Enticing: Chapter 3

My mother did not raise a quitter. She did, however, raise someone who has a flair for dramatics mixed with a teeny, tiny attitude problem.

—Addie’s Secret Thoughts

“So, Leo . . .” Izzy kicks her little legs, happily chatting with the hockey hottie she’s currently enamored with, and I can’t say I blame her. He’s good-looking in that boy next door who could bench-press a Humvee kinda way, and yet somehow, he’s managing to drive and still give her his full attention at the same time. Something she’s probably been lacking from me lately. “Do you like mac ‘n cheese?”

I watch carefully as he glances back at her through the rearview mirror of his fancy SUV, a grin spreading across his handsome face. “I love mac ‘n cheese, short stack.”

Short stack?

Izzy doesn’t miss a beat. “That’s what we’re having for dinner. You wanna have dinner with us?”

“Oh, Izz.” I turn to face her, hoping to stop the inevitable disappointment when he hopefully politely declines. “I’m sure Leo has other plans that don’t⁠—”

“How could I turn down dinner with two beautiful ladies?” he lays it on thick while his impossibly blue eyes crinkle as he turns a corner.

I can think of a few ways he could turn down dinner, but I keep that to myself. Izzy seems to like him, which means maybe she’ll stay excited for hockey instead of giving it up like every other thing we’ve tried since leaving her father last year.

“There’s three of us,” she tells him. “Me, Mom, and Lennox.”

“Lennox, huh?” he asks curiously.

Izzy bobs her head. “But she’s a baby and doesn’t eat real food yet. More for us that way.”

Leo nods, unfazed, and I wish I could say the same.

This man has no idea how much every word out of his mouth is affecting me. Ratcheting up my anxiety, which has already been off the charts lately. No one is this charming. They’re just not. Not unless they want something, and I have nothing left to give.

He turns those eyes on me, and I feel their warmth down to the tips of my cold toes and curse myself for it. Stupid zing. “I mean, if it’s all right with your mom, of course.”

I open my mouth to tell him it doesn’t seem like he’s left me much choice when Izzy answers for me.

“Of course it’s all right with her. She makes the best macaroni. She likes to make it crunchy on top.”

“I love the crunchy stuff,” Leo agrees, and any chance I had of telling him no flies right out the window with the happy little squeal of joy from my daughter.

At least he’s in for a surprise . . .

The crunchy stuff is usually burned macaroni.

Leo throws the SUV in park once he pulls into the driveway, and Izzy hurries out of her car seat and races toward the house.

“Slow down, speed demon,” I yell after her as I close the car door behind me, but it’s no use. She’s already left us in her dust.

“Listen,” Leo starts as he lets himself out of the car. “I don’t have to come in, if this is weird for you.”

Weird for me? Is he serious?

“Well . . . I can think of about a hundred other ways to get a much better meatloaf and macaroni and cheese dinner that don’t involve taking us home, but if you’re good with it, I guess it’s the least I can do to say thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

I tilt my head and stare at him.

I really should have said—Of course it’s weird for me. What I want to know is why isn’t this weird for you? You don’t know us, and now you’ve rescued us, which to be honest pisses me off. And now my daughter invites you to dinner for burned macaroni and cheese, and you accept. If Caitlin and Bellamy didn’t vouch for you, I’d think you were sketchy as hell, Sinclair. But I keep my inner skeptic to myself instead. He did help me out tonight.

“Haven’t you ever met a nice guy before, Addie?” He winks and walks around the car to my side as a big, fat drop of icy-cold rain smacks me in the face.

“Nice guys don’t exist,” I argue as we walk into the house.

“Ahh . . . so you’re a cynic,” he laughs, and I shake my head and kick off my shoes before I go in search of Mrs. Murkey with Leo following behind.

“I’m a realist,” I answer as we walk into the kitchen, and Mrs. Murkey hands me a fussy Lennox. I sway from side to side, trying to stave off the witching hour meltdown she’s inevitably due for right about now and run my hand over her tiny tuft of blonde hair, while Lennox sucks viciously on her bright pink binky.

“Good luck. Little Miss Lennox has been awfully fussy this afternoon.” She looks behind me, and her eyebrows shoot up high enough to touch her white, curly hairline. “Are you going to introduce me to your handsome caller?”

Mrs. Murkey is a hopeless romantic who lost her husband about five years before she lost Gran too. She never had kids and doesn’t have any family in town. Luckily for me and the girls, she’s claimed our little family as her own.

I step to the side, and Leo offers her his hand. “Sorry, Mrs. Murkey. This is Leo Sinclair. My car wouldn’t start, and he helped us get home.”

Her face lights up with interest. “A knight in shining armor. How lucky he was there.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Murkey,” he offers, and she sighs like he’s just told her she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

This man oozes charm.

“You as well, Mr. Sinclair. I’ll leave you to it then. Let me know if you need any help the rest of the week.” She leans forward and drops a kiss on Lennox’s head, then lets herself out through the garage to make the short trek next door to her house.

I turn to put Lennox in the swing and find Leo staring at us. “So Lennox and Izzy, huh?”

“Yup.” I don’t elaborate. One car ride hasn’t earned him that.

My baby girl’s hands ball up into tight little fists as soon as I rest her in her swing. “Shh, sweet girl. I’ve got to make dinner,” I coo and run an index finger along her chubby cheek, trying to calm her, but tears pool in her big brown eyes.

“I could hold her if you want,” Leo offers almost shyly as he clears his throat. “I mean, if she wants to be held. I’m pretty good with kids. They kinda like me. My sisters call me the baby whisperer.”

“Baby whisperer?” My eyes skip from him back to my mini-me, and I want to scream, but honestly, that will just upset her more. In one afternoon, I go from refusing to ever need another man’s help again to letting this one invade my life and my house. “I mean, if you want to. But Lennox is a fussy baby. Don’t be offended if she cries. Just let me get dinner going, then I can feed her.”

He doesn’t wait for me to move before he scoops her out of the swing, careful to hold her head like she’s a newborn, not a six-month-old chunker, and holds her up in front of his face, having what appears to be a stare-off. “What’s wrong, baby girl? What’s all the fuss about?”

Okay . . . maybe my icy exterior melts a teensy bit with his smooth voice and sweet words, but the rest of me wants to know if there’s anything this guy can’t do. Because there’s gotta be something . . . doesn’t there?

I move hesitantly to the refrigerator and grab the ingredients for meatloaf and mac ‘n cheese and lay them out on the counter as Leo continues his one-sided conversation with Lennox until she’s actually cooing in his arms. Cooing. My cranky baby. “Does meatloaf work for you?” I ask a little feistier than he deserves, but how does he get cooing when I get cranky?

“That sounds great.”

I cock a brow. “It’s meatloaf. Meatloaf never sounds great.”

“Honestly, I’m excited for a meal that doesn’t come from a take-out container.” He tucks Lennox into the crook of his arm, and I stare in shock as her heavy little eyes blink once, twice, then close as she dozes, tucked against his chest.

Well hell . . . Maybe he is the baby whisperer.

“So you eat a lot of takeout?” I resist the urge to face-palm myself, utterly disgusted by how out of practice I must be if that’s my version of small talk. I guess being an author and semi-professional hermit doesn’t leave time for a ton of practice.

“Yeah.” He sits down on a stool across from me at the oversized center island, and even there, he looks too big for the space. “I keep thinking I need to use a meal delivery service, but I haven’t given in yet. I probably should.”

I nod and get the oven warming, then throw together the meatloaf.

“Why don’t you?”

He chuckles. “Probably because my family keeps telling me I need to, and I don’t want to admit they’re right.” Lennox spits out her binky and almost immediately whimpers until Leo puts his pinky in the open end of it and holds it in her mouth until she settles. “So what’s your story, Addie?”

My eye twitches, and I stare as he soothes my baby back to sleep . . . What’s my story?

That’s a good question.

“My story . . .” I sigh and rest my hip against the counter, wishing I could let my guard down but unable to. “It’s long and boring. How about you tell me yours instead. Like how you’re able to get her to sleep when the rest of us can’t.”

Leo eyes me cautiously, like he knows exactly what I’m doing.

“What can I say? Babies love me.”

Something tells me they’re not the only ones.