Four

Forward much, Tess? Just last week she’d sworn she didn’t care if she ever had another relationship or not and now she was in full flirt mode and inviting Carter over for dinner. Was it even appropriate to hit on a widower? Was that skeevy somehow? She had no idea what the etiquette was. Too late to worry about it now.

The weather was nice enough to eat outside, and she’d settled on hotdogs and macaroni salad for Jenny and Jane, and steaks, corn on the cob, and fresh fruit she’d gotten from the local farmers’ market that morning. The corn might not have been the best idea. She doubted she’d look very ladylike while eating it, but it was delicious grilled on the barbeque. Besides, Tess didn’t like to play games. She was who she was. Period. Anyone who wanted to spend time with her could either accept her or find someone else.

Obviously, Jared hadn’t wanted Tess for who she was. Otherwise he wouldn’t have taken her best friend to bed.

She really needed to stop dwelling on a relationship that was over and done with. Jared was her past and Tess only wanted to look ahead to her future. She couldn’t help but wonder if that future included Carter Christensen.

His contractor had shown up earlier in the morning to inspect the barn. It showed the sort of clout Carter carried that he could make a phone call and have someone drive down from Dallas the next morning. The barn was deemed sturdier than Tess had originally thought but until she could put a little money into shoring it up, the contractor suggested that it should stay off limits for the time being.

The girls had been upset when Tess gave them the news, but their dad promised to let them use the attic space in their house for a fort until he could build a treehouse in the large oak in the backyard. Before the contractor left, she spied Carter signing some paperwork on a clipboard. If she’d had to guess, the girls would have their treehouse before the end of summer.

“Are we too early?”

Tess turned and her stomach flipped at the sound of his deep, velvety voice.

The girls raced up onto the porch ahead of Carter, and her breath caught in her chest. How could anyone be so drop-dead gorgeous without even trying? He wore a pair of trendy jeans with his signature Chucks and a casual button-up with the sleeves rolled to show off the impressive definition of his muscular forearms. His hair was still damp from a shower and brushed his brow in a careless way that once again made Tess itch to reach out and touch.

“Not too early at all,” she said with a smile. She swallowed down the butterflies that threatened to fly right up her throat and turned to the girls. “Hope you guys like hotdogs and macaroni salad.”

“Hot dogs, hot dogs!” the chanted in unison. Jane added, “Can we have ice cream too?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Jenny bounced on the balls of her feet. “Ice cream!”

“You know you guys,” Carter said “not everyone has ice cream sitting around in their freezer.”

“That’s probably true,” Tess said with a wink. “But I’m not one of those people. Dinner first, and then ice cream. Or maybe s’mores. How does that sound?”

“You act as though they have a choice in the matter,” Carter said with a laugh. “Dinner first. Dessert later. Period.”

The girls frowned at their dad, but they didn’t seem shocked at the mandate.

“I got you guys a surprise,” Tess said.

Their little six-year-old eyes lit up and expectant smiles stretched across their faces. They were almost too cute for words, and for a minute Tess just stared. The sun itself shone in their expressions.

Tess went into the kitchen and retrieved a bag from the counter. She stepped back out on the patio and caught Carter’s gaze trained on her. She tried to ignore the intensity of his stare and the way it heated her body almost to the boiling point as she dug out two boxes with Barbies inside. She held them out to the girls. Their tiny brows drew in over their eyes and they looked at each other and then Tess as though they’d never seen a Barbie in their entire lives. She set them down on the picnic table with a nervous laugh. Good thing she had a backup plan.

“You can play with those later if you want. In the meantime, maybe you’d rather play with these?” She pulled two small soccer balls from the bag. They each snatched a ball from her waiting hands and ran out into the yard. In no time, they were kicking the balls around the back lawn like a couple of pros.

Carter continued to watch her, and Tess gave a nervous laugh. “Something told me they might not be Barbie girls.”

Carter cringed. “It’s sort of telling, isn’t it?”

“What?”

Carter’s expression saddened and the intensity of that emotion sliced through Tess like a blade. “That they’re a couple of wild tomboys and probably won’t ever have a girly bone in their bodies thanks to me.”

Tess narrowed her gaze. How could he possibly beat himself up over some antiquated notion of what girls were supposed to like? “Carter, you do realize how ridiculous you sound, right?”

His gaze snapped up to meet hers. She guessed not a lot of people called him out on his shit. “What do you mean?”

Tess rolled her eyes and flashed a piteous grin. “It’s not because you’re a single dad that they don’t like Barbies. If I had to guess, Jenny and Jane have always been active girls who like outside play. Did you play with a G.I. Joe or sit on the couch playing video games when you were their age? Or were you outside throwing or kicking something?”

His gaze remained steady as he contemplated her words. “I was an outside kid,” he replied after a moment. “Always.”

Tess gave him a soft smile. “They were probably born with the sports gene.”

“Do you like games, Tess? Or you a sit-on-the-couch sort of woman?”

Tess swallowed down the wave of lust that rose hot in her throat. It was downright criminal to have such dirty thoughts about a single dad. “Depends on who I’m on the couch with.”

Carter’s gaze warmed. His full lips parted and Tess held her breath as she waited for his next words.

“Dad! Come play with us!”

“Yeah, daddy! Come on!”

The spell was broken as Jenny and Jane called out to their dad to join them. Carter flashed an apologetic smile as he hustled down the stairs toward the lawn. In a graceful maneuver that boggled the mind, he swept the ball away from Jane’s feet and juggled it between his feet as he raced toward Jenny at the far end of the yard. Tess released her breath in a whoosh of air.

Wow. What would it be like to be a part of Carter Christensen’s life?

*   *   *

Dinner was great but honestly, Tess could have served him a steaming cow pie and Carter would have thought it was amazing. She’d known Jenny and Jane for less than a week and already realized that they’d rather play with a soccer ball than a Barbie doll. The girls already loved her, and his own infatuation with his next-door neighbor was steadily growing. Tess was smart, beautiful, laid back. She could barbeque a steak like a pro and served up Blue Moon IPA complete with the orange slice. And instead of calling it a night after the sun had set, she’d started a fire in the fire pit down by the lake and broke out all of the stuff for the girls to make s’mores. She was almost too good to be true.

“So, what made you want to leave New York for a run-down house in tiny Nacogdoches?”

“A cheating son of a bitch ex-boyfriend,” Tess replied. She popped a marshmallow onto the end of a sharpened willow branch and lowered it to the glowing embers of the fire. “He thought it was okay to sleep with my best friend, and I wasn’t so much on board with that.”

Carter couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to cheat on a woman like Tess. Her ex was obviously an idiot.

“Dad, we’re out of graham crackers,” Jane said.