Juliette had disappeared—to the kitchen, Claire presumed—she said in a low voice, “I don’t mean to intrude—”
“It’s okay,” he muttered through a jaw that redefined tight. “Jules likes to cook, but it’s mostly lost on her brothers and sister.” His eyes dropped to the little girl clinging to him like a baby monkey, his expression softening. Sort of. “Can’t get this one to eat eggs for anything.”
“Because eggs are gross,” Bella said, making a face exactly like her father’s, and it was everything Claire could do not to laugh. Then the little one leaned back, frowning into her father’s eyes. “And could you please tell Harry an’ Finn to stop calling me a baby. It hurts my feelings.”
Ethan frowned back. “Then you have to promise to stay out of their room. You know it bugs them when you go in there.”
“But I want to see Spot!”
“You can see Spot when he’s out in his ball.”
“But they never take him out anymore!”
“Okay. I’ll talk to them, see if we can arrange visitation. Deal?”
After a second, the little girl pushed out a long sigh. “Deal.”
“Good.” Ethan set her down, cupping her head for a moment before she took off to another part of the house, sparkly sneakers flashing as she ran. He watched her for a moment, then turned back to Claire, muttering, “I’ll take eighty hormone-crazed teenage boys over one six-year-old girl, any day.”
Wait. Were her ears deceiving her, or was that Ethan Noble making a funny? Well, hell.
“So who’s Spot?” she asked when she found her voice again.
“A hamster. The boys named him. So...you ran into Jules?”
“At that estate sale, yeah. I bought a lamp. She bought...a lot more.”
One side of his mouth lifted. More chagrin than grin, though. “Sounds about right.”
“She’s really good at the eBay thing?”
“She really is.” He paused, the faint glow in his blue eyes dimming. “Exactly like her mother. I gave Jules fifty bucks seed money. I’ve lost count of how many times she’s multiplied it since them. Kid has a real head for business.” Pride glowed through his words, if not on his face, and Claire felt a slight...ping. Of what, she wasn’t sure.
“Then she has choices about what to do with her life,” Claire said, and Ethan’s brow furrowed. “If she’s serious about an acting career—”
“Not happening,” he said, effectively ending the discussion. But although something in Claire prickled at the dismissal, this was not her battle to fight. Especially since Juliette could easily change her mind a dozen times between now and graduation.
So she smiled and changed the subject. “Mmm...breakfast smells great, doesn’t it—?”
“Just so you know,” Ethan said, his eyes locked on her face, “my daughter’s on a mission.”
Now Claire frowned. “What kind of mission?”
“To get herself a stepmother.”
An idea with which, judging from his expression, Ethan was not even remotely on board.
Which was fine with Claire, since that was one role she wasn’t even inclined to audition for.
* * *
Ethan’s brows dipped when Claire clamped a hand over her mouth to, apparently, stifle a laugh.
“And you seriously think,” she whispered after she lowered her hand, “that’s why she invited me to breakfast?”
“Odds are,” Ethan said, not sharing Claire’s merriment. “You’d be the—let’s see—third woman in the past six months she’s tried to throw in my path.”
This time, a piece of that laugh broke loose to float in his direction, and Ethan felt his shoulders tense. That laugh... It’d been his introduction to the woman before he’d even seen her, during prep week back in late August. A sound far too low and gutsy to come out of someone so small, he remembered thinking when they’d finally met, and her smile had arrowed into him hard enough to make him flinch, her handshake as firm as any man’s. Now he literally stepped aside in a lame attempt to dodge that laugh. Not to mention the grin. Although there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to avoid the deep brown eyes. Except look away, he supposed. But that would be rude.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s not funny for you,” she said, but not as if she really meant it. Then she shook her head, making all those curls quiver.
Those curls drove him nuts. Shiny. Soft. Bouncy—
No.
She grinned. “And here I thought we were bonding over a mutual love of the theater.”
Ethan bristled. Yeah. That. Or rather, that, too. Then again, knowing Jules, the stagestruck phase would in all likelihood go the way of the photography phase and the piano phase and a dozen other phases he didn’t even half remember anymore. This matchmaking thing, though, was something else again. He resisted the temptation to massage his knee, acting up despite his telling it not to. He loved Jersey, Jersey was home, but the damp weather sucked.
“Afraid not.”
Something like sympathy shone in her eyes, and he bristled again. After three years, you’d think the pity wouldn’t bother him anymore. “Then why’d you invite me to stay for breakfast?”
“I didn’t. Jules did.”
“But...”
“I didn’t want to come across like some hard-ass, okay?”
Her mouth curved. No lipstick. Or any other makeup that Ethan could tell. Not that she needed it, with her dark brows and lashes—
Yeah, it bugged him, bugged him like hell, this dumb physical attraction to the woman. Because he had no business being attracted to anybody right now, especially some cute little bouncy-haired drama teacher who was obviously feeding his way-too-impressionable daughter a load of bull. Man, Juliette’s constant yammering about the woman was about to drive him up the wall. Even though he knew this was only a crush—although considering how many of the teachers at Hoover were barely younger than the school’s namesake, he could hardly blame her.
Any more than he could blame himself, he supposed, for the not-so-little pings and dings and buzzings when Claire was around. He thought he’d buried his libido with his wife. Clearly not.
And this despite her dressing crazier than the kids. Take today, for instance—a sweater that came practically to her knees, the ugliest, puffiest vest on God’s green earth, boots that looked like Chewbacca’s feet. Three pairs of earrings. Granted, all tiny, but...
“Honestly, I had no idea the kid had an ulterior motive,” Claire was saying. “Nor would I have gone along with her nefarious plan if
