A Father for Her Triplets. Susan Meier
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one.” He eased back on the chair. “So tell me more about the cake business.”
She peeked at him and his heart turned over in his chest. In the dim light of her back porch, her gray-blue eyes sort of glowed. The long hair she kept in a ponytail while she worked currently fell to her back in a long, smooth wave. He didn’t dare glance down at her legs, because his intention was to keep this relationship platonic, and those legs could be his undoing.
“I love my business.” She said it slowly, carefully meeting his gaze. “But it’s a lot of work.”
He swallowed. Her eyes were just so damned pretty. “I’ll bet it is.”
“And what’s funny is I learned how to do most of it online.”
That made him laugh. “No kidding.”
He turned on his chair to face her, and suddenly their legs were precariously close. Nerves tingled through him. He desperately wanted to flirt with her. To feel the rush of attraction turn to arousal. To feel the rush of heat right before a first kiss.
Their gazes met and clung. Her tongue peeked out and moistened her lips.
The tingle dancing along his skin became a slow burn. Maybe he wasn’t the only one feeling this attraction?
She rose from her chair and walked to the edge of the porch, propping her butt on the railing, trying not to look as if she was running from him.
But she was.
She was attracted to him and he wasn’t having any luck hiding his attraction to her. This attraction was mutual, so why run?
“There are tons and tons of online videos of people creating beautiful one-of-a-kind cakes. If you have the basic know-how about cake baking, the decorating stuff can be learned.”
He rose from his seat, too. He absolutely, positively wanted to help her with Owen, but a platonic relationship wouldn’t get him over his bad divorce as well as a new romance could. And from the looks of things, she could use a little romance in her life, too. Even one that ended. Good memories could be a powerful way to get a person from one difficult day to the next.
He ambled over beside her. Edged his hip onto the railing. “So you baked a lot of trial cakes?”
She laughed nervously. “I probably should have. But I worked with a woman whose sister was getting married, and when she heard I was learning to bake wedding cakes she asked if I’d bake one for the wedding.” Missy caught his gaze, her blue-gray eyes filled with heat. Her breath stuttered out.
He smiled. In high school he’d have given anything to make her breath stutter like that. And now that he had, he couldn’t just ignore it. Particularly since he definitely could get back to normal a lot quicker with a new romance.
“Because it was my first cake, I did it for free.” Her soft voice whispered between them. “Luckily, it came out perfectly. And I got several referrals.”
He slid a little closer. “That’s good.”
She slid away. “That was last year. My trial and error year. This year I have enough referrals and know enough that I was comfortable quitting my job, doing this fulltime.”
He nodded, slid closer. He wouldn’t be such an idiot that he’d seduce her tonight, but he did want a kiss.
But she scooted farther away from him. “You’re not getting what I’m telling you.”
He frowned. Her crisp, unyielding voice didn’t match the heat bubbling in his stomach right now.
Had he fantasized his way into missing part of the conversation?
“What are you telling me?”
“I was abandoned by my husband with three kids. We’ve been as close to dead broke as four people can be for four long years. It was almost a happy accident that the first bride asked me to bake her cake. Over the past year I’ve been building to this point where I had a whole summer of cakes to bake. A real income.”
She slid off the railing and walked away from him. “I like you. But I have three kids and a new business.”
His chest constricted. He’d definitely fantasized his way into missing something. He hadn’t heard anything even close to that in their conversation. But he heard it now. “And you don’t want a man around, screwing that up?”
She winced. “No. I don’t.”
The happy tingle in his blood died. He wasn’t mad at her. How could he be mad at her when what she said made so much sense?
But he wasn’t happy, either.
He collected the empty beer bottles and left.
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