Kevin was about to say something comforting when the little girl exchanged a look with her aunt that just about knocked him off his feet. It was only a smile. But it wasn't an ordinary smile. Oh, no. It was a sly little hustler's smile!
An expression of such perfect understanding passed between niece and aunt that he nearly choked. He'd been conned! Hannah was a world-class mischief-maker, just like Molly!
He turned on Dan, who looked faintly apologetic. "Phoebe and I still aren't sure if she plans it ahead of time or if it just happens."
"You should have told me!"
Dan gazed at his youngest daughter with a combination of irritation and fatherly pride. "You had to see this for yourself."
Sports sometimes had a way of making everything clear, and right then it all fell into place-from Molly's almost drowning and the incident with the canoe to Marmie's uncharacteristic trip up into that tree. Molly had been stringing him along from the very beginning. Cody came forward, clearly unhappy with his pitcher's lackluster performance, and the next thing Kevin knew, he was standing on second base while Dan took over at the mound.
Hannah the Con Artist exchanged a sly glance with Molly, and Kevin saw why. It was Phoebe's turn at bat.
Oh, and didn't the good times just start to roll then? There was more butt wiggling, lip licking, and breast thrusting than anybody under the age of consent should be allowed to witness. Dan started to sweat, Phoebe cooed, and the next thing he knew, the Stars' owner was perched on first while Miss Hannah claimed third.
It had turned into a bloodbath.
The Jocks finally managed to beat the Last Kids to Be Chosen in Gym Class, but only because Captain Cody was smart enough to replace Dan with Tess, who was immune to butt wiggling, plus being nobody's fool. Tess made short work of the nursery set and politely but firmly put the oldsters out to pasture. Even she, however, couldn't stop Aunt Molly from hitting a homer in the last inning.
For someone who hated sports, Molly sure did know how to handle a bat, and the way she ran the bases left Kevin so aroused he had to bend over and pretend he was rubbing away a leg cramp to keep from embarrassing himself. As he rubbed, he remembered how crowded Molly's bed would be this week with all the kids snuggling up against her. The way he understood it, this was Julie's night, tomorrow it would be Andrew's, then Hannah's, then Tess's. Maybe he could sneak into the cottage after bedtime and kidnap Auntie M. But then he remembered her telling him Julie was a light sleeper. He sighed and resettled his ball cap on his head. Face it. There wasn't going to be any joy in Mudville tonight. Mighty Kevin had struck out.
Chapter 21
The woods were spooky, and Daphne's teeth chattered. What if no one ever found her? Thank goodness she'd brought along her favorite lettuce and marmalade sandwich. Daphne Gets Lost
Lilly leaned back into the chaise and listened to the tinkling of the wind chimes hanging from the redbud tree that grew next to the patio. She loved wind chimes, but Craig had hated them and wouldn't let her hang them in her garden. She closed her eyes, glad the guests at the B &B seldom visited this quiet spot just behind the house.
She'd finally stopped asking herself how long she was staying here. When it was time to leave, she'd know. And today had been such fun. When she'd slid into home plate, Kevin had almost seemed proud of her, and at the picnic he hadn't deliberately avoided her the way Liam had.
"Hiding out from your adoring public?"
Her eyes snapped open, and her heart skipped a beat as the man she thought about far too much came out the back door of the B &B. His hair was shaggy, his clothes the same rumpled khaki shorts and navy pocket T-shirt he'd worn earlier at the picnic. Like her, he hadn't yet cleaned up from the softball game.
She gazed into those dark eyes that saw too much. "I'm recuperating from this afternoon."
He sank into the cushions on the redwood chair next to her. "You're a pretty good softball player for a girl."
"And you're a pretty good softball player for a sissy artist."
He yawned. "Who are you calling a sissy?"
She stopped herself from smiling. She did too much of that when they were together, and it encouraged him. Every morning she told herself she'd stay in her room until he left, but she'd go downstairs anyway. She still couldn't believe what she'd done with him. It was as if she'd been under a spell, as if that glass-enclosed studio had been part of another world. But she was back in Kansas now.
She was also mildly irritated by how much he'd enjoyed himself without her. If he hadn't been laughing with Molly, he'd been flirting with Phoebe Calebow or teasing one of the children. He was a gruff, intimidating man, and the fact that they hadn't been frightened of him somehow annoyed her.
"Go get cleaned up," he said. "I'll do the same, then take you out to dinner."
"Thanks, but I'm not hungry."
He gave a weary sigh and rested his head against the back of the chair. "You're hell-bent on throwing this away, aren't you? You're not going to give us a fighting chance."
She eased her legs over the side of the chaise and sat straighten "Liam, what happened between us was an aberration. I've been alone too much lately, and I gave in to a foolish impulse."
"Just time and circumstances, is that it?"
"Yes."
"It could have happened with anyone?"
She wanted to agree, but she couldn't. "No, not with anyone. You can be attractive when you put your mind to it."
"So can a lot of men. You know there's something between us, but you don't have the guts to see what it is."
"I don't need to. I know exactly why I'm attracted to you. It's an old habit."
"What do you mean by that?"
She twisted her rings. "I mean that I've been there and done that. The alpha male. The stallion who rules the herd. The take-charge prince who makes all Cinderella's troubles go away. Men like you are my fatal weakness. But I'm not a penniless teenager anymore who needs someone to take care of her."
"Thank God. I don't like teenagers. And I'm too self-centered to take care of anyone."
"You're deliberately minimizing what I'm trying to tell you."
"That's because you're boring me."
She wouldn't let his rudeness distract her, especially since she knew it was calculated to do just that. "Liam, I'm too old and too smart to make the same mistake again. Yes, I'm attracted to you. I'm instinctively drawn to aggressive men, even though it's their nature to run roughshod over the women who care about them."
"And here I thought this conversation couldn't become any more infantile."
"You're doing it right now. You don't want to talk about this, so you're belittling me to try to get me to shut up."
"Too bad it's not working."
"I thought I'd finally gotten smart, but obviously I haven't, or I wouldn't be letting you do this." She rose from the chaise. "Listen to me, Liam. I made the mistake of falling in love with a controlling man once in my life, and I'll never do it again. I loved my husband. But, God-sometimes I hated him more."
She hugged herself, astonished that she'd revealed something to him she could barely admit to herself.
"He probably deserved it. He sounds like a son of a bitch."
"He was just like you!"
"I seriously doubt that."
"You don't think so?" She jabbed her hand toward the redbud tree. "He wouldn't let me have wind chimes! I love wind chimes, but he hated them, so I wasn't permitted to hang them in my own garden."
"Good judgment on his part. The things are a nuisance."
Her stomach clenched. "Letting myself fall in love with you would be like falling in love with Craig all over again."
"I really resent that."
"A month after he died, I hung a set of wind chimes outside my bedroom window."
"Well, you're not going to hang them outside our bedroom window!"