“I don’t need—” Hank stopped, seeming to struggle to collect himself before continuing. “Look. It sounds really great, I know, but I— No. Just no.”
“It sounds pretty good to me, Hank.” Moxie sent him the evil eye. “What’s your problem?”
“Other than the fact that Millie and I have to live there while all these strangers traipse through our front yard?”
“You mean the way they’ll be doing once you are officially in business?” Robert’s quiet comment brought a halt to the whispers and mutters that had begun.
Hank looked slightly taken aback, but only for a moment.
“That will be different.”
“How?” Janice spoke with the authority that only a mother could muster. “I think this would be an excellent way to get you accustomed to the comings and goings.”
“I don’t—” He stopped again. Brynn waited. She could convince him to do this, but it had to come from him.
Moxie spoke up. “Henry, when your great-uncle built that house and those cabins, he was as proud of them as he could be. He used to have the whole family out there every year for Halloween. He’d fill the woods with ghosts and pumpkins, have a bonfire, make it a party place. We loved going there.” She shook her head. “Then your uncle Lou took over and it all went to hell. Used to break my heart to see how he let it go to pot. Me, I’m mighty proud to see you bringing it back to life. Lou would have been too dumb and lazy to grab this chance. You’re not either of those. So for the love of Pete, boy, don’t pretend you are.”
Hank closed his eyes. Brynn saw the lines in his face, saw the way his fingers tightened on his pen, and felt a flash of guilt. Was she asking too much?
“Fine.” He pointed the pen at Moxie. “I’ll do it. But you have to swear you’ll have everything and everyone out of there within two days of it being over. I have folks checking in Thursday night and I’ll need time to get ready.”
“I’ll help with that.” Brynn spoke quickly. “I’d be happy to do it. And anything else you might need.”
He arched an eyebrow in her direction. “Gee, thanks, Brynn. But I think you’ve done plenty already.”
* * *
SATURDAY MORNING FOUND Hank exactly where he’d been for days: in the Carleton cottage, pounding the hell out of floorboards that needed replacing and sending dark thoughts in the direction of the Wolfe cabin, home of the woman who had made it necessary for him to speed up his timetable by a full week. More, really, since folks would need to get into the cabins ahead of time to set up.
His schedule was a mess. His mood had been launched into permanently foul. He was juggling catch-up and Millie care. And, because life wasn’t exciting enough, his daughter seemed determined to do everything in her power to make his job even more time-consuming.
Like taking off when his back was turned.
“Millie?” He poked his head into every room of the cottage, even though he’d checked each space twice already. It wasn’t like there were many places to hide. Remembering one of her favorite tricks from toddlerhood, Hank opened all the cupboards, hoping to hell he’d hear her familiar giggle with each creak of the hinges.
No go. She wasn’t in the cottage. And since she would have told him if she were simply running home to grab a new toy, he had a pretty good idea where to find her.
He shoved his hands in his pockets as he tramped through the piles of rapidly melting snow toward Brynn’s. He’d been avoiding her since Wednesday’s meeting, not certain he could look at her without his blood boiling. Or, worse, without wanting to take her up on her offer of help. Not because he needed it. Or because he wanted to spend time with her. Just because...well, because she should see, firsthand, the extra work she was causing him.
Yeah, that was it.
He rapped sharply on the door, ready to dispense dire warnings and punishments to his offspring and anyone else who might deserve it. All of the words died on his tongue the minute Brynn opened the door.
She was in a bathrobe. Not a serviceable terry-cloth robe, but a thin one made of something purple and shiny, dotted with red lips, that hugged and clung in so many places that she might as well have been naked. She must have been dripping wet when she yanked it on.
And, God help him, he wanted to yank it off her, right then and there.
He felt like someone had kidnapped all his senses, stripped them of every other memory or association and replaced them all with Brynn. He saw nothing but her curves and the damp patches on her chest where her hair dripped on her robe. He smelled nothing but a slight hint of orange. He felt only the heat surrounding her, tasted nothing but his own sudden lust and heard nothing but—
But his daughter’s muffled squeak.
Millie. Crap, for a minute there he’d forgotten his own kid.
He shook himself like the dog he was and scraped up something that resembled a brain cell. “Hi. Sorry to interrupt—” that was a lie if ever he’d told one “—but I couldn’t find Millie.”
“Funny thing, that.” She stepped back and walked into the room, which he took as an invitation to follow her. Not that he had much choice in the matter. She was the Death Star and he was caught in the tractor beam that was the picture of everything he imagined beneath that purple haze. “It just so happens that I found a Millie. I was about to text you and ask if you were looking for her.”
He glanced at his daughter, huddled on the corner of the sofa, looking like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to burst into tears or celebrate her rebellion. All of a sudden he dreaded her adolescence in a way he never had before.
“Mills? What’s going on?”
She stuck out her bottom lip. “I wanted to play with Brynn.”
“I know, but you can’t take off like that, kiddo. Do you have any idea how scared I was when I couldn’t find you?”
Yeah, you were terrified until you caught one gander at Brynn in her robe and your brain took a hike south. Real Father-of-the-Year material there, North.
“I’m sorry,” she said, but he could tell she was mostly sorry she’d been caught.
“Sorry alone doesn’t cut it, Mills. You need to...” What? He had no idea where to start. He couldn’t tell if he was simply out of his league, or if his thought patterns had been scrambled even worse when Brynn sat on the edge of the couch and her robe parted, giving him a glimpse of knee and calf and, holy shit, was that her thigh?
She pinched her robe closed and sat straighter, the picture of primness. “You only missed her by a little while, at least as far as I can tell. She wasn’t here when I got in the— I mean, she’s only been here a few minutes.”
Wait a minute. Something wasn’t being said here, probably because Brynn didn’t want to get Millie in any more trouble than she already was. But parenting was a job that quickly taught a man how to read between the lines.
“Don’t tell me she let herself in while you were in the shower.”
Brynn bit her lip, sighed and nodded. “I’m afraid so.” Her cheeks flamed almost as red as the lips decorating her robe. “And, I’d better tell you up front, I wasn’t expecting company when I walked out of the bathroom, so Millie might have received a bit of an anatomy lesson.”