Wife by Design

“So when you issue the invitation, you can cook,” he said. As though already assuming there would be another time.

“You’ve got a deal.”

“And maybe, if we’re lucky, Kara can occupy Darin and Maddie long enough for me to at least get in a kiss or two….”

Her reaction to him was swift and immediate. Lynn crossed her legs.

“You make me feel a hell of a lot better-looking than the picture I see when I look in a mirror.”

It was a two-in-the-morning thing to say.

“Then you need to figure out what’s wrong with your mirror.” His reply was quick and sure. “’Cause I gotta tell you, lady, there’s nothing wrong with the way you look. Except maybe that you look too good to resist.”

Her entire body suffused with pleasure—from the heart outward. Grant’s voice was growing on her. His lack of subterfuge. His dedication to his brother, and the sensitive artistic nature that drove the creation of the Garden of Renewal.

Lynn rubbed her eyes and thought about the pillow awaiting her. After a quick shower.

She had responsibilities. A life that she loved. One she’d worked hard to achieve and had under complete control. That was her priority.

Any extracurricular pleasures, no matter how delicious, had to stay down on her list where they belonged.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Darin made his lasagna, which Kara loved, and he watched and cheered while Maddie and Kara played a video game afterward. Grant ended up on the opposite end of the table from Lynn—Maddie’s doing; she’d set the table so that she was by Darin and next to Kara—and while it felt strange, it was also kind of nice looking up from his brother’s pasta to see Lynn’s face at the end of the table across from him. He had no idea how she felt about any of it. He’d tried to get Lynn into a corner in the laundry room, but each time he almost had her to himself, either Maddie or Kara would notice her missing.

It was clear to him, more than ever, that the lives of those two revolved around her. And hers around them, too. Just as his life revolved around Darin. Which was exactly as it should be.

Still, when he didn’t get so much as a good-night kiss on Monday, he was more determined than ever to do so as soon as possible.

He looked for her on Tuesday afternoon when he got to the shelter after a full day of work on a new bid that Bishop Landscaping had just won—a brand-new upscale housing project that consisted of a total of fifteen yards and six acres of common area in a gated neighborhood.

After wasting as much time as he could possibly afford without seeing any sign of her, stopping short of dropping by her office or her home, he set to work pulling recalcitrant weeds from the planted flower beds in front of each of the bungalows on the property. He’d sprayed for weeds, but, as always, there were those hardy few that inevitably reared their ugly heads.

As he walked around the property, pulling the determined green pests, he entertained himself with thoughts of the following Wednesday, just eight days away, when he’d be spending his afternoon work hour getting a workout in Lynn’s bed.

Several of the flower beds had no weeds at all. One had six. He bent over to yank them out.

And felt something touch his butt—and slide upward. “I hoped I’d see you out here.”

Standing and turning so fast that dirt from the weeds in his hands bounced off the front of Lynn’s scrub shirt, he said, “I looked all over for you.”

She glanced at his fly. Then up to his lips—and, finally, his eyes. He was waiting when she arrived there. And didn’t even try to hide the fire he was feeling.

“Was last night as excruciating for you as it was for me?” he asked softly.

They were out in public. And while the grounds at The Lemonade Stand were never crowded, there were always women out making their way to someplace.

“I thought dinner was kind of nice,” she said, looking at his lips. She knew exactly what she was doing to him. He could see it in her eyes. Hear it in her voice. She couldn’t have been more obvious if she’d crooked a finger at him.

“Dinner was nice,” he told her. Two could play this game. “Every time I looked up there you were…at the other end of the table.”