list by a few hundred thousand. “What do four-year-olds do?”

Tuck shook his head. “I’ve been around her as much as you have. She swings, plays in sandboxes. Although outdoor activities are probably out.” He pointed to the window, where the first drops of rain hit the glass. “I’m thinking you need board games.”

Alex switched from search engine to online store and typed in “board games.” Monopoly and Old Maid seemed like good bets so he made a mental note to stop by a department store on his way home.

“You liked Monopoly when you were a kid, right?”

“As much as I liked any board games, sure.” Tuck shrugged. “She’ll probably want to be the shoe. Girls love shoes.”

They’d play a game, maybe have dinner. No problem. He had this in the bag.

“So how are things between you and Alison? Costume parties? That’s a big step,” Alex said.

“Things are good. Did you know she’s the HR rep for the winery outside Farmington? Smart and funny and looks.”

“Until you decide she’s also clingy and annoying.” Too late, Alex realized he said the words aloud. “Dude, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. She is charming and funny and smart.”

Tuck waved a hand, dismissing the insult. “She’s different. I like talking to her. She doesn’t call me twenty times a day to say she misses me or to ask if I like chicken better than steak.” He was quiet for a long moment. “I think she might be the whole package.”

“Really?” After only a couple of dates? Alex couldn’t believe it. It usually took Tuck five to seven dates to decide if a girl was pretty, much less that he wanted to spend quality time with her.

“Really.”

He could hear the sincerity in Tuck’s voice. And who was he to judge? Since he’d met Paige all of Alex’s preconceived notions about attraction and chemistry were out the window. She turned everything upside down and he’d barely even kissed her.

A few hours later Alex knocked on Paige’s pretty pink door with the Monopoly game in one hand and a bag filled with a card game, raw vegetables and dip in the other. Paige pulled the door open and raised an eyebrow at his packages. She wore track pants and a hoodie with a pink top underneath. Gray, pink and neon-blue sneakers were on her feet and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She looked adorable.

“Thank you for coming. I can’t believed the babysitter bailed, and taking Kaylie with me is out because she had a slight fever this morning. She’s fine, it broke around noon, but the school has a policy about fevers and school-sponsored events. Alison is coming to our rescue for the overnight. She should be here after work and you can go back to your evening.” She spoke nonstop, as if afraid she might forget something if she slowed. Paige eyed the game and the other bag. “Usually babysitters only bring themselves You won’t need all this.”

“I’ve never been a babysitter before. Decided I should come prepared.”

She peered inside the bag and bit the corner of her mouth. “Broccoli, carrots and sweet peppers. Nice combination. But she won’t eat any of it.” She led him into the kitchen and set the bag on the counter. Kaylie curled up with a tablet computer, playing something. “Kaylie, Alex is here until Alison gets off work. Best behavior, okay?”

The little girl didn’t say anything, just kept tapping away at the screen.

“Kay!” Paige raised her voice and Kaylie’s attention shot to the kitchen counter. A smile stole over her face.

“Alex! You’re gonna sit on me!”

Paige shook her head and laughed softly, the sound tickling the hairs on the back of his neck. “Am I supposed to sit on her?” he asked in mock sincerity.

“Kaylie-speak. She’s taken to shortening as many words as she can lately. But if she gets out of hand, sure, sit on her. Metaphorically speaking.”

Kaylie, out of hand? Alex didn’t think that was possible, at least from what he’d seen so far. He had games and snacks. This night was going to be a piece of cake and he said so.

Paige raised an eyebrow but didn’t contradict him. She turned her attention to Kaylie. “Five more minutes and ‘Angry Birds’ is done, got it?” The little girl nodded and then started tapping at the screen again. Paige checked her watch and grabbed her bag off a nearby chair. “Alison should be here by six. Text me if anything explodes in the meantime. I really appreciate this.”