TWELVE
“Yoo-hoo!”
Violet turned to the grating voice behind her. It belonged to the jogger from a week ago, who was now dressed in tight yoga pants and a hot pink tank top, showcasing a great rack. Violet would know, as she was a bit of an expert on breasts that had a good surgeon at their root. This doctor had done a very nice job.
“Hey there!” She power-walked up the drive, arms bent, fists as pistons fueling her stride. Blond hair scraped back in a ponytail. Makeup perfect. “I live next door and we just got back yesterday from St. Barts. My kids, Jeremy and Lance, used to play with the girls.”
Violet assumed, no, prayed, that “the girls” referred to Franky and Cat, not the puppies packing the tank top.
Jogger in Pink yammered on. “They’re at school right now, but I know they’d love to come over to hang out. Supervised, of course.” She wrinkled her nose, taking in Violet’s denim skirt, sloppy tee, and cowboy boots. Violet as supervisor did not pass muster. “I could bring them by later and—oh, I’m sorry. I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Skylar Nichols.”
Violet shook the proffered hand. “I’m—”
“Violet Vasquez,” Skylar finished. “You own the Rebels with your sisters. And now you’re looking after Bren’s kids.”
She made it sound like this was the oddest set of circumstances imaginable, and perhaps from the outside it was.
“Everyone’s pitching in.”
“Consider me part of the team!” Skylar beamed, not unlike a crazy person. “If you need a break from the little monsters, let me know. Or I can always bring wine!”
Hey, Skylar, you’re all right. “So, Tarquin and Persephone?”
“Jeremy and Lance,” Skylar said with good humor. “I’m guessing the girls are being homeschooled because it was too late to get them in anywhere? They might like a little company their own age.”
“Sure, I’ll run it by them.”
After a few more pleasantries, Skylar jogged off with plenty of jiggle. Once inside, Violet smiled to herself. She’d ask her charges if Jeremy and Lance were worthy of a visit. Girls matured a lot earlier than boys, and they might have already outgrown them.
She checked the time on her phone. Seven fifteen. The girls would be up soon, scavenging for breakfast, not that she really needed to be present to give it to them. They tended to make a lot of noise as they clanked around the kitchen. Tonight was game one of round two against the Detroit Motors, and their dad needed his rest.
Violet ran a finger along the mahogany bannister as she walked by. After six days of playing nanny, she’d decided she loved this house, though really she loved the “home.” How it came alive with Bren and his girls in it.
What had happened between the man and his wife?
Sure, she knew the broad brushstrokes. Alcoholism was to blame for the demise of many marriages, but they’d had eleven years. Eleven years of togetherness, raising their two girls, in this house. His adoration for his daughters was unquestionable, and Violet suspected he’d once looked at his wife that way.
Perhaps still looked at her that way.
Not that she cared.
She walked into the kitchen and was confronted with a sight that every woman should have access to early in the morning.
Bren stood at the counter with his back to her, and what a back it was. Pure muscle, carved out of . . . more muscle. At the top of that perfect triangle, broad shoulders tapered to a trim waist and narrow hips, barely covered by gray sweats (the best color sweats!). Slung dangerously low, too. If he turned—
He turned.
Her knees lost all their power as her mouth lost all its moisture. Hooray for low-slung, because those were some mighty fine hip-to-groin indents being framed perfectly by those sweats. She assumed that if she looked up, she’d find more of the same perfection. So she did her hormones a favor and zipped past the goodie trail, abs, nipples, pecs, and went straight for the eye contact.
It’s for your own damn good, she asserted to every screaming body part that insisted she’d somehow failed in her womanly duty to report all the facts.
“Morning,” he said. “Wasn’t expecting you.”
“I thought I’d come in and make the girls breakfast. Try to keep them quiet while you rest.”
He smiled, and her knees melted again. Come on, knees, you’re better than this!
“I couldn’t sleep. Never can on game days.” He held an egg in his hand, next to a bowl of more along with other ingredients. Bread. Milk. Cinnamon.
“You’re making breakfast?”
“Aye. Used to do this for the girls when they’d come visit. French toast casserole.”
First the apple pie, now the most important meal of the day. Pretty swoon-worthy. “I hear that in Scotland they fry everything five times to make sure it’s dead.”
Slight uptick at the corner of his mouth. “My cooking prowess comes from the Canadian side.”
“I’ll get out of your way, then.”
He passed over that. “Thanks for taking care of the laundry. You could have left it to Mrs. Higgins.” That was the woman who came in once a week.
“What else am I going to do while they have their lessons?”
“Take it easy? Put your feet up?” He returned the egg to the bowl and folded thick arms across his thick chest. “You’re not here to do housework.”
“I’ve been doing housework all my life. I prefer to feel useful.”
“Then get to making the coffee.” He turned his back, her acquiescence assumed.
She smiled at his gruff but affectionate tone. For the next ten minutes, they worked side by side, not speaking, the comfort level surprising, because usually around him, she felt tense. Needy. Horny.
Oh, don’t get her wrong. Needy and horny were still predominant, but not so tense. More . . . loose.
She opened a cupboard, and as she reached for the sugar bowl because she didn’t like Splenda, her gaze fell yet again on that bottle of Johnnie Walker Double Black. No change in the level, still three quarters full. She’d seen it there when she put the groceries away. Noticed it every time she reached for the sugar. Wondered why he hadn’t dumped it like he had all the others.
Suddenly he was behind her, grabbing the bowl for her. Like something out of a rom-com, his hand covered hers, his chest leaned into her back. If she moved back an inch, what else would she find leaning in?
“I’ve got this,” she said.
He didn’t remove his hand. “You sure? You’re kind of short.”
On tiptoe, she cupped the bowl with a shaky hand and twisted to face him. She was now caged with that broody Scot looking down at her intently. His broad chest gleamed and she tightened her hold on the bowl, so she wouldn’t be tempted to reach out and touch. As if it could protect her from an incredibly sexy, yet undoubtedly poor, decision.
“Why do you keep that bottle in there?” Damn, it was none of her business. “Sorry, I shouldn’t ask.”
Silence ruled for a long beat, then: “No, you should. I need to be held accountable, and with you taking care of my girls, it’s only right that you question anything that might put them in danger. I need you to always question that.”
“But they’re not in danger from you. You’d never hurt them.” If there was one thing she was absolutely certain of, it was Bren St. James’s absolute devotion to his daughters.
“No.” His brow crimped. “At least, not now. I keep that bottle to remind myself that I’m one drink away from disaster. When I got out of rehab, I used to order shots in bars and not drink them, or I’d sit off in a corner and brood while my teammates had their fun. But I don’t go to bars much anymore now that the girls are here.”
When Violet had first arrived in Chicago, she’d spent a lot of time with the team at their usual watering hole, flirting and laughing, but Bren was always on the outside, watching and waiting. “Was that my fault? Did you stop hanging with your teammates at the Empty Net because I was there?”
Wry smile. “No. I needed to be alone for a while after rehab but still close enough to know I was part of the crew. The distance was necessary while I worked on . . . forgiving myself, I suppose. They were there with open arms, but I’d let them down, and I wasn’t ready for them to embrace me back into the fold.” He raised his gaze above her head. “The bottle is here to remind me to never again take a single thing for granted. And speaking of taking things for granted . . . I don’t think I’ve thanked you enough, Violet.”
“Thank me with cash.” She shrugged, oh so nonchalant. “Not that I especially need it, but I’m not working for free.”
Putting this on a boss/employee footing seemed best. Except she was his boss on the team and he was her boss in the . . . Not the bedroom. No. He had employed her to look after his kids. But she hadn’t forgotten his mouth on hers, his fingers’ rough stroke between her legs, his eyes dark with want. Like now.
“I wouldn’t dream of taking advantage,” he murmured.
Please do. “You know I washed a few T-shirts with the last load.”
“I did thank you.”
“Meaning you should wear them. Cover this”—she gestured at the gloriousness that was this—“up.”
The slightest smirk teased his mouth. “This?”
“Mrs. Higgins is going through menopause and it’s not helping her hot flashes. Then there’s the kids’ tutor. Very young and impressionable—”
“She’s middle-aged, happily married, and completely incorruptible.”
She sighed, affecting boredom. “Okay, it’s kind of distracting to me.”
He looked a little surprised by her honesty. Then a little smug. “Could say the same thing about your teeny-tiny shorts.”
“I’m wearing a skirt today.” For your improved access, sir.
His gaze dipped over her denim skirt, lingering on her inked thighs. “Like that’s better.” Gaze back up, sensual fire in those blue-on-blue eyes.
Had she mentioned that all this time he was still looming over her, those thick arms boxing her in? No? Well, he was, and it was delicious.
“So, neither of us are fans of the other’s wardrobe choices,” she said.
“Guess not.”
Something shifted between them—it had been shifting since the moment they met, ebbing and flowing—but this was a strange charge that could be labeled only as one thing: honesty. A recognition that they were both incredibly attracted to each other and had decided to be open about it. And with it came a certain sadness. They couldn’t act on it for a zillion reasons.
She fell back on her usual defense strategy: humor.
“Kind of a cliché, isn’t it? The single dad with a thing for the nanny.”
That dampened the flames, all right. He drew back and she hated every inch he and her smart mouth put between them.
“That’s me, one giant cliché.”
The oven timer dinged, and they went back to their lives before that conversation had rocked them both.
Bren stared at the swirls he’d generated from stirring his coffee with his spoon. He liked coffee in porcelain mugs, the kind of mugs you got in diners, the kind of diners like this one in downtown Riverbrook. Call him old-fashioned, but coffee was meant to be drunk out of something real, not polystyrene or paper or whatever you got in Starbucks.
The door to the Bottomless Cup opened, but it wasn’t who he was waiting for. This gave him more time to think on that moment with Violet in the kitchen this morning.
He hadn’t expected her, and he was oddly touched that she’d shown up early so he could get more sleep. Seeing her walking into his kitchen, breezy and free-spirited, had sent a pang of longing through him the likes of which he’d never experienced, not even after long periods playing away during his marriage. Sure, he felt a version of it around his daughters, but never with a woman, not even his ex-wife.
Of course, Violet made a habit out of upending all his expectations.
That little cha-cha they’d performed in the kitchen, the one that ended with them all but admitting they wanted each other, had taken him by surprise. Acknowledging this ongoing attraction should have freed up his brain, but knowing she felt the same way, that it wasn’t just a passing flirtation, had crashed through him like a fireball.
Just your weak body talking. If his coffee date would only show up, then he could maybe get his head on straight. He needed to be at the practice facility in an hour.
The door opened again and Bren’s head raised instinctively. About fucking time.
Kevin McCordle lumbered in, looking like he’d barely survived a rough night on the tiles. Bren wasn’t overly concerned. Kevin had ingested so many illegal substances in his life that he could easily wrest from Keith Richards the title of “who smoked and shot up everything.” No amount of clean living could turn back that clock.
He shuffled over and sat opposite Bren in the booth. “Christ, you look like shit, St. James.”
Sure thing, pot. The man’s sponsorship style was tough love laced with insults. Bren wouldn’t have it any other way.
The server stopped by and took Kevin’s order for coffee. When she stepped away, Kevin cracked his knuckles and cocked his head.
“You haven’t been at meetings. Thought you’d dropped off the face of the earth.”
“Been busy getting my kids settled, and oh yeah, taking my team to the play-offs for the first time in fifteen years. AA meetings take a backseat to that.”
Kevin looked unimpressed. One, his wife had divorced him ten years ago and they didn’t have kids. Two, he was a baseball fan with no interest in hockey. It was one of the reasons Bren had been drawn to him as a sponsor. There’d be no time wasted on hero worship and angling for game tickets. Kevin hadn’t even known who Bren was when they first met.
Like Violet that first day in the Empty Net. Christ on a Zamboni, had Bren really turned her down? To think that the first woman he could have buried his body to the hilt inside since coming out of rehab could have been the one who had haunted every erotic dream since.
She was right. He had blown it.
Kev’s coffee arrived and he made a big deal out of adding his sugar and cream.
“I’ve hired a nanny,” Bren said, and it came out in a barely contained burst, as if it was desperate to find air.
Kevin squinted. “Swedish?”
“Latina. Young, sexy, and my boss.” Bren explained the curious setup and strange dynamic as best he could.
“Let me get this straight. You hired this woman during one of the most testing periods of your life,” Kevin said over the lip of his mug. “She’s off-limits for a number of reasons, yet you’ve decided to place her front and center.”
“It’s not as bad as that. When I’m home, she’s not there.” Except for this morning. And a couple of days ago when he stood at her bedroom door like a creeper. He squirmed in the booth. “I trust her—with my kids and with me. In fact, she’s better at resisting my charms than I am hers.” That shouldn’t have bothered him. Whereas before she was Ms. Flirtation whenever he walked into a room, now she was all business. That was good, wasn’t it?
“You want full custody, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then don’t give your ex any fodder. Pounding the nanny is just the kind of thing her asshole lawyer will use to prove your unsuitability.”
“Like I said, that’s not going to happen.” Bren hadn’t thought of Violet as being a threat to anything more than his sanity, but Kevin’s comment gave him pause. He needed to live a life a hundred times more blameless than Kendra, because his alcoholism would always trump her infidelity—and he recognized that was as it should be. He’d made mistakes. Put his kids in harm’s way. If he wanted them back in his life for good, drawing—and continuing to draw—that boundary between himself and Violet was even more important.
Kevin sniffed, sipped his coffee. “So you’re under a lot of pressure right now. The play-offs, your kids, your ex.” He waved over the rest, meaning Violet. “That’s a lot to deal with. Any lapses?”
“No.” This was one of the things that Bren had resolved to be honest about. If he fell off the wagon, he would tell Kevin, who never judged and would ask how he could help. The guy had been a firefighter in his previous life and had seen a shit-ton of drama, including the worst humanity had to offer. “There are times when I’d like nothing better than to stuff it down with brown, but then I look at my girls. Being given this chance to be with them more, to make it up to them, makes me want to be a better man.”
“What about when their mother is back on the scene? Because you know that’s going to happen.”
Oh, he knew. As sure as the sun set in the west, Kendra would show her tight little tush when it was most convenient for her. He was still trying to work out her endgame. He didn’t believe she’d had an attack that warranted a long rest in some jumped-up spa. Almost two weeks, and she hadn’t even attempted to contact her daughters. What Bren knew of Kendra, it was that she had a plan, and the closer he got to a finals run, the more likely that plan would manifest itself. More money, more notoriety, maybe even a shot at one of those Real Housewives shows.
When she came back, Bren would be ready for her.