Page 60 of Game On

“Saved by the munchkin and his beast,” he muttered as she scrambled across the kitchen. Beckett bounded into the great room with the kid at his heels.

“Guess what? There’s a huge fire pit outside. Can we start a fire and make s’mores?” The kid’s voice reverberated throughout the open house as he began rummaging through the remaining grocery bags. “I thought we got marshmallows.”

“Hey!” Shane yelled, sounding a bit like the father he never knew. “I’m making dinner first.” Beckett scrambled for cover as the kid froze with his hand in the bag. Shane turned to the sink and drenched the tomatoes again so he didn’t have to see the kid’s lip start to quiver. Christ, bringing them here had been the king of bad ideas. But the thought of either one of them being out of his sight rattled him, too. He was tired, horny, and hungry. Two of the three weren’t even his fault. The drive to the cabin had taken twice as long as it should have because the other two occupants in the car thought they were starring in a Vacation movie.

“We have to stop at Cracker Barrel for breakfast,” the kid said, apparently forgetting the two bowls of cereal he had devoured an hour earlier. “We always stop there when we are on a road trip. Every family does. It’s, like, a tradition or something.” Shane wasn’t sure, but he thought the kid might have ended on a sob.

Sensitive to the kid’s delicate emotional state, Carly had wasted no time agreeing to his suggestion. “Well,” she said, “seeing as how I’ve never been on a family road trip, I think it would be fun to stop. Since it’s tradition.”

Shane had glared at her across the front seat, but said nothing. Hell, he’d never been on a family road trip either, but that didn’t mean he wanted to waste an hour sitting in a restaurant with all the rest of the summer’s vacationers. It was a battle he wasn’t going to win, in spite of the fact that he was driving.

So they’d spent half the morning eating a second breakfast while Carly and the kid tried to outdo each other shoving golf tees into a wooden triangle. Shane had actually been lulled into relaxing a little until the grandmotherly waitress who brought the bill commented on what a beautiful family they made. The kid had nearly started blubbering on the spot as the tension coiled even tighter in Shane’s belly. They weren’t a family he wanted to shout to the entire restaurant. What they were was a trio of castoffs that nobody wanted. Even the dog was a stray.

The trip to the Walmart had been another exercise in torture. The kid had kept asking if there were any games or things to do at the cabin. Yeah, there were things to do, but not for a twelve-year-old. UNO cards, a backgammon set, comic books, and enough food to nourish an entire Pop Warner football team made it into the cart. Apparently, cookies and candy made all things better for kids.

Carly had done some shopping of her own, replenishing her mutilated underwear wardrobe with a package of white cotton bikini panties. Watching her place it on the conveyer belt along with some toiletries she was purchasing, Shane had wanted to rip the package out of her hands. No, he’d wanted to rip Thompkins’s face off, but that wasn’t possible.

By the time they’d arrived at the cabin, Shane was close to spitting nails. And he was taking it out on the kid. Yeah, he’d just lost his parents. Roscoe and Carly weren’t about to let Shane forget that point. But hell, Shane had been two years younger when his mother died and his father disappeared. And he’d survived just fine. There was no reason to mollycoddle the kid.

“Can I help?”

Shane turned to see him standing at the kitchen island, Carly’s arms draped around his shoulders. “Be nice,” she mouthed at him from over the kid’s head. Well, at least he wasn’t crying and he did want to help. Shane put the colander on the island and pulled a knife and cutting board out of the drawer.

“Here,” he said. “Slice these up while I brown the meat for the pasta sauce.”

He hesitated before slipping out of Carly’s embrace. “Okay,” he said. Shane watched from the corner of his eye as the kid carefully picked up the knife and held it to the tomato, nearly slicing the tips of his fingers off in the process.

“Jesus!” Shane jerked the pan off the burner and moved back to the island, startling the kid into dropping the knife as his lip began to quiver again. “Don’t you know how to slice a tomato?” Shane barked.

Carly shot him a disapproving glare from where she stood uncorking a bottle of wine, looking as though she wanted to poke him in the eye with the corkscrew. The kid bit his lip and lifted his chin up a notch. “No,” he said, hands on his hips.

Shane stared at him for a moment before picking up the knife. “Com’ere and I’ll show you how to do it without needing a trip to the emergency room.” The kid stepped back up the counter and slid under Shane’s arm. Shane demonstrated before positioning the kid’s fingers on the knife and around the tomato. “Nice and easy so you don’t mutilate it.” Cautiously, the kid sliced a piece of the tomato before looking up for approval. Shane nodded and went back to stove. The kitchen was silent except for the sizzle of the meat frying in the pan.

“We didn’t do much cooking at home,” the kid said softly.

“Your mom didn’t cook?” Carly’s voice drifted in from the dining room where she was setting plates on the table.

Shane pulled out a hunk of mozzarella and placed in on the counter to be sliced.

“Nah, Dad said Mom couldn’t bake her way out of an EasyBake oven.” Troy chuckled. “It was a really good thing we had Consuelo.”

Carly handed Shane a glass of wine and gave him one of her honeyed smiles that, for the first time today, actually reached her eyes. Pulling out a plate, she wandered over to the island to arrange the tomatoes and cheese. The scene was so domestic, Shane almost shuddered. And, for the millionth time that day, he reminded himself what an idiot he was.

NINETEEN

The house was dark. Rummaging around trying to find her purse, Carly swore as she stubbed her toe on one of the overstuffed chairs in the great room. She’d been getting ready for bed when she heard her cell phone ring. Finding a light switch proved almost as impossible as finding her phone. Relief flooded her body, however, when, after finding her purse behind a cushion, she listened to the voicemail message Donovan had left.

“The police scored a lucky break and arrested Joel during a random drug sting tonight. I guess this is one time his being a junkie works in our favor,” Donovan said. “He’s in custody and his arraignment is scheduled for the morning. The DA says it’s likely he wouldn’t see the outside of a jail cell until his trial begins and that could easily take months. I’ll call you from the courthouse tomorrow. You can sleep tight now, Carly. It’s over.”

Carly released a relieved sigh and it felt like she’d taken her first normal breath in twenty-four hours. Turning to return to her room, she collided with Shane as he came up behind her. A nearly naked Shane.

He gripped her elbows as she laid her palms on his bare chest. His warm body was still hard with the tension that had seemed to consume him the entire day. He didn’t want her there, she knew that. Yet he’d brought her along anyway. It seemed he was once again her knight in shining armor. Carly gave herself a mental shake. Shane wasn’t happily ever after material, she reminded herself. He’d just been in the right place at the right time. Again. Try as they both might, they seemed powerless to resist the strong attraction pulling them together.

“I’m sorry if my phone woke you,” she said. It was dark in the room, with only a shaft of light from the moon shining in through the high windows illuminating the shadows of Shane’s face. His face was hard, showing no reaction to her apology. “The police finally arrested Joel. He’s in custody.”

He released a heavy sigh. “Good,” he said, pulling her body in contact with his. Two things became immediately apparent to Carly: Shane was potently aroused and she didn’t stand a chance of sleeping alone tonight.

“I can go back to Baltimore now,” she said as his lips found that spot on her neck that always turned her knees to Jell-O.

---