Be Mine Forever (A St. Helena Vineyard Novel) (15 page)

And with that, the ladies gathered up their bags and left. Sara looked at the security camera and computer, and decided she’d take care of it in the morning.

“Sorry about that,” a gruff voice said from behind her. “She can be stubborn.”

Sara turned around just as Charles Baudouin hobbled out from behind a giant plastic cactus which was standing in the corner of the prop closet. Charles was Lucinda’s brother, the patriarch of one of the founding families of St. Helena, and a man very much in love.

Somewhere in his mid-eighties, he wore a vintage three-piece suit, wing-tipped shoes, and a dashing head of silver. He also relied heavily on his cane to walk, part of the reason he’d been taking lessons in private. The other part was too romantic to resist, which was why Sara found herself in this situation to begin with.

“That’s all right.” She let out a breath and shook off the last five hours of her day. “They’re just doing what they do best, getting into everyone’s business.”

“Do you think they saw me?” he asked, his face pinched with worry.

Wouldn’t that solve everything?

“No, I think they were too busy playing secret agent to Deidra’s villain to notice.” Sara stopped, taking a moment to really study Charles. He was charming and regal and had a way of making Sara laugh, but beyond what Heather had told her—which wasn’t much—what did she really know about him? “Can I ask you a question?”

“Depends on the question.” He smiled and Sara could see how, back in the day, he would have been a charmer.

“When Heather moved, she begged me to take you on as my client. And since I’m as hopeless of a romantic as her, I agreed.” And because no matter how big he smiled, there was a deep sadness surrounding him. A sadness that reached out and sucked Sara in, because she knew that kind of pain. It came from losing your entire world and being forced to keep moving. “But you are so secretive about our meetings, hiding in the closets, coming through the back door. I have to know, who are you trying to impress?”

“Impress?” Charles let out a breath and slowly lowered himself to the couch. “I am trying to recapture some forgotten memories, remember happier times, and maybe find a way to prove to ChiChi that an old coot like me might still have a few new tricks left in him.”

And wasn’t that the perfect thing to say. Sara felt her eyes start to burn. If this man wanted to recapture a happier time, remember what it was like before losing out on love, then who was Sara to stand in the way?

CHAPTER 10

Y
ou want to run that by me again?” Trey asked, but even as the words left his mouth, he knew he was screwed.

“Hunter said I wasn’t going to the campout cuz I’m a ballerina,” Cooper said. Trey could hear him sniffle every few words through the window. “I told him that I wasn’t a ballerina, that boy ballerinas are called awesome, and then he laughed, and the other guys laughed too, except Matt. He never laughs at me.”

“Get to the point where you punched him,” Trey said, leaning his head back against the locked car door and staring blindly up at the stars, because the more Cooper spoke, the more Trey had to admit that a replay of him and Sara on the patio was not going to happen.

“I told him that dancers were stronger than football players, just like you told me to—”

He was so screwed
.

“—and when he didn’t believe me, I shoved him and he fell. In the mud. Then he cried.” And now Cooper was back to crying. “I didn’t want him to get his uniform muddy. I just wanted him to stop laughing.”

“I know, buddy. Accidents happen.”

“His mom used a different word. It started with an
A
but sounded different.”

Trey sat up straight and turned to face Cooper through the side window. He looked so small, sitting there in the driver’s seat, his legs pulled to his chest, his muddy shoes firmly planted on Trey’s leather. He rolled his racecar back and forth across his knees, down his calf rollercoaster-style, and flipped it for a smooth landing on the passenger seat. “Altercation?”

“Yeah, then she got real mad and made Commander Roman call Mommy and Hunter said you came cuz she’s too mad to even look at me.”

“Your mom’s not mad, Coop. She was just worried. And I’m worried, so why don’t you open the door?”

When the kid didn’t answer, Trey hit the unlock button on his key.

Click.

And
Clunk.

Cooper immediately locked it back, as though he hadn’t just trapped Trey out of his car—again—and kept talking, “Hunter said I’m not allowed to go back, so I’ll never be a full Mite.”

“You get to go back,” Trey said for what must have been the fifteenth time over the past hour. “You just have to take a, uh…” What did Regan call it? “A time out.”

Silence. Trey turned back around and resumed his seat on the wet asphalt. Cooper scrambled to the window and pressed his face to the glass. After a quick check to make sure Trey was still there, the kid went back to playing Indy 500.

Trey hoped Coop did better at playing racecar driver than
he
had at playing hero.

God, he’d completely blown it. Day one into his role of Manny of the Year and his charge had sucker punched some punk kid, gotten suspended from his after-school care, and locked himself in the car.

And just when he thought the night couldn’t get any worse, his phone rang. It was Sara.

Trey held the ringing phone over his head and in clear view of the driver’s side window. “Hey, buddy, it’s your mom. You want to come out, or do I get to tell her that you barricaded yourself in my car?”

“Eeerrrn…
Smash
!”

“Right.” Trey pressed talk. “Hey, Sara.”

“Hey there,” she said. Everything came to a crashing halt at the sound of her voice. Sunny and warm and so damn sexy he found himself smiling. His butt was wet, the take-out pizza cold, his leather seats scratched to hell and he was smiling. No wonder he had a momentary lapse in sanity and offered to babysit. “How did the day go?”

Trey lifted himself up enough to crane his neck and peer in the window. Cooper was blowing raspberries at the rearview mirror and downshifting with the straw of Trey’s soda, which sat perspiring in the cup holder, the ice probably all melted by now. He sat back down and closed his eyes.

How hard can it be?
Trey blew a mental raspberry of his own. “It’s going.”

“Did I tell you today how amazing you are for helping me out?”

“You might want to refrain from counting the ways until you get home.”

The phone fell silent while Sara, smart as she was sexy, started piecing together all of the possible scenarios—and most likely berating herself for allowing a guy who couldn’t properly secure a diaper to an infant to look after her son.

With a sigh that sounded more resigned than pissed off, she said, “Car or bathroom?”

“Car.” Trey’s eyes snapped open. “Wait? He’s done this before?”

“Not in a long time,” Sara admitted.

“Define long.”

“Not since Christmas break when he colored the neighbor’s cat.” She skated right over that one. “He tends to hide when he’s upset. Or when he’s in trouble.”
Like say for punching some kid out?
“And with Heather moving and him being sent home today…He mostly sticks to the bathroom though. Your car, really? Interesting.”

Yeah, what was
interesting
was that he had a real-life Houdini on his hands and she hadn’t bothered to mention it. Nor had she bothered to mention that five-year-old boys were nothing like grown boys. In three hours, the kid had gotten in a fight over nothing, made a mess of Trey’s suit, and locked himself in a car to avoid confrontation.

Trey tried not to think of Roman and how he wanted to shove him into a big mud puddle for suspending Cooper—or saying he’d call Sara later to explain everything. And yeah, so he was moving halfway around the world to avoid disappointing his family, but he’d never lock himself in Marc’s car. Minivan or not, a man’s car was a man’s car, and therefore off limits.

“Have you tried unlocking it?” she asked as though he hadn’t already thought of that. As though every time Trey got mid-click, the kid didn’t somehow manage to relock it.

Click.

Clunk.

“Your son has quick trigger fingers.”

“I blame video games. How long has he been in there?”

“Almost an hour. We went for pizza, I got out of the car and he stayed inside…with dinner.”

Sara got quiet again, and this time Trey felt the concern waft through the phone. “Did he drink a lot of soda before his self-imposed lock in?”

“I might not babysit much, but I know better than to load a kid up on caffeine before bed. He had a small strawberry lemonade.” Which Cooper had spilled even before they left the restaurant—all over Trey. He looked down at the big red glob on his shirt and sighed. “And I had a—”

Trey stood up and looked in the window. The kid was sitting in the driver’s seat, holding Trey’s super-gulp soda, looking back. “Are you telling me he isn’t potty trained?”

Sara laughed. Glad someone could find humor in this situation. “He’s a boy, not a dog. And, yes, he knows how to use the potty. It’s just that…”

Trey watched Cooper wrap his little lips around the straw and take a long swig. “It’s just what, Sara?”

“Sometimes he has accidents.”

Trey closed his eyes and banged his head against the driver’s window. Cooper laughed then took another long swig. Kid couldn’t suck it down faster if he had a funnel.

“Define sometimes. And please don’t tell me, not since Christmas break.” She didn’t answer. “Sara?”

“You said please so I’m not telling you.”

Trey took another look in the car and noticed that the super-gulp was so big, Cooper had to use both hands to hold it. Meaning that they weren’t anywhere near the door lock. Smiling, Trey turned the phone to speaker and set it on top of the car, slyly grabbed his key, hit unlock and—

Click.

Clunk.

Fuck!

Cooper sat on the leather seats, soda balanced in one hand, Trey’s valet key gripped in the other, sucking down that soda like he was a man with a mission. Maybe if he reasoned with him.

“You gotta take a wiz, buddy?” Trey asked and
—thank you, Jesus
—Cooper shook his head.

“Uh-oh, bad move,” Sara said through the speaker. “Now he is going to be thinking about it.”

“You either have to go or you don’t,” Trey reasoned.

Except Cooper was no longer shaking his head. He was looking at Trey all panicked as though he’d had to go for days and was only now realizing it. The cup was back in its holder and his little hands were now grabbing the front of his pants.

“Ah, shit, he has to go,” he said to Sara, then, “Come on, Coop. Open up and I’ll take you to the restroom.”

“No!”

“He’s tired,” Sara said as though that was a strong enough reason for a man to pee in another man’s car. “Just talk to him, I’m almost there.”

Trey didn’t think almost was going to cut it. Coop was shifting back and forth, the rubber of his soles making marks on the seat, looking at the super-gulp, and holding himself as though he was about to spring a leak.

“Look, buddy. You know that camo car of yours that we made? The one that won you the trophy?” Cooper nodded. “How would you feel if I up and wizzed all over it, huh?”

Cooper’s face went slack. Now Trey was getting somewhere.

“Well, that’s how I’m going to feel if you go in my car. Understand?”

Click.

Thirty minutes, a dunk in the bath, and three bedtime stories later, Cooper was fast asleep, doing his best Darth Vader impression as Sara made her way down the stairs. She walked into the kitchen and froze at the doorway.

Trey stood at the sink, sudsy sponge in one hand, Superman plate in the other, his jacket and button-up hanging on the back of the chair. Sara watched as he rinsed the plate and moved to place it on the drying rack, the thin cotton of his undershirt doing some stretching of its own—right over his broad shoulders and muscular back.

The man was beautiful, built, and,
be still my heart
, doing her dishes. No man had ever offered to do her dishes. Talk about a single mom’s naughty dream brought to life.

“You didn’t have to clean up,” Sara said, but didn’t make a move to stop him, because really, this was the most action she’d had in years. Well, except for that sensational kiss earlier today. And the one last week, which she was hoping to relive tonight. “I would’ve just loaded everything in the dishwasher later.”

“Dishwasher is already full and if you’d seen the mess before…” Trey rested his palms on the edge of the sink and looked over his shoulder. “Pizza was plan B.”

Forcing her gaze from him, she grabbed a juice glass off the table and walked to the sink. One side was overflowing with more pots and pans than Sara even owned, and the water was so black it looked inky. “What was plan A?”

“My nonna’s lasagna.” Which explained the sauce pot, double boiler, and copper deep-dish pan. “When that didn’t work out, we went for good old macaroni and cheese.”

He held up a scorched casserole dish and Sara grimaced.

“You know it comes in a box. You boil water, add milk, and,” she wiggled her fingers, “voil
à
.”

“I was out to impress.”

“Cooper’s a kindergartener. The absence of anything green on the plate is impressive. Neon-orange, superhero-shaped noodles might just win you Babysitter of the Year.”

Especially since a meal that came from a box was a rarity in the Reed house.

“I was trying to impress you,” he admitted, flashing a tired smile.

In fact, everything about Trey tonight looked tired and a little worn. Even his eyes, which were usually lit with humor and excitement, were dim around the edges. He looked wiped out and disappointed.

“I’m sorry about today.”

“I’m not,” Sara said quietly, taking the dish out of his hand and setting it on the drying rack. “You told my son that he was—what was the word he used when I tucked him in?—oh, yes, awesome.”

That got a small smile. “I got him suspended.”

“There is that,” she said, bumping him with her hip and picking up the dish towel.

She should be irritated at Trey, stressed out over what she was supposed to do with Cooper for the next two weeks while he rode out the suspension, but she couldn’t. Although she would never, under any circumstances, condone fighting, Hunter had it coming and she was proud that her son finally found the confidence and the words to stand up for himself. She just wished he’d kept it to words and forgone the physical display of awesomeness.

“I’m being serious.” Trey rested his palms on the counter and sent her a look so male, her nipples took note of just how well his serious side worked on him. He looked brooding and open and so adorably miserable, it took everything Sara had not to hug him. “I opened my mouth and said the wrong thing, and because of it, Coop got in trouble.”

“So you said the wrong thing.” She shrugged.

He handed Sara a clean pot, which she dried and hung on the rack above the kitchen island.

“And now you have to live with the mess of managing both work and Coop without after-school care.”

“You were trying to make a little boy feel good about himself. It wasn’t your fault he misunderstood,” Sara said, turning back around, only to stop dead in her tracks.

Trey leaned a hip against the counter, looking at her as though he didn’t believe her, as though he couldn’t believe her. And damn if her heart didn’t roll over for him.