Texas On My Mind

“Come on, Ethan,” Claire said, scooping him up. “It’s time for us to go.”

“So soon?” Riley wanted to ask her to stay, but that would just sound wussy. His testosterone had already dropped enough for one day.

“So soon,” Claire verified. She waggled her fingers in a goodbye wave and headed for the door. “Enjoy those brownies.”

She probably would have just waltzed out, but Claire stopped in her tracks when their gazes met. She didn’t ask what was going on in his head, and the chain-yanking expression was gone.

Hell.

He hadn’t wanted her to see what was behind his eyes. Hadn’t wanted anyone to see it. But Riley was as certain as he was of his boot size that Claire knew.

“Finish your breakfast,” Claire instructed. Her voice was a little unsteady now. “I’ll deal with them. I can’t guarantee they won’t come back, but you’ll have a few hours at least. Is that enough time?”

Riley lied with a nod.

He used actual words for his next lie. “You don’t have to worry about me, Claire. Soon I’ll be as good as new.”

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_17d84a74-3f11-5c74-8d6d-b81f4971fb6b)

“PAY DOUGH!” ETHAN squealed when Claire held up the picture of the painting.

Claire checked to make sure she was showing him the right one. Yes, it was van Gogh’s Starry Night, but there was no Play-Doh on it.

“That’s really close, sweetie, and the artist’s name does sort of rhyme with Play-Doh,” Claire encouraged.

“Pay dough!” he repeated, speeding up the words a little.

She tried not to look disappointed. The directions on the “Making Your Toddler a Little Genius” packet had said to make this activity fun. Or rather FUN!!!! Claire only hoped that the creators of this product had raised at least one semigenius child and that they hadn’t just tossed some crap activities together to milk her out of her $89.95, plus shipping.

“Try again,” she prompted, waving the picture at Ethan to get his already wandering attention. “You got this right yesterday.” And, according to the rules, she wasn’t supposed to move on to the next picture until he’d gotten this one right three days in a row. They’d been working on it for two weeks now with no end in sight.

Ethan studied the picture and grinned. “Money!”

Claire was certain she didn’t contain her disappointment that time. “No. Not Monet.” That’d been last month’s lesson.

She snagged one of his toy vehicles. A van. And she held it up with the painting while trying to make a running/going motion with her index and middle fingers. Her nails nearly tore a hole in one of the star blobs. Evidently, $89.95 wasn’t enough to buy higher-quality paper, and her example was obviously too abstract.

“Ri-wee!” Ethan squealed with more excitement than money or Play-Doh.

Frowning, Claire put aside the picture and the van. “No, not Riley.” Or rather Ri-wee. “Why don’t we work on this later? You can go ahead and play.”

You would have thought she’d just announced he could have an entire toy store and unlimited chocolate-chip cookies for life. Ethan scooted across the floor and went back to his cars. The auto crashes started immediately.

“Ri-wee!” he repeated like some kind of tribal shout with each new collision.

Even though he didn’t have the pronunciation down pat, Claire knew her son was only repeating what he’d heard her mumble for the past two days—Riley. For some reason, Riley’s name kept popping into her head and then continued to randomly pop out of her mouth.

And there was no good reason for it.

A few bad reasons, though.

Riley was an attractive man. Still hot. No denying that. He was also very much hands-off since he wouldn’t be around for long, as usual. Maybe her brain would figure that out soon enough and stop sending these ridiculous impulses to the rest of her body.

Claire stayed on the floor next to Ethan but grabbed her laptop from the sofa. Since she had struck out in creating a baby genius, she might as well get some work done, and she downloaded the last photo she needed to edit. When she finished, it would almost be bittersweet because it was also the last of her work in the queue.

More photo shoots would follow. They always did. But it was best if she didn’t have any free time on her hands right now.

Of course, she could fill that free time, easily, by sorting through more of her gran’s things. However, that was more bitter than sweet, and it was also the main reason she kept procrastinating. And overeating. She’d put on six pounds since the sorting had started. Soon, she’d either have to pay for therapy or Weight Watchers.

Her phone buzzed, and Claire saw Livvy Larimer’s name on the screen. Her best friend and co-owner of their business, Dearly Beloved.

“Well?” Livvy started.

No greeting. Which meant she expected Claire to dish up something exciting. And the dishing up that Livvy wanted was about Riley. Best just to give her a summary and hope it didn’t lead to too many other questions.

“Riley finally made it home day before yesterday after his flight was delayed. I fixed him breakfast, and I came back to Gran’s to get some work done on the Herrington-Anderson engagement photos.” An engagement that Livvy knew all about because she was the wedding planner for the event.

“That’s it?” Livvy asked.

Here come the questions. But Claire made Livvy work for the answers. “What else were you expecting?”

“Fudging details. Specifically, fudging you did with Riley.”

Fudging was the compromise they’d worked out instead of using the F word, one of Livvy’s many favorites. They also used sugar for shit and bubble gum for blow job, something that came up surprisingly often in her conversations with Livvy.

They were still working on one for asshole.

Ethan’s little ears picked up on anything Claire didn’t want him to hear while selectively shutting out van Gogh, and since Livvy cursed like a meth dealer in an R-rated movie, they’d resorted to acceptable substitutions.

“No fudging,” Claire explained. She was finally able to keep a straight face when she said it. “I only fixed Riley breakfast and ran interference from some unwanted visitors.”

Livvy made a yeah-right sound. “And you’ve fawned over him for the past decade.”

“Fawned over? What the heck does that even mean? Is that a new compromise word?”

“Yes, it means you dream of fudging and bubblegumming Riley.”

Claire huffed. “Does any woman actually dream of bubblegumming a man? I don’t. It’s more of something that just sort of evolves during foreplay.”

“Foreplay,” Ethan said with perfect clarity. Great, they needed a compromise word for that now.

“Sugar yeah, you dreamed of fudging him,” Livvy went on. “You pointed out his pictures in your high school yearbook. You’ve talked about him. And then there’s Ethan—”

“Riley and I were friends in high school. Friends,” Claire emphasized.

“You can fawn over friends. And fudge them, too. I’ve seen pictures of Riley, and he’d make a great fudge.”

“Riley has never fudged me.” Claire paused. “He’s hurt, Livvy.”