“Right. How about the situation with Nicole and her kid.” Garrett paused and said, “Let’s remember the last time you got involved with a single mom.”
“Let’s not.” Griffin’s scowl was fierce, but since he was facing the sea, no one could see it.
“It about killed you to lose that boy. He even ran away from his mom and went to you.”
“I remember.” He didn’t want to, but he did. Jamie had been six, and Griffin had been his T-ball coach. He’d relived his own childhood through Jamie, and in a few weeks, he’d come to feel like the boy’s father. But when Jamie’s mom walked away, he’d lost his relationship with Jamie, as well.
Griffin still remembered the afternoon a crying little boy had shown up at his office. Jamie had run to Griffin, hoping to bring him back into his world. There had been nothing he could do to stop the boy’s heartbreak…or his own. He’d returned Jamie to his mother and driven away, vowing never again to get involved with a woman who had a child.
He’d kept that vow. Until now.
“This is different,” Griffin insisted, and wasn’t sure whom he was trying to convince—himself or Garrett. Lowering his voice, he said, “I feel sorry for the kid. He doesn’t have a dad, okay? This thing with Nicole and me isn’t permanent, so neither is the situation with Connor. I’m not getting sucked in again. I won’t let that happen, so relax.”
“Right. If you say so.”
“Look, I gotta go.” Garrett was way too shrewd. Too able to pick up on nuances that Griffin would prefer be ignored. Maybe it was because Garrett was married now, more used to listening, paying attention. But whatever the reason, Griffin wasn’t in any mood to dodge more questions. “I’ll get back to you in a day or two.”
“Fine. Talk to you then.”
He hung up, but didn’t turn around. Instead, he stared out at the horizon. Coral, scarlet and gold splashed across the sky and spread brilliant reflections of color on the water. The tide was shifting, heading in closer now, and drenched his bare feet as he stood on the sand.
End of the day.
Which meant the beginning of the night with Nicole.
Yeah, he could understand how a woman could turn a man’s world upside down.
Didn’t mean he liked it.
Eight
“You don’t understand how this works,” Griffin said later that night, and Nicole heard the oh, so patient, genius-to-moron tone in his voice.
“Wow, you’re right,” Nicole said, widening her eyes and blinking a couple of times for the dumb-blonde effect. “I’ve never had to pay bills or work out a budget. Is it a lot of math?”
A second or two ticked past before Griffin huffed out a breath. “Funny. Very funny. Okay, point made. You’re an accountant. You get math.”
She got a lot more than that, Nicole thought. Griffin might have thought he couldn’t be overheard when he was talking to his brother at the beach. But she had heard him when he told Garrett that he felt sorry for Connor. That he and Nicole weren’t permanent and so neither was his involvement with her son. Fine. She could accept temporary. She’d known that going in. But where did he come off feeling sorry for Connor? Her son wasn’t a charity case, starving for male attention.
Well, maybe that wasn’t completely right, either. Rafe and Katie spent time with them, and Connor loved Rafe a lot. But under Griffin’s attentions the last couple of weeks, Connor had blossomed and Nicole couldn’t deny it. She tried so hard to be everything her little boy needed—and still, she could see that having a man in his life made a huge difference.
Damn it.
Irritated, she snapped, “Yes, I understand math, but if it makes you feel better, only the little numbers.”
He slapped one hand to his chest and gave her a half bow. “Apologies. Now, you going to keep making me pay, or are you going to help me out with this?”
She swallowed the lingering anger over what she’d heard at the beach. He didn’t know that she’d heard him and unless she was willing to open up that particular can of worms right now, which she wasn’t, she had to let this go. For now, anyway.
“Depends,” she said. “Are you going to keep talking to me in the voice you use to read stories to Connor?”
“Another point. Okay, then,” Griffin said, sitting down beside her at the kitchen table. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Good to hear,” Nicole told him, and looked into the blue eyes that had come to mean way too much to her.
She was an idiot. Even knowing this was temporary hadn’t been enough to make her guard her heart. Instead, she’d practically run into a relationship that was going to end up crushing her.
But for now, working with him might be a sort of bridge from the personal to the impersonal. Because God knew, she needed one.
The overhead light was on, spilling down over the papers spread out over the oak table. Connor was sleeping, and the house was quiet. Usually about now, she and Griffin would be doing something a lot more fun than working. But seeing him poring over numbers and logistics had intrigued Nicole enough to offer her help. Which of course he’d dismissed, and that had only made Nicole more determined to prove to him that she was more than he thought she was.
“So,” she said, smiling at him, “you need to come up with an estimate for the security at a museum showing of some historical gems?”
His mouth quirked. “Yeah, that sums it up.”
“Okay.” She shifted her gaze to the papers in front of her and quickly thumbed through them. “Garrett sent the specs of every important gem in the collection and his suggestions for the security.”
“Yeah, Garrett’s always got plenty of suggestions.” Griffin leaned back in his chair. “He’s usually the one putting these things together. I’m the on-the-ground guy, making sure it all holds together, that our men are where they’re supposed to be.” Sitting up straight again, he leaned forward and braced his forearms on the table top. “I think he did this on purpose. He knows I hate this kind of stuff.”
“I love it,” Nicole said. “There’s clarity in numbers. They don’t lie. They don’t change. You can count on them being exactly what they’re supposed to be.”
“Yeah. Annoying.”
She laughed a little and picked up the top sheet. “See, Garrett’s wrong about this.”