Her eyes widened. She quickly shrugged on the shirt to cover herself. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were alone. I didn’t realize—”
“Don’t worry and don’t apologize.” His eyes roved over her, and God she looked good in his shirt. Really damn good. Even if it didn’t do much to cover those long, sexy legs. His mind wandered to what it’d be like waking up to her every morning, her sexy body wrapped in his clothes.
Gracie skipped into the living room with her pink roller skates. But then she spotted Charlotte, and a bright smile broke out across her face. “Charlie! Did you come to see me?”
Bo and Cash rounded the corner and stumbled to a stop, their eyes going wide. Yeah, that shirt really didn’t do enough to cover her legs. Tripp stepped between the guys and Charlotte and glared at the two men. Bo raised his hands and they backed up.
Charlotte just stood there, staring at the entire houseful of them.
“Um…hi?” she said, clearly unsteady.
Gracie dropped her skates and trotted over. “Are you here because you’re coming skating with me? I’ve never been skating with a lady before. Only Uncle Cash and Uncle Bo, and sometimes my friends in Girl Scouts, but you’re way more pretty.”
Tripp sighed, his grand plan good and gone. He wanted to say something, but his brain refused to spit out anything useful. He couldn’t tell Charlotte to leave—he’d invited her. He wasn’t exactly upset that she’d shown up the way she had, either. The woman was pretty, and he had plenty of ideas what he’d do with that sexy cowgirl outfit.
“I don’t have skates,” Charlotte said, “so no skating for me tonight.”
Gracie just took Charlotte’s hand and said, “That’s okay, we can stay home,” and started pulling Charlotte toward her bedroom. “I have a lot of Barbies, wanna see?”
“Honey, I don’t think Charlotte wants to stay. She just popped by to…pick up this loaf of bread,” Tripp offered, grabbing the bread he’d planned to serve and holding it out to her.
Charlotte hesitated. “Actually, I’d be happy to stay. If I’m welcome?”
Bo and Cash both piped up. “Of course you are.”
His buddies were onto him, damn it.
She smiled and Tripp groaned. He’d have to deal with the situation. How could he have been so stupid to think this plan could work? He needed to be ready to play damage control, because there was nothing casual about having Charlotte over for dinner, or her hanging out with Gracie in such a familiar manner.
But Charlotte looked at ease. Before she got pulled into Gracie’s room, she looked Tripp up and down and winked. “Looking hot, cowboy.”
He glanced down at his apron and then at the ceiling. Bo and Cash chuckled, and Tripp pinched the bridge of his nose with his moose oven mitt.
It was going to be a long night.
…
Gracie dragged Charlotte down the hall with surprising force for a first grader. Several yanks to her hand later, they made it to her bedroom where a dollhouse and several Barbies littered the floor.
Gracie instantly grabbed one and handed it to Charlotte.
“This is Miss Abigail Daisy Flower,” she said proudly, handing Charlotte the pantsless blond Barbie with a butterfly clip in her hair and rainbow shirt.
“She’s lovely,” Charlotte said, and took a seat on the floor. Gracie sat across from her, the dollhouse in between them to the right.
She paused to look Charlotte over. “That looks like my daddy’s shirt,” she said.
Charlotte had no frickin’ clue what to say to that. She’d shown up thinking Tripp would be alone, and “dinner” was just a polite way of saying he wanted to hook up. Now she was in his shirt playing Barbies and mortified about the length—or lack thereof —of her shorts.
“I was cold, so he let me borrow it,” Charlotte said, going for partial truth.
“That makes sense,” Gracie said. “Your shorts are all ripped. I bet you’re cold.”
“Yeah,” Charlotte conceded. Thankfully, Gracie didn’t press further.
“Hello, my name is Beatrice Buttercake,” Gracie said in a higher voice, wiggling her Barbie in the direction of Charlotte’s.
“Ah…hiya, Beatrice,” Charlotte tried. She’d never played Barbies before. Not as a kid and not with a kid. So she would just have to follow Gracie’s lead. “I’m Abby-Daisy, how are you today?”