“I heartily disagree.” He smiled, but it almost hurt to paint it on when his entire body was on fire. And this woman was the only one who could quench the flames. “It’s practically a requirement for it to happen again.”
“Are you that clueless, Kyle?”
Clueless. Yeah, he needed to catch a couple of clues apparently, like the big screaming back-off vibes Grace was shooting in his direction.
“I’m your daughters’ caseworker,” she reminded him with raised eyebrows. “We can’t get involved.”
His body cooled faster than if she’d dumped a bucket of ice water on his head. “You’re right.”
Of course she was right. When had he lost sight of that? This wasn’t about whether she was interested or not; it was about his daughters. What had started out as a half-formed plan to distract her from work had actually distracted him far more effectively.
And he wanted to do it again. That was dangerous. She could take his girls away at the drop of a hat, and he couldn’t afford to antagonize her. Hell, she’d even told him she had to treat the case as objectively as possible, and here he was, ignoring all of that.
Because she’d gotten to him. She’d dug under his skin without saying a word. Talk about dangerous. He couldn’t let her know she had that much power over him, or she might use it to her advantage. How could he have forgotten how much better it was to keep his heart—and his mouth—shut? That’s why he stuck to weekend hookups, like the one he’d had with Margaret. No one expected him to spill his guts, and then he was free to leave before anyone got a different idea about how things were going to go.
That was the best he could do. The best he wanted to do. But he couldn’t ditch Royal this time around when things got too heated. He’d have to figure out how to get past one more tangle in the big fat knot in his chest that had Grace’s name all over it.
She thought he was clueless? Just a big dumb guy who couldn’t find his way around a woman without a map? Fine. It served his purpose to let her keep on thinking that, while he flipped this problem on its head.
“Sorry about that, then.” He held up his hands and let a slow grin spread across his face. “Hands off from now on.”
Or at least until he figured out which way the wind blew in Grace’s mind about the custody issue. He couldn’t afford to antagonize her, but neither could he afford to let her out of his sight. Once he had curried her good favor and secured his claim on his children, all bets were off.
And when she mumbled an excuse about having other dinner plans, he let her leave, already contemplating what kind of excuse he could find to get her into his arms again, but this time, without any of the emotional tangle she seemed to effortlessly cause.
Five
The kiss had been a mistake.
Grace knew that. She’d known while she was kissing Kyle. The whole time. Why, for the love of God, couldn’t she stop thinking about it?
She’d kissed Kyle lots of times. None of those kisses was seared into her brain, ready to pop up in her consciousness like a jack-in-the-box gone really wrong. Of course, all her previous Kyle kisses had happened with the boy.
He was all man now.
Darker, harder, fiercer. And oh, how he had driven that fact home with nothing more than his mouth on hers. The feel of his lips had winnowed through her, sliding through her blood, waking it deliciously. Reminding her that she was all woman.
Telling her that she’d yet to fully explore what that meant.
Oh, sure, she’d kissed a few of the men she’d dated before she’d become a Professional Single Girl. But those chaste, dry pecks hadn’t compared with being kissed by someone like Kyle.
She couldn’t do it again. No matter how much she wanted to. No matter how little sleep she got that night and how little work she got done the next day because she couldn’t erase the goose bumps from her skin that had sprung up the instant Kyle had touched her.
When Clare Connelly called with a dinner invitation, Grace jumped on it, nearly crying with relief at the thought of a distraction. Clare was a pediatric nurse who’d cared for the twin babies in the harrowing days after their premature birth, and she and Grace had become good friends.
Grace arrived at the Waters Café just off Royal’s main street before Clare, so she took a seat at a four top and ordered a glass of wine while she waited. The café had been rebuilt as part of the revitalization of the downtown strip after the tornado had tried to wipe Royal off the map. The owners, Jim and Pam Waters, had nearly lost everything, but thanks to a good insurance policy and some neighborly folks, the café was going strong. Grace made it a point to eat there as often as possible, just to give good people her business.