CHAPTER SEVEN

      “WAS THAT NECESSARY?” Joanne asked. “You’re not exactly Mr. Popularity around here.”

      After the meeting, all three of them had walked to the school parking lot together. Hunter had climbed into Joanne’s SUV and slammed the passenger door shut without a word.

      “Not interested in winning a contest.”

      “I know you’re trying to be a hard-ass but he already doesn’t like you. So ease up on the boot camp stuff and let’s see if we can at least get him to want to spend time with you that isn’t forced labor.”

      Shit. Was he being a hard-ass? He hadn’t meant to be. He’d reacted in a similar fashion that any of his COs would have to a rookie, to teach him a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget. Obviously Matt was still feeling his way around being the father of a hormone-driven teenager.

      “I said I’d supervise. More likely, I’ll help.”

      Joanne sighed and leaned against the driver’s-side door. “How much longer before he can spend a weekend with you?”

      For months he’d been trying to find a suitable place to rent. At least two bedrooms with a backyard. Everything he’d located had been rented by the time he called. “No luck so far, but at least the lease is up on my apartment.”

      “He would have been fine in your apartment. You’re so picky.”

      “It’s a one-bedroom.”

      “He would have been fine on the couch.”

      “What’s the rush, Joanne?”

      “Fine. If you must know, Chuck has a chance at the minors this summer.”

      “Chuck?” That must be the new boyfriend he’d heard about, but let her tell him that.

      “We’ve been seeing each other. Hunter doesn’t like him much, but as you can see he doesn’t like anyone. Anyway, I want to meet up with Chuck at one of the games, and it’s not like Hunter wants to go with me. All he wants to do is hang out with his friends, tag fences and play ‘Call of Duty’.”

      Great. His kid was getting an education in military combat with little if any basis in reality. “I’m working on it.”

      “Work harder.” Joanne slipped into her sedan and they were off.

      Matt stood and watched for a moment. These were two people in his life he should somehow feel deeply connected to. He understood why he no longer felt anything for Joanne, but he was supposed to love Hunter. Did love him, in fact, or at least the kid he remembered. The little kid in that framed photo, for starters. But Hunter wasn’t a small boy he could please with shiny Air Force toy planes or help guide across the monkey bars. Matt shouldn’t have let two years go by between visits, even if Joanne had made it difficult. The last time he’d seen Hunter he’d been thirteen and just on the edge of puberty, his voice squeaking and his feet huge in comparison to the rest of him. But he’d still been at least human.

      Fast-forward two short years and Hunter looked like a different kid. He was now nearly as tall as Matt himself, a man-child with an attitude. Not like he didn’t know a little bit about them, but the airmen he’d had in his wing weren’t children. Hunter was far more child than man, but Matt understood the kid didn’t see it that way.

      Back at the airport, Matt finished off his day with a onetime flying lesson gifted to a woman on her fiftieth birthday by her Airman First Class son, and a last-minute charter flight to Las Vegas. He was there to pick up a couple of businessmen who’d missed their connecting flight to San Francisco, but when Matt arrived the men had instead hired a private jet minutes after placing the call.

      Wonderful.

      He waited in line to taxi back down the runway and took off again, fuming. The passengers would be charged, but they’d wasted precious fuel. Stone would be pissed.

      Back at the airport, Matt checked out with Cassie and Emily, gathered his keys and headed to Sarah’s, prepared to spend an evening putting in the rest of the hardwood flooring in the hallway. He was tired, irritated as hell and hungry like a lion. The rest of his evening would consist of physical labor and a large dose of sexually charged frustration to boot.

      And he couldn’t figure out why he looked forward to all of it.

      “Honey, I’m home,” Matt said as he walked in the front door to Sarah’s place.

      His place now, too. Or at least fifteen percent his place until he talked the stubborn woman out of their arrangement. Sarah should have beaten him home hours ago, and he’d seen her car outside but didn’t find her in the kitchen. Shackles welcomed him instead, wagging his tail double time and leading the way to the sliding glass door. Matt let him out, then went to find Sarah.

      Where the hell was she? They had to talk about the roof, and plenty of other decisions that would need to be made about their now joint project. This house was a classic when one got right down to it. A Craftsman built in the early 1960s, it had seen better days, but from the beginning Matt had seen nothing but possibilities. He figured it was the fixer in him, but he’d always admired great craftsmanship.

      He headed toward her bedroom when the bathroom door jerked open a few feet away from him. Sarah emerged. Naked. She took one startled look in his direction and streaked down the hallway toward the bedrooms. Frozen in place, he stood as still as a rock and nearly as hard. Her sweet ass was the last thing he saw before she slammed the door to her bedroom shut.

      “You took the last towel!” she screeched from inside.

      “Sorry,” he called out. Not sorry.

      If this was what living with her would be like, maybe he should just kill himself right now and make fast work of it. Anything had to be better than letting her kill him slowly like this without any mercy.

      He headed back to the kitchen where he stuck his head in the freezer. “Yep. That ought to do it.”

      Next he reached inside the refrigerator for bottled water and considered whether he should drink the cold water or pour it all over his head. Choosing to drink first, he uncapped it and took a big swallow just as Sarah walked in the kitchen.

      “You men are all alike.”

      He turned to find her standing in the kitchen, arms folded across what he now unfairly knew was one of the greatest racks he’d ever been privileged to see. She wore a blue tank top and loose gray sweats. Was she wearing the red bra or the pink one? Black or red panties?

      “I didn’t see anything,” he lied.

      “That’s not what I mean. Why is it so hard to remember to replace a towel? You use one, you put another one back. It’s not rocket science.”

      “You’re right.”

      “I went ahead and put all your towels in the top shelf of the linen closet.” Her arms dropped to her sides. “I guess I didn’t tell you that.”

      “Nope,” he said, and drained the contents of the water bottle. “But I would have brought you a towel. All you had to do was ask.”

      She shifted her weight from one leg to another. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

      He scrunched up the water bottle until it was an inch tall, releasing a small amount of tension and pent-up sexual frustration, though not nearly enough. “Easy mistake. Don’t worry.