Swack.
Swish.
What was that flapping sound?
Angie didn’t want to stir, didn’t want to ever wake up, but the annoying sound wouldn’t go away. She cracked her eyes open and saw something big and white floating up in the wind, then smacking down against the side of a huge, red barn.
A barn that looked a lot like Toby’s.
Why was her bed in Toby’s backyard?
Wait. Whose pink-pony-covered pillow was wrapped in her arms?
And whose hand held her left breast? Whose fingers had tightened over her taut nipple?
“You feel good,” a sleep-graveled, baritone voice whispered against her ear.
Toby?
This wasn’t a dream, was it?
Swish. Swish. Splat.
Were those water droplets that just sprinkled her face?
“What the—” Toby shot up, and his hand left her breast. “Oh, hell. The sprinkler.”
Angie stared at Toby through wet lashes, fully awake now and trying to piece together why they’d been sleeping together outdoors, why he’d been holding her so intimately. But more water from a nearby sprinkler shot her in the face again, and Toby grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the house.
“We have to get this stuff inside. Everything’s going to get soaked.”
Angie, still dazed from her erotic sleep-induced bliss, didn’t take the time to decide whether Toby had been fully awake or dreaming. Instead she snapped out of it long enough to run for the movie projector, pull the hefty old machine off the relocated patio table and lug it, extension cord and all, inside the kitchen, trying to dodge the shooting sprays of water as she went.
She set the reels on the table, just as Toby dropped the first load of wet blankets on the kitchen floor.
“Why are you guys all wet?” Kylie asked, walking into the kitchen before Angie could process what had happened outside on the lawn.
Angie waited for Toby to answer because she didn’t think the words would form in her throat.
But a red flush on Toby’s face as he reached down for one of the damp pillows and placed it in front of his waist suggested that her hormones hadn’t been the only ones getting an early-morning workout.
She didn’t know whether to laugh at his discomfort or run out of the room in embarrassment because, whatever had just happened—sleep-induced or fully conscious—their friendship had just taken a tremendous turn in an unexpected direction.
Maybe it was best if she got out of here.
She was usually good with smooth exit strategies, but she couldn’t seem to get her brain to engage.
As much as she’d like to pretend this morning hadn’t happened, she hated to leave Toby to face the music alone. And judging from the pink tint blossoming underneath his stubble-covered cheeks, he didn’t quite know what to make of it, either.
“The sprinklers came on early this morning,” Toby mumbled, not dropping the pillow. “So Angie and I were trying to get all this stuff inside.”
“Why didn’t you bring it in last night?” Justin asked, making his way into the crowded kitchen, oblivious to the strong but awkward sexual attraction swirling in the room like a Texas dust cloud.
“Sweet,” Brian said, padding in to join them, his red hair sticking up on one side of his head. “You guys had a sleepover.”
Oh, great. That wasn’t going to look good in the social worker’s report—if one of the kids happened to mention Toby having a woman spend the night while the kids were home.
Angie reached up to smooth her own sleep-tousled hair.
Maybe she should tell the kids she’d been out for a morning jog and had decided to stop in for breakfast.
She glanced down at her bare feet. No, they were too smart to fall for that. She needed to nip this thing in the bud before everyone in town heard that she and Toby had slept together—which, technically, they had.
“It wasn’t really a sleepover,” she said. “I just dozed off while watching the movie.”
“Then can Mike Waddell kinda fall asleep over here next Saturday after our baseball game?” Brian asked.
The energy-drink kid? Angie could only imagine the hyperactivity that would come along with that night. But at least the focus was now off her.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Toby said, finally releasing the pillow.
“If Brian gets a sleepover, then can I have a slumber party?” Kylie asked.
“How many girls do you want to come to your slumber party?” Angie asked.
“My teacher said that, if we have a party, we have to invite everyone from the class so we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings. And we have twenty-three kids in our class. But I don’t want to invite Destiny Simmons because she told everyone my hair looks funny because I don’t have a mommy to do it right.”
That reminded Angie that Kylie needed a real mother figure, someone permanent. And not a fly-by-night female role model who’d nearly made love to a man outdoors in broad daylight, with three impressionable kids inside the house.
“Twenty-three kids?” Toby asked. “But that’s counting the boys, too. You can’t invite them to a girls’ slumber party.”
Kylie pointed at Angie. “But you had a girl over for a slumber party.”
The tiny red-haired cherub in the princess pajamas had brought the conversation full circle without missing a beat.
And just as quickly, Toby opened the pantry door and changed the topic. “Hey, guys. We need to get our chores done early today. Why don’t I make pancakes for breakfast? You can help me by setting the table and getting the juice out of the fridge.”
Smart move. New focus.
While the children were distracted with setting the table and getting the orange juice out of the refrigerator, Angie decided it was the perfect time to sneak out of here.
She was such a coward. But she was doing what she did best—leaving before things got uncomfortable again.
So she slipped out the back, quietly shutting the door. When she walked by the kitchen window, Toby spotted her and lifted his eyebrows.
She gestured, then mouthed, “I have to go.” It was a lame excuse, especially since she really had nowhere to go on a Saturday morning. But she couldn’t very well stay here and play house with Toby and the kids.
He nodded as if he understood. Yet guilt, embarrassment, fear and other emotions she hadn’t yet pegged all tumbled around in her throat,
