breath stalled.
Missy. Missy Johnson. Prettiest girl in his high school. Granddaughter of his gram’s next-door neighbor. The girl he’d coached through remedial algebra just for the chance to sit close to her.
“Owen! Honey? Where are you?”
Soft and melodious, her sweet voice went through Wyatt like the first breeze of spring.
He glanced down at the kid. “I take it you’re Owen.”
The little boy grinned up at him.
The hedge shuffled a bit and suddenly there she stood, her long yellow hair caught in a ponytail.
In the past fifteen years, he’d changed everything about himself, while she looked to have been frozen in time. Her blue-gray eyes sparkled beneath thick black lashes. Her full lips bowed upward as naturally as breathing. Her peaches and cream complexion glowed like a teenager’s even though she was thirty-three. A blue T-shirt and jeans shorts accented her small waist and round hips. The legs below her shorts were as perfect as they’d been when she was cheering for the Newland High football team.
Memories made his blood rush hot through his veins. They’d gotten to know each other because their grandmothers were next-door neighbors. And though she was prom queen, homecoming queen, snowball queen and head cheerleader and he was the king of the geeks, he’d wanted to kiss her from the time he was twelve.
Man, he’d had a crush on her.
She gave him a dubious look. “Can I help you?”
She didn’t know who he was?
He grinned. That was priceless. Perfect.
“You don’t remember me?”
“Should I?”
“Well, I was the reason you passed remedial algebra.”
Her eyes narrowed. She pondered for a second. Then she gasped. “Wyatt?”
He rocked back on his heels with a chuckle. “In the flesh.”
Her gaze fell to his black leather jacket and jeans, as well as the black helmet he held under his arm.
She frowned, as if unable to reconcile the sexy rebel he now dressed like with the geek she knew in high school. “Wyatt?”
Taking off his sunglasses so she could get a better look at his face, he laughed. “I’ve sort of changed.”
She gave him another quick once-over and everything inside of Wyatt responded. As if he were still the teenager with the monster crush on her, his gut tightened. His rushing blood heated to boiling. His natural instinct to pounce flared.
Then he glanced down at the little boy.
And back at Missy. “Yours?”
She ruffled Owen’s spiky hair. “Yep.”
“Mom! Mom!” A little blond girl ran over. Tapping on Missy’s knee, she whined, “Lainie hit me.”
A dark-haired little girl raced up behind her. “Did not!”
Wyatt’s eyebrows rose. Three kids?
Missy met his gaze. “These are my kids, Owen, Helaina and Claire.” She tapped each child’s head affectionately. “They’re triplets.”
Had he been chewing gum, he would have swallowed it. “Triplets?”
She ruffled Owen’s hair fondly. “Yep.”
Oh, man.
“You and your husband must be so…” terrified, overworked, tired “…proud.”
Missy Johnson Brooks turned all three kids in the direction of the house. “Go inside. I’ll be in in a second to make lunch.” Then she faced the tall, gorgeous guy across the hedge.
Wyatt McKenzie was about the best looking man she’d ever seen in real life. With his supershort black hair cut so close it looked more like a shadow on his head than hair, plus his broad shoulders and watchful brown eyes, he literally rivaled the men in movies.
Her heart rattled in her chest as she tried to pull herself together. It wasn’t just weird to see Wyatt McKenzie all grown up and sexy. He brought back some memories she would have preferred stay locked away.
Shielding her eyes from the noonday sun, she said, “My husband and I are divorced.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “That’s okay. How about you?”
His face twisted. “Divorced, too.”
His formerly squeaky voice was low and deep, so sexy that her breathing stuttered and heat coiled through her middle.
She stifled the urge to gasp. Surely she wasn’t going to let herself be attracted to him? She’d already gone that route with a man. Starry-eyed and trusting, she’d married a gorgeous guy who made her pulse race, and a few years later found herself deserted with three kids. Oh, yeah. She’d learned that lesson and didn’t care to repeat it.
She cleared her throat. “I heard a rumor that you got superrich once you left here.”
“I did. I write comic books.”
“And you make that much money drawing?”
“Well, drawing, writing scripts…” His sexy smile grew. “And owning the company.”
She gaped at him, but inside she couldn’t stop a swoon. If he’d smiled at her like that in high school she probably would have fainted. Thank God she was older and wiser and knew how to resist a perfect smile. “You own a company?”
“And here I thought the gossip mill in Newland was incredibly efficient.”
“It probably is. In the past few years I haven’t had time to pay much attention.”
He glanced at the kids. One by one they’d ambled back to the hedge and over to her, where they currently hung around her knees. “I can see that.”
Slowly, carefully, she raised her gaze to meet his. He wasn’t the only one who had changed since high school. She might not be rich but she had done some things. She wasn’t just raising triplets; she also had some big-time money possibilities. “I own a company, too.”
His grin returned. Her face heated. Her heart did something that felt like a somersault.
“Really?”
She looked away. She couldn’t believe she was so attracted to him. Then she remembered that Wyatt was somebody special. Deep down inside he had been a nice guy, and maybe he still was underneath all that leather. But that only heightened her unease. If he wasn’t, she didn’t want her memories of the one honest, sweet guy in her life tainted by this sexy stranger. Worse, she didn’t want him discovering too much about her past.
