style="font-size:15px;"> “That’s not the impression I got when I mentioned it.”
Head dropped forward, hands on his hips, he stopped. He stared at his feet for a long moment, then lifted his gaze to her face. “Look—”
The ringing of the phone made him pause. He took two almost angry strides to the phone on the wall and picked it up. “Hello?”
Wynn tried to look like she wasn’t listening, but it was apparent he was speaking with a friend. The infamous husband to a famous novelist? The lady-killer Josh?
A lady-friend of his own?
She didn’t like that idea at all, and went about wiping off the table, closing up the dishwasher. Zack watched her as he spoke casually, saying, “Sure, I could use the company. That’ll work. All right, fifteen minutes.” He hung up.
Dani bounded into the room, a colorful picture held in one hand. “Who was it?”
Zack scooped her up and held her to his chest. “Mick and Josh are coming over. If you want to get your bath a little early, you’ll have time to visit before bed.”
Mick and Josh must be very special to Dani, Wynn assumed, given the way her sweet face lit up.
She leaned around Zack to see the picture. “Is that for me?”
Suddenly looking shy, Dani said, “Yeah,” and held it out. Zack looked at it first and chuckled. Then Wynn had it and she held it out, studying it.
Dani had drawn the two trees in the backyard, Wynn and her hammock. Wynn grinned when she saw that she and the trees were the same lofty height, and her hair was accurately portrayed as a tornado. “It’s beautiful, Dani.” She held the picture to her chest, curiously touched, and smiled. “I love it.”
Dani laid her head on Zack’s chest. “Really?”
With a strange lump in her throat, she nodded. “Really.” Wynn wished she could hold the little girl, too, that she could be the recipient of that adoring hug. She’d never thought much about kids before, but now she did, and an insidious yearning filled her. “May I keep it?” she asked, feeling overly emotional. “I’d like to put it on my refrigerator so everyone who visits me can see it, too.”
This pleased Dani a lot. “Okay.” And with a distinct lack of subtlety, the little girl added, “I could even visit you and see it sometime.”
One look at Zack told Wynn that he didn’t consider it a good idea. Tough, she thought. There was no way she’d hurt Dani’s feelings just because Zack had some strange hang-up about getting friendly with her.
Feeling defiant, she said, “I’d like that a lot.”
And on impulse, she leaned over and kissed Dani’s cheek. Zack reared back, well out of reach, but Wynn still felt the sizzle of being so close to him.
She told Dani goodbye, winked at Zack, and let herself out through the kitchen door.
The sun had almost completely set, leaving long shadows over the lawns. If she hoped to get her hammock up in time to enjoy it tonight, she’d have to get a move on. She went in her house first to retie her hair. It was forever in her face, making her nuts. She found her small box of tools and headed back out.
Fifteen minutes later, when she’d almost finished, she heard the car pull into Zack’s driveway. Curiosity got the better of her, and she peered toward the house. A floodlight mounted over Zack’s garage door lit the area. Wynn saw two men get out, both of them tall and handsome. One had dark coloring, like a fallen angel, and the other was a golden Adonis. Mick and Josh, she decided, and it was easy to figure out which was which.
Sheesh. Living next door to Zack-the-hunk would be hard enough without him having other impressive hunks over to distract her. She should have been immune to gorgeous men, considering she helped out at Conan’s gym and saw well-built muscular guys every day, often in nothing more than skimpy shorts and athletic shoes. But these three...what a visual variety!
The golden one looked up just as she started to turn away, and he kept looking. Busted! He knew she’d been eyeing him and no doubt knew why. His type—tall, sexy, well-built and handsome to boot—expected female adoration.
His companion turned, too, then propped his hands on his hips and did his own share of staring. Good Lord, her first day in her own house and she kept making a spectacle of herself.
Seeing no hope for it, Wynn summoned up a friendly and hopefully casual wave, which both men returned. The dark one looked merely polite and curious, but the other watched her with interest.
A second later Zack’s door opened and both men got yanked inside.
“GET AWAY FROM the damn window,” Zack growled.
Josh, still holding aside the café drape on the small window over the kitchen sink, peered over his shoulder at Zack. “Who is she?”
“Nobody. Just a neighbor.”
“She’s Wynn.” Dani, perched in royal splendor on Mick’s thigh, showed none of her father’s reservation. “She’s our new neighbor.”
Josh lifted a brow. “Is that right?”
“She had breakfast with us.” Dani smiled after that statement.
Mick shared a look with Josh. “Breakfast, huh?”
Zack threw ice into three glasses. “Quit jumping to conclusions. She woke me up this morning, that’s all.”
Josh dropped the curtain and turned. “Long, tall and sexy got you out of bed, and you say that’s all?”
Mick choked on a laugh.
Zack, after casting a quick glance at his daughter, scowled. Luckily Dani was busy singing and drawing Mick a picture, which Mick pretended to attend to when actually Zack knew he was soaking up every word. “It’s not like that!” He caught himself, shocked at his own vehemence, and explained more calmly, “She and her brother were making a racket moving in. When she realized she’d awakened us, she brought over coffee and some muffins.”
“Nice neighbor,” Josh muttered, and turned back to the window.
“She had pizza with us, too, and I drawed her a picture.”
“Drew her a picture,” Zack automatically corrected, and realized his daughter had been all ears after all. When she looked up at him, he thought to add, “A beautiful picture, honey.”
She held up her newest endeavor. “This one is, too.”
Mick leaned back to see it, pretending to dump Dani, which made her squeal. “It’s incredibly beautiful,” he confirmed. He hugged her close and kissed her cheek.
Zack shook his head. His daughter had more than her fair share of male role models. Now she needed a female role model—preferably one who wasn’t loud and pushy and too damn big.
