She smiled. “Why does it sound as if you’re running a con on me?”
He returned her smile. “I didn’t mean for it—”
“It’s okay,” she said, cutting him off. “When are we going to look at the puppies?”
Griffin kissed her forehead. “Tomorrow after breakfast.”
“I must have sucker written on my forehead.”
He laughed softly, the warm sound rumbling in his chest. “Why should you be any different from me?”
“Are we really soft, Griffin?”
“No. We’re just two people who want the best for the children we’ve been entrusted to love and protect.”
“You’re right,” Belinda said after a pregnant pause. “I always believed I’d grow up to fall in love, marry and have children of my own. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I’d be raising my sister’s children. What makes it so challenging is that they’re not little kids, but pre-teens who’re beginning to assert their independence. I try and do the best I can, but what frightens me is what will I do or say if, or when, they come out with ‘you can’t tell me what to do because you’re not my mother.’”
“Let’s hope it never happens, but if it does then I’ll step in.”
Belinda tried to sit up, but was thwarted when Griffin held her fast. “You’re not going to hit them.”
He frowned at her. “I’d never hit a child. What I can assure you is that my bark is a great deal louder than yours.”
“I’ll not have you yelling at them.”
“What’s it going to be, Belinda? You can’t have it both ways. There’s going to come a time when they’re going to challenge you, because all kids do it. But the dilemma for us will be how do we deal with it as parents. And if I have to raise my voice to get them off your back, then I will. Remember, they’re twins, so they’re apt to tag-team you.”
Belinda remembered when Donna broke curfew and Roberta was sitting in the living room waiting up for her. Donna said something flippant and all Belinda remembered was Roberta telling Donna that she’d brought her into the world and she could also take her out. Her mother’s tirade woke up the entire household and it took all of Dwight Eaton’s gentle persuasion to defuse the situation.
It was after the volatile confrontation that Belinda made a promise to herself: if and when she had children she would never scream at them, because not only was punishment more effective, but also the results lasted longer.
“If you’re going to raise your voice, then I don’t want to be anywhere around,” she told Griffin.
“Dammit, Belinda, you act like I’m going to verbally abuse them. When it comes to discipline we are going to have to be on the same page, or else they’re going to play one off the other.”
“I know,” she whispered, burying her face between his neck and shoulder.
“What do you do when your students act out?”
“I put them out of my class, and then write them up.”
“Do you have problems with the boys?”
“What kind of problems?”
“Do they try and come on to you?”
“A few have tried, but when I give them a ‘screw face’ then they usually back off.”
“Show me a ‘screw face.’” Easing out of Griffin’s comforting embrace, Belinda sat up and glared at him. There was something in Belinda’s gaze that was frightening. “How do you do that?” he asked.
She smiled. “Practice, practice, practice. I have more problems with my female students than the males. Some of them outweigh me, so they believe they can take me out with very little effort. In not so many words, I tell them I can roll with the best of them.”
“You’re not talking about fighting a student?”
“Of course not. But what they don’t know is that I have a black belt in tae kwon do, with distinction in sparring and power breaking. Myles studied karate for years, earned his black belt, but didn’t like competing. I, on the other hand, loved competitions.”
“Do you still compete?”
“No. It’s been a long time since my last competition. A lot of teachers refuse to teach in rough neighborhoods, but the confidence I gained from a decade of martial arts training and the fact that these kids need dedicated teachers is why I stay.”
“So you can kick my butt.”
Belinda smiled. “With one arm tied behind my back,” she said, teasingly.
“Ouch!” he kidded, pressing her back to the mattress. “When I first met you I thought you were cute and I wanted to ask you out, but you were Miss Attitude personified.”
“I was nineteen and you had already graduated law school, so I thought you were too old for me.”
“I’m only five years older than you. I graduated high school at sixteen, college at twenty and law school at twenty-three. That made me an accelerated student, not an older man.”
“You seemed so much older then.”
“What about now?”
“When I saw you rolling around on the porch with Layla and Sabrina I had serious doubts as to your maturity.”
“They love it when I wrestle with them,” Griffin drawled. “Fast-forward thirteen years, and I’m going to ask you something I should’ve asked when you were nineteen. Belinda Eaton, will you go out with me?”
“You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“Why do you think I’m kidding?”
“Not only are we aunt, uncle and godparents but our nieces’ legal guardians. We sleep in each other’s homes, you have a key to mine and I to yours, but right now we’re in bed together. Dating would be ludicrous given our situation.”
“You’re right about us sharing a situation.”
“Is there something wrong with that, Griffin?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it, but I would prefer having a relationship with you aside from what we share with Sabrina and Layla. That way I could get to know you better.”
Belinda was strangely flattered by Griffin’s interest in her. She experienced a gamut of emotions that didn’t let her think clearly. Circumstances beyond their control had brought them together and the man whom she’d come to believe couldn’t be faithful to one woman wanted a relationship with her.
“I’ll have to think about it.”
His expressive eyebrows lifted. “What’s there to think about?”
Belinda gave him a long, penetrating stare. “I have to decide whether I’m willing to see you exclusively.”
“Does that mean you’ll give up Sunshine?”
“Who’s Sunshine?”
“Your pen-pal chump living off the taxpayers in a Sunshine State prison.”
“Raymond is not a chump,” she said in defense of the kindest man whom she had the pleasure of knowing.
“He’s in Florida and you’re in Pennsylvania, which means you live at least a thousand miles apart. How often do you see him, Belinda? Or better yet—how many times a year, if he’s not incarcerated, does he make love to you? How do you know if he’s being faithful to you?”
Her temper flared as she sat up.