“It’s not deep,” Tyler was finally able to announce. “Just a scratch, really. No stitches required.” While he talked, he bandaged, then he used the cloth to clean Josh’s hands, Julie’s hands and finally her neck—tender ministrations endured without complaint from child or aunt. Gallantly he kept his gaze above the tips of her breasts, dark shadows under the sheer fabric of her gown. “There, all done. Feeling better?”
The question was directed to Josh, but Julie answered it. “Much, thanks. You’re very good at this. Got any little ones of your own?”
“No, thank God,” Tyler replied, a candid, but thoughtless, reply that earned him a censorious frown from Julie.
At once she placed a noisy kiss on her nephew’s head and hugged him hard—sure indication she valued rug rats much more than Tyler did. She then caught her breath, obviously just realizing that the gown she wore covered everything but hid nothing. Julie raised her gaze to meet Tyler’s, her face and neck flushed from forehead to cleavage.
“I’ve got to leave now…”
Though sorely tempted to argue, Tyler didn’t. Instead, he stood back and let her rise. Holding Josh to her chest as before—this time to hide breasts Tyler had once caressed—Julie backed toward the door. Only when she reached it did she spin around, and then just to dash out. She was quick, but not so quick Tyler didn’t get a glimpse of skimpy black panties, nearly bare bottom and long, shapely legs.
At once his body responded to the sight. With a groan he fell facedown on the bed, overcome with memories of the taste, smell and feel of her. Was this, then, the power she held over him? Sheer sexual thrill? It was a familiar spell, to be sure. One not experienced since the first time they met, eight years ago, but one well remembered all the same. The difference was their ages. She’d been a child then, a hot-to-trot teenager whose kiss had not revealed her innocence, but set him on fire. How did she kiss now that she was grown up and experienced in the ways of love? Tyler dared not try to imagine. If the kiss of a teen could haunt him for eight years, what would the kiss of a woman do?
Tyler groaned again, softly, but from the heart, then crawled back under the covers. Surprisingly he slept, but his dreams were crazy and erotic—the dreams of a man beguiled.
“More bacon?”
“Yes, please.”
Standing just outside the kitchen swing door, Tyler listened to the sounds of a family at breakfast. Several emotions washed over him at once, not the least of which was discomfort that surely resulted from the fact that he was the only child of a single parent. Acutely aware of his past experiences with—and subsequent aversion to—large, noisy families, Tyler actually turned to slip back upstairs when the door swung out and hit him in the backside.
“Oomph!” he exclaimed as a small boy charged past him.
“Come on in, Tyler,” called John Newman from the kitchen. “There’s plenty to eat and a place to sit now that Tim’s headed to the den. The Tournament of Roses Parade is on, you know, and he doesn’t intend to miss it.”
Squaring his shoulders, Tyler pushed through the door into the kitchen filled with family members. Only Kit could not be accounted for. Tyler assumed she was already at work.
John gave him a big smile. “Have a seat. Have a seat.”
Tyler skirted the table slowly en route to the proffered chair, nodding an awkward greeting to all who ate and stopping at Josh’s high chair to lean down and peer at his bandaged chin. It looked great, he thought, an opinion reaffirmed when Julie spoke.
“He’s fine today. Thanks again for helping out.”
“No problem,” Tyler murmured as he brushed bread crumbs and bits of egg off the chair just vacated by Tim, then sat.
“I want you to know that I don’t always do that,” Julie said.
“Excuse me?” All Tyler could think of was her sexy nightgown. Did she mean that she sometimes slept naked? he wondered, body stirring at the thought.
“Run to my daddy for help when I get in a tight spot,” Julie replied, unaware of the direction his thoughts had taken, but setting him straight all the same. “I’m a big girl except where the kids are concerned. Then I fall apart at the least sign of trouble.”
Tyler squirmed to ease the sudden bind of his jeans and faked a smile. “The thought never crossed my mind.”
“Here, son,” said John, passing Tyler a blue china bowl filled with scrambled eggs, cooked to perfection.
“My mother has a bowl like this,” Tyler murmured for lack of anything else to say. “She’s a retired nurse, living in Washington state.”
“With your dad?” John asked.
Tyler shook his head. “Alone.”
“Your dad is dead, then?” Apparently John was every bit as nosy as Don had warned.
“A deadbeat. One of those guys who’ll skip out on a woman without marrying her when she tells him he’s going to be a daddy.” Tyler noted the looks of sympathy passed between Don and Julie. He also noted that Julie then frowned at her dad in an obvious attempt to shut him up.
It didn’t work.
“Sorry to hear that,” John said, his tone very matter-of-fact. “His loss, of course.”
Tyler shrugged in reply and set down the bowl, now minus a generous helping of the eggs.
“We have sausage and bacon, biscuits and hash browns, too,” John then said, clearly oblivious to the tension in the room or the fact that for some reason Tyler had just blurted his deepest, darkest secret. “Eat hearty.”
“Thanks,” Tyler murmured, his gaze glued to the table before him. In seconds his plate was filled and, to make further foolish confessions impossible, his mouth.
Tyler’s illegitimate roots obviously didn’t bother John, who appeared bound and determined to discuss them. “Your mother never married anyone else, then?”
Tyler quickly swallowed. “No.”
“So you have no brothers or sisters?”
“None.”
“Then I guess the Newman household is a culture shock for you, huh?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Well, don’t let that put you off. Big families are a lot of fun, son, and if you’re smart, you’ll find yourself a good, fertile woman real soon and get busy making one of your own.”
“Da-ad!” Julie scolded, her eyes shooting daggers at her tactless parent.
John looked at her in surprise, clearly clueless. “He’ll be glad he did, honey. Why, where would I be now if it weren’t for all you kids and grandkids? Alone, that’s where. Alone and lonely.” He pointed a finger at Tyler. “Your father made a poor choice that I’m sure he now regrets. There’s no reason for you to make the same one.”
“No, sir,” Tyler murmured, a lie. In truth, there were several, not the least of which was that big families gave him the willies. No, not even for old-age companion-ship would he endure the interference, inconvenience and irritation of them.
“Are you, um, starting the driving lessons this morning?” blurted Don in an obvious attempt to change the subject. “We have sunshine. We have clear roads.”
Tyler exchanged a look with Julie, whose face still