This Just In.... Jennifer McKenzie
“Those are things you do for other people. What about you?”
Concern spiked through him. “I thought we weren’t doing an interview.”
She remained reclined in her loose pose. “We’re not. I’m just curious about you.”
He swallowed. This was not good. He still wasn’t sure about her. She seemed sincere, but how well did he know her? And now, sitting on the porch like a couple, her spicy-sweet scent mingling with the grassy smell from the neighbor’s lawn. He looked away. Dinner. Together. And beer. When he was already filled with confusing push-me-pull-you thoughts. This was not a good idea. He cleared his throat. “I just remembered, I can’t stay.”
Her mouth opened and then closed. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” Noah set the beer down, barely touched. Fantasies of her naked in his bed rolled through his mind, followed by the worry that this sparking attraction would make him do something he’d regret. No, he definitely couldn’t stay. Not tonight. Not when his mind was in a whirl. “I promised Kyle and Marissa I’d babysit.” He hadn’t, but they were always happy for the extra hands.
Sabrina nodded, but he couldn’t tell if she believed him. “You do that a lot, don’t you? Babysit.”
He felt something icy and irritable slide down his spine. “They’re family.” Why shouldn’t he babysit? He loved his family. He loved helping them.
She sat up and put a hand on his arm. “I think it’s great.” Her eyes bored into him, reading him. “You do a lot for other people.”
“No, I don’t.” Noah hated it when people talked about him like that. He didn’t want them to notice, just to know that they could count on him to be there. “Anyone would do the same.”
“No, Noah. They wouldn’t.” Her hand was warm, comforting.
He reminded himself that he didn’t know who she was, what she wanted. He pushed himself into a standing position. “Right. Well. Thanks for the beer.”
Sabrina lifted her bottle to him in a toast. “Anytime. We’ll rain check dinner.”
Noah knew he should correct her. Tell her that dinner wasn’t necessary, that he hadn’t agreed to help her for any reason other than it had seemed like a good idea at the time. But he didn’t.
And he beat it out of there before desire could overwhelm common sense.
But he didn’t feel any better once he arrived on Kyle and Marissa’s doorstep.
“Hey, bro.” Kyle welcomed him in with a slap on the shoulder. “What brings you here?”
“Kyle?” Marissa came into the entry. “Noah, hi. We weren’t expecting you.”
He could hear the rumble of kids. “I should have called first. Sorry.” He hadn’t brought anything with him. Hadn’t even taken that much-needed shower. Just climbed into his car and driven straight over.
“It’s not a problem.” Kyle turned to the kitchen. “Want a beer?”
“Yes, that’d be great.”
“What were you doing?” Marissa plucked at his shirt, which was still stuck to his skin as they turned to follow Kyle. “You look like you’ve been chopping wood.”
Close enough. “I was helping someone move.”
Kyle pulled a pair of bottles out of the fridge. “Who? You should have called me. I could have helped.”
But Marissa, always more astute than her husband, didn’t wait for his answer. “Sabrina, right?” She shook her head when he didn’t respond to her query. “What else did she want?”
“Nothing. She didn’t want anything.” He twisted the beer cap. No, he was the one who wanted something. Something that he couldn’t have.
“Are you sure?” Marissa asked.
“She’s my new neighbor. That’s all.” Sabrina didn’t want anything else. He didn’t think. Well, except the interview, but she’d been perfectly up-front about that. No, he was the one with the wicked thoughts of her naked body. Damn her little tank top and littler shorts.
“Noah.” But whatever Marissa had been about to say was interrupted by his noisy niece, who burst into the room singing and dancing.
Daisy flung herself at his legs when she saw him. “Hi, Uncle Noah.” Then she launched into a story about some tights with a hole in the knee.
He picked up his niece, suddenly wildly interested in the case of the striped tights.
“Mommy threw them away.” Her tiny face was set in a picture-perfect expression of outrage. “And she won’t buy me more. Will you buy me a pair?”
“Yes,” Noah said just as Marissa said, “Absolutely not.”
Marissa plucked Daisy from Noah’s grip and set her down with a pat. “I need to talk to your uncle. Go see what your brothers are doing.”
“I don’t wanna.” Daisy crossed her arms and stamped her foot.
“Daisy.” The warning note in her mother’s voice was clear.
Daisy looked from her mother to her father, and stuck out her chin. “Uncle Noah will buy me tights. He loves me. Right, Uncle Noah?” She grabbed his leg.
“Don’t manipulate your uncle, Daisy. Go and play with your brothers.”
Daisy responded by wrapping her arms more tightly around Noah’s thigh and clinging like a monkey. “No!”
Noah sighed, used to these exchanges. He’d learned to simply stand by and let Marissa handle her daughter as things inevitably ended more quickly and with less screeching.
“Daisy, I swear.” Marissa attempted to pry her daughter’s fingers loose, but Daisy was a girl on a mission.
“No. No. You can’t make me.” She tried to wrap her legs around Noah’s shin.
Marissa tugged on her daughter’s arm. “Yes, I can.” She pried her daughter free. “Off to find your brothers or you won’t get dessert.”
Daisy seemed to consider that, then nodded. “Okay. Bye, Uncle Noah.”
So much for his three-foot savior. Marissa was now bearing down on him with a gleam in her eye that looked remarkably like the one Daisy often wore. “I can’t believe Sabrina moved in beside you. You need to be careful.”
“Why?” Noah honestly wanted to know. Was it really such a big deal? It’s not as if they were cohabitating.
Marissa’s eyebrow lifted. “People already think there’s something going on because of that talk the two of you had in the parking lot. Do you want the whole town talking about you?”
Noah’s stomach rolled. He did not want the whole town talking about him.
“This is ridiculous.” Kyle piped up with a snort. “What are they going to say? That he helped someone move? That they’re neighbors?”
The roll slowed. His brother had a point. Living next to each other wasn’t scandalous. “We’re just neighbors. I hardly know her.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about the interview. I don’t think you should do it,” Marissa insisted.
Just when he was thinking that he should.
“Marissa.” Kyle draped an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”
Marissa’s face was set in a hard line. She glanced at her husband. “Have you forgotten what it was like here after she wrote that article about you?”
Kyle nodded. “I remember, babe.” He wrapped his arm more tightly around her. “But that doesn’t mean it’ll be the same