After wiping her hands on a dish towel, Erica turned and said, “You missed your calling, Kieran. You should have been a teacher.”
He looked up from the book and trained his dark eyes on hers. “No thanks. I’m better with weights.”
“And I’m finished,” Stormy said, then sat back and sighed. “If Mom would’ve helped me, we would’ve been sitting here until midnight.”
Erica playfully slapped Stormy’s arm with the towel and then checked the clock on the wall. “Time to wash up for dinner since the pizza should be here any minute. But first, you need to thank Mr. O’Brien.”
“Thanks, Kieran,” she said, as if she had the right to call him by his given name.
He pushed back from the table and stood. “No problem, Stormy. Good luck on the quiz.”
“I’m sure I can pass it now,” Stormy replied with clear confidence, topped off with a look of gratitude aimed at her new hero. “I’ll let you know how I did when I come with Mom to the gym.”
Unable to voice a response, at least not one that her daughter would care to hear, Erica ushered Kieran back into the den and once there, he paused at the shelves beside the fireplace to study a framed photo taken during her gymnast days. A picture depicting a much, much thinner version of herself. “That was my senior year in high school,” she said, feeling somewhat self-conscious. “I competed for a year in college before I got pregnant with Stormy.”
He turned his attention from the photo to her. “You were young when you had her.”
“Barely twenty,” she said. And ill-prepared for Stormy’s congenital heart defect, the reason she and Jeff had moved to Houston—to be closer to her doctors. She briefly wondered if Stormy had mentioned the condition to Kieran, then decided she probably hadn’t. Out of respect for her daughter, who wanted badly to be viewed as perfectly normal, she wouldn’t mention it, either. “I married the summer after I graduated high school, in case you’re like most people and believe the baby came before the nuptials.”
“My sister married young and she wasn’t pregnant, either,” he said. “Unfortunately, her marriage didn’t last long.”
“Mine didn’t, either.” Through no fault of her own. “My husband died in an industrial accident when Stormy was four.”
“She mentioned that,” Kieran said as he glanced at the picture of Jeff set out not too far away. “I’m sorry.”
So was Erica. Sorry that she’d had so little time to know her husband. Sorry that her daughter had had even less time to know her father. “Sometimes things happen we can’t control.”
He streaked a hand over the back of his neck. “Guess you’re right, but it’s still got to be tough to deal with.”
Erica decided to move past the sad subject. “Anyway, I intended to teach gymnastics after college. Circumstances forced me to find a more lucrative way to make a living, which is how I ended up as a massage therapist.” A decision she had made in the two-year delay in receiving Jeff’s employer’s minimal settlement, most of which had gone to pay off Stormy’s astronomical medical bills that weren’t covered after Jeff’s death.
Kieran replaced the photo and said, “Can you still do back flips?”
Erica smiled in response to his winning grin. “Only if I want to hurt something vital.”
“After I’m done with you, you’ll be able to tumble again.”
She only planned to tumble into bed—alone—as she did every night. “Don’t count on me doing even a simple cartwheel.”
“Then you’re going to go through with the training?”
Oh, he was good. “I didn’t say that.”
“But you haven’t ruled it out yet.”
“Not yet. Obviously I haven’t been able to lose the extra pounds on my own. And believe me, I’ve gained more than a few extra pounds.” As if he hadn’t noticed that in spite of her loose clothing.
“Some weight gain is understandable,” he said. “You’re not sixteen anymore. Body weight increases with age.”
Her body had expanded more than she’d thought possible, and on a five-foot, two-inch frame, it wasn’t pretty. “That’s true, but come to think of it, I doubt a few training sessions will make all that much of a difference.”
“A couple hours a day, five days a week, will get noticeable results.”
She did a quick mental calculation. “You’d have to be darn good to whip me into shape in five sessions.”
“That’s for an entire month, which means at least twenty sessions. And I am good.” He said it with all the assurance of a man who had no qualms about selling his skills, and not necessarily those limited to the fitness field. “But a lot will depend on your commitment after we’re finished working together. I’d be willing to throw in a six-month membership at one of my clubs.”
Erica would rather drink salt doused with vinegar than walk into a room full of nubile young women. “I’m not overly fond of gyms these days.”
“The sessions will have to take place at the gym.” He took a quick glance around the small den. “Unless you have your own equipment around here somewhere.”
She had a stationary bicycle gathering dust in the garage, but that was the extent of her equipment. “No, I don’t. But I really hate the thought of working out with a bunch of people looking on.”
“That’s not a problem,” he said. “I have my own fully equipped, private area that I’d be glad to let you use until you’re more comfortable.”
“How convenient.” Both for him and all the other women he’d probably enticed into an intimate workout. Erica could just imagine it now—a few free weights, a few minutes on the rowing machine, a lot of cardio under the supervision of a guy who probably had the means to send a heart rate to maximum level in minimal time. The vision bouncing around in her head gave a whole new meaning to the term push-ups.
Shaking the unwelcome fantasy away, she said, “I’m still not ready to agree to this.”
Oddly, he looked almost disappointed. “Suit yourself, but you’re missing a prime opportunity. I don’t make this offer to just anyone.”
“You’re doing it for my child, remember?”
“Yeah, but I see potential in you.” He raked his gaze down her body again—slowly. “A lot of potential, if you have the guts to see this through.”
The challenge in his sexy voice and seductive eyes made her want to twitch and throw herself at him like some crazed hormonal harpy.
Erica led him out of the den and strode to the door, holding it open before she agreed for all the wrong reasons. “Tell you what. I’ll let you know in a few days.”
“Don’t take too long,” he said as he stepped onto the porch. “I’ve got a business to run and
