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Her gaze came to a halt at the fistful of sheet he held against his stomach. Her eyes thawed just a bit. Her honey-colored brows ticked upward.
Fascinated, he watched a corner of her pale pink mouth curve ever so slightly. To his dismay, he felt himself respond. Clearly this was a woman he couldn’t unnerve, not even with the threat of six feet of buck nakedness. The thought pleased him.
“Did not!”
“Did, too! Mo-om!” Crash!
A dog barked.
Mitch winced.
The woman didn’t even flinch, but her gaze refrosted. “Your father didn’t tell you about us, did he?”
Obviously a rhetorical question, because she spun out of the doorway before he could decide between a bitter laugh and a fierce growl. He hadn’t come here to get turned on by a little bit of a woman, a woman who was apparently living with his father!
Flinging the sheet aside, he slammed his feet to the floor. Just then the kid popped into the room. Mitch lunged back under the concealing mermaids.
“Seri?” The woman reappeared in the doorway. One glance and she grabbed the kid and ushered her toward the door.
“But, Mommy—”
“Let Mr. Kole get dressed.”
They disappeared together, but not before Mitch could check her hand. The woman wasn’t wearing a ring. The discovery left him teetering between a definite upswing in mood—and pure raw anger.
“Wait! Miss... Ms....” How was it she already had him analyzed and categorized while he hadn’t even known she existed? His frustration level shot skyward. “Hey, lady, who are you?” he shouted. He didn’t like being out of control. He didn’t like being so...perturbed by such a...woman.
She reappeared in the doorway. The kid peeked from behind her legs.
“Sander. Ellie. I’m the one who called about your father’s accident.”
There was that resentment again. That anger.
“I told him we didn’t need to bother you, but he insisted.”
Mitch scowled into Ellie Sander’s rejecting azure eyes. Damn it, she did bother him. She bothered him a lot.
“There’s breakfast in the kitchen,” she announced flatly, then swung out of the room, her hair fanning her shoulders like a silk skirt.
“Just coffee,” he shouted after her. “I don’t do breakfast.”
Damn! He didn’t need to growl just because there were still old issues between him and his father. He especially didn’t need to watch her retreat—just because he liked the way she moved. He didn’t have time for—
For anything. He’d done his duty; he’d flown to his father’s deathbed. But when Ellie Sander had called, she’d failed to give him one minor detail. Old “King” Kole wasn’t dying.
Last night at the hospital, Mitch had discovered that King was only temporarily inconvenienced—by a cast on one ankle and another all the way up his other leg. And a headache the size of Mount Rushmore. Which he undoubtedly deserved.
Shoving back the sheet, Mitch tugged into his briefs and stalked down the hall to the bathroom, defying an encounter with more princesses along the way.
He’d go see his father—one more time. He’d make arrangements with the hospital for a visiting nurse. He’d contact a temp agency for someone to help run the store. He’d arrange for whatever his father and this woman needed till King was on his feet again. But Mitch wasn’t going to stay.
His father had never been there for him when he was growing up. He hadn’t been there for his mother when she’d needed him. King had set the example; for once Mitch figured he’d be justified in following it.
But he would be nice to this Ellie Sander, whoever she was. Why such a pretty, pint-size woman like her would move in with his father—?
“Ouch!” He muffled an oath and gave the bathroom door another, more careful kick. Hell, she was clearly strong-willed enough to live with the old man. Which was good, he lectured himself. Because living with his father was exactly what Mitch wanted her to keep right on doing.
Ellie knew the minute Mitch Kole stepped into the kitchen. Even with her back to the door, she could feel his presence, could smell the faint, outdoor scent that slipped into her awareness right through the aroma of pancakes and coffee.
The same way he’d managed to slip into the apartment last night. Thank goodness she’d been downstairs in the store. For once she was even glad Seri had crawled in with the dog.
If Mitch Kole had arrived after Seri and she had fallen asleep in the double bed—? She hated to imagine. Her screams would have sent him scrambling back to Colorado in his Jockeys—if the man even slept in shorts. From the death grip he’d held on the mermaid sheets, Ellie suspected he did not.
The memory of his discomfort gave her a vengeful sense of satisfaction. It also made her warm. And disturbed.
But from what she knew of Mitch Kole, she wouldn’t need screams to get rid of him.
Refusing to look at him, Ellie moved the portable phone away from Rafe and set plates of bear-faced pancakes in front of him and his sister, both of them seated on stools at the counter.
“Eat up, kids. I have to open the store in fifteen minutes.”
“Wonder if I could talk you out of a cup of coffee?”
She forced herself to look up at Mitch then. Right away she knew she’d made her second big mistake of the morning, ranking right up there with walking in on him in bed.
He was dressed now, but what undid her wasn’t the way his jeans hugged his ski-tightened thighs nor the way his damp hair curled along the edge of his navy turtleneck. It was his smile. His smile made her feel the same way she had last night when she’d watched him sleep. Warm...and wanting.
Darn! She knew that smile—the carefree grin of a charming, persuasive man. She watched it warm his sapphire eyes and deepen the lines around his broad mouth. His teeth shone startlingly white against his ruddy tan. The effect was breathtaking.
Ellie frowned. She’d given up breathtaking years ago. Along with a lot of other things—like teasing smiles and exciting promises. And when the kids had started coming, she’d given up dreams of a close-knit family...and a home...and security...
But she’d learned—oh yes, she’d learned. And she had no doubts that a charming ski instructor, like a charming musician, was not breathtaking. At least not for long. In the real world, there were no Prince Charmings.
“Sugar? Milk? We only have skim.”
“Mommy, The Prince wants bearcakes.”
Mitch stepped forward. “Coffee’ll do. Don’t know if I could handle bearcakes.” He smiled down at Seri.
Ellie reached into the glass-doored cupboard for a mug, fighting the melting feeling inside, tightening her defenses.
“Gabe? Michael? Time to eat.” Come on, guys. Please show up—fast.
Sometimes four kids almost overwhelmed her, but when she gathered them around her and looked into their trusting faces, they always gave her strength. Which was what she needed now. King hadn’t told her his son was attractive. He hadn’t said Mitch had this...appeal! Intuitively, she knew it put them all in danger.
To her relief, Gabe shuffled in from the living room. When he saw Mitch, he stopped.
She watched the two males size each other up, could almost see the hair rise on Gabe’s neck as Mitch smiled at him.
Good She didn’t want her kids snagged by Mitch’s charm.
Gabe resumed his trek to the end of the counter, his blue eyes filled with uncertain apology, his golden mop of curls almost level with her head.
“I’m sorry we were arguing, Mom,” he mumbled.
“Here.” He handed her a slightly tattered tissue-paper carnation. Head turned away, he leaned stiffly into her hug.
Pride, and a huge dose of regret, shot through her. In another year she’d be looking up at him.
“Hey!” Michael trotted into the kitchen followed by the dog. “Hey, hi! You must be King’s son. Know what? He told us you were coming. Can I ask you something? Will you teach us how to ski? Wanna see my fast feet?”
“Michael...”
He grinned that two-teeth-missing smile she loved so much and met her at the end of the counter, extending his own offering, half-crushed in his hand. Another paper flower, this one pale green and newly constructed.
“Sorry, Mom. I just wanted to—”
Ellie quieted him with a hug, allowing herself the impulse of wanting to protect him. It gave way quickly to the joy of wrapping her arms around his slender body and breathing in his little boy scent of hard play. Michael was as lean and full of energy as Gabe was solid and steady. She needed what she could draw from them both.
But she also knew when to let go. Before Michael could protest, she pulled away, tickling and poking. “Ooh, cooties.”
Michael giggled, and Ellie breathed a slow sigh of relief. Her sons had come to apologize. Michael had made a new “I love you” flower exactly the way she’d taught all of her children on their fourth birthday. And—blessed relief—for the moment Michael had stopped talking.
“Thank you, boys. I love you, too. Love you all.” She smiled at her brood of angels and felt a surge of strength. She would never let anything happen to them again. They had finally found a home and a bit of stability... at least for a while. She wouldn’t let Mitch Kole threaten their future.
“Climb up, guys. Time for bearcakes.”
She laid the two paper flowers on top of the others in the shallow basket on the counter, cherishing this bouquet of love from her children. Then she lifted more plates from the overhead cupboard and filled them with bear-faced pancakes, adding lots of butter and syrup.
Stalling again.
She had to convince Mitch Kole to go back to Colorado. He’d made it clear that he hadn’t wanted to come in the first place, so the task shouldn’t be too difficult. Gathering courage, she set the plates in front of her sons.
“Eat up. guys.”
“S‘pose I could get that cup of coffee now?”
“Coffee—?” Omigod. She’d completely forgotten. Rattled by another of Mitch’s breathtaking smiles, she poured the mug too full. Steamy brown liquid sloshed onto the counter.
Mitch lifted the mug, and she swiped away the puddle with a cloth, ignoring the inquiring rise of his dark brows. He was watching her too closely. She recognized that look. Once Peter had watched her like that, when she’d been young and rebellious and smitten with his promises. Before they’d had children.
Peter had made her giddy, the way only an eighteen-year-old could feel. Mitch’s regard stirred something else, something that made her nervous and selfconscious and short of breath. Something that made her spill coffee and made her heart race. Whatever it was, she knew she had reason to be alarmed.
King had told her Mitch wasn’t a family kind of man. She’d already known that kind of man.
“These are my children, Mr. Kole.” She presented them to him with a wave of her hand, her protectors, her talismans against whatever weakness it was in her that Mitch’s charm touched. She was well aware that four children under the age of ten would ward off just about any kind of man.
He continued to watch her too closely, with just a shadow of a smile. “Call me Mitch.”
Ellie regrouped her defenses. “This is Gabe, my oldest. He’s ten. Michael’s going on nine. Rafe just turned six....” Pride filled her as each of the boys offered a reluctant hand “...and you’ve met Seraphina.”
“I’m four years old and two months,” Seri piped up, holding up four fingers. “We’re The Angels,” she added. “Gabriel, Michael, Raphael and—”
“Seri!” Instantly Ellie regretted her sharpness.
“We used to be The Angels,” Seri said softly. “Before...”
Ellie’s throat tightened with contrition. “Sweetheart, I’m sure Mr. Kole isn’t interested—”
“Oh, but I am.” He eased onto the empty stool beside Seri. “You’ll call me Mitch, won’t you, Princess?”
she nodded eagerly.
“Good. Then tell me, who’s Bubba Sue?”
“Don’t you know? Bubba Sue’s King’s dog.”
“King’s dog? Well, I’ll be a—” He looked down at the little dog curled up under the stools. “I’m surprised her name’s not Queeny.”
Seri giggled.
With a sinking heart, Ellie watched her wide-eyed daughter warm to Mitch. In spite of Peter’s haphazard fathering, Seri missed her daddy. Ellie didn’t want her daughter filling his absence with Mitch’s easy appeal. She didn’t want her hurt all over again.
Like mother, like daughter—both suckers for those Prince Charming types. Ellie would have to teach Seri better. Right after she convinced Mitch Kole to leave.
“Hey, Mom, it’s five past nine.”
Gabe’s too-grown-up voice interrupted her worries. Almost gratefully, she grabbed at the safety of routine.
“Okay, kids, Saturday morning schedule. Michael, kitchen, Rafe, bathrooms, Seri, beds. Gabe, I need you in the store to move boxes. If anybody needs anything, remember the bell.”
She hurried to the stairs leading to the shop below, glancing back for one last check. Burners off, pan in the sink, nothing harmful left untended.
Except Mitch Kole.
“We have things under control here, Mr. Kole. You can go visit your father right away. I’m sure he’ll be glad you came. Please tell him we’ll be there this evening.”
Mitch’s watchful gaze sent her backing down the stairs. “I—uh—guess we won’t see you again, so I hope you have a very nice life in Colorado.” She marched down three more stairs. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have things to—”
The telephone made her stop. Through the stair railing, she watched Rafe snatch the ringing phone from the counter.
He punched it on. “Daddy? Oh.” The hope in his dark eyes faded quickly. “Yeah. Yeah. Okay.” Dejectedly he punched the Off button.
Ellie’s heart ached for her son. She had to make Rafe give up that phone—soon. “Who was it, sweetheart? What did they want? You should have let me talk.”
“It’s okay, Mom. It was just King. He said...he’ll bring him home from the hospital.” He pointed at Mitch.
Ellie lurched back up the stairs. “Home? Did he say when?”
