“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to imply…”
“It’s no big deal.”
She touched his arm, her fingers gentle and cool and so soft against his skin. “Yes, it is,” she told him. “To Natasha, it’s a very big deal.”
“I’m not doing it for Tash,” he said quietly, looking down at her delicate hand resting on the corded muscles of his forearm, wishing she would leave it there, but knowing she was going to pull away. “I’m doing it for myself.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“IS THOMAS REALLY a king?”
Mia looked up from the sand castle she was helping Tasha build. The little girl was making dribble turrets on the side of the large mound using wet sand and water from a plastic pail that Mia had found in her closet. She had remarkable dexterity for a five-year-old, and managed to make most of her dribbles quite tall and spiky.
“Thomas’s last name is King,” Mia answered. “But here in the United States, we don’t have kings and queens.”
“Is he a king somewhere else? Like I’m a princess in Russia?”
“Well,” Mia said diplomatically, “you might want to check with Thomas, but I think King is just his last name.”
“He looks like a king.” Natasha giggled. “He thinks I’m from Mars. I’m gonna marry him.”
“Marry who?” Frisco asked, sitting down in the sand next to them.
He’d just come out of the ocean, and water beaded on his eyelashes and dripped from his hair. He looked more relaxed and at ease than Mia had ever seen him.
“Thomas,” Tasha told him, completely serious.
“Thomas.” Frisco considered that thoughtfully. “I like him,” he said. “But you’re a little young to be getting married, don’t you think?”
“Not now, silly,” she said with exasperation. “When I’m a grown-up, of course.”
Frisco tried to hide his smile. “Of course,” he said.
“You can’t marry my mom ’cause you’re her brother, right?” she asked.
“That’s right,” Frisco told her. He leaned back in the sand on his elbows. Mia tried not to stare at the way the muscles in his arms flexed as they supported his weight. She tried to pull her gaze away from his broad shoulders and powerful chest and smooth, tanned skin. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen him without a shirt, after all. She should be getting used to this….
“Too bad,” Tash said with a sigh. “Mommy’s always looking for someone to marry, and I like you.”
Frisco’s voice was husky. “Thanks, Tash. I like you, too.”
“I didn’t like Dwayne,” the little girl said. “He scared me, but Mommy liked living in his house.”
“Maybe when your mom comes back, the two of you could live a few doors down from me,” Frisco said.
“You could marry Mia,” Tasha suggested. “And move in with her. And we could live in your place.”
Mia glanced up. Frisco met her eyes, clearly embarrassed. “Maybe Mia doesn’t want to get married,” he said.
“Do you?” the little girl asked, looking up from her handiwork to gaze at Mia with those pure blue eyes that were so like Frisco’s.
“Well,” she said carefully. “Someday I’d like to get married and have a family, but—”
“She does,” Tasha informed her uncle. “She’s pretty and she makes good sandwiches. You should ask her to marry you.” She stood up and, taking her bucket, went down to the edge of the water, where she began to chase waves up the sand.
“I’m sorry about that,” Frisco said with a nervous laugh. “She’s…you know, five. She’s heavily into happily ever after.”
“It’s all right,” Mia said with a smile. “And don’t worry. I won’t hold you to any promises that Tasha makes on your behalf.” She brushed the sand from her knees and moved back onto the beach blanket she’d spread out.
Frisco moved to join her. “That’s good to know.” He turned to look at Mia, his warm gaze skimming up her legs, lingering on her red two-piece bathing suit and the enormous amount of skin it exposed, before settling on her face. “She’s right, though. You are pretty, and you make damn good sandwiches.”
Mia’s pulse was racing. When had it started to matter so much whether or not this man thought that she was pretty? When had the urge disappeared—the urge to cover herself up with a bulky T-shirt every time he looked at her with that heat in his eyes? When had her heart started to leap at his crooked, funny smiles? When had he crossed that boundary that defined him as more than a mere friend?
It had started days ago, with that very first hug he had given Natasha in the courtyard. He was so gentle with the child, so patient. Mia’s attraction to him had been there from the start, yet now that she had come to know more of him, it was multilayered, existing on more complicated levels than just basic, raw sexual magnetism.
It was crazy. Mia knew it was crazy. This was not a man with whom she could picture herself spending the rest of her life. He’d been trained as a killer—a professional soldier. And if that wasn’t enough, he had barrels of anger and frustration and pain to work through before he could be considered psychologically and emotionally healthy. And if that wasn’t enough, there was the fact of his drinking.
Yes, he’d vowed to stop, but Mia’s experience as a high school teacher had made her an expert on the disease of alcoholism. The best way to fight it was not to face it alone, but to seek help. He seemed hell-bent on handling it himself, and more often than not, such a course would end in failure.
No, if she were smart, she’d pack up her beach bag right now and get the heck out of there.
Instead, she put more sunblock on her face. “I went into your kitchen to help Natasha load the cooler with soda,” she said. “And I noticed you had only one thing stuck onto your refrigerator. A list.”
He glanced at her, his expression one of wariness. “Yeah?”
“I wasn’t sure,” she said, “but…it looked like it might’ve been a list of things that you have difficulty doing with your injured knee.”
The list had included things like run, jump, skydive, bike, and climb stairs.
He gazed out at the ocean, squinting slightly in the brightness. “That’s right.”
“You forgot to include that you’re no longer able to play on the Olympic basketball team, so I added that to the bottom,” she said, her tongue firmly in her cheek.
He let loose a short burst of air that might’ve been called a laugh if he’d been smiling. “Very funny. If you’d looked carefully, you’d have noticed that the word walk was at the top. I crossed it off when I could walk. I intend to do the same with the rest of those things on that list.”
His eyes were the same fierce shade of blue as the sky.
Mia rolled onto her stomach and propped her chin up in her hands. “Tell me about this amazing pink couch,” she said. “What’s that all about?”
This time Frisco did laugh, and the lines around his eyes crinkled with genuine amusement. He stretched out next to her on the blanket, making sure he could still see Tasha from where they lay. “Oh, that,” he said. “It’s gonna look great in my living room, don’t you think? Dirt brown and ugly green go real well with pink and silver.”
Mia smiled. “You’ll have to redecorate. Maybe a white carpet and lots of Art Deco type mirrors on the walls would