“Yes. I—”
“Have you ridden one?” She flopped her legs down and spent another minute getting herself and her bear situated.
“Yes.” He’d ridden a few times as a kid. “My brother has lots of horses,” he said with a surprising need to impress a five-year-old.
“Real ones?”
“Yes. I’m pretty sure they’re all real.” He laughed, picturing Stephen with toy horses.
“Can I ride them?”
“Um…maybe.”
“Do you promise?”
He considered what promising a maybe meant.
“Do you?” She pressed for an answer.
“I promise I’ll—”
“Thank you! Let’s read something else.”
He was going to promise he’d try, but Casey took the book from his hand and grabbed a thin paperback from the nightstand. “I like this one. See? There’s a fairy and she lives there, but she can’t get out without a rainbow. But there’s not a prince in this book.”
“That’s okay. Fairies are nice.”
“Do you think fairy tales are real?”
He might not know much about kids, but he knew the answer to that one. “Of course.”
Casey sighed dramatically. “Mommy doesn’t.”
Oh. Okay then. Wrong answer.
“She says not everyone gets a prince and we don’t need a prince.”
No prince, huh? He started reading again, and every time he thought she might be getting settled, she’d pop up or turn over or ask a series of magical-fairy-related questions. So much that he figured he was failing at the read-until-she-fell-asleep thing.
“One book,” Paige yelled from the other room. “Don’t let her talk you into more.”
“Almost done,” he called back and winked at Casey. “I think it’s time for you to go to sleep before I get fired.”
“Fired from what?”
Good question. He read the first line of each page until he got to the end, then leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Sleep tight, sugar plum.”
—
JT made his way down the narrow hallway past the bathroom and almost tripped over himself at the view in front of him. Paige’s back was to him, her pajama-covered bottom pushed toward him as she leaned her elbows against the counter in front of her. Damn. He needed to leave without touching Paige because every time he did, they both ignited.
He hung back a step, giving her a second to finish her call, and took in the room. Nothing about the trailer was new, but it was clean and comfortable. Beige carpet with similar colored walls and couch. More of Casey’s drawings stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet.
Paige said goodbye and he stepped forward as she laid the black cordless phone in the charging cradle. “Hey.”
Paige spun to face him. “Hey.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. My mom. I haven’t talked to her in a while.” A decidedly guilty expression crossed her face, which surprised him, given the little he knew, but it passed just as quickly. “Did she talk you into reading more than one?”
“Guilty.”
Paige smiled. “You don’t have to do everything she asks, you know.”
“Yeah. I kinda do.” Or he wanted to.
Her pretty smile grew wider before she ducked her gaze to pick at a small dot of green face mask on her shirt. The silence usually filled by Casey grew and so did the awareness that they were very much alone.
“That was a good idea,” she said, gesturing to one of his prosthetic catalogs she’d stacked on the counter. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And your shark observation went over well,” she said, smiling up at him.
He smiled back, enormously happy that he’d made her happy. More seconds passed.
“Sit,” she blurted, and gave him a light push on his chest toward the couch.
He stepped around the low wooden table and sank into the worn cushions.
“I’m going to do you a favor.”
Curious, he watched her reach into a cabinet. A favor? She stretched higher and her shirt rode up, revealing two inches of bare skin, right above her pajama bottoms. He swallowed hard when she turned and walked toward him.
“I thought I’d take this off first.”
“Uh…” He knew his eyes were too wide, and he was fighting hard to keep his mouth closed, but the memory of her nipples teasing against the thin cotton when he’d arrived made his mouth dry.
“Jake?”
Shit. He locked eyes with hers. Where had he been looking just now? Probably not at her face. “What?”
Looking amused, she held up a pack of cotton balls and a bottle of fingernail polish remover. “It’s a hot color, but the boys might make fun of you.”
Oh. Right. His nails. And he was imagining Paige peeling off her top, offering herself to him like a damn dessert. Good Lord. She had no idea what she did to him without even trying.