Damn it. I can’t figure women out for shit. One minute, this incredibly beautiful, smart, sweet girl is practically stripping for me in her room, giving me a mind-blowing orgasm beyond my wildest dreams, and the next she won’t even look me in the eye. All week long, Cheyenne has been avoiding me as much as possible. Every sentence addressed to me is clipped and professional. As soon as I come down the stairs after work, she gives me a lightning-fast summary of the day and runs back home as fast as she can. She still blushes underneath my gaze and checks me out when she thinks I’m not paying attention, but she won’t give me the time of day. I don’t know where I went wrong. It really seemed like we were connecting, and now things are so uncomfortable I’m considering hiring a different nanny.

The only thing I can think of is that Cheyenne is hesitant to mess around with her boss. She has been a wonderful nanny this past week, Hudson loves her to death, but that seems to be all she wants to be when she’s over here. If it means having her as my own, I’m willing to try to find someone else to watch Hudson whom he’ll like even half as much as he likes Cheyenne. I know that would essentially be putting my needs over my son’s, but I’m feeling that selfish right now. Cheyenne does something to me that no other woman has before, not even the woman I was married to for years. It’s like Cheyenne calls to me even when we’re nowhere near each other, even in my sleep. My dreams about her this past week have been so erotic that I can’t think about anything else. I’m desperate to feel her skin underneath mine, to take a handful of that beautiful hair, to thrust myself so deeply inside her that she’ll never be able to forget me or put me out of her mind again. I want to know what this bond is between us, what it’s been meant to be ever since we were too young to know what it was.

She was nice enough to agree to let Hudson and me come over to their pool after dinner tonight. Our repairman is set to come over next week, but Hudson has been begging to swim all week, so I finally caved. For the past thirty minutes as Hudson and Cheyenne swam together, I’ve been staying out of the pool to avoid making her feel uncomfortable, but I don’t think I can keep my distance anymore. I need to be near this woman, and she can’t run away so easily once we’re in the pool together.

As I head for the diving board, I pull off my white t-shirt and notice with satisfaction that she is watching my every move. Swimming was one of my favorite pastimes in high school and college, so I’m able to execute a perfect dive and stop swimming right before I get to her. Her gaze fixates on my chest as it slowly rises out of the water. I give her a teasing grin, and she blushes and looks away.

Hudson paddles away in his lifejacket toward the shallow end, and I keep an eye on him as I try to get Cheyenne’s attention. She pretends to be looking at one of the cracks on the sidewalk by the pool, but when I clear my throat, she looks at me.

“Cheyenne, I’m just going to be straightforward. Hudson has loved having you as his babysitter for the past week, but I don’t think things are working out.”

The horror in her eyes makes me immediately regret this harsh approach. “What? Grant, why?”

I find her elbow underwater and pull her closer to me. She recoils from my touch. I feel even more like a tool.

“Because I’ve never seen you look this uncomfortable before. It isn’t fair to you. I fucked everything up, and now you don’t feel safe around me anymore. I apologize for that. I wanted to give you the option to back out if you want to.”

Cheyenne’s deep brown gaze darts back and forth as she tries to come up with an answer.

“I…I still want to work for you, but…I mean, I understand if you’d rather have someone else…”

Her lower lip trembles. I tip her chin up to make her look me in the eye.

“Listen, Cheyenne.” I pull in so close to her that I can feel her breath on my chest. “There is no one I’d rather have than you. Do you hear me? No one.”

She shudders underneath my touch. I can tell from the way her eyelids are lowered and her mouth is dropped open that she is thinking about the same thing I am. The only thing I can’t figure out is why she’s resisting me so much.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” I lean in to whisper in her ear. “You’ve kept your blinds closed all week. It’s torturing me. I have to imagine what’s going on in there, and my fantasies are nowhere near as sexy as the reality of you.” I run my fingers down her soft abdomen, clenching my teeth as I resist the urge to drop my hand lower.

“It’s okay if you want me, baby. I want you, too. I want to cover your perfect body in my cum so the whole world knows who this sweet angel belongs to.”

She’s leaning her head against my neck now, her chest heaving against mine. Hudson is still playing happily with a beach ball in the shallow end, oblivious to what’s going on between me and his sweet, young babysitter.

“I want you, too, Grant.” She shakes her head against me. “But I can’t be your rebound. I can’t do that to myself.”

I jerk back to look into her eyes. “Rebound? Is that what you think you are to me?”

Her long, wet lashes shadow her eyes as she shrugs.

I cradle her in my arms, not caring who sees us or what they think of me. Fuck secrets. It’s not worth keeping our “reputations” intact if it makes us miserable. I’ve been worried about what people would think, an older man like me going after a girl who is barely out of high school, but fuck it. They can speculate all they want. Her father could take out a restraining order against me and I’d still be here trying to win over his daughter.

“Cheyenne Jefferson, you are a ray of sunshine in the vast darkness that is my life right now. It’s true that I just got divorced. Some men would use a sweet, innocent girl like you as a ‘rebound’ to help them get over their sham of a marriage. But baby, that’s not me and you know it. I would never do wrong by you, even if it meant I had to move away and never see you again. It would about kill me, but I’d do that for you. You know you mean the world to me, don’t you?”

She looks up at me and her eyes soften. I watch as the trust enters her eyes that they’ve always held for me. Cheyenne looked up to me for everything when we were younger. I was her protector, her coach, her superhero. She was my willing sidekick. Our relationship may not have made much sense to some people back then, but it makes perfect sense to me now. She was mine all along. She just wasn’t ready for me until now.

“I want you, Cheyenne. I want all of you. And I don’t care if people think it’s ‘too soon’ or that I’m ‘robbing the cradle.’ This connection between us can’t be for nothing. Please say you’ll let me get to know the grown-up version of you better.”

Cheyenne leans into me, but before things can progress any further, I hear a familiar female voice calling to us from out near the road.

“Where’s my little grandson?”

Hudson gasps from the pool stairs where he’s sitting and splashing in the shallow water. “Grr-Grr!” He stands and crawls out of the pool.

Grr-Grr is what Hudson calls my mom. It was supposed to be Grammy, but we all prefer his shortened version. My mom loves it. Cheyenne and I pull away from each other as my mom opens the gate and enters the backyard. Hudson runs toward my mother until she has him scooped up in her embrace.

“Oh, I missed you so much this week.” She presses kisses all over her grandson’s face. “Were you a good boy for your daddy and Cheyenne?”

“Goo’ boy. P’ay pool.” He points to the pool.

“Yes, I see that.” My mom chuckles. Then she holds Hudson on her right hip as she approaches Cheyenne, looking just as flabbergasted as I was when I first saw her transformation.

“Cheyenne Jefferson, I never imagined you’d grow into such a stunningly gorgeous young lady.”

Between my shameless pursuit of her and Mom’s compliment, Cheyenne’s face is now the shade of a chili pepper. “Thank you, Mrs. Sherwood.”

“Oh, please, call me Diane.”

My mom looks at us for a moment, and then a mischievous twinkle enters her eye.

“Is there something going on between you two that I should know about?”

I look directly into Cheyenne’s wide eyes. “I was just telling this sweet girl that she’s going to be with us for a very long time.”

Cheyenne graces me with a shy smile. We both move toward the steps and climb out of the pool, grabbing our towels off of a table. Once we’re sufficiently dried off, Mom leads Hudson by the hand over to us.

“Son, can I talk to you for just a minute? Cheyenne, would you mind watching Hudson?”

“Not at all.” Cheyenne smiles and lures Hudson back into the house with the promise of a cookie.

Mom takes me to the side near the pool house and immediately plunges into one of her lectures once the door has closed behind Cheyenne and Hudson.

“Grant Sherwood, I hope you’re not getting involved with that girl. She is only eighteen years old. She has her whole life ahead of her. Cheyenne probably doesn’t even know who she is or what she wants out of life. Britney was in college when the two of you met, and look what happened with her—”

“I’m gonna stop you right there.” I scowl, standing firm and asserting my autonomy. My mom has a tendency to stick her nose where it doesn’t belong. I love her, but I’m not going to let her stand in the way of Cheyenne and me, or worse, insinuate that she’s anything at all like my con-woman of an ex-wife. “Cheyenne is nothing at all like Britney. You don’t know the woman she has become, so before you start spouting accusations, you’d best take the time to get to know her. If you did, you would see that she is the kindest, most caring person you’d ever hope to meet.”

Mom studies my face intently. A slow smile starts on her own. “You’re falling in love with the little girl next door.”

My jaw tenses. “Mom, it’s too early to be talking about things like that—”

“But it’s true.” She shakes her head in awe. “It’s plain as day. You have feelings for her.”

“There’s an attraction between us, I’m not going to deny that, but we’ve only been reconnected for a week.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Mom says with a chuckle. She places a hand on my towel-covered shoulder. “Don’t you remember the story of how your father and I met and fell in love? We were engaged within weeks of meeting each other. When it’s right, it’s right. You’ll just know. Besides, you two have known each other for years. You used to be inseparable. It makes perfect sense.”

Mom glances at the kitchen window, where Cheyenne is standing on the inside with Hudson on her hip. He’s munching on a Chips Ahoy cookie and giggling as Cheyenne “boops” his nose. You would think she was his mother from the way they interact with each other. A part of me wishes she was. I wish I had waited for her…

Goddammit. My mom might have a point.

“Listen, son.” Mom levels her gaze with mine again. “Whatever happens between you two, make sure you’re not getting into something your heart can’t handle. If you hurt that sweet little girl, I’m gonna have to put the hurt on you. Do you hear me?”

One corner of my mouth quirks upward. “Yes, Momma.” She gives me a quick hug, and then she heads toward the house.

“I’m kidnapping my grandson tonight. There’s nothing you can say or do to stop me.”

My stomach vibrates with laughter. She’s always “kidnapping” her grandson overnight, even when we’re on family vacations together. I can’t say I mind it one bit, especially tonight. I’ve got plans for the girl next door that I don’t want anyone overhearing.