SEALed With a Kiss: Even a Hero Needs Help Sometimes... (3 page)

Just like that, Pickett made up her mind. If there was any place on earth it was acceptable for a stranger to casually walk up and start talking, it was on a beach.

Quickly, she stepped out of her low-heeled pumps, stripped off her stockings, and started down the steps.

Maybe this day was looking up, Jax thought, watching the shapely woman skip down the steps of the cottage next door. Unless the hurricane struck ahead of schedule, it sure couldn't get much worse.

Monumentally bored from inactivity, more frustrated by Tyler's refusal to play than he cared to admit, he'd watched her watching them from the deck of the cottage next door. He couldn't help but grin at the still intensity with which she studied them. It said she was interested. Very interested.

It wasn't a novel experience for Lt. Jackson Graham, U.S. Navy SEAL, to catch the eye of a pretty woman, though if he met one on the beach, he'd prefer she be in a bikini. He watched
her,
however, because right now any distraction, even a fully dressed one, from the hopeless task of doing quality time with Tyler was welcome.

When she reached the base of the steps, she waved and turned his way. His lungs expanded with what felt like the first satisfaction in days. He tilted his head, riding a wave of masculine calculation.
O-o-o-h yeah.
She was going to come to
him.

Pickett might dither, but once she made up her mind, she didn't look back.

It would be child's play—literally!—for her to establish rapport with the boy herself, but that wasn't what she wanted. How to get him to do so with his father without seeming to, that was the challenge.

The soft sand near the dunes was warm on top and cool underneath, a sensation Pickett relished with her bare feet. The breeze, stronger near the water, snatched locks of gold hair from the clasp at the nape of her neck, and caused the legs of her beige slacks to snap and flutter. She let her mind turn over strategies for approaching the pair.

The little boy's body language said he felt something was wrong, something he was helpless to fix. Okay. She would confirm for him that something
was
wrong, but make it completely external to him. Then she would offer him some action to take to make it right. Boys his age still engaged in parallel rather than interactive play, one reason the kite and ball hadn't worked well; so if she had to, she would just plain
tell
the father to play beside him.

The man rose from the sand in one smooth motion. His welcoming smile was confident, bordering on arrogant, and just for a second Pickett wondered what on earth she had gotten herself into.

Of only average height or maybe a little taller, he nevertheless seemed to command the entire beach as if it, or maybe the whole world, were his.

Suddenly she could feel the heaviness of her breasts and the way the wind pressed the red silk of her blouse against them. The heavier silk of her slacks moved in a sensuous slide, outlining then fluttering around her legs.

The salt breeze carried the scent of his sun-warmed skin overlaid with coconut oil sunscreen, and she inhaled reflexively. She ignored the way her heart was beating much too hard and told herself to get a grip. Working at a Marine base, Pickett dealt with well-built, thoroughly masculine men all the time. How different could this one be? Resolutely she held her hair out of her eyes with her left hand, and thrust out her right.

"Hey." She infused her tone with a combination of friendliness and authority. "I'm Pickett Sessoms. I noticed y'all from the deck of the Howells' cottage. I thought I should warn you two that both of you are wasting that sand over there," she indicated the strip of firm sand beyond the reach of the breakers, "and that's wrong. In fact, it's a crime."

Jax's smile broadened at her cheerfully imperious tone. As a pickup line, it was a little thin, but he'd give her points for originality. He still wished for the bikini, but he would settle for shorts. Nobody needed to be that formally dressed on a beach.

Her hand in his was slightly cool, tiny, and soft. So soft. She was tiny all over. He wondered if she was this soft all over.

"I'm Jax Graham. This is my son, Tyler. Stand up, son," he added in gentle command. "You don't sit when a lady is standing."

Tyler scrambled to his feet grudgingly, then stood head down, rolling a car up and down his chest.
Typical.
Would a good father prompt him to speak? How the hell was he supposed to know?

The woman was tugging on her hand. He released her and slid his sunglasses off so he could look directly into her eyes. "We've been committing a crime, huh? Are you going to arrest us?"

"Nope." A tiny dimple dotted the corner of her mouth, though she continued to pretend to be stern. "I'm going to let you off with a warning this time."

Pickett bent down to look at Tyler's face—not easy, as he kept his head down. "Besides," she added with soft compassion,
"you
didn't mean to do anything wrong, did you?" Tyler shook his head and sidled closer to his father. "That's okay then."

Still speaking to the child, she went on. "If you and your daddy work together, there'll be time before the tide comes back in to build a sand castle, and then you wouldn't be wasting the beach. Have you ever built a castle in the sand?"

Tyler shrugged. Then, as he realized she was going to wait for a reply, he raised his gray crystal eyes, so like his father's, to her face. "Maybe. When I was little."

Pickett straightened and transferred her attention to Jax. "How about you? Have you ever built a sand castle?"

Wow. A couple of sentences and she had the kid talking to her. Whatever she was doing worked. If she wanted to concentrate on charming Tyler, he'd play along. "Maybe," he drawled, loading his tone with innuendo. "When I was little."

"Good!" The perfect bow of her lips primmed in a smile of officious satisfaction. "If the two of you get right to work, you can fix your problem with the sand."

Suddenly her mouth opened in a cartoon "O" of horror. She smacked her forehead. "Oh no! What was I thinking? You
can't
build a sand castle! You don't have a
dump truck."

"Nuh-uhn!" Tyler scooped a toy truck from the sand at his feet. "I have a dump truck! See?"

Pickett's huge sigh of relief made it clear they'd had an extremely narrow escape. "That is so lucky," she deadpanned. "I don't suppose you have a sand pail and shovel, though."

Tyler smiled. His too-thin cheeks grew pink and his gray eyes glittered with little-boy enthusiasm. "I do! Gan-gan got me one. I'll go get it." Heels flying, he raced for the steps up to the cottage.

Deep inside Jax a knot—an agonizing twist he'd lived with so long it didn't feel like pain anymore—loosened.

Stunned, not sure what he'd witnessed, Jax turned to the woman who had changed everything. Unaware of his scrutiny, she was watching his son climb as fast as his skinny little legs would carry him. Intelligence sparkled in her ocean-colored eyes. Lips pursed, cheeks bunched, she looked like a woman delighted with a job well done.

Was he an ass or what? She hadn't come down those steps to flirt with him. At all. He registered the tiny prick to his ego, while true regret that he might've met her at the wrong time and in the wrong place grew.

He had the oddest feeling that he was just now, for the first time, seeing what she really looked like.

She was more wholesome-looking than pretty, her coral-tinged cheeks free of makeup. The wind, having freed her curls from the tortoiseshell clasp at her nape, was busy whipping them into a golden froth. Though a trained observer like himself couldn't miss the tiny waist, or full breasts, in a flash of insight he saw that those too-serious clothes had been chosen to conceal her charms more than complement them.

She turned to him now, one golden eyebrow lifted in a smile that invited him to share the triumph.

In a voice gone scratchy with wonder, he said, "Who
are
you, lady? I've been trying for three days to get that kid to smile. What the hell did you just do?"

Tyler had withdrawn again by the time he returned, bumping the yellow plastic pail against his knee. "Now, you have to look for the perfect spot," Pickett told Tyler with calm, kind authority "You need sand that's wet, but not too close to the breakers."

"Here?" Tyler asked with that little quaver in his voice that sliced off a piece of Jax's soul.

"I don't know." Pickett tapped her cheek with a forefinger. "Look around some more. You'll know it when you find it."

Tyler moved a few feet. "Here?"

Pickett waggled a hand. "Maybe. Does it look right to you?"

Tyler looked around. Really looked. Jax could almost see the shell Tyler had pulled around himself open to let in color and light and texture. "I see it! Over there!" Knees and arms flying, kicking up little spurts of sand, the little boy raced to another spot.

"All right." Pickett's coral lips moved in a secret smile. "If you're sure."

Tyler jerked his little chin. "Right here."

"In that case, you've got a castle to build. Get to work." Jax was so engrossed watching her maneuver Tyler into claiming the project for his own, he almost missed the look she aimed at
him.
It said: "get to work" means
you
!