On Dean's Watch

“Probably not. Besides, they’re too young to play T-ball.”

“Oh,” Cooper said, sounding dejected at the news.

Dean thought about his growing family for a moment. Shea’s Justin was two and a holy terror. All two-year-olds were holy terrors, right? Boone’s little girl, Miranda, was not yet a year old, and she was spoiled rotten. Absolutely rotten! She had Boone wrapped around her little finger and had since the moment she’d come into this world.

Clint’s twin boys were still at that wriggly, wrinkled, useless age. Infants. Why on earth did people insist that they were so cute when, in fact, they resembled big, pale, squalling bugs?

Dean had taken one look at the tiny babies, who had arrived almost a month early, and had told Clint to give him a call when the kids turned into humans. So he wasn’t a warm and fuzzy uncle. The world had plenty of warm and fuzzy without him. Especially now that his siblings were all married and making families.

Somehow the kids had bracketed him, Terrance on one side, Cooper on the other. Terrance was trying, very diligently and not quite secretively, to see what was in Dean’s bags.

Fortunately he was almost home. “What about you?” he asked Terrance.

The kid jumped back from the bags as if he’d been caught snooping. In fact, he had been. “What?”

“Are you anxious for more kids to come to town?”

The boy gave the question a moment of serious thought. “Not really. I have my best friend Cooper and my second-best friend Johnny, and two brothers and my mama and my daddy. That’s enough,” he said, sounding satisfied with his young life.

“Smart boy,” Dean said in a lowered voice.

“But we could use a first baseman,” Terrance added thoughtfully.

Dean came to a halt. “This is where I live,” he said, wisely withholding the Shoo that wanted to leap from his mouth.

“This is Miss Evelyn’s place.” Cooper looked at the old house and nodded his head. “Don’t eat the sugar cookies,” he said in a quiet voice tinged with horror as he delivered the dire warning.

Dean was about to ask why not? when he was distracted.

Reva Macklin had stepped outside. She walked in the shade of the trees that lined the sidewalk. So why did she look as if she carried the light with her? She was sunshine and cinnamon, strawberries and…heaven help him, this was the kind of woman who could work her way under a man’s skin and make him crazy. She walked toward him, and for a moment, just a moment, Dean didn’t see anything else. Dangerous. Very, very dangerous. She didn’t dress provocatively. In fact, she was clothed to suit this town. Quaint. Old-fashioned.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she crossed the street. She walked straight toward him, hair released from the thick ponytail she had worn earlier to fall past her shoulders. It wasn’t curly, but it wasn’t completely straight. It waved. It caught the little slivers of sunlight that found their way through the thick foliage of the trees.

A lesser man would have dropped the bags and drooled, but not Dean.

She gave him a brief, sweet smile, and he wondered what would happen next. Why was she here? Maybe something in her house needed his immediate attention. Faulty plumbing. A rotting board or two. Maybe a loose stair. So he wasn’t any good at repairing anything—he was willing to try.

It crossed his mind briefly that maybe Reva was approaching him for a much more personal reason. He barely knew her; there was nothing personal between them. And yet—

“Cooper Macklin,” she said sharply, turning her attention to the child. “You’re late.”

“I had to stay after school.”

Reva reached their side of the street and crossed her arms as she stared down at Cooper. “What was it this time?”

“I was just trying to help Mrs. Berry,” he explained. “She was reading us a story, but she had it all wrong. I have that book and I know she wasn’t telling it right.”

“Cooper!” Reva said, sounding properly horrified.

“I was trying to help,” he explained passionately. “But she just didn’t want me to help. She wanted to tell the whole story wrong.”

“I stayed, too,” Terrance said in a soft voice that managed to cut through the tension. “So Cooper wouldn’t have to walk home alone.”

Dean was taken aback. That was putting it mildly. His reaction was physical, as well as emotional. His heart pounded too hard, his mouth went dry. He looked from Reva to her son, from Cooper to Terrance and then back to Cooper again.

First grade—that meant the kid was six years old. Blond hair, blue eyes, dimples. Fearless.

Cooper Macklin, Reva’s child, was Eddie Pinchon’s son.

Chapter 3

Reva closed her eyes and shook her head. “Cooper, how many times have I told you—”

“This is my new friend, Mr. Sinclair,” Cooper interrupted in an overly bright voice. Her son was a master at changing the subject, and had been since the age of three. “He doesn’t have any kids, so he’s probably lonely. We should ask him to have dinner with us. Tonight!”

Reva avoided looking directly at Dean Sinclair. There was nothing quite like being put on the spot, and she hadn’t yet decided how to respond to Cooper’s unfortunate suggestion.

“You’re always telling me to have good manners, Mom, and inviting Mr. Sinclair for dinner is good manners, right?” Cooper’s innocent blue eyes remained wide and hopeful.

“I’m sure Mr. Sinclair has plans for dinner,” Reva responded calmly.

“I bet he doesn’t,” Cooper said, turning his eyes up to their new neighbor. “Do you have plans?”

“Well…” Sinclair began.

“Pleeeze!” Cooper whined. “I want you to tell me about your niece and all those nephews, even if they’re not old enough to play T-ball.”

“Thank you for the invitation, but I don’t think I can eat another bite today.” Sinclair glanced at Reva. “I ate too much at lunch.”

“Dessert, then,” Cooper insisted. “You could come over and have dessert with us.”

“Don’t annoy Mr. Sinclair,” Reva said.

“I’m not annoyed,” Sinclair replied.

She made herself look at Dean Sinclair. He still wore the shirt and pants to his conservative suit, but the tie and jacket had been discarded. The top button of his shirt was undone, the sleeves of his shirt had been turned up and rolled away from his wrists. There was something about a man’s well-shaped neck that could be fascinating in the right circumstances. It was so different from a woman’s neck, so solid and strong. And a man’s nicely muscled forearms could be just as interesting. Just as tempting.

Reva mentally shook off her unexpected fascination. She’d spent seven years steering clear of men; why did this one stir something long-untouched in her? It was just chemistry, she supposed. That sort of thing did happen, or so she heard. What else could it be? She didn’t know Dean Sinclair, not at all. He was handsome, but he certainly wasn’t the only good-looking man she’d seen in the past seven years. Their eyes met, and for a moment it seemed that he was just as disconcerted as she was.

“The fudge pie was very good,” he said.

“Oh, we’re not having pie for dessert tonight,” she said. “Do you like strawberries?”

Was it her imagination or did the innocent question catch him off guard? Something in his eyes changed. Sparkled a little, perhaps, as if he was surprised.

“Strawberries,” he said softly. “Love ’em.”

“I’m making strawberry shortcake tonight.”