Baby Be Mine

He could surprise her, too.

“Your dough? You mean you make the pizza?”

“Somebody always ‘makes’ the pizza, Clair,” he said, teasing her by explaining the obvious.

“I know someone makes the pizza. I just didn’t think, when you said it was pizza night, that you were the someone. I figured you ordered out.”

“Can’t order out pizza as good as I make.”

“And you even make the dough?”

“Mmm-hmm. The sauce, too. I cook up a batch and can it myself.”

“Amazing.”

“I’m a man of many talents,” he said with a voice full of innuendo and a lascivious arch to his eyebrow that made her laugh this time.

But she didn’t doubt him. And she also realized that there was a part of her that was far too interested in learning just what all he was talented at….

“An hour then,” she repeated. “I’d like to clean up, too. Can I bring something? I could run into town for—” She was going to say she could run into town for a bottle of wine but she realized that made it sound too much like they were planning a date. So she quickly changed course. “—for something for dessert. Does Willy like ice cream?”

“Sure, but there’s some in the freezer if we get the urge. After my pizza you might not have room.”

What Clair was afraid of was just what kind of urges she might end up having. But she didn’t say that. Instead she played off the braggadocio in his last comment.

“Pretty proud of your pizza, are you?”

His supple mouth eased into a wicked grin, and only then did it occur to her that the way she’d said that had made it sound as if she was referring to something more personal than pizza. Something a whole lot more personal than pizza.

But he didn’t miss a beat before saying, “Yeah, I am,” in much the same tone.

Clair decided she’d better get away from there before either of them ventured any further into the flirting neither one should have been doing.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” she said with a hint of chastisement in her tone.

“I’ll be here.”

“See you in a little bit, Willy,” she called to her nephew, who was hunkered down in serious study of a dead spider.

Willy ignored her yet again.

“Mind your manners, little man,” Jace warned amiably enough.

“Bye-see-ya,” the boy answered without looking away from the spider.

But Clair had successfully accomplished what she’d wanted, and whatever sparks had been flying between her and Jace were defused. Or at least they were muted some.

“I guess that says it all. Bye-see-ya,” she parroted, heading off across the lawn toward Rennie Jennings’s house.

But she could feel Jace’s eyes on her as she did, and she only realized after she was doing it that she’d put the tiniest sway into her walk.

Knock it off, she ordered herself.

But even the command and the reminder that she wasn’t there to start anything up with Jace didn’t help. Her hips seemed to have a mind of their own, and they went right on swaying all the way inside.

Chapter Three

Clair climbed Jace’s porch steps exactly one hour later. As she did she silently repeated to herself, I’m here to see Willy. I’m here to see Willy. I’m here to see Willy.

Not to spend the evening with Jace.

But she could hardly believe herself, knowing Willy would never notice that she’d showered and shampooed her hair for the second time today, reapplied blush, mascara and eyeliner, and carefully chosen her best cashmere turtleneck sweater to wear over her black slacks because the color made her skin look luminous.

She was there to see Willy. There to see Willy. There to see Willy…

“The door’s open,” Jace called from inside when she rang the bell.

Clair let herself in to Jace’s second call. “We’re in the kitchen.” She followed the sound of his voice instructing Willy. “Pat it out like a mud pie the way I showed you.”

From the living room she went into the dining room, then through the swinging door and into the kitchen, which she’d barely caught a glimpse of before. The walls were painted bright blue around the natural oak cupboards and white appliances. A large round table monopolized the center of the room, surrounded by four ladder-back chairs.

Jace was standing at the table, and Willy was beside him, kneeling on the seat of one of the chairs. There was a wooden pastry board in front of them both, and while Jace pressed dough into a round pizza pan at one end, Willy attempted to do the same with a considerably smaller piece on a cookie sheet at the other end of it.

“Hi,” Jace greeted her, glancing up from what he was doing to cast her a welcoming smile that seemed to make the kitchen even brighter.

“Hi,” Clair answered. Then she added, “Hi, Willy.”

Willy, of course, barely muttered a “Hi” in return, without so much as looking at her.

“He’s learnin’ to be a pizza man,” Jace said proudly.

“Pizza man,” the little boy repeated as if it were a title he was eager to have.

Clair watched the two of them pressing floured fingers into the soft dough to spread it ever wider. Willy put too much pressure into it most of the time and jammed his fingers all the way through, leaving holes here and there.

But Jace was more adept, and she marveled at how such powerful hands could be so agile. Agile enough, she supposed, to knead a woman’s flesh much the same way, with just the right amount of pressure, just the right amount of tenderness, just the right amount of firmness…

“Pull up a seat,” he said, interrupting her wandering thoughts none too soon. “We’re just about to put on all the trimmings.”

Clair straightened her posture, took a deep breath and once more reminded herself that she was only there to see Willy.

“Can I do something to help?” she asked.

“Pour yourself a glass of wine.”

So she hadn’t been the only one with that idea.

“There are three glasses near the bottle on the counter,” Jace said with a nod in the direction of the tiled countertop near the sink.