Wife by Design

“What were you looking for?” she asked. “Maybe I can help you find it.”

“I have no doubt about that,” he told her, looking into those blue eyes and wishing he could just find a home there. “What were you coming to find?”

“You.” She was as focused on him as he was on her. Staring right into his eyes. If she saw something more than their color there he didn’t care. She could take whatever she wanted.

“I was looking for you.”

A couple of women appeared behind them, talking, but their voices stopped as they rounded the corner and Grant and Lynn came into view.

“Ladies,” Lynn said, smiling at them. And then she grabbed Grant’s hand. “Come on,” she said, pulling him into an alcove between two bungalows, down a small pathway and into an empty, unlocked cabin filled with round tables and chairs. A counter lined three of the walls, with cupboards above and below it.

“This is an arts and crafts room,” she said. “It’s also used for special parties—baby showers or birthday parties.”

He didn’t think she really cared for him to know what the cabin was for.

And didn’t like the fact that he cared about what she cared about.

Wanting sex with her was fine. Wanting her was not.

Giving himself a minute to regroup, he walked around the room, looking out the windows at the various views. He’d mowed and weeded the entire area. But he’d thought the cabin was a storage facility. It had always been closed up and he’d never seen anyone near it.

Turning, he saw her watching him, her sexy butt leaning against a counter on the wall opposite him.

“Do you have parents in the area?” The question came out of nowhere, but he realized that he didn’t know. And wanted to.

“No, though I grew up here. My younger sister, Katie, is divorced and living in Denver. She has two small kids and really needed my parents nearby. My father is a lawyer and took the bar in Denver and off they went.”

“Why didn’t your sister move back here?” She’d told him and Darin, four years before, that she’d grown up in Santa Raquel. He’d remembered.

“She can’t take the kids out of the state as part of the custody agreement in her divorce.”

“Do you have any other siblings?”

“Nope. It’s just Katie and me.”

And apparently her parents had determined that the younger daughter was more of a priority than the daughter who’d been abused? If she’d been abused. He knew Maddie’s story now, but still didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask Lynn about herself.

He wasn’t sure he’d ask even if she’d seemed open to talking about her past. She was on his mind too much as it was.

“Mom hates not being closer to Kara,” Lynn said as though reading his mind. “We talk at least once a week, and she visits as often as she can.”

“Does she stay here?”

“Yes, though she had to submit to a background check before she was cleared to do so.”

“What about your dad? Does he ever come with her?”

“Sometimes. And when he does, they stay in a bed-and-breakfast down at the beach.”

He nodded. Envying Lynn her parents. But only for the second it took him to shake himself out of it. He focused on her again.

She was more than enough to distract him from just about anything.

“You said you were looking for me,” he said, and when she didn’t break eye contact, he moved closer to her.

They were alone again. In a very quiet, remote part of the complex.

“I have a favor to ask.” Her lips moved. He wanted to lick them.

To know how the tip of that tongue tasted.

“Then ask.”

“I’d like some more landscape lighting in the garden at my place,” she said. “I don’t know if I can afford it, but I figured you’d be able to tell me how much it would cost and—”

“You tell me what you want and it’s yours.” He moved a couple of steps closer to her.

“I’m not going to take advantage….” Her words trailed off. But she still didn’t look away from him. And he wanted to take advantage. In the worst way.

“I’ve got a shed full of leftovers and samples,” he told her. “And anything that isn’t there, I can get from my suppliers. They’ve given me carte blanche for this place.”