Page 63 of Balancing Act

My kids!She’d forgotten all about Drew and Emma. The heat that bloomed in her cheeks had nothing to do with passion and everything to do with embarrassment. “Oh. Oh, yes. I’d better go.”

Noah reached around her and opened the driver’s side door.He stood there, grimacing, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah… um. Willow… uh… I… um… that was… whoa.”

“Yeah.” She managed a shaky smile. “Me, too.”

“I don’t mean for you to get the wrong impression,” he added with a note of warning.

“No. Me, either,” she said quickly. “I’m not looking for any complications. Believe me.”

“Neither am I. I just got… well… carried away. You pack a punch, Ms. Eldridge. I lost my head there for a minute.”

“So do you, Mr. Tannehill. I think it’s safe to say we both got carried away. So, I’ll… um… be going.” Her cheeks stinging with embarrassment, Willow slid behind the wheel.

Noah looked like he wanted to say more. “Willow?”

She looked up at him, waiting.

“I’m dragging around a lot more baggage than half a dozen puppies. I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings. Don’t look to me for anything beyond friendship. In all honesty, I’m not sure how good I can be at that.”

He looked so troubled. Willow felt her embarrassment fade as her heart melted. “Hey, you’ve been an excellent friend to me, Noah. You don’t owe me anything. No expectations here.”

He nodded. “Okay, then. Well, I’m glad you came by.”

“Me, too.” Grinning, she reached for the door. “So good to have the Mrs. Robinson question cleared up.”

His hand darted out and caught hold of the door, preventing it from closing. “Think about the puppies.”

Willow groaned and rolled her eyes. Noah wore a satisfied grin as he shut her door. She started the engine, shifted into gear, and drove away from his home. As if she’d be able to think about anything other than that kiss for the next, oh, millennia.

Truth be told, she was feeling a little gobsmacked. Notby the kiss itself. That hadn’t come as a complete surprise. If she were honest with herself, she might have come here today looking for it.

Because… he’d been about to kiss her on the dance floor.

She’d known her mother was no Mrs. Robinson. Had Genevieve been attempting to play matchmaker by sending her to Noah with her passion comment? Maybe. Willow had made herself fair game to this sort of stuff from her mother when she invited Noah to the wedding. Nor could Willow have explained that he was Drew’s guest as much as hers. Her mother wouldn’t have bought it.

She wasn’t sure that she had bought it herself.

As she pulled onto the highway leading into town, her heart raced like a horse at Churchill Downs.

“Calm down,” she lectured herself. He’d warned her off, hadn’t he? He wanted to be friends. Just friends. Okay. Well, she’d meant what she’d said. She needed a friend a lot more than she needed, well, more. But my, oh, my. That kiss. Noah Tannehill’s kiss.

So he had baggage. She had a baggage car. A baggage train. A baggage aircraft carrier.

Wonder what his baggage was all about? Maybe if they became better friends, she’d find out.

Wonder what he thought about friends with kiss benefits? Just kissing. Necking. Making out. Good grief. What was she, twelve?

More like sixteen and hormonal. Besides, judging by the rate at which the kiss had heated up, it would go way beyond kissing seriously fast.

She glanced at her reflection in the rearview mirror. She wasn’t a teenager anymore. She was thirty-three and sex-starved.

Somebody ought to write a song about that. Maybe somebody already had. If not a song, there was undoubtedly aCosmoarticle about it. Although, maybeCosmowas for younger women. She didn’t know. She hadn’t looked at a women’s magazine since Emma was born, and she’d had to deal with two kids while standing in the checkout line at the grocery store. Even before that, she’d gravitated towardHouse Beautifulinstead ofWoman Beautiful, which was probably why Andy ended up with “Bimbo Beautiful.”

Do. Not. Go. There.She absolutely would not ruin this lovely moment with Noah by bringing that… that… baggage into it.

So, she turned on her music and picked a classic rock playlist as she completed the trip to pick up her children, enjoying the hum of life in her blood that lasted for the rest of the day.

On Thursday, Willow returned to their prewedding morning routine with schoolwork for Drew and activities for Emma. Her daughter was busy creating a forest full of pipe-cleaner animals while Drew and Willow tackled multiplication at the kitchen table. Then, the sound of tires crunching on gravel drifted through the open windows and announced a visitor’s arrival.

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