Full Disclosure (Homefront: The Sheridans Book 2) (15 page)

“You know. They ask a question like
‘Suzie wants to buy three pencils. They each cost five cents. Joey wants to buy
an eraser. Together they have twenty-five cents. If they buy everything they
want, and have three cents left, then how much was the eraser?’”

I stare at her in the darkness, stunned. “What
grade are you in again?”

“Second.”

“Geez, sounds like pre-algebra to me.”

“Well, that’s actually the easy part. The
answer’s seven cents.”

My mouth gapes. “Wow. You’re fast. And
you’re worried about this test?”

“Yeah, because it’s not enough to know
the answer. We have to draw bar models.”

“I’ve never heard of a bar model in my
life.”

“You have to draw a bar. Like for that
question, you’d maybe draw a bar with three parts, and each of the three parts
has five cents written above it, and then you draw another section of the bar with
the three cents that are leftover. And then there’s another section with a
question mark over it. That’s supposed to be what the eraser cost. And then I
guess you’d draw a little squiggle under it and put the total amount of money.
Or maybe you’d draw an x through the part of the bar that got spent. I don’t
know. That’s what always confuses me.”

My head is spinning. “Honey, I got an A
in trigonometry in high school and I have no clue how to draw a bar model. So
you’re not alone.”

“I thought it was my ADHD. There are just
so many steps to the problem. I can never focus enough to get to the next step.
I hate my brain.”

“Don’t ever hate any part of yourself. Your
brain is amazing. Look at how fast you did that problem. And all in your head. I
couldn’t have done that at your age.”

“Really? Mom says my brain is slow.”

My stomach coils, as do my fists, wanting
to punch that woman in her surgeon-created nose. “Your brain is not slow at all.
It’s super fast. Did you know that a message in your brain can travel nearly
270 miles per hour?”

“Really?”

“Really. That’s a fact. Your mom
obviously doesn’t know that. And I’m not a doctor, but I think that with ADHD, maybe
your brain probably has so many different things going on in it that it just
distracts itself. While everyone else is able to focus on some silly bar model,
your brain is probably thinking up a really great story, or a new way of doing
something, or noticing things that other people go through their whole lives
without noticing. It might make life harder for you. It’s always hard to be
special and extraordinary. Besides, I’ll bet your dad doesn’t know how to do a
bar model either.”

“You think?”

I nod. “And look at him—running a
huge company. He creates jobs for thousands of people, and builds homes so that
people have nice places to live.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“It’s good to try to learn new things
like bar models. But you can’t get an A in everything.”

“They don’t give As in my grade. They give
E for excellent.”

“Right. Well then you can’t get an E for
everything. So just get some sleep and be happy that you’ve got such an
extraordinary brain. Because it’s people like you that are going to do big
things, Hannah.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

“Thanks, Kim,” she says, breaking out in
a huge smile that warms my heart.

She opens her arms to me for a hug and I
give her a squeeze. Standing, I wish her a good night and shut her door halfway
again as I leave her room.

Bar models?

This is what I have to look forward to
with Connor?

- RYAN -

Tiny beads of sweat drip down my forehead
and sting as they enter my eyes. I’m pushing things tonight, I consider, as I
place the bar back into its stand after lifting. But my body needs it. My mind
needs it. Something about having Kim living under the same roof with me tonight
without having her share my bed is going to keep sleep just out of reach unless
I work my body hard.

In the gym rather than in the bedroom.

But I’d nearly dropped the bar on my
chest when I heard the voices coming from Hannah’s baby monitor.

Kim had said all the right things to
Hannah, things I probably wouldn’t have thought to say. And even if I had, I
somehow feel she needed to hear it all from a woman to really undo the damaging
things that her mother always seemed to say to her.

Hannah’s brain is
slow
? What the
hell kind of a thing is that to say to a kid?

I have never felt quite as much
appreciation for a woman as I do now for Kim.

“Hey,” I hear her voice in the doorway.

I sit up, feeling embarrassed for the
sheen of sweat on my chest till I see her gaze over me appreciatively.

And this is why I work out. It’s not just
that it helps clear my head. It’s the way I feel when a woman like Kim looks at
me. Sheer vanity, I know. But I’m only human.

“I saw the light on down here. Hope you
don’t mind,” she tells me.

She takes another sip of the wine that’s
in her hand and I sit up on the bench.

“Have a seat,” I say, wiping down the
bench with a towel and patting it. I really should get a few places to sit down
here, but till this moment, it’s really just been a workout room.

“So, this is your idea of a man cave,”
she comments, looking around as she sits beside me. I’ve got built-in speakers in
the wall that I can barely use when Hannah is around, and an eighty-inch flat
panel TV so that I can distract myself while I’m running on the treadmill.

“No. I’ve got a man cave just off the
foyer. But I should maybe put a couch down here. I kind of like to just keep it
as a workout room, though, and not give myself the option of just sitting on my
ass and having a beer down here.”

“Now I know how you keep that body.”

I smile, lapping up the praise like a
puppy. Praise from Kim seems so damn sincere, as though she’s not expecting
anything in return for it. Which might be why I feel the urge to give her
anything she wants.

“I heard what you said to Hannah,” I say
right away. I don’t want her to think I was eavesdropping. Or rather, I don’t
want to hide that I was.

“What I said to Hannah?”

“In her room a few minutes ago.” I toss a
chin in the direction of the baby monitor. “I keep the monitor so that I can
hear her if she needs me while I’m working out. I’d never hear her down here
otherwise.”

“Oh, that’s smart.”

“She’ll hate it when she’s a teenager. But
I guess she’ll make me pull it out of there long before then. Anyway, you said
all the right things to her. I owe you for that.”

“I’m glad I said something right. I was
kind of winging it. I couldn’t believe…” her voice trails a moment, as though
she’s not sure whether she should go there.

But
I
go there. “What her mother
said to her,” I finish for her. “Yeah, and that’s just the start of it. You can
see why I was practically doing cartwheels when Adriana told me that she didn’t
want Hannah living with her anymore. If I’d had any idea she would be such a
crap mother, I would have fought for sole custody when we got divorced.”

“Well, I don’t want to judge, but yeah, I
sure won’t disagree with you.”

“Is Connor asleep?”

“Out like a light. I think Hannah and the
pool wore him out. It’s nice to have a kid for him to play with.”

“Hannah’s asleep now, too.”

“How do you know?”

I lift a finger to my lips to silence her
and we listen. Hannah’s slow and steady breathing comes through the monitor. “She
doesn’t quite snore, but it’s just this side of it.” I rest my hand on her arm,
savoring the feel of her skin against mine. All evening, I’ve been aching to
touch her, to taste her. Unable to hold back any longer, I lean in towards her,
exulting in satisfaction when she moves her head instinctively toward mine. Taking
her, I steal her breath, my lips tracing lightly against hers, exploring their
texture, their silkiness, till her back arches, bringing her breasts closer to
me. As I feel her taut nipples beneath her shirt graze against my bare chest, I
lose any semblance of control. I devour her, plunging my tongue into her velvet
mouth, tasting the mix of wine and marshmallows.

My fingers fist into her hair, winding
themselves into the short, silky tresses as I tug her closer to me. So close,
yet still not close enough.

“I’m going to miss having you in my
home.” I know it’s too early to tell her that I want her and Connor to stay.
Good Lord, I’ve only known her a brief while and our relationship has barely
even started. But it’s what I feel in my gut. Not a decision of logic. Just
pure, basic instinct.

“I’ll miss being here. But the windows
are fixed, thanks to you. And Allie and Logan will be back. Plus, Logan texted
me that he had a security system installed in my place. He’s putting them in
all the townhomes.” She shakes her head, aggravated. “It’s ridiculous, and I
told him so. He won’t even let me pay for it. He says he should have done it a
long time ago, seeing as we are so far off the road. Total waste of money, if
you ask me.”

Thank you, dear brother, for diving on
that grenade for me.

“I think it’s a good idea. You can’t be
too cautious,” I say evasively.

Rolling her eyes, she lifts her leg to
straddle my bench and fully face me. “You Sheridans are all alike.”

“We are a little on the overly protective
side, yes,” I admit cautiously. “Listen, about that…”

“About what?”

“That overly protective side of me. I
can’t help wondering something. Connor’s dad…”

Those two words make Kim’s back
straighten sharply.

“…I’m sorry to ask you this, but I have
to. Is there any reason that he might have been the one to throw those stones?
I can’t get past the fact that only one townhome out of the five had broken
windows. Yours.”

She shakes her head adamantly. “That’s
just a coincidence. It had nothing to do with Connor’s father. Believe me.”

I want to. Desperately. “But there must
have been some bad blood between the two of you for him to stay completely out
of his son’s life. Is there any chance that he might have done this out of
spite or anger?”

“He doesn’t even know, Ryan.”

“What?”

“He doesn’t even know Connor exists.
Okay? So it wasn’t him.”

Inside, I feel myself relax at her words,
at the same time that her words seem to make new queries brew in my mind. Why
didn’t she tell him? I want to press for answers, but feel like I pushed her
enough tonight. There will be another time.

“Now please drop it,” she mutters, as
though she could see the questions forming in my eyes. “I’m more concerned with
what people at the office will say if they catch wind that I spent two nights
here,” she adds, slamming shut the topic of Connor’s dad for the night.

I nod slightly in acceptance. “They won’t
hear,” I assure her. “The kids will keep quiet.”

“I told Connor not to tell any of his
friends or else you’d have to invite other people over to enjoy your pool and
we’d have less time in it.” She presses her lips together. “I think that did
the trick. But it’s a small town.”

“A small town that is probably completely
distracted by the fact that there was actually an act of vandalism last night.
You made headlines in the paper.”

She snorts. “Finally the
Newton’s
Creek Dispatch
has a story that isn’t centered around bingo night at the
Lodge or how big Glen Barwell’s prize rutabaga is this year.”

“You know what they say about the size of
a man’s rutabaga.” I press a quick, encouraging kiss on her lips. “Besides,
people will figure out about us eventually.”

Her eyes widen. “I’m not ready to tell
people I’m seeing you. I just can’t be seen as the person who’s sleeping with
the boss. After this ends, I’ll still have to go on with my life.”

“We’ve been together a matter of days,
and you’re already talking about it ending?”

“Ryan, it won’t last. It can’t. I
just—I don’t do relationships. I’m a mom.”

“And I’m a dad. Isn’t that convenient
that we both have the same priorities?” I lightly stroke my palm along her bare
thigh to the bottom of her shorts, and watch the goose bumps pop up on her skin
in response.

“And I work for you,” she says again, as
though I might have forgotten.

I lean into her, tasting her, prying open
her lips with my tongue, and growl at the taste of her. With a smile, I pull
back. “Are you trying to get yourself fired? Because I happened to know another
employer who’d be thrilled to have you raising money for her animals.”

She giggles. “Definitely not.”

“Okay. Good. Then we’ll just resort to
sneaking around till I can change your mind. Because I’m not giving this up,
Kim.”

Her eyes meet mine and my breath holds,
hoping she won’t argue the point.

I slide my hands along her thighs, up to
her waistline, and then still further so that the pads of my thumbs barely
touch the sharp outline of her nipples. She shudders in response, moving her
hand to where I desperately need her touch. She cups my cock through the thin
fabric of my shorts and I groan in response.

Breathless, I pull my face an inch from
hers, my conscience, my sensibilities pulling me to a sharp halt.

“The kids—” she begins to say,
seeming to read my mind.

“—are both completely unconscious
by now,” I hear myself say even though it was far from what I intended. I can’t
do this with her. Not now. But even as my brain commands me to stop, my lips
are on her and my hands are sliding along her back as I pull her even closer to
me. She complies too easily—too eagerly—her tongue exploring me, and
her fingers raking against the contours of my muscles. She seems to be feasting
on every ripple, every curve. And when I move, flexing even the slightest bit,
she appears to be relishing the sensation of the tautness beneath her
fingertips.

I want her beneath me now. My heart
hammers inside of me, brain swirling in painful need. I can hear that Hannah is
sound asleep, but she’s not the only child in the house tonight. And Connor is
sleeping in a strange house. If he awakens, he’d naturally come search for his
mother.

If that thought can’t kill my raging
hard-on, I don’t know what will.

But damn it all, it doesn’t.

“We shouldn’t do this,” I force myself to
say.

She drops her head. “I know. You’re
right. We shouldn’t.”

I frown determinedly. “What are you doing
tomorrow night?”

“Allie is coming home. She said she
wanted a girls’ night with Cass and me. Logan agreed to take Connor out for
pizza.”

I suppress a smile, knowing full well why
Allie wants to see Kim and Cass so quickly after their plane touches down. She
has an engagement ring to show off.

“Later in the week, maybe?” she suggests.

“I’ll die if I don’t have you again
sooner than that.”

She laughs again, and I narrow my eyes on
her in response.

“That’s not an exaggeration,” I tell her,
emitting a long, heated breath. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to take
tomorrow off?”

Her eyes turn apologetic. “I can’t. I
don’t even have any vacation leave saved up yet.”

“I could make a call to—”

“God,
no
. You know you can’t do
that.”

“Lunch maybe?” I offer.

“What I’d like to do for lunch would take
a bit more than an hour,” she teases.

I raise my eyebrows. “Not necessarily.”

A grin spreads from her cheeks to her
eyes, and she tilts her head to the side. “Are you suggesting a quickie with
the boss on my lunch hour?”

“Only if that’s what
you’re
suggesting.”

“Absolutely not. At least not till the three-month
probationary period is behind me. What would it look like if I came back
completely disheveled and sweaty after a tumble in the back seat of your car?”
She lightly caresses my cheek. “Though I’ll keep that option open for later. It’s
kind of one of my bad girl fantasies.”

I suppress a chuckle, the words seeming
so inconsistent to the sweetness and innocence that defines Kim. But the image
is enough for my dick to start throbbing again.

“Oh, so you have some bad girl fantasies,
do you?” I ask, my hand moving from her waist, down to wear her legs are
parted, as she straddles my bench.