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Tyler sighed. “Meaning they said no, I take it.”
“I don’t know, they wouldn’t tell me. Since you didn’t include me from the get-go—”
“I was putting out feelers, Abs. That’s all. To see if it was even feasible. I didn’t sign anything, so it’s not like I left your name off—”
“No, you just left me out. As usual. I thought we were supposed to be partners? I mean, are we having trouble making the payments? Not that I’d know, since when I tried to get into the accounting program, you’d changed the password.”
Tyler frowned. “I changed that password a month ago. And I told you the new one. Which you obviously never tried to use.”
Her mouth thinned. “Maybe I didn’t think I needed to. Because I trusted you.”
“Or because, as you’ve said countless times, you hate numbers.”
“I hate going to the dentist, too, but I deal. And I have a right to know what’s going on. Without having to look it up for myself in some cockamamie computer program that makes my eyes cross. Dammit, Ty—I’ve worked every bit as hard as you to get this place up and running! Invested every bit as much in it, too! Emotionally and financially!”
And those pain meds could kick in anytime now. “I know you have, honey. Which is why I didn’t want to say anything until there was something to say. I didn’t want to worry you—”
“Because...you didn’t think I could handle it, what?”
“So sue me for wanting to protect you—”
“I don’t need to be protected, I need to be included! And not only when it suits you, dumbbutt. But why am I wasting my breath? Since you never have, not really. Hell, none of you have—”
“What are you talking about?”
“You, Ethan, Matt, even Bree...it’s like the four of you are all in this secret club or something, because you’re all adopted and I’m not. And I’m the baby. So double whammy, right?”
Tyler almost laughed, which only got him more glaring from his sister. “If it makes you feel any better, we don’t share much with each other, either. Except for maybe Sabrina and Matt, because they’re twins. But the rest of us...” He shook his head. “Trust me, you’re not missing out.”
Breathing hard, Abby kept her gaze glued to his for several seconds, then marched back to the cooler to get her own cup of water, which she downed in three swallows. “You know what?” She crumpled the tiny paper cup, slam-dunking it into the garbage can by Ty’s desk. “You’re right,” she said, sounding a little less steamed. “Because this whole family’s a bunch of emotional retards, aren’t we?”
“What?”
“No, it’s true. We all talk at each other, but nobody talks to anybody. Not really. Well, I don’t know about Matt, now that he’s got Kelly and the kids, maybe he’s loosened up a bit. I hope so, anyway, for their sakes.” She sighed. “And I get it, that simply because we’re family, that doesn’t mean we’re obligated to talk about our innermost feelings and all that crap. And I’m every bit as guilty of that as the rest of you. But...”
Planting her hands on the desk, Abby leaned forward. “This is supposed to be a partnership. So no more keeping secrets about the business, or I’m outta here.” She straightened, her arms crossed. “Got that?”
Tyler kept his smile under wraps, that the toddler who used to follow him around like a puppy—when he was a hard-assed adolescent who definitely did not want some baby tagging along behind him—had turned into such a fierce little thing. He also knew her threat was a lot of hot air, because, like she’d said, she’d poured her heart and soul into making this venture work. Sometimes, even more than Tyler. So it would probably take a lot more than his occasionally keeping her in the dark to make her walk away. Piss her off, absolutely. But she wasn’t going anywhere.
Any more than he was about to change how he did things. Not anytime soon, at least. Because as smart as Abs was, and as good an eye as she had—and as much as Tyler truly respected both of those things—his sister also had a bad habit of letting her feelings get the best of her...an indulgence Tyler hadn’t allowed himself since the fourth grade. He had no problem with Abby giving her heart free rein as far as the esthetic side of things went. But the business end, the money end—for that, you needed a clear head. Focus. Not muddied emotions.
Because all emotions did was mess things up. Make you feel like you’d lost control. Not going back to those days, boy. Ever.
So, yeah—the nuts and bolts that kept this whole thing going, and from going under...that was his province. And he wasn’t about to give it up. However...in the name of familial, not to mention workplace, peace, he supposed he could throw the glowering young woman in front of him a stick.
“Got it,” he said, then picked up the phone, punching the conference call button. “Wanna listen in while I talk to the bank?”
After a moment, Abby nodded, then sat back down, apparently mollified, and Tyler released a long breath that took at least some of the headache with it.
Chapter Three
Seated at her kitchen table, Laurel grinned over her cup of tea as she watched her grandmother contort her eighty-five-year-old body to look out the kitchen window while she washed up the lunch dishes. At, it wasn’t hard to guess, Tyler digging a trench for the wall.
“You do know I have a dishwasher, Gran, right?”
“And you do know he’s taken his shirt off, right?”
“I do now.”
Marian McKinney twisted to frown at Laurel over her shoulder. “And you don’t want to come see?”
“Not particularly,” Laurel said with the most nonchalant shrug she could manage. Tyler in a muscle-hugging T-shirt already left nothing to the imagination. Tyler without the T-shirt...
Yes, she—and her bouncing baby hormones—had gotten over whatever had sent her into a tizzy a few days ago. But still. Some things were best left unseen.
Or thought about.
“And you, Gran, are a dirty old lady.”
Her grandmother swatted in her general direction, flinging water and Palmolive suds across the floor. She had a hot date later, apparently, so was all decked out in a bright purple pantsuit and the diamond studs Grampa had given her for her fiftieth birthday, her glistening white hair appropriately poufed for the occasion.
“I’ll take dirty over dead any day, believe me.”
“Does what’s-his-name know this?”
“Thomas. And if he doesn’t—” she turned, her pale blue eyes twinkling behind her trifocal lenses as she dried her hands on a dish towel “—he’ll soon find out.”
“You hussy.”
“Damn straight,” Gran said, neatly folding the towel before hanging it back up, then carrying her own tea over to sit for a few minutes before she left. Every Saturday, come hell or hurricane, they had lunch—a tradition they’d started when Lauren was in kindergarten, only broken during those years she lived in New York. This time was theirs...and Laurel wasn’t sure which one enjoyed it more.
Despite Gran’s oft-verbalized discomfort with Laurel’s decision to be a single mother. Not because her grandmother was a prude—obviously—but because—
“What did you say his name was again?”
“Tyler. Noble.”
Gran’s forehead crinkled. “Noble, Noble...” She snapped her fingers. “One of Preston and Jeanne Noble’s kids?”
“I have no idea. Who are Preston and Jeanne Noble?”
“He’d just retired from the air force when I met them, oh, way back. Before you came to live with me, when Harold was still alive. Jeanne and I were both working on some fund-raiser or other, Harold and I had dinner with her and the Colonel one evening.” She laughed. “They spent the whole night talking about ‘their’ kids—they’d been fostering for a while by that point, but had adopted two or three as well, as I recall. Not as babies, either, as little kids. Wonderful people,” Gran said on a sigh. “Especially her. I would have loved to have kept up with them, but then Harold got sick and...” She shrugged. “So wouldn’t that be funny, if Tyler was one of theirs? I mean, he’s such a nice young man....”
“Which you could tell after, what, twenty seconds when you took him a sandwich?”
“You’d be surprised how much you can tell in twenty seconds,” she said, and what could Laurel say to that? “Especially when you get to be my age and can spot the BS within ten. And if he is one of the Colonel and Jeanne’s brood—”
“Gran. Honestly.”
“You could have at least invited him in to eat with us—”
“And I already told you, Ty said he only had a few hours to work. He has to go see a client later—”
“Oooh...Ty, is it?”
“For the love of Pete, Gran,” Laurel said, laughing. “Give it a rest.”
“But honey...it’s so hard, raising a child on your own—”
“You managed.”
“You weren’t a newborn. That would’ve killed me.”
“I somehow doubt that.” Laurel got up to rinse out her cup, taking care to avert her eyes from the glorious, slightly sweaty sight twenty feet past the window. After stealing the quickest peek. Long enough to see him bopping his head as he measured, she presumed in time to whatever music was coming through his earbuds. Inwardly sighing, she turned back to her grandmother. “But it’s not as if I’m a teenager, or penniless. Or homeless—”
“No. Just stubborn.”
“Gee. Can’t imagine who I got that from.”
Gran’s grimace bit into a face already deeply lined from too many summers spent on the shore when she was younger, and Laurel smiled. “Besides,” she said gently, “Tyler’s obviously younger than I am, and—”
“Oh, pish. Harold was six years younger than I was. No big deal.”
Laurel’s brows crashed. “I never knew that.”
“Yeah, well, neither did he. Because I lied about my age,” she said with a little “no biggee” flick of her hand. “It was easier to get away with back then. Nobody checked. And since I handled all the household stuff, he had no reason to ever find out. So thank God he went before I did, or that could have been really embarrassing. But anyway,” she said on a huff of air, “Harold could keep up with me, if you get my drift. Until he got sick, anyway. Until then, however—” she did a coy little shoulder wiggle “—ooh-là-là.”
“Except I’m not looking for ooh-là-là.”
“Don’t kid yourself, sweetheart,” Gran said, getting to her feet and collecting the pink quilted Kate Spade bag Laurel’d given her for her eightieth birthday and which she was now never seen without. Thing was getting a little dingy, truth be told. “Everyone’s looking for ooh-là-là.” She nodded pointedly at Laurel’s belly, the pooch still barely visible underneath her roomy—and fortuitously fashionable—top. “Even you, at one point. Obviously.”
“And look how late it is!” Laurel said, ushering her grandmother toward the door. “If you don’t leave now, you won’t make your movie!”
Fully aware of Laurel’s diversionary tactic, Gran chuckled. But at the front door, the older woman turned and grabbed Laurel’s hand. “I can’t help it...I worry about you, baby.” Behind her silver-framed glasses, her eyes filled. “I always have.”
“Then you need to stop,” Laurel said gently. “I’m not that eleven-year-old girl anymore. And believe it or not—” she cupped a hand over The Bump “—I’m happy. Really.”
“But not as happy as you could be.”
Laurel leaned over to kiss her grandmother’s cheek. “I’m fine. Really. Now go have fun with your gentleman friend and I’ll talk to you later.”
“You’re incorrigible, you know that?”
“I learned from the best.”
On another air-swat, Gran turned and descended the porch steps, still on her own steam but definitely more carefully these days. But there was nothing cautious about her sure handling of her brand-new Prius as she smartly steered away from the curb and down the street...even if the car’s stereo was loud enough to hear even with the windows up. Billie Holiday, sing your heart out.
Shaking her head, Laurel went back inside, where her laptop glared balefully from her coffee table. Swatting at it much like her grandmother had at her, she walked back into the kitchen. To...put the washed dishes away, that was it. And if her gaze happened to drift out the window...well. Gaze-drifting happened.
Her cell phone rang, startling the bejesus out of her.
“Hey,” Tyler said. “Your grandmother still there?”
“No, she just left—”
“Got a sec, then? Cause I need you to make a design decision.”
“Seriously?”
“You’re gonna see far more of this wall than I am, so get out here and tell me how you want this pattern to go.”
Laurel shoved her bare feet into a pair of leather flip-flops by the patio door, grabbed a bottle of tea out of the fridge, then went out onto the high-railed deck, mostly in shade this time of day thanks to the thirty-foot sycamore planted smack in the center of the yard. Next summer, she could put a portacrib out here, she thought with a little smile, where the wee one could nap while she wrote....
Tyler turned, grinning and sweaty and glistening, and she actually gulped. So wrong. Because, really, how old was this guy? Twenty-five, twenty-six...?
“Looking good,” she said, then blushed. “The trench, I mean.” Since that’s all there was, at this point. Still grinning, the goofball shook his head, clearly finding amusement in her discomfiture. She held up the tea. “Thirsty?”
“That looks amazing. Yes.”
Laurel skipped down the deck’s stairs—something she probably wouldn’t be able to do for much longer—and crossed the small yard, the cool, too-long grass tickling the sides of her feet. Since she still hadn’t mowed. But the idea that she could mow her own yard...the thought still made her a little giddy.
She handed Tyler the tea, watching the muscles in his damp neck stretch as he tilted his head back, rhythmically pulse as he swallowed. Suddenly not feeling too steady on her pins, she sank onto the bench of her grandmother’s old redwood picnic table a few feet away, grateful for the cool breeze meandering through the leaf-dappled sunlight. Tyler joined her to set the half-drunk tea on the table, then reached behind them for the tablet hidden underneath his rumpled, abandoned T-shirt, and Laurel thought, Whoa. Because, although the bloodhound sense of smell had diminished somewhat after the first trimester, thank God, after a couple hours spent working in the hot sun, the man’s pheromones were singing like the chorus in a Verdi opera.
And she did love her some Italian opera, boy.
“Man, that feels good,” he said, shutting his eyes for a moment as another breeze drifted through. Opening his eyes again, he picked up the T-shirt and swiped it across his chest, and Laurel nearly passed out.
“Nice yard,” he said. “Was it like this when you moved in?”
Yard, okay. That, she could talk about. “The bones were there, but it’d been badly neglected. And of course I moved in during the Winter That Would Not End. Every time I thought I’d get out and start puttering, it’d snow—”
Or she’d feel like the walking dead, tossing her cookies every morning.
“—but now that Mother Nature’s finally stopped with the schitzo routine, I’ve been working on it, little by little, to make it my own. Well, to make it look more like my grandmother’s yard, which I loved. Hers was bigger, though. Much bigger. This is just right, though. For me.”
“Your grandmother’s something else, isn’t she?”
“That’s one way of putting it.” She grinned. “You better watch out—she likes you.”
“I know, older women can’t keep their hands off me,” he said, grinning back. “It’s a curse.”
“I’ll bet,” Laurel said, inwardly sighing as Tyler handed her the tablet and she got another whiff of hot, damp male. One who did not—thank you, Jesus—douse himself in man-stink cologne.
“I was playing around with some design ideas last night, this is what I came up with. But nothing’s set in stone,” he said, then groaned at his own lame joke.
She chuckled then forced her attention to the designs on the screen. “I think...this,” she said, pointing to the top one, all one color except for two rows near the top, where the dark and light blocks alternated, checkerboard style.
“Yeah? Me, too. And you know what else would be really cool, right over there?” Leaning his elbows on the table, Tyler nodded toward the middle of the wall. “A fountain. Like you’d see in an Italian garden. Or English, maybe.” He grinned at her, his mouth adorably lopsided, his hair adorably messy. She could say the feelings surging inside her were more of a maternal nature, but she’d be lying. “You know, where the water’s coming out of the lion’s mouth or something?”
“And where would I get one of those?”
“Actually there’s one at the shop—”
“Of course there is.”
“No, hear me out. It was part of a huge haul from a property over in Weehawken, from like a year ago. If you like it, I’ll let you have it for really cheap.” He winked, and she laughed—because the flirting, it was absurd, really— before, with another smile, he reclaimed the tablet. “Here, let me show you...” He scrolled through his photos, then turned the screen back around.
“Oh, my. That’s quite lovely, isn’t it?”
“I know, right? And it would look perfect there, with some rosebushes and sh—stuff planted around it. You can’t really tell much from the picture, though, you should really see it in person. If you’re interested, I mean.”
“Well...I suppose that depends on the price?”
“Like I said, it was part of a huge haul, we’re already in the black with it. So...twenty bucks?”
“You can’t be serious?”
“Too high? Fifteen?”
“No! Tyler! For heaven’s sake...you can’t tell me you’d normally price something like that so low. Why on earth would you basically give it to me?”
He got quiet, then said, “It’s a really cool piece, for sure—at least, I think so—but to be honest, it looks like it’s a hundred-plus years old. Part of the lion’s nose is missing, and it’s got a lot of dings and cracks. It works fine, but it’s not...perfect.”
“But isn’t that what gives it character?”
“You would think so, yeah. And it’s not like we haven’t sold stuff in worse shape. Far worse shape. I don’t know why this guy hasn’t moved. Unless...” He looked at her from underneath his shaggy hair. “Unless he was waiting for his right home.”
“And you think my wall is it?”
“Could be,” he said with a shrug—and another wink—before getting up again, grabbing the tea to finish it off. Laurel sighed.
“What?” he said, twisting the cap back on.
“Are you even aware you’re flirting with me?”
He actually blushed. “Sorry, I... No. I mean, that’s just me.” Which was exactly what she’d thought. “Didn’t mean to offend you or anything—”
“Oh, I’m not offended at all. Amused, perhaps. And I was going to say flattered.” She sighed. “Until you made it clear it’s not personal.”
“It’s not. I mean...please don’t take this the wrong way, but—”
Yes, that was the story of her life, wasn’t it? And again, exactly as she’d figured. “S’okay, I totally get it. Really. But you might want to pull back on the flirting thing. Because someday, somebody is going to take it the wrong way. And that wouldn’t be good.”
“No, ma’am, it sure wouldn’t.”
Thirty-five, and already ma’amed. So sad.
“So. Anyway,” he said, “I’ll get the footing poured tomorrow. Once that’s set I can start building the wall in the evenings. I don’t intend for it to take too long, though—I miss my dog too much.”
“Oh, that’s right—where is Boomer?”
“At my brother’s. Matt’s Newfoundland and Boomer are best buds—”
“A Newfie? Wow.”
“Wow, is right. Alf’s paw’s about the same size as Boomer’s head.”
Laurel stood as well, the breeze messing with her loose top. “So you have a brother?” At Tyler’s puzzled frown, she smiled. “I’m an only. The idea of siblings always intrigued me.”
With a slight snort, Tyler grabbed the shirt, yanked it over his head. “Actually, I’ve got two. And two sisters.”
“Seriously? Kudos to your mom.” Little Bits started up with his jazz routine, but Laurel stopped herself from laying a hand over her tummy. Even though she had no idea why, it wasn’t as if this was a secret. “That’s a lot of babies to push out.”
“Actually, she didn’t. Except for Abby, the youngest, the rest of us were adopted. And there was always the occasional foster, too—”
“So your family is the one Gran was talking about!”
“Excuse me?”
“When I told her your name, she wondered if your dad was Preston Noble.”
“That’s him, yeah. He—they—adopted me when I was ten.”
“She remembered briefly meeting him and your mom, when my grandfather was still alive. So, years ago. How are they?”
“Pop’s doing okay, I guess. But Mom...she passed away several years ago.”
“Oh...I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, it was rough on the old man. And Abs, she was only fourteen, fifteen, something like that.” He paused then said quietly, “It’s rough, losing your mother when you’re still a kid. Which I guess you know all about, huh?”
“Yeah.”
He picked up the tablet, tucking it to his side. “Mom was great,” he said softly. “Not that the Colonel wasn’t—isn’t—but she was more about going with the flow. Pop’s...he’s a good man, don’t get me wrong, but he had pretty definite ideas about how things should be done—” His phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket, frowned. “Damn, it’s later than I thought. I really need to go—”
“No, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to keep you.”
“Look, I meant it, about wanting you to come see that fountain. Make sure you really like it before I lug it over here. Whenever you want... Here.” He dug in the same pocket for a business card. “If I’m not there, Abs will be. So. Deal?”
“Deal,” Laurel said, and he smiled. Like, right into her eyes, smiled. Then he hopped over the trench and up on his own deck before she finally hauled herself onto hers and back inside, where she turned on the central air the previous owners had installed, bless their hot little hearts.
Unbuttoning her blouse, she stood in the middle of the living room, where cool air washed over her bare, bulging belly. Not as much as some bellies bulged at five months, perhaps, but she definitely no longer looked as though she’d just gone on a doughnut binge.
As in, soon people would start noticing.
Like, say, hunky neighbors and such.
Hunky neighbors who were surprisingly easy to talk to, given how uneasy and tongue-tied and awkward she usually felt around men.
Not bothering to button her top—like who was gonna see?—Laurel returned to the kitchen for her own bottle of tea, reminding herself that even if she hadn’t been pregnant, Tyler and she would have never happened. For a whole slew of reasons, spoken, unspoken, sort-of spoken...whatever. That, frankly, as sweet a kid as he was—and as much as her libido was letting her fantasies run amok—compared with her, he was a kid. And she hadn’t been a kid since...well, ever, really.
She twisted off the cap, took a long swallow, then rubbed the cold, smooth bottle to her overheated forehead. Because for too many years—and except for one single, if major, lapse of judgment—she’d been about what made sense. What was practical.
Which Tyler Noble was definitely not.
On her return to her living room, her laptop once more caught her eye. She should really try to get at least a couple pages done today. Except, you know what? Her deadline wasn’t for another month. And last week the words had flowed quite nicely, thank you. So if all went well she’d get the next book in well before the baby came, and then...
And then, she thought on a sharp intake of air.
Her life would change forever.
A little freaked, truth be told, Laurel plopped on her sofa and grabbed the remote, clicking through the menu until she found, of all things, a cooking show. Since, if she was going to be somebody’s mother, she should probably learn how to feed the kid.
Because that was the practical thing to do.
* * *
Judging from the sounds and scents when Ty stopped by his brother Matt’s after work to pick up the beast, everybody was in the backyard, where Matt’s fiancée’s kids rushed him and both dogs serenaded him like they’d been apart for years.