Page 35 of Power Play

“Did you want to be a nurse?”

I shook my head. “Too much blood.”

I took a bite of the cookie. Oh wow, there was salt in there. Salted chocolate chip. I struggled to swallow my moan of pleasure. I really was hungry.

“So the single travel nurse-slash-ex-slash-manicurist hit you up with a favor to watch her kid. How long?”

“Two weeks.”

I laughed, spraying cookie crumbs all over his chest. “I’m sorry,” I laughed, reaching out to brush the crumbs off his shirt. I refused to register the heat of his skin, the curve of his chest.

“What is it with you always spitting on me?” he asked.

“Calm down,” I said, flushing at the reference to the wine I spit on him in Nashville. I never liked to go back to that night. “I’ve spit on you twice. It’s hardly a habit. But did you say two weeks?” A night I could understand. A weekend, maybe. But two weeks?

“Yes. Two weeks.” He swatted my hands away and stepped back, brushing the crumbs off himself.

I shook my head, a dozen questions launching themselves into my mouth. How desperate did a woman have to be to trustLiam Locke, a barely grown child himself, to look after a five-year-old girl?

“I know,” he said, like I’d said all of that out loud. “It’s insane. A total mistake. Did you see the picture in the paper?”

“Daddy Liam. It was exciting stuff.”

He blew out a long breath. “I can’t risk any more pictures, or stories, especially not after what happened to me before. So we’ve been trapped in this house and all she wants to do is read,” he said.

“You say that like all she wants to do is tear off the legs of frogs.”

“That I would understand!” He cried.

“What kind of disgusting stuff did you and your brother do growing up?”

“Vermont stuff,” he said. “Her mom said I couldn’t let her read all the time and to make sure she ate food that wasn’t graham crackers. I’m 0 for two so far.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a rough two weeks locked inside your house,” I said, and grabbed another cookie.

“The kid needs sunshine and dirt and exercise and fresh air.”

“I think you need that. She seems pretty happy with her books.”

“What’s worse,” he said and stepped closer. Closer so I could smell him. Laundry soap and pizza. He didn’t smell like a millionaire playboy athlete. He smelled like a dad on a weekend.

That smell shouldn’t do anything to me. Not one thing.

I had to lock my knees anyway. I’d have a stern talking to them later.

His hair, now that the mullet was gone, was clipped high and tight along the sides and a little floppy on top. With no product in it, it swooped into his eyes, begging for someone to push it back. I kept waiting for him to do it, to sweep his fingers through it, but he didn’t.

My fingers itched to do it. I would be talking to them later, too.

“She’s stopped talking,” he whispered. “We had to leave the park with people chasing us with cameras, she…stopped talking. It’s nothing but one-word answers, if that. We’ve always been cool. She’s normally a total chatterbox. Non-stop about all kinds of things. Books she’s read. A dog she met at the park. Some kid in her class who hid her shoes.”

“Hid her shoes?”

“I know, I’ll be finding out more about that kid later. But now…nothing. I’d say she was giving me the cold shoulder, but I don’t think she’s doing it on purpose. I think she’s just that unhappy.”

If the world could see this version of Liam, they wouldn’t believe it. Worried and out of his depth. That cocky smile flattened into a hard line of frustration. There was no reason to like this side of him, but of course I did. It was so honest.

“Poor kid,” I said, turning away. “Her own mini-paparazzi event. Must have been traumatizing.”

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