Katie offered a hand with a plaster smile, tone as tight as the muscle quivering in Luke’s jaw. “Yes, sweetheart, I heard. The best intern you’ve ever had.”
With a nervous slash of his white-blond hair, Luke had the grace to blush outright while Miss Hill’s arm inched forward with the barest hint of a tremble. “It’s g-good to meet you, Mrs. McGee. Your husband speaks of you often.”
“Really?” Katie’s gaze veered to Luke’s with a saccharine smile. “Over dinner, darling?”
He fisted the papers and shoved them at Lauren, steering her around the desk. “Will you give us a few moments, please? I’d like to speak with my wife.”
“Yes, sir.” Lauren bolted for the door, shutting it behind her.
He wasted no time on damage control, hooking Katie close as he propped himself on the edge of his desk. “Thanks for the cookies, Sass, but next time you need to call before you come.”
She jerked away and stepped back, crossing her arms to keep from smacking his face. “Why? So you can hustle your pretty intern out before I step foot in the door?”
“Come on, Katie . . .” He reached to pull her back, but she slapped his hand away.
“Don’t you ‘come on, Katie’ me, not when you’re buying dinner for some upper-class coed night after night.” She glared, incensed that even as worn as he looked, tie jerked loose and shirtsleeves rolled up, those blue eyes could still quiver her stomach. She warded off the attraction by focusing on his deceit. “How dare you call me on the carpet about studying with Jack when you’ve been ‘dallying’ with some, some . . . socialite?”
“Intern,” he emphasized carefully, the tic in his temple evidence of a temper he worked hard to rein in. “Hired by Carmichael, not me, as a favor to the board.” He folded muscled arms, his voice soft but his point sharp. “An employee, Katie Rose, not a woman I was engaged to in the past.”
His parental air struck a match to her temper. She thrust her chin out, hands on her hips. “Oh, really? Well, to paraphrase a statement, you blind baboon, ‘it’s just not smart for a married man to spend time alone with a woman unless she’s the dean, a blood relative, or a nun.’ ”
He rose to his full six-foot-three height to intimidate her, no doubt, arms propped loose on his hips. The thrust of his bristled jaw matched hers, a sure sign her statement found its mark. “It’s-not-the-same-thing, Katie Rose,” he ground out, “so don’t give yourself airs. Lauren’s an employee, not an old fiancé, and if I need to work with her from now to kingdom come to get the work done, then I will.” He took a step forward, teeth clenched. “Case closed.”
Tears pricked, but she fought them off, suddenly not a bit attracted to the blockheaded bully staring her down. “Case closed? Fine. Then the door’s closed too—the one to the bedroom where you used to sleep at night.” She seized the bag of cookies. “And I’ll give these to Jack.”
He jerked the cookies from her hand and hurled them down with a rabid look she’d seen only two other times, evidence of a dormant temper about to blow. “Look, Katie, I’m tired, worn, and worked to the bone, so don’t threaten me. I’ve got hours of work ahead with an intern as overloaded as me, so I’m warning you right now—if you lock the door, I’ll just break it down.”
Katie blinked, shades of the snot-nosed hooligan Luke McGee used to be staring her down, reflecting none of his promise “to love and cherish till death do them part.”
Which may be sooner than he thinks.
Exhaling heavily, he drew her to his chest against her will, voice softening as he rubbed her back with weary motion. “Katie, I’m sorry, but I’m tired and crabby and overworked, and the last thing I need right now is a jealous wife.”
She lurched away, mouth gaping. “Is that supposed to be an apology?”
“Come on, Sass.” He tugged her back, his tone a tired plea. “I need your understanding now, like I gave you with Jack.”
Her two palms slapped flat to his chest, shoving him away. “Sure, McGee, I’ll give you all the understanding you gave me, once you send the coed packing.”
A scowl flitted across his face. “Either you trust me or you don’t. It’s as simple as that.”
“Oh, like you trusted me?” she asked, head cocked and arms locked to her chest.
“It’s-different,” he enunciated slowly, teeth gritted and tone even worse.
“I’ll say—you’re a bully who wants his own way, and I’m the fool who almost let you get it.”
He snatched the cookies up and slammed them in the wastebasket, storming around his desk to sit in his chair. “I don’t have time for this,” he muttered. “We’ll hash this out at home.”
“If I go home.” Spinning on her heel, she charged for the door, jerking it open.
“Katie!” His voice had a dangerous edge so out of character for the man she loved. “Don’t even think about turning me out of my bed.”
Without so much as a glance back, she slammed the door so hard it rattled the hinges along with her nerves. Turn him out of my bed? Maybe not. She thundered through the outer office, ignoring the openmouthed shock on the intern’s face.
But my heart?
Oh, you bet.
8
Uncle Steven!” A brown-eyed moppet hopped off the swing and flew at him, giggling as she wrapped stubby legs around his trousers. “Can we have a piggyback ride, please, please?”
Wiping the sweat from his eyes with the sleeve of his T-shirt, Steven rolled his basketball toward the porch steps, then hiked his niece up in the air, unleashing a chorus of giggles and squeals. “Hey, what are you doing here, Abby-kins?”
“Daddy and Uncle Brady are boxing tonight and Uncle Mitch has to work, so Grandma said all the cousins get to eat dinner here. Will you sit with me?”
“You bet, squirt. Where are the others?” Steven asked, setting her back down. He eyed a shy, curly haired blonde staring from a few feet away. “And who’s that pretty little thing?”
“That’s my new friend, Glory,” Abby said. “She just moved here and we’re her very first friends.” There was a note of pride in her tone. “All the other kids are playing school with Gabe in Grandpa’s den, but Glory and I wanted to swing instead, didn’t we, Glory?” Abby hopped up and down, flapping the side of Steven’s pants. “Hey, can you give her a piggyback ride and carry me too? And take us inside to get a cookie?”
“Sure, kiddo.” Squatting, he shook Glory’s hand. “Hi, Glory, I’m Steven. Ready to fly?”
She nodded shyly, finger in her mouth.
“Okay, up we go.” He positioned Glory on his shoulders, then crouched low to scoop Abby into the crook of his arms. “Now . . . where are those cookies?”
“Inside!” Abby shouted while Glory giggled and hung on, hands plastered over his eyes.
“Mama, Mama—Uncle Steven’s strong!” Abby breathed, legs pumping with excitement as he carried them through the screen door.
“Well, if it isn’t our own personal jungle gym,” Faith said at the sink.
“Oooo, can I have a ride too?” Charity asked with a wiggle of brows.
Steven groaned, trying to peel Glory’s fingers from his eyes. “Don’t think so, sis,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m strong, not stupid.” He sniffed. “Is that chili, I hope?” He bent to give his mother a kiss at the counter before peeking inside her bowl. “And cornbread too? Yes! Tell me we have honey butter—please.”
“Yes, dear, honey butter and salad and noodles for chili mac.” Marcy wrinkled her nose. “But I suggest you wash up, Steven, because you’re not coming to the table smelling like that.”
“I guess I am pretty ripe,” he said with a chuckle, muscles straining as he put Abby down, then Glory. He tugged on her curl. “Say, you’re pretty cute—who do you belong to anyway?”
“To her,” Abby said loudly, pointing to where his sisters prepared a salad at the table.
He threaded a hand through damp hair and turned, and the sweat froze on his body.
“Hi, Steven
.” Annie’s smile was weak. “I had no idea you were Faith’s brother, honest.”
“You know Steven?” Faith’s tented brows indicated surprise equal to his.
But not quite. He stared, mouth slack and heart thumping like the basketball he’d just dribbled on the St. Stephen’s school yard. Glory and his nieces squealed in an impromptu game of tag in the kitchen, but all he could hear was the pound of a runaway pulse in his ears.
His lack of response dusted Annie’s cheeks with a shade of pink that made her look all the more innocent and even younger than she was. At least from the neck up. Male instinct drew his eyes to the soft waves of strawberry-blonde hair that skimmed creamy shoulders, evident in a sleeveless butter-yellow blouse that molded to curves he remembered all too well. He quickly forced his eyes up to her face, and his stomach tightened. The face of an angel, unfortunately, with peaches-and-cream skin setting off green eyes that threatened to swallow him whole. The muscles in his throat shifted out of pure reflex when she peeked up beneath a sweep of long lashes. “Yes, I . . . well, we . . . met a few times at the Ocean Pier Ballroom.”
Faith blinked, gaze flitting from Annie to Steven and back again, her eyes going wide. “Ocean Pier Ballroom?” she repeated slowly, head dipped in question.
Annie’s cheeks nearly deepened to the soft rose of her bare lips. “Yes,” she said quietly—emphatically—her tone almost breathless as her eyes locked with his.
A smile played at the edges of his sister’s mouth. “Well, well, Steven,” Faith said, looking as if she were privy to some deep, dark secret. “You do get around.”
“Wait—what’s going on here?” Charity demanded, a talent for digging up dirt that would put a steam shovel to shame.
Steven ignored her and inched away, a lump the size of a basketball wedged in his throat. “What are you doing here, Annie?” Voice hoarse, he shifted, well aware his T-shirt was sweaty and dirty, hair damp and disheveled, and face void of blood beneath a layer of dirt.
“Annie’s in my catechism class,” Faith explained easily, giving each of the little girls a cookie before shooing them outside. “We’ve become good friends, so I invited her and her sister to story time at Bookends, then to bake cookies, and now she’s staying for dinner.” She sauntered over to where Steven stood and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before nudging his jaw up with her thumb. “Close your mouth, Steven, it’s rude to stare.”
Annie continued to shred lettuce beyond recognition, obviously ill at ease. “I’m sorry, Steven. If I’d known this was your house, I wouldn’t have come.”
“Oh? And why is that, Annie?” Charity said with a grin, bumping Steven’s hip with her own as she sashayed past to wash several carrots at the sink. “Because of the way he smells?”
Heat blasted Steven’s cheeks. “Knock it off, Charity,” he said in a near growl, not sure what made him more nauseous—the situation or the rank smell of his body. He swallowed hard, struggling to recover the nonchalance he’d fine-tuned with his sisters—not an easy thing to do when his heart was pumping faster than his sweat glands. “No, it’s fine, really. You took me by surprise, that’s all. I’m just home to shower before heading out again for burgers with Joe.”
“Liar.” Charity poked him in the ribs on her way back to the table. “You wouldn’t miss Mother’s chili for all the burgers in the world. Face it, you’re not going anywhere.” She tapped his chest with an annoying thump. “Except up to the shower before you sit down for dinner.”
Steven opened his mouth to object, but his mother stopped him with a firm look. “I suggest you get a move on, Steven. Your father will be home any minute, and dinner’s at six.” A knowing smile edged her lips. “We’re having the chili you begged me to make, if you remember.”
The air escaped from his lungs in one slow, reedy breath. His jaw hardened to rock on the way to the door. “Sorry, Mom, forgot,” he said, avoiding Annie’s eyes. “I’ll just sit with the kids in the kitchen because I promised Abby.”
“Uh . . . as much sense as it makes for you to sit with the children,” Charity said with a drawl, “I think it’s time for you to sit at the big table, don’t you?” Her jibe ground him to a halt, and he shot her a withering look, palm stiff against the swinging door. She gave him a sassy wink. “Besides, Annie will think you don’t like her.”
“I like her fine,” he said through a thinly veiled smile that felt like cardboard. His eyes flicked to where Annie sat at the table, shoulders slumped and eyes focused intently on the lettuce she was reshredding, and he realized his attitude stunk as much as his body. He blasted out a sigh of surrender. “Look, Annie, I’m sorry—it’s no reflection on you, really. You just caught me at a bad time, that’s all. Trust me, a cold shower will do wonders for my mood.”
And my body. He shoved through the door and strode to the stairs, heat suddenly scorching his face at the implication of his words. “Real bright, O’Connor,” he muttered, taking the stairs two at a time, knowing full well he needed a cold shower bad—and not because of the obvious heat of summer. To shock his system out of this stupor, to slow this annoying throb of his pulse, and to purge an image he wanted to forget—a girl chatting in his kitchen as if she belonged there more than he did. No, a kid, really, turning the tables to make him the tongue-tied little boy.
Jerking a clean towel from the closet, he slammed the bathroom door hard and ripped his T-shirt off before hurling it at the hamper. He stared in the mirror, his jaw dark with bristle and a muscled chest reminding him he was no little boy. No, he was a man with needs, something he’d forgotten until Annie came along. He leaned hard on the sink, head bent and heart heavy, his body humming with a desire he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Oh yeah, he needed a cold shower all right, he thought, stepping into the tub and cranking the faucet all the way to the right. Sucking in a sharp breath, he allowed the cool water to pelt his skin while he lathered with soap, scrubbing hard. He shivered as he rinsed, grateful for the water that battered his body like sleet.
And God help him, it wasn’t near cold enough.
Lips twitching with a mischievous smile, Charity slid into her chair across from Annie and leaned in, elbows flat on the table and eyebrows dancing. “Cold shower, huh? Mmm, good idea—both for the summer heat and the heat in the kitchen.”
“Charity, hush,” Marcy said, loading a tray of corn muffins into the oven. “You’re embarrassing Annie with talk like that.”
Annie’s cheeks steamed as much as the noodles boiling on the stove.
Marcy shot her a sympathetic smile. “My apologies, Annie. I’m afraid Charity tends to be a bit pushy, so don’t pay her any mind.” Her eyes softened. “Would you like some iced tea?”
“That would be lovely, Mar—” She gulped, painfully aware that this was the mother of the man who turned her insides to mush. “Uh, I mean, Mrs. O’Connor,” she finished weakly.
Marcy filled a glass with ice, then poured in fresh tea before handing it to Annie, her voice gentle. “Now don’t you dare backtrack on calling me Marcy, young lady. When my daughters and I get together, I’m just one of the girls, understood? Lemon and sugar?”
“Yes, please,” Annie said, releasing a shaky sigh. She chanced a tentative look at Steven’s sisters. “Goodness, I think I was more shocked than him.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Faith said with a chuckle. She eased into the chair next to Annie. “But I have to be honest—it’s not just Charity’s imagination running away here. I’ve never seen Steven so off-kilter in front of a girl before. Since college, he’s always had the advantage with women, calm and collected, impossible to fluster, and totally in control. Trust me—we haven’t seen this Steven O’Connor since he was a shy little boy with his head in a magic book. Whatever happened at Ocean Pier, you obviously had quite an effect on him.”
“I’ll say,” Charity piped in, “I haven’t seen him that ruffled since Mag—”
“Please believe me,” Annie said in a rush, stomach churning at the m
ention of her sister. Her voice came out strained, heart racing at what this family would think if they knew she was related to Maggie. “Steven has no interest in me that way, I promise.”
Faith braced a hand to Annie’s arm. “What about you?” she asked quietly. “Do you?”
Heat crawled up Annie’s neck.
“I knew it!” Charity shouted, victory ringing in her tone. “I have a sixth sense about these things, and the minute you two looked at each other, the sparks could have simmered the chili.”
Faith leaned in, eyes locked with Annie’s. “We don’t mean to embarrass you, Annie, truly, and I don’t normally jump in with Charity so quickly, but I have to admit you had Steven rattled, which leads me to suspect he has more than a passing interest in you.”
“Oh, Annie, you and Steven would make such a darling couple,” Lizzie breathed. “And Ocean Pier is so romantic!” Her eyes lit. “How did you meet? Did Steven ask you to dance?”
Annie shook her head, peeking up to see Steven’s family studying her. “He rescued me from a guy with a bad reputation.” Her shoulders slumped as her eyes trailed into a blank stare. “He warned me to stay away from guys like that.” She glanced up, her smile sad. “Including him. I even told him I liked him, but he claims I’m too young. Sees himself as a big brother and nothing more.” She sighed. “I guess I am—I’m not eighteen until next week.”
“Horse feathers,” Charity said with no little scowl, grating a carrot into the salad bowl. “That sure didn’t look like the reaction of a big brother to me, so don’t you believe it. And you are not too young. In fact, you’re exactly what we’ve been praying for—a sweet girl from a good family. Besides, Mitch is sixteen years older than me and we have a dream marriage.”
“Well, you do, anyway,” Faith said with an evil grin.