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As she started down the driveway, she caught another glimpse of her hunky neighbor and his equally hunky brothers, and her pulse tripped again. The automatic physiological response surprised her. Since Phillip had died, all she’d felt was grief and exhaustion, so the tingles that skated through her veins whenever she set eyes on Matt Garrett weren’t just unexpected but unwelcome.
She did not want to be attracted to any man, much less one she might cross paths with any time she stepped outside. But while her brain was firm in its conviction, her body wasn’t nearly as certain.
Matt caught her eye and lifted a hand in greeting. She waved back, then quickly averted her gaze and continued on her way. It was bad enough that she’d caught herself staring—she didn’t need her neighbor to be aware of it, too.
Of course, he was probably accustomed to women gawking in his direction. A man like that would be.
Not that she had a lot of experience with men like the Garrett brothers, but she knew their type. In high school, they would have been the most popular boys: the star athletes who had dated only the prettiest girls, the boys that other boys wanted to be and that all of the girls wanted to be with.
But not Georgia. She’d been too smart to fall into the trap of thinking that those boys would even look twice in her direction. And they never had. Not until Aiden Grainger sat down beside her in senior English and asked if she’d help out with the yearbook. Even then, she’d been certain he was only interested in her ability to correctly place a comma, and no one was more surprised than she when he walked her home after school one day and kissed her.
And with the first touch of his lips, she’d fallen for him, wholly and completely. They’d dated through the rest of senior year and talked about backpacking around Europe after graduation. Aiden wanted to see the world and Georgia wanted to do whatever he wanted to do so long as she got to be with him.
This willingness to sacrifice her own hopes and dreams in favor of his terrified her. It reminded her of all the times her life had been upended because her mother decided that she had to follow her heart to another city or another state—usually in pursuit of another man.
When Georgia was thirteen and starting her third new school in three years, she’d promised herself that she would never do the same thing. And now, barely five years later, she was preparing to throw away a scholarship to Wellesley College in order to follow some guy around Europe? No, she couldn’t do it.
Aiden claimed that he was disappointed in her decision, but it turned out he wasn’t disappointed enough to change his plans. He’d said he wanted to travel with her, but in the end, he wanted Europe more than he wanted her. And maybe Georgia wanted Wellesley more than she wanted him, because she went off to college and didn’t look back.
But it had taken her a long time to get over Aiden, and a lot longer than that before she’d been willing to open up her heart again. And when she finally did, she’d lucked out with Phillip Reed.
Maybe theirs hadn’t been a grand passion, but for almost ten years, he’d made her feel loved and comfortable and secure. It was all she’d ever wanted or needed.
So how was it that, after less than ten minutes, Matt Garrett had made her wonder if there might be something more? How was it that he’d stirred a passion inside of her that she’d never even known existed? And what was she supposed to do with these feelings?
Unable to answer any of these unnerving questions, she pushed them aside and led the kids into the grocery store.
When Matt decided to move, his real estate agent had repeated the same mantra: location, location, location. And Tina Stilwell had promised that this neighborhood scored top marks in that regard. There were parks, recreation facilities, a grocery store and schools in the immediate vicinity, with more shopping, restaurants and the hospital—where he worked as an orthopedic surgeon—just a short drive away. She hadn’t mentioned the beautiful blonde next door, and Matt wasn’t sure how that information might have factored into his equation.
He hadn’t necessarily been looking for a house—and he certainly wasn’t looking for a new relationship. But he believed that real estate was a good investment and this house, in particular, had everything he wanted, not just with respect to location but amenities.
Jack had, logically, questioned why a single man needed four bedrooms and three bathrooms, forcing Matt to acknowledge that it was more space than he needed. He didn’t admit—even to himself—that he had any residual hope of utilizing those extra bedrooms someday. Because he had a new life now—a new home and a new beginning, and he wasn’t going to waste another minute on regrets or recriminations about the past. From this point on, he was going to look to the future.
But first, he had to cut the grass.
As he pushed the lawn mower across his yard, he kept casting surreptitious glances toward his neighbor’s house, eager for any sign of Georgia Reed. He hadn’t seen much of her in the past few days, and he knew she wasn’t home now because the minivan was missing from her driveway, but that didn’t stop him from checking every few minutes.
Thinking about what his brothers had said, he had to admit, albeit reluctantly, that it might not be a good idea to make a move on the woman next door. At least, not until he’d finished unpacking. If he moved too fast, she might think he was desperate. And he wasn’t—but he was lonely.
Since his divorce, he’d had a few brief affairs but nothing more meaningful than that. He missed being in a relationship. He missed the camaraderie, the companionship and the intimacy. Not just sex—but intimacy. After a few unsatisfactory one-night stands, he’d recognized that there was a distinct difference.
He missed falling asleep beside someone he genuinely wanted to wake up with the next morning. He missed long conversations across the dinner table, quiet nights on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and a movie, and rainy Sunday mornings snuggled up in bed. He missed being with someone, being part of a couple, having a partner by his side to celebrate not just all of the national holidays but all of the ordinary days in between.
But even more than he missed being a husband, he missed being a father. For almost three years, his little boy had been the center of his life. But Liam had been gone for more than three years now, and it was past time that Matt accepted that and moved on.
With a sigh, he considered that maybe he should let Luke talk him into taking one of those puppies. At least then he wouldn’t come home to an empty house at the end of a long day.
Glancing toward Georgia’s house again, he was willing to bet that his neighbor didn’t know what it meant to be lonely. With three kids making constant demands on her time, she probably didn’t have five minutes to herself in a day.
No doubt the twins alone could keep her hopping, and she had the needs of an infant to contend with as well. Although he had yet to meet the baby girl, he found himself wondering what she looked like, if she had the same dark hair and dark eyes as her brothers (which he assumed they’d inherited from their father) or blond hair and blue eyes like her mother.
It had to be difficult for Georgia, being widowed at such a young age. Not that he actually knew how old she was, but if she’d passed her thirtieth birthday, he didn’t think she’d done so very long ago. Which meant that she’d likely married when she was young and idealistic and head over heels in love—and that she was probably still grieving the loss of her husband. But even if she wasn’t, Matt didn’t imagine that she had any interest in—or energy for—a romance with her new neighbor.
A relationship with someone who lives next door might seem convenient … but it can be a nightmare if things don’t work out.
Luke was probably right. So Matt was going to take his brother’s advice and step back. Which didn’t mean he and Georgia couldn’t be friends. Surely his brothers wouldn’t have any objection to Matt being friends with the woman next door.
And it seemed obvious that the first step toward becoming friends was to be a good neighbor. He finished the last strip of his grass and pushed the mower over to Georgia’s lawn.
Having never owned anything with a yard before, he wasn’t sure how he would feel about the required maintenance and upkeep, but so far, he was enjoying the physical work. And mowing the lawn, being unable to hear anything but the rumble of the motor, was almost relaxing. Or it would have been if the hum and the vibration of the machine in his hands hadn’t started him thinking about different hums and vibrations that he hadn’t experienced in a very long time.
Yeah, it had definitely been too long since he’d been with a woman. Which brought him back to thinking about Georgia again. The neighbor who was, he reminded himself, strictly off-limits with respect to any kind of romance.
But while his mind might be willing to heed the warnings of his brothers, his hormones weren’t entirely convinced. Especially when Georgia’s van pulled into the driveway and his pulse actually skipped a beat.
As Georgia turned onto Larkspur Drive, she mentally reviewed her plans for the rest of the day. First and foremost was the long-neglected manuscript still on the dining room table. And when she finally got that manuscript finished, she would set Pippa up in her playpen on the deck while Georgia cut the grass. She still had mixed feelings about letting the boys play in the neighbor’s yard, but she thought she might indulge them today, trusting they would keep safely out of the way in the tree house.
She hadn’t seen much of Matt Garrett over the past few days, which made her realize how little she knew about him aside from his name. She didn’t know where he worked or what he did, whether he was married or engaged or otherwise involved. Not that she was interested, just … curious.
And when she turned into her driveway and saw him pushing a lawn mower over the last uncut strip of grass in front of her house, her curiosity was piqued even further.
She parked her minivan, then opened the back door to let the twins scamper out before she unlatched Pippa’s car seat. By the time she’d taken the baby into the house, he’d finished the lawn and was making his way toward her.
“Need a hand?” He gestured to the grocery bags in the back.
Georgia turned to respond, but the words dried up inside her mouth. His hair was tousled, his bronzed skin bore a light sheen of perspiration, and the gray T-shirt that molded to his broad shoulders and strong arms was damp with sweat. She’d always appreciated men who were more GQ than Outdoors-man, but she couldn’t deny that there was something very appealing about this man.
She swallowed. “No, I’ve—”
Ignoring her protest, he reached into the vehicle for the remaining two bags.
She blew out a breath. “Okay. Thanks.”
He grinned at her, and her knees actually went weak.
Something very appealing, indeed.
The first time she’d seen him up close, she’d been struck by his stunning good looks—and unnerved by her body’s instinctive response to his blatant masculinity. But she’d managed to convince herself that she’d overestimated his appeal, that he couldn’t possibly be as handsome or as sexy as she’d thought. Face-to-face with him now, she was forced to admit that, if anything, she’d underestimated his impact.
Those deep blue eyes were both warm and seductive, and his exquisitely shaped mouth seemed to promise all sorts of wicked pleasure. Not that she was interested in seduction or pleasure; she didn’t even have the energy for an innocent flirtation. But the pulsing of the blood in her veins proved that her body was only exhausted, not dead.
Matt followed her into the house and set the grocery bags on the counter.
“Can we come over to see the puppies?” Quinn asked.
Shane looked up at their neighbor, too, the plea in his gaze as earnest as his brother’s question.
“The puppies aren’t at my house today,” Matt told them.
Their hopeful smiles dimmed.
“Where are they?”
“With my brother, Luke, at his clinic.”
“He’s the doggy doctor,” Quinn reminded Shane.
“He’s a doctor for all kinds of animals,” Matt clarified.
“Maybe we could visit the puppies at the clinic,” Quinn suggested.
“Not today,” Georgia told him.
Shane pouted. “I want a puppy.”
“Well, you got a baby sister instead.”
“I’d rather have a puppy,” Quinn grumbled.
Matt turned to hide his smile as he washed his hands at the sink. “Those puppies were kind of cute,” he agreed. “But your sister is even cuter.”
“Do you think so?” Quinn’s tone was skeptical.
“Absolutely.” He smiled at the baby still securely strapped into her car seat but directed his next words to Georgia. “Can I take her out of there?”
She hesitated. “If you want, but she doesn’t have a lot of experience with strangers so she might …”
Her explanation trailed off when she saw that he already had Pippa out of her carrier.
Matt looked up. “She might what?”
“I was going to say ‘fuss,’” she admitted. “But obviously she is doing anything but.”
Instead, the little girl’s big blue eyes were intently focused on Matt’s face and her mouth was stretched into a wide, gummy grin that filled his heart so completely, his chest ached.
“She’s a charmer,” he said, tucking her carefully into the crook of his arm so that her head and neck were supported.
“She has her moments,” her mother agreed.
“Mostly she cries,” Quinn said.
“’Specially at night,” Shane added.
Georgia’s sigh confirmed it was true. “Colic.”
He’d had his own experience with a colicky baby, and he winced sympathetically. “Are you getting any sleep?” he asked.
“A lot less since my mom went away,” she admitted. “But I’m managing—if you disregard the fact that I’m falling behind on my work, housework and yard work.”
Shane tugged on the hem of her shirt. “I’m hungry.”
“I know, honey. I’ll get your lunch as soon as I get the groceries put away.”
“Gill cheez?”
She smiled. “You bet.”
“I want twisty pasta,” Quinn announced.
“You had pasta yesterday,” she reminded him. “We’re having grilled cheese today. But you can go put cartoons on TV while you’re waiting for your lunch, if you want.”
Apparently that was an acceptable compromise, as the boys both scampered off to the living room.
“But you’re not falling behind with your kids,” he said. “And that’s what really matters.”
The smile that curved her lips was both genuine and weary. “And thanks to you, I’m no longer as far behind with the yard work as I used to be.”
He shrugged. “I was cutting my grass anyway.”
She took a jug of 2% and a tub of yogurt out of the bag, found room for them in the fridge.
“You should try soy milk,” he told her.
She lifted a brow. “Because you have futures in soybeans?”
He grinned. “Because colic can be caused—or aggravated—by an intolerance to the proteins in the cows’ milk consumed by a nursing mother.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “How did you know I’m nursing?”
To his credit, he managed to keep his gaze on her face without his eyes even flickering in the direction of her very lush breasts. “No baby bottles in the drying rack or the fridge.”
“Very observant,” she noted. “And how do you know about the soy milk?”
“I read a lot.”
She’d finished putting away her groceries and reached into the drawer under the oven for a frying pan. “I used to read,” she told him. “Sometimes even for pleasure.”
He smiled. “You will again—someday.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” She retrieved the butter from the fridge. “But for now, we’re getting through one day at a time.”
“I’d say you’re doing better than that. You’ve got three great kids, Georgia.”
She started buttering slices of bread. “I wish you could be here to tell me that at 3:00 a.m.” Then she realized how her words might be misconstrued, and her cheeks filled with color.
He knew she wasn’t issuing an invitation, but he found himself wishing that he could find some way to help her out, to be the man she turned to when she needed someone, to be the one who could ease some of the fatigue from around her eyes and put a smile on her face. But those were very dangerous wishes. She wasn’t his wife, her kids weren’t his kids, and he had to stop wanting things that couldn’t be.
“I only meant that it would be nice to have someone around to reassure me in the early hours of morning when I feel like crying right along with Pippa,” she hastened to clarify.
“Sharing a burden makes it lighter,” he agreed easily, and scribbled his phone number down on the notepad on the counter. “And if you ever do need a hand—with anything and at any time—give me a call.”
“You’ve already done me a huge favor by cutting the grass.” Butter sizzled as she dropped the first sandwich into the hot pan.
“I didn’t know there was a limit on good deeds.”
She smiled again, and though he could see the fatigue in her eyes, the curving of her lips seemed to brighten the whole room. “I don’t mean to seem ungrateful—”
“I wouldn’t say ungrateful so much as resistant.”
“I lived in New York City for the past dozen years,” she told him. “I wasn’t even on a first-name basis with most of my neighbors, and the biggest favor any of them ever did for me was to hold the elevator.”
“Obviously moving to Pinehurst has been a big adjustment.”
“My mother told me it was a different world. She encouraged me to make conversation with people I don’t know, and she chided me for locking the doors of my van when it’s parked in the driveway.”
“You lock the doors of your vehicle in your own driveway?” he asked incredulously.
“When I first moved to New York, I lived in a third-floor apartment in Chelsea. Two weeks later, I wandered down to the little coffee shop on the corner without securing the dead bolt and by the time I got back with my latte, the place had been completely cleaned out.”
“I can see how an experience like that would make anyone wary,” he admitted. “But around here, neighbors look out for one another.”
“Says the man who just moved into the neighborhood,” she remarked dryly, turning the sandwich in the pan.
He grinned. “But I grew up in Pinehurst and I’ve lived here most of my life.”
“And probably quarterbacked the high school football team to a state championship in your senior year,” she guessed.
“Actually, I was a running back,” he told her.
“Yeah, ’cause that makes a difference.”
She removed one sandwich from the pan and dropped in another. Then she cut the first into four triangles, divided them between two plates and set them on the breakfast bar. She reached into the cupboard above the sink for two plastic cups, then maneuvered past him to the fridge for a jug of milk.
Though she moved easily in completing tasks she had no doubt performed countless times before, he was suddenly cognizant of the fact that he was just standing around.
“I’m in your way,” he noted, moving aside so that he was leaning against the far stool at the counter, the baby still tucked securely in the crook of his arm.
She shook her head as she half filled the cups with milk. “If you weren’t holding Pippa, she’d be screaming her head off, wanting her lunch, and I’d be juggling her and burning the sandwiches.”
As she called the twins to the kitchen, he glanced down at the baby who had, in fact, shoved her fist into her mouth and was gnawing intently on her knuckles.
“Well, as long as I’m being useful,” he said, his wry tone earning him a small smile from Georgia, and a wide drooly one from the baby in his arms.
The quick patter of footsteps confirmed that the boys had heard their mother’s call, and they eagerly climbed up onto the stools at the counter.
Georgia moved back to the stove and flipped the next sandwich out onto a plate. She sliced it in half, then surprised Matt by setting the plate on the counter in front of him.
“Milk?” she asked. “Or did you want something else? I’ve got iced tea or juice or soda.”
“Milk is fine,” he said. “But I didn’t expect you to feed me.”
“It’s just a grilled cheese.”
“Which is much more appetizing than the cold pizza in my fridge at home.”
She shrugged. “I figured a sandwich is a small price to pay for lawn maintenance.”
“You might get the hang of small-town living yet,” he told her.
“I’m trying.”
The fact that she was making an effort gave him confidence that their fledgling friendship could lead to something more.
And though Jack’s and Luke’s warnings still echoed in the back of his mind, they were easily drowned out by the pounding of his heart when Georgia smiled at him.
Chapter Three
Georgia waited until Matt’s car was gone from his driveway before she okayed the boys’ request to visit the neighbor’s tree house. Over the past couple of weeks, they’d enjoyed several adventures in the treetop, but only when their new neighbor wasn’t home.
It wasn’t that she was avoiding Matt. Not exactly. There was just something about the man that set off warning bells in her head. Or maybe it was tingles in her veins.
He was friendly and great with the kids, and if not for the way her body hummed whenever he was near, she might have thought that they could be friends. But the sizzle of awareness was too powerful for her to be comfortable in his presence, so Georgia decided that it would be best to maintain a safe distance from him at all times—or at least until her post-pregnancy hormone levels were back to normal.
She carted Pippa over to the neighbor’s backyard so that she could keep an eye on the boys while they played in the branches.
With the baby cooing happily in her playpen, Georgia settled in a folding lawn chair beside her. She smiled as she listened to the boys’ conversation—or rather Quinn’s animated chatter and Shane’s brief responses. A few minutes later, she saw Shane’s sneaker on the top step of the ladder.
“Be careful,” she said, instinctively rising from her chair in the exact moment that his foot slipped off the next step. She was halfway to the tree, her heart lodged in her throat, when his body plummeted toward the ground.
Emergencies were par for the course for any doctor, and especially for one who worked in a hospital E.R. But when an emergency surgery was squeezed into a very narrow window between two scheduled procedures, it made an already long day seem that much longer.
After a quick shower, Matt decided to head to the cafeteria for a much-needed hit of caffeine. But then he saw Brittney—a much more effective mood booster than any jolt of java. He slung an arm across her shoulders and pressed his lips to the top of her head.
She, predictably, rolled her eyes. “A little professionalism, Dr. Garrett.”
“My apologies, Miss Hampton,” he said, not sounding the least bit apologetic.
Brittney Hampton was his former sister-in-law’s only child and a student helping out in the E.R.—a co-op placement for which she’d applied without his knowledge, determined to secure the position on the basis of her interview and not because her uncle was a doctor on staff at the hospital. She was loving the experience, and he was pleased to see that she was so intently focused on the pursuit of her goals.
“Are you on a break?” he asked her.
She nodded. “Dr. Layton said I should take one now, while there’s a lull in the E.R.”
“A lull never lasts long,” Matt agreed. “If you’re heading to the cafeteria, can I buy you a cup of coffee?”