Wife by Design

He could ask Maura to stay with his brother….

The thought occurred to him and was quickly dismissed. Maura checked on Darin during the day the first few days his brother was out of the hospital. He’d scheduled her for two weeks. Darin had been up, dressed and insistent on going with him and spending the day in a chair on the job site after the third day.

Darin wasn’t going to be okay with a babysitter.

And Grant couldn’t do that to his brother, anyway. Darin was injured. He wasn’t a baby.

“I can be there at seven,” Grant said.

Lynn smiled and gave him another glance. A warm, personal glance that included his mouth.

He grinned. She was interested.

“Can I get you some tea?” she asked, as though nothing momentous had just passed between them.

Her nipples were protruding against her scrubs. Clearly she didn’t wear a padded bra.

And unless she was suddenly cold in a very warm house, she was every bit as affected as he was by their proximity.

Grant’s first instinct was to refuse her invitation to tea. Darin did better when they ate on schedule. His medication had to be taken with meals.

His brother laughed again.

“Tea would be great,” he said, and would have followed her to the kitchen, but she deterred him.

“Darin’s in there,” she said as they passed an archway. He could see the sectional. See the back of his brother’s head and Maddie perched on some kind of stool in front of him. The toddler, Maddie’s daughter, wasn’t visible at all.

And Grant remembered his first and foremost priority. “Hey, big bro, I hear you’ve been showing them that you’re tired of playing Little League,” he said, grinning as he joined the threesome. And hoped Lynn would be quick with the tea. He was going to have to leave soon and wanted to spend as much time as he could with her.

Darin’s laughter was cut short and the look in his eyes was all worried-little-boy as Grant rounded the corner of the sectional.

“I’m sorry, Grant. I didn’t follow the instructions.”

“I’m not sorry, bro,” Grant said, punching his brother on the shoulder and trying not to make too big a deal of his perusal of Darin’s newest injury. “You didn’t become a star baseball player by only practicing when you were told.”

“I didn’t know you played baseball,” Maddie said in her slow drawl.

“I did.” Darin sat up, and Kara climbed down from the couch, snatching a stuffed toy away from Darin’s lap.

“Hi, Mister, this is Sammy. You wanna hold him?” The words were legible, if he listened carefully.

“Sure,” Grant said, taking the animal and then wondering what to do with it.

“I think you’re supposed to kiss it,” Darin said, grinning up at him.

So Grant did. And was rewarded with his brother’s full-bodied laugh, tinged with a bit of out-of-control little-boy guffaw.

Maddie just sat there, watching Darin.

Kara said, “Mama! Look! Mister is here!”

Grant’s gaze went to Maddie, who was still watching Darin, who was smiling at her. So the toddler was aware that her mother was…slow? She realized that Maddie hadn’t noticed him standing there? How long ago had Maddie been injured? Before Kara was born? Or more recently?

And could a three-year-old adapt that quickly?

Thoughts flew through his mind.

“I see, Kara.”

That’s when Grant realized he was the slow one.

Kara wasn’t looking toward Maddie. She was looking at the woman who’d just walked into the room carrying Grant’s cup of tea. The woman who’d just replied to her.

Lynn was Kara’s mother?

Any hope Grant had had of some kind of quiet, on-the-side liaison with Darin’s nurse flew right out the window.

There’d be no after-bedtime sex at his place.

Lynn was as tied down as he was.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LYNN WAS UP by four in the morning on Monday. Not because she’d had a call, but because she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that she was going to have Grant Bishop all to herself, alone in her office, in a matter of hours.

Just the two of them.

Because they had matters to discuss, it went without saying, but…