Heated Rush

“Probably. Yes. I mean, I don’t usually even answer this phone during the day, but I happened to have it in my pocket and heard it ringing. No, honey.”

Honey? “What?”

“Sorry. I’m holding a squirming bundle of male energy and he’s trying to bite my ear.”

He’d like to bite her ear. And he had a lot of male energy. Sean suddenly found himself envying that squirming child, though that didn’t, of course, mean he’d ever want to hold one himself. His younger half sister was perfectly capable of filling their ancestral home with little Murphys. He felt quite sure their father would be able to pay off any future husband to allow the tykes to carry on the family name.

“I, uh, didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

“I figured we ought to talk about this weekend.”

She sucked in an audible breath, and he could almost feel her panic through the phone. “You are backing out.”

So pessimistic for such a sweet-faced young woman. “Of course I’m not backing out. I just want a little more information about what I’m up against. Other than cows.”

“You won’t be up against them.You won’t have to set foot anywhere near them. I didn’t mean that crack about the shoes. You won’t have to go anywhere near the milking barns. And we don’t have much other livestock except for a few horses. Do you like to ride? Oh, and there are some sheep, too, but they’ll be down in the pasture.”

Barn. Good God. And sheep? He’d seen enough of those creatures in the first twenty-one years of his life to last him until the end of time. Why had he agreed to do this again?

Her eyes, fool. Her eyes and her throat and her golden hair and her soft lips and her feminine body and her honesty and the incredible way she’d felt in his arms.

Well, all right then.

“Listen, things are kind of crazy here,” she said, sounding as if she was about to drop the phone even as she mumbled something to the baby. “Can you call me back after six?”

“Why don’t I pick you up after six so we can go have a drink somewhere.”

There was more yowling, plus a bit of tiny purring like a kitten being petted. He didn’t suspect that was coming from Annie, though he most definitely wouldn’t mind doing a little stroking.

As he’d expected, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head all night long. He’d tried to capture the memory of her smell, thought about the taste of her, had replayed their conversation in his mind, envisioned her pretty face, the pert nose, the amazing eyes. Not to mention the feminine body beneath the butter yellow silk.

Oh, yes, he’d absolutely like to touch her until she purred. Whenever and wherever she liked.

Feeling that way about a woman he barely knew—being so vulnerable to her and wanting her so badly after such a brief acquaintance—should have been enough to make him avoid her. Reason told him to stay away from her until he had to fulfill his promise.

Instead, here he stood, phone in hand, waiting to see if she’d agree to see him again tonight. Almost holding his breath, unsure about her, as he’d never been about a woman.

Sean wasn’t accustomed to being vulnerable to anyone. He never let himself get involved with anyone who didn’t know the score and the rules of the game up front.

Those types of relationships he understood. Real ones hadn’t been part of his vocabulary for a very long time.

A real one though, was the only type that could possibly happen with someone like Annie Davis. But that couldn’t coexist with who he was, with what he did.

He wasn’t usually a selfish enough bastard to take a chance, anyway, and damn the consequences. So why was he so willing to do it now? To risk hurting her—or himself—by getting personally involved with a normal, attractive woman who would never understand the choices he’d made in his life?

He didn’t know. He just knew he was helpless to resist. He was so anxious to see her, he almost held his breath waiting for her to answer.

Finally, she spoke. “It’s probably a good idea for us to get together and talk.” She hesitated for a second before adding, “I did back you into a corner about this trip.”

“True.”

“Sorry.” Then, sounding disgruntled, she admitted, “Well, no, I’m not really sorry. I needed you, you see.”

Needed him. Not just wanted. Why the word should make Sean’s pulse accelerate, he had no idea. But indeed it did.

Women were always wanting him. But needing? That was different. And at this point in his life, he welcomed anything different.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied, “but I have a feeling you’ll paint me quite a picture tonight.”

“Yes. I will. Let’s meet somewhere, okay? Then I’ll lay it all out for you and you can tell me whether or not you’ll really go through with it.”

Conceding the single-woman-safety-clause that required them to meet for their first date, instead of him picking her up, he murmured his agreement and waited while she named the place. Then he added, “You should know, Annie, I don’t think there’s much you could say that would make me give up the chance to spend a weekend with you. Cows and sheep notwithstanding.”

He’d go through a lot for the chance to explore the attraction that had been so strong between them. Not to mention, finding out just how much she needed him.

“You might want to wait until you hear what you’re in for before you say that.”

“All right, then. Tonight, you can tell me what I’m in for and we’ll go from there.”

And with any luck, what he was in for included a few highly sensual moments with Annie.

ANNIE HAD NO intention of telling Sean Murphy the whole story. She’d tell him enough—in fact, most of it. She’d make it clear that she couldn’t show up at the family party without a man on her arm, and she’d even try to explain why. Though, honestly, until he met her family, he probably wouldn’t understand how serious the situation was.

She would not, however, go into details on the whole Blake-the-snake thing. Because that episode in her life was so humiliating, she couldn’t bring herself to speak about it.

Thankfully, only Tara had any idea that Annie had been dating the father of one of the kids from the center. That was a blessing, because she’d been breaking her own rule against fraternizing with the clients.

Annie knew from experience that some young, pretty day care workers could easily get swept away by the handsome, wealthy dads who occasionally picked up the children. At the first child care center she’d worked at in Chicago, one of her coworkers had landed in the middle of a nasty divorce scandal that had nearly destroyed the reputation of the business. So the No Fraternization policy had been a top-ten rule when she’d buried herself in debt in order to open her own place three years ago.

And she’d broken it.

That she’d done it unwittingly was not a good enough excuse. She should have known better, should have seen through Blake’s charm and his lies.

He’d just been so damned convincing and his lifestyle so convenient a backup to his story. His wife, who, Annie later learned, was an E.R. nurse with a demanding schedule, had never once visited the center. Not for an initial interview, not for a drop-off, a pickup or even one of the children’s programs. So it had been easy to believe Blake when he said his wife had divorced him and he was raising his precious two-year-old son alone.

Imagine Annie’s surprise when one month ago—six weeks after Blake had started bringing the boy to Baby Daze—his not-so-ex-wife had confronted Annie in her own office, accusing her of sleeping with her husband. God, of all the moments in her life she’d like to forget, that was the worst. Thankfully, it had been late in the day. No other parents had been around and all her staff had gone home, except Tara.

Beyond that, the only saving grace was that she’d been able to truthfully deny having had sex with Blake. It was small comfort, considering they had been dating and had shared certain intimacies. But it was something.

“Enough,” she whispered, the memories making her head ache. Forcing the awful images out of her head, she tried to focus on exactly what she’d say to Sean, who should be showing up at the bar any minute. She’d arrived at five-fifty, so anxious about the meeting that she’d actually taken off from work early, leaving her assistant manager in charge of shutting the center down.

It was very unlike her. But then, so was blowing an absolute fortune—including the bulk of her savings account—on one date with a stranger.

“Not just one date,” she reminded herself. The price she’d paid would prove well worth it if Sean could help her keep her family from learning the truth about Annie’s rather sordid love life. As a bonus, it should also keep them off her back for another few months about her true single status.

“Talking to yourself?”

Wondering if she’d broken a hundred mirrors over the past seven years to inspire such bad luck, she glanced up to see Sean Murphy standing beside her table. God, could this meeting have started off any worse? He’d caught her muttering to herself as she nursed a glass of wine in a dark corner of a shadowy bar.