Page 74 of Takes Two to Tango

Rayne slammed the car door and headed toward the house but didn't even make it up the steps before her aunt enveloped her in a hug. She rocked her back and forth as if she'd been in mortal danger. Come to think of it, she had been in mortal danger. She'd never thought about how perilous it had been for her to drive in such a storm. Her thoughts had been only for her loved ones.

''Oh, sweet girl. I was worried sick. I knew you were on the way home, but with this wild weather, I had this horrible notion you were in a ditch somewhere. Or in a tree."

Rayne managed a laugh. "I'm fine."

With one last squeeze her aunt let go. ''Thank God."

Rayne moved past her aunt. "Henry? Where is he?"

"He's fine.Better than I would have expected."

Rayne didn't look back. Just moved toward the open door.

"He's not inside. He's over at Brent's helping him clean up a tree that fell."

Rayne spun back to her aunt. "With Brent?"

Her aunt nodded. "That man. I got to the school just as the bell rang and he was already there."

“Brent was already there?" Rayne asked, retracing her steps.

“Yep. I walked up to mass confusion. Parents running hither, thither and yon. Kids crying. Teachers about to pull their hair out, and right in the middle of that bedlam Brent and Henry sat. Just both huddled right up against the hallway wall reading aSports Illustratedmagazine and arguing over which team would make a run for the World Series this year.”

Rayne grabbed her heart."Reading a magazine? In the middle of that chaos?”

“I know.” Her aunt stared out at the front lawn with a frown. A fat branch sat on the newly planted butterfly bush next to the mailbox. “Brent said he couldn't check Henry out because he wasn't on the list of people who could, but he didn't want to leave him. So he got a magazine out of his truck and waited until I got there."

Rayne pressed her lips together and fought the emotion unfurling inside her. Brent had distracted her son from the fear that no double tore through him. He’d given him calm in a storm, literally. “He did that? I don’t know what-”

"Yeah," her aunt interrupted, crossing her arms and contemplating the canopy of the oak above them. "It was almost parental. And that from a man whore. Go figure.”

Rayne stiffened. "He's not that."

"Only repeating what I heard," her aunt said, moving her contemplation from the leaves overhead to her niece. "I don't know too many men who'd do that, unless they were daddies or family relation. He's neither of those. Just someone who cares a great deal about you and that boy."

Rayne looked away. As if she didn't know. As if his declaration of love hadn't been on her mind night and day for the past three days. As if she could get the images of Brent beneath that willow laying his heart bare out of her mind. Even New York City couldn't distract her with its bright lights and strong drinks. When she lay in that hotel in Manhattan visions of Brent had danced in her head. A dream come true. But one she'd been unsure about.

She looked back at the woman who watched her. "I know he does.”

Her aunt nodded. “Glad to see it. Never figured you for much a fool.”

Then her aunt turned on a worn sneaker and walked up the steps of the house. Before entering the front door, she spun and stabbed a finger toward the property next door. "What you're looking for, sugar, is over there. Guess it always has been.”

Rayne almost smiled as her aunt disappeared into the house.

She turned and bolted toward their neighbor, needing to see her son so she could rustled his hair and drop a few kisses on his sweet face. She also needed to see the man who'd come to her son's rescue.

Her prince charming hadn’t been her white knight. No, he’d been her son’s, and somehow that meant more to her than him scooping her onto his steed.

Pretty nice heroics from the man whore of Oak Stand, Texas.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

BRENT WATCHED AS HENRY prodded the baby squirrel's mouth with the eyedropper. He'd located an unopened can of formula his mother had used last fall with an abandoned kitten she'd found. He wasn't sure a baby squirrel ate the same thing a baby kitten did, but it had to be close.

"He won't eat," Henry said, a furrow between his eyes. "Shouldn't he be hungry? I think I would be if I fell out of a tree."

Brent took the eyedropper from the boy and tucked the old dishrag around the baby squirrel that had been tossed from his nest during the storm. The poor thing looked more like a small mouse. He and Henry had discovered him beneath one of the limbs they'd been stacking in the comer of the yard. It had scared the hell out of him when it had moved. It was a wonder one of the cats or Apple hadn't gotten to it. "It's probably stunned and wanting its momma."

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