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“Then head for the door, woman, because if you stay, we might rewrite history.”
Rayne rolled her eyes. Again. “Seriously? That’s the kind of line you use on women?”
Brent reached out, clicked off the lamp and moved her way. “Oh, yeah, haven’t you heard? I’m the master of pickup lines.”
“Oh, jeez,” Rayne said, moving toward the door in case he wasn’t teasing, even though part of her wanted to stay and find out. His laughter dogged her steps. The son of a gun was playing with her. She flung a last look over her shoulder. He stood framed against the darkness like a naughty ad for men’s cologne or close-shaving razors.
“So will you be there tomorrow?”
He smiled. “Yeah. You can count on me.”
Rayne arched an eyebrow. “Okay, I’ll hold you to that.”
Then she turned and made her way to the inn wondering if his promise meant as much now as it had back then. And wondering why she hadn’t left as soon as she’d seen he was spectacularly naked.
She didn’t know the answer to one question and was very afraid of the answer to the other.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SOUP BUBBLED MERRILY on the stove as Rayne sliced truffles for the fennel and dandelion salad she would serve atop the thinly sliced Bosc pears. The rich smell of chicken broth made her tummy growl, but she kept slicing through the earthy pungency of the delicate fungus, while ignoring the smoky Gouda cheese sitting on the wooden cutting board. She’d found the cheese at a farmer’s market in Dallas last weekend. It was divine and she’d already sampled too much of it.
“Mom, can we buy some Pop-Tarts?”
Rayne recoiled as if Henry had asked to eat a booger. “Good Lord, no. Where have you eaten Pop-Tarts?”
Henry shrugged. “Back in Austin. At Kyle Warner’s house. He had all kinds of them. Strawberry, cinnamon and blue—”
“Stop.” Rayne threw up her hand. “Do you know what kind of ingredients are in those things?”
Henry’s brown eyes didn’t blink as he stared at her. “I don’t care. I saw a kid eating them at school today. They had icing on the top.”
Meg dropped the books she was carrying onto the counter. “Give it up, bud. You’ve got the same chance as a nun getting a navel ring. Not going to happen. She’d rather you eat dirt than something with all those chemicals. Be glad you didn’t eat it recently or you’d be getting purged.”
“What’s purged?” Henry asked, flicking little pieces of the cheese with his fingers.
“Stop,” Rayne said for the umpteenth time that day.
“Making yourself throw up,” Meg said, making the motion of sticking her finger down her throat.
Rayne shot her assistant a glare as Henry screwed up his face and groaned, “Gross!”
Brent stomped into the kitchen and sniffed. “What’s gross?”
Meg fluttered and it made Rayne roll her eyes. Her assistant said Brent Hamilton did nothing for her. That, however, wasn’t the way she acted. Her slightly Gothic, slightly punk, but wholly intelligent employee actually batted her heavily made-up eyes at Brent. “Whatever you want to be gross, stud muffin.”
Rayne mimicked Meg’s gagging action from a moment ago, making Henry laugh. She’d tried hard to overcome her strange feelings toward Brent over the past two days, treating him as she would any other employee. Though his gorgeousness made it plainly difficult to accomplish. After all, he’d taken his shirt off this morning inspiring Meg to use the word yummy way too often. The man had to stop taking his clothes off. Had to. “Do you have Pop-Tarts, Mr. Hamilton?” Henry asked, sliding off the stool beside the kitchen island.
“I may have some cinnamon-brown sugar ones left over from the baseball sleepover,” he said eyeing the tomato-basil soup on the stove.
“Wait. You have a baseball team?” Henry’s eyes lit up with interest. Rayne felt her mom radar start beeping.
“I don’t have one. I coach one,” Brent said. Rayne could tell he wasn’t paying attention to his words. He was staring at the oat-bran muffins she’d made with the stone-ground wheat. He obviously had no idea what he’d done. How he’d unleashed a monster, one Rayne would have to deal with.
“Can I be on the team? I’m good. I promise. When I played with the Bengals, I hit it over the fence two times.” Henry parked himself at Brent’s boots and looked at him expectantly.
Shoot.
“Henry, Mr. Hamilton already has a team. We talked about this,” Rayne said, brushing her hands on her apron and preparing for battle. Meg wisely started flipping through whatever catalogs she’d lugged in. She knew the power of Henry’s will.
“Henry can still play. Hunter Todd broke his arm doing cartwheels on the bleachers, so now we’re a player short. We have practice tonight at six if he wants to come along,” Brent said as he slid closer to the muffins. Rayne had sprinkled them with homemade granola so they looked even more tempting than the average oat muffin.
But she didn’t have time to offer him a sample of her testing ground muffins. Her son had taken to whooping, “Yes!” over and over again.
Rayne jabbed Brent in the arm. “You gotta fix this. He can’t play ball this year.”
Brent finally ripped his attention from the food. “Fix what? Why not?”
Henry whooped once more, performing several fist pumps, before tearing out of the kitchen and pounding up the stairs. Rayne knew where he was heading. He’d dig his glove from the drawer she’d relegated it to yesterday. Then he’d pull all his shorts from the bottom drawer to look for his baseball pants. Then he’d bring her the cleats to untie because they were double-knotted and he couldn’t pull them loose with the stubby nails he habitually bit to the quick. Hurricane Henry had set his path, but he’d forgotten that landfall wouldn’t happen without her permission.
And she wasn’t giving it.
Rayne glared at the daft man before her. She tried not to notice how damn good he looked in his tight jeans and the T-shirt he’d finally pulled on. How his shaggy hair looked salon-tousled. How he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning which gave him a bed-rumpled, lazy movie star look. Hell, no. She wasn’t noticing because he’d created a big problem and he had no clue.
“Henry can’t play ball. He’s behind in his reading at school. He’s not up to grade level and struggling to acclimate in the classroom.”
“Oh. Sorry. I knew he loved sports. I’ve tripped over four balls today already. I figured being on the team would help him make friends and feel a part of the community.”
Rayne blinked. She’d never thought of it from that perspective. She knew Henry was lonely. She knew he’d had a hard time the past few days adapting to school. The classes were small and the kids all knew one another. He felt like the odd man out. And if anyone knew that feeling, she did. But she couldn’t allow him to neglect something as important as school. It was already such a chore to get him to sit still and focus on the homework he’d been assigned that afternoon. “That’s true, but he can’t play.”
Henry roared into the kitchen, cleats dangling in his hand. “Hey, Mr. Hamilton, where’s practice?”
The boy hopped onto the stool and started trying to untie the cleats. He ignored the bits of red clay that fell from the bottoms of the shoes and confettied the floor beneath him.
“Um, sport, I can’t really add you to the team without your mom’s permission.” Brent slapped her son on the back and cast a furtive look at Meg. Like he thought she would help him.
“Let’s leave Rayne and Henry to sort this out,” Meg said, jerking her head toward the dining room. Rayne wanted to kick her for helping the enemy. But was Brent really her enemy? Or was being a mom simply too tough sometimes? Either way, she wanted to blame someone for the heart she was about to break. Henry hated school and hated reading. Not a good combination for a kid in second grade. He still had a long row to hoe where academics were concerned even if he were passing at grade level.
Brent moved faster than Meg. He beat her out the door by a good yard.
Henry turned sweet brown eyes on her. “I can’t play?”
Rayne sighed before slipping onto the stool next to her son. His cowlick stuck straight up and she wanted to kiss the freckles that sprinkled his little upturned nose, but she didn’t. She caught his hands, stilling them. “Honey, we’ve already talked about sports. School comes first, and you’re a little behind the kids in your class. Once you show me you’re doing better then you can play baseball or football.”
“But—”
“No buts.”
“But—”
“Henry!” Rayne crossed her arms and prepared for battle. “I said no.”
His eyes filled with tears. “You’re so mean. You don’t care about me. You took me off my team and brought me here. I thought it would be okay, but I don’t like the stupid school here, either. School sucks.”
“All right, where did you hear that language?”
His lips pressed together and he glared at her even as big tears spilled down his cheeks. He rubbed his eyes but said nothing.
“Henry? I asked you a question.”
“Nowhere,” he muttered, propping his arms on the granite counter. His elbows had dirt on them and his shirt had barbecue stains from the sloppy joe he’d had for lunch. Rayne would have to start packing his lunch. No telling what had been in that meat in the school cafeteria.
Rayne set her elbows on the counter next to her son’s and settled her chin onto her hands. She blew out her breath. “I don’t want you using that language again. It doesn’t sound nice.”
Henry rubbed at his eyes again. “Please, Mom. Please say I can play. Let me at least go to practice with them. I’ll read that book. I promise. And I’ll make good grades, too. You’ll see. I can do it.”
Her heart squeezed in her chest. She wanted to say yes. She wanted nothing more than for her baby to be happy. He’d gone through so much. He’d lost his father, had to move and suffered from separation anxiety and nightmares so severe that she cried herself to sleep for him. She wanted to watch him hit that ball and run those bases, but that was not what he needed. Sometimes it sucked being a mom. “I’ll make you a deal. You bring home signed papers that show me you are improving, and I’ll consider letting you play.”
“But I won’t get signed papers till next week. Can I just read the book? Come on, Mom, let’s make a deal. Please. I promise I will do better.”
Rayne felt the tears prick the back of her eyes. She thought about his face as he’d entered the classroom on Monday. About the way he’d fisted one hand in the fabric of her skirt. And she felt herself waver. Didn’t Henry deserve something to make him happy? God, she was such a sucker. “Okay, you can practice with them. But no game until papers come home. And you have to read, starting now. One chapter before you even look at a baseball.”
Henry wrapped his arms around her arm and hugged it. “Thank you, Mom, thank you. I love you.”
She turned and wrapped her arms around him and pulled him to her, inhaling his little-boy scent, dropping a kiss on the back of his sweaty neck. “I love you, Hank.”
He jerked back. “You called me Hank.”
“I don’t think it’s such a bad nickname, but I’ll still call you Henry most days.”
“Like when I’m in trouble? Like when you call me Henry David?” His eyes laughed and he grinned like a deranged cartoon character. Something inside her bloomed at making him so happy, even as a little voice niggled, telling her she should have stuck to her guns.
Rayne clunked that annoying told-you-so voice over the head with an imaginary mallet. Then she drank in the sight of her son from his cowlick to his knotted cleats. He was all boy. Never in a million years would she have expected her and Phillip to create something like Henry. When she’d been pregnant with him, she’d dream of a cerebral child with blond hair and a preference for violin rather than baseball. She saw herself popping in videotapes that taught foreign languages and music. She saw herself reading books and demonstrating how to paint with watercolors.
Funny how life had played a joke on her with a rough, rowdy ball of fire. A sweet, silly Brent-like child. Well, except for the cerebral part. Rayne knew what many did not. Brent was highly intelligent. And Brent loved to read. And write. And create. And so did Henry. He simply just didn’t know it yet.
“Okay, so off you go. I’ve got to finish my soup, and you’ve got a book to start on.”
Henry’s shoulders slumped slightly. “Okay, but can I toss the ball with Mr. Hamilton before I start on the book?”
At her look, he muttered, “Nevermind,” and hopped off the stool.
She smiled and cast a glance toward the bubbling soup. She didn’t want to overcook it.
“Hey, sport. I got you something.”
Brent’s deep voice came from behind her. She spun on the stool to see him standing before Henry holding a book aloft.
“A book?” Henry sounded a bit disappointed, but wasn’t rude enough to let it show too much.
“Yeah,” Brent said, squatting down and thumping the book. She could make out a boy holding a bat on the front. “This one is about a boy named Charlie who finds out he’s really good at pitching, and, get this, he only has one arm.”
Henry took the book and studied the cover. “How’s he do that with one arm?”
“Guess you’ll have to read and find out,” Brent said, standing and looking at her. “All right with you, Mom? Maybe a sports book might be better than, what was the one you were reading? A talking mouse?”
Henry’s eyes never left the book. “Yeah, a dumb talking mouse.”
Rayne shook her head and smiled. “Well, what do you say, Henry?”
“Hank,” Henry said before grinning up at Brent. “Thank you, Mr. Hamilton. I mean, Coach.”
“You’re welcome,” Brent said, tousling her son’s hair.
Seeing Brent touch her son in such a warm, almost fatherly manner did funny things to Rayne’s heart. She wished Henry still had a father to play ball with, to receive books from, to grin up at. She missed that for him. “Now, get to reading. You’ve got practice in an hour. Can he catch a ride with you, Brent? I’ve got to finish a few things here.”
Henry waited for Brent’s nod before hauling out of the room like the devil was on his heels, clutching the book and tripping over his untied shoelace.
Rayne looked at Brent. Her heart still harbored the resentment, but she felt the block of ice around it melt a bit. Nothing like being nice to her boy to move her toward a better place. “Thanks. That was nice of you.”
“No problem.” Then he smiled, causing her heart to do little flippy things. Damn it. She had to stop thinking about his smile, his naked chest, the thought of being literally tangled up in him. The man had hurt her. Remember the Alamo. Or rather, the Oak Stand Literary Night circa 1994.
She moved toward the stove, picked up a wooden spoon and her control over her hormones. The soup looked perfect, nice and tomatoey. Rich and creamy. Her taste buds rioted for a little nip. She ignored them and instead added the chopped basil sitting on a cutting board beside the range. “So you happened to have a kid’s book lying around?”
She saw his hand move toward one of the muffins and smiled. Men. Boys. They all were alike. Hungry. “Well, I like all kinds of books.”
“Yeah, I saw the Debbie Macomber on the shelf. And, yes, you can have a muffin.”
“Thanks,” he said, cramming it into his mouth. “Mmm. I like these. Oh, and that was my mom’s book. Don’t know how it got on my shelf.”
“But a kid’s book?”
He licked his fingers and made her think of things other than food. “Well, I coach kids. The lessons in those books relate to kids. Or something like that.”
“Oh. Well, thanks for letting Henry borrow one.”
“He can keep that copy. I have a few others, so if he likes that one, he can borrow another.”
She stirred the soup, scooping enough to taste, and slipped the spoon in her mouth. It needed a pinch more sea salt and then she could dish it up for Meg and Aunt Fran to sample. “That’s nice of you.”
“I can be a nice guy. Sometimes.”
Rayne looked over her shoulder. “I remember.”
“Yeah,” he said, grabbing a paper towel and wiping his hands. “I gotta run. Tell your aunt I’ll be back in the morning. Early this time because I got some work to do at the Harpers’ in the afternoon. Send Hank over in about thirty, okay?”
Then he stepped out the back door before she could say anything else. Before she could remember how nice he’d been once. How sweet and vulnerable. So different than what others thought about him. And at one time so absolutely perfect for her.
She washed her hands and allowed the memories to follow the water right down the drain. It was easier that way.
