Chapter 14
14
Devon
"LAST ONE." JANIE passed up the final sparkling clean glass shade, watching as he went to work putting it back into place on the kitchen ceiling fan. "Don't screw it too tight. It might crack the glass."
He shot her a scathing look. "This is the five hundredth time I've done this today. I think I've got it figured out."
Janie matched his expression as she passed up the lightbulb. "Don’t get snippy. You offered to help, sir." She propped both hands on her hips. "And for the record, you only have four ceiling fans in your house."
He carefully twisted the final bulb into place, giving her a wink. "I'm pretty sure that math checks out."
"Speaking of math..."
He and Janie both turned to the doorway where Riley stood, a scowl on her face.
His oldest daughter held up her computer. "I have a question."
Devo n stepped down from the ladder, taking a deep breath. "I'm not sure I'll be much help, but I'll give it my best shot."
Riley's brows pinched together. "I wasn't talking to you." She turned to the woman at his side. "I was talking to Janie. She's done this before."
Janie's eyes widened and she began to shake her head. "It's been over twenty years. I don't know that I remember any of it."
Riley's shoulders slumped. "Crap."
Janie groaned, dragging out one of the chairs. "Bring it over here. Let's take a look at it." She lifted one finger. "But no guarantees."
Riley perked up a little, giving Janie a smile. "Got it." She settled into the seat Janie pulled out and waited as Janie sat beside her. They both hunched over the laptop as Riley explained her question, taking all of Janie's attention.
And it was fine. He didn't mind at all.
Technically.
He understood why his daughters liked Janie so much. She was fun to talk to and hang out with. Plus she had a skill set that was turning out to be pretty damn useful. She'd been a cheerleader in high school just like Olivia. Considered being a hairdresser and knew all sorts of styles. She'd even put her culinary skills to good use by teaching his daughters a handful of simple recipes they could whip up on their own so dinner wasn’t all on him every night.
And, it would seem she had another skill set he hadn't yet learned about. One that involved math?
Leaving Janie and Riley at the table, he ventured out the back door. It was probably time to get a fire going.
Now that their house wasn’t an embarrassment, the girls had started inviting friends over, and tonight—since they had tomorrow off for some sort of teacher workday—he would be hosting a house full of teenagers. They'd requested a fire, and since the sun would soon be setting, now was a good time to make that happen.
It was yet another thing that wouldn’t have been possible without the woman inside. With Janie coming every Sunday to help with the house—and the not-so-subtle encouragement she'd given his girls to start pulling their own weight—he'd managed to eke out enough time to clean up the backyard a bit. The fire pit they hadn't used since before Maggie died was now freshened up and ready to go.
After setting up a few logs and sprinkling on some charcoal to even out the heat, he squirted on some lighter fluid and got a pretty decent blaze going. Once it was burning, he went to work setting up their collection of collapsible chairs. He’d picked up a few more in preparation for tonight, and tore away their tags, adding them to the fire. By the time he was finished, there were nearly a dozen single chairs and two loveseat versions surrounding the fire.
When he went back into the house, Riley and Janie were still at the table, his daughter looking half ready to throw her laptop across the room.
To b e fair, so did Janie.
“How’s it going?” He was pretty sure he knew, but felt obligated to ask.
“Awful.” Riley slammed the computer closed. “I can’t stare at this anymore.” She stood. “I’ll work on it again later.” She collected the laptop and left, her steps heavy as she went upstairs.
“On that note,” Janie stood, pushing her chair and Riley’s in, “I’m going to head out.”
“You have somewhere exciting to be?” He tried to sound casual. Like this was nothing more than small talk. It was just that Janie wasn’t normally in a hurry to leave on Sundays. She usually lingered, staying later than they’d agreed on every single time.
But today she was packing up right on time. Like maybe she had somewhere else to be.
Someone else to meet.
“Yeah.” Janie rolled her eyes as she added her cleaning supplies to the caddy she always brought. “I’ve got a ball to attend and I need to go put on my hoop skirt and wait for my fairy godmother.” She straightened. “I just know you have people coming over and I don’t want to be in the way.”
“You won’t be in the way.” He said it too fast, but there was no way to undo it, so he forced his next words to come slower. “Unless free pizza and a night surrounded by giggling teenage girls isn’t your idea of a good time.”
“That does sound tempting.” Janie looked him over. “Where’s the pizza from?”
“I s that a trick question? There’s only one pizza place in town.” He wiggled his brows at her. “I might even let you pick the toppings on one.”
Janie's eyes narrowed, but the expression on her face remained playful. "What if I like pineapple on my pizza?"
"Then I guess you'll have an entire pizza all to yourself." He narrowed his own eyes. " Do you like pineapple on your pizza?"
Janie didn't react for a second, but eventually her nose wrinkled. "Only psychopaths like pineapple on their pizza."
"So that's a yes then?"
He loved the way she teased him. The way he could tease her back. Throwing good-natured jobs at each other was something he and Maggie had never done. Looking back, he could see the signs that things weren't all they should have been, but at the time, she was all he knew.
They were all he knew.
Janie scoffed, eyes widening as her mouth dropped open. "I'm gonna tell your mom on you." She whipped her phone out, keeping eye contact as she swiped one thumb across the screen.
He watched her digit move, and it sure looked like she was pulling up a number. "My mom gave you her phone number?"
"Sure did. Told her I’d call her the next time Dianna put blackberry cinnamon rolls on the menu." Her smile turned devilish. "Now I'm realizing I can get plenty of use out of it."
"You better not. You'll be opening a whole can of worms you won't be able to close." He took a step toward her. "Don't make me confiscate your phone, tattletale."
Janie started backing away, but her smile—and the sparkle of mischief in her eye—held. "Now you're really making me want to text her."
He didn't really care if Janie texted his mom. She's the one who would have to deal with his mother sending her weather warnings and calling every time she heard something interesting on the news. It was more the light and easy playfulness of the interaction that had him continuing to prowl closer. It was the kind of fun he’d never had with a woman, and he wasn't quite ready for it to end.
He lunged for the phone, sending Janie jumping back on a squeal just as the doorbell rang. They both froze in place—his hand wrapped around hers, the lean line of her body so close he could almost feel it—as footsteps thundered down the stairs and his daughters’ excited voices filled the entry.
" I got it ." Olivia's voice was the loudest, but immediately cut off by Gwen.
"No, I got it. It's Isabella."
Devon winced a little at the announcement, all the lighthearted fun he'd been having with Janie dissipating in a flash. He hadn't asked who his daughters invited over, and the last he heard, Gwen and Isabella weren't on the best terms. That must have changed.
Unfortunately.
The sound of the front door opening accompanied new voices joining his daughters’. One of them hit him like nails on a chalkboard and had him spinning toward the doorway, bracing for impact.
"Hi, Gwen. How are you, honey?" Isabella’s mother’s tone was saccharine sweet. She didn't wait for Gwen to answer before asking, "Where's your dad?" Again, she didn't wait for Gwen to answer, her footsteps getting louder as she strolled right through their house, coming straight into the kitchen. A smile curved her lips the second her eyes landed on him. "There you are. I was wondering where you were hiding."
"Here I am." He couldn’t muster up any sort of enthusiasm or even politeness, making his words flat and a little sharp. He never knew what to say to this woman. She'd been blatantly hitting on him for the better part of two years, and if there was a way to get her to understand he wasn't interested, he hadn't figured it out yet. She was determined, he’d give her that.
But that was all he’d give her.
Undeterred—as usual—Isabella's mother kept coming his way, hips swaying suggestively as she looked him up and down. His skin crawled at the thought of her touching him. She took every opportunity to do it, and it sent him stepping back.
But then she froze, the suggestive smile on her lips twisting into a scowl. Her nostrils flared as if she'd smelled something putrid
"Did you want me to go ahead and order the pizza since the girls’ friends are starting to arrive?" Janie’s voice was close. Close and missing t he sharp edge he was so fond of. She almost sounded… Sweet?
He turned to find her eyes on his face as she reached up to smooth down the button placket of his henley.
The tightness in his muscles—brought on by the thought of Isabella’s mother’s hands on him—eased a little as Janie stepped closer to his side, her hand sliding down his chest.
"Let's give it a few more minutes in case some of them run late." He wrapped one arm around Janie's back, spreading his hand across the curve of her hip the way he had at the football game Friday night. After holding her gaze a second longer, he turned to the woman gaping at them with an icy glare. "Have you met Isabella's mom?"
Janie finally acknowledged the woman's presence, giving her the biggest, fakest smile he'd ever seen. "I don't think I have."
Janie shoved one hand out, continuing to beam at the scowling woman in his kitchen. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Janie."
Isabella's mother looked at Janie's outstretched hand. After a few long seconds, she took it, limply shaking it before pulling away and wiping her palm down the front of her black stretchy pants. She faced him, working her jaw from side to side. "I didn't know you were seeing anyone. "
"You didn't?" He used his hold on her to pull Janie a little closer, almost using her as a shield. "That's weird."
He wasn't going to deny her assumption, because that would only make her think he wanted her to know he was single. And even though that felt equally wrong, he also wasn't going to confirm it. He and Janie weren't seeing each other. Not in an official sense. But he talked to her more, touched her more, and thought about her more than any other woman he'd crossed paths with in recent years.
And that included Maggie.
Isabella’s mother stood a little taller, lifting her chin. "Well, congratulations I guess." She shot Janie a dirty look, before turning and marching back down the hallway, the front door slamming harder than necessary when she left.
Janie turned to him, widening her eyes. “Yikes.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Yeah.”
“That happen to you a lot?” There was something off in her voice but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“Not a lot.” He shot her a grin, relaxing a little more. “I rode the sad widower wave for a while.”
“Seems like that only works for so long.”
She hadn’t moved away from him and didn’t seem bothered that his arm was still around her. He understood why she’d moved in close, and appreciated it. But he appreciated the feel of her against him even more now that they were alone.
“Seems like.” He reached out to catch one of the springy dark curls framing her face. “Good thing you were here. Otherwise she might have tried to invite herself to stay.”
“Oh, she was definitely planning to bark her way up to the top of your tree.” Janie lifted her brows. “And seeing as how she was wearing leggin gs, she expected you to take her up on it.”
That last part threw him for a bit of a loop. “What does her wearing leggings have to do with anything?”
“Wow. You really are out of the loop, aren’t you?” Janie lowered her voice, leaning in like his daughters hadn’t all run straight back upstairs after letting Isabella in. “Easy access.”
It still took his brain a second to pick up what she was putting down, but the second it caught on, the damn thing took off running. And connecting a few dots that would have him distracted all night. “You’re wearing leggings.”
Janie’s eyes widened and her cheeks flushed. “Because I came to clean and wanted to be comfortable.”
“Likely story.”
He’d never taken their teasing quite this far. Up until now they’d all but ignored any physical closeness they’d shared, including that kiss by the river. But with her this close, skin flushed and eyes a little glazed, the way she felt against him was all he could think about.
Releasing the curl he’d been toying with, Devon trailed the tips of his fingers along the line of her jaw. “Is it bad if I say I wouldn’t mind if you wore them for other reasons?”
He’d been pretending they could just be friends. That he could keep this growing connection they had on ice until his daughters were older. That he could have Janie in his life without wanting her in his bed.
He was wrong. Real wrong.
“B ut…” Janie’s lips parted and he traced the softness of them with the pad of his thumb.
“But, what?”
Her lids drooped as one hand came to rest against the center of his chest. “I don’t remember.”
“Good.” He caught the point of her chin with his thumb and finger, opening her mouth a little more as he leaned in, sealing his lips over hers.
The air rushed from her lungs, the warmth of her breath heating his skin as she sagged into him. It was all the encouragement he needed, and in the next second he lifted her up onto the clutter-free counter, her legs around his waist as he claimed her mouth for himself.
Janie whimpered, her hands fisting in his shirt as he gripped her thighs to pull her closer, rocking the hard length of his cock against the seam of her leggings. He knew she looked great in them, but never would have guessed just how fucking great those pants were. They were so thin he could feel the heat coming off her body, and the next flex of his hips had him groaning into her mouth.
Right as the fucking doorbell rang.