I offered a smile to placate her and answered, “Maybe one day, just not today, all right?”
She smiled reassuringly, letting me know the subject was dropped. “Okay.”
The rest of the day went off without any problems…well, except for the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking of my earlier conversation with Lizzy. And I couldn’t seem to keep my gaze from darting over to the man in question.
Brett Halstead, or as I’d begun to think of him since he started working on Lizzy’s expansion a week and a half ago, Mr. Hotty in a Tool Belt. HTB for short. The full nickname was too much of a mouthful.
If I had been honest with Lizzy, I would have admitted that yes, I was, in fact, extremely attracted to Brett. But admitting that to her, let alone aloud would have led to a panic attack, and I’d blessedly been without one of those crippling attacks for months. I didn’t want that to change.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that getting involved with another man made me want to run screaming for the hills, I couldn’t get my mind off of Mr. HTB in all his sexy, rugged glory.
Since he started construction on Lizzy’s salon, every waking moment seemed to have been dedicated thinking about him. The previous night, he’d oh so stealthily snuck his way into my dreams where the images of what he could do with those amazingly strong hands of his woke me up in a panting, sweaty mess. The dream had been so damn vivid. His brown hair tousled from my fingers running through it, his warm brown eyes staring into mine, that delicious stubble that always graced his cheeks rubbing against my skin, that hard, tight body pressed against me…
GAH! Get a hold of yourself, Kenz!
A spontaneous orgasm in the work place was not ideal, especially with the star of all my fantasies only a few feet away.
And all of this was without the two of us having spoken a word to each other! Knowing he’d been asking Lizzy about me, and that he was interested sent me into a tailspin.
I needed to get my shit together. And fast.
There was no place for a man in my life. I neither wanted nor needed one. I had no doubt Brett was a nice guy, but it became evident to me from a very early age that something about me brought out the worst in the men in my life. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that if I stupidly allowed something to come of me and Brett, I’d turn him from a good, kind man into a mean, hateful bastard in no time.
It was a gift. My very own special brand of fucked-up.
I wouldn’t allow myself or my children to be hurt again.
I also refused to allow a good man to be sucked down into my vortex of drama, only to come out worse for wear. It was best to just ignore our supposed mutual attraction and go about my new life as I had been.
I was making the smart choice—the right choice—for once in my life.
I pushed through the door of the daycare, silently counting down the seconds until I could get home, cook dinner, bathe my rugrats, put them to bed, and collapse on the couch for an hour or two of mindless TV before I finally crashed myself. Doing people’s nails for a living wasn’t the most strenuous job on the planet, but sitting hunched over for ten hours a day then having to wrangle two toddler tornados for hours on end, day after day, still left me exhausted.
“Hey, Ms. Webster. You have a good day?”
I looked up to see Lori, the daycare director, sitting at the front desk with a pleasant smile on her face.
“Hey there, Lori. It was good, how was yours?”
“Good, good. Just one more day closer to the weekend.”
I let out a small giggle as I hit the touch screen in front of me and began checking my kids out for the day. “Preaching to the choir, girl. I’m counting down the seconds until my next day off.”
“Any big plans?”
“Other than sleeping later than seven a.m.? Not one.”
We exchanged goodbyes before I headed down the hall to my kids’ classroom.
Peeking through the tiny window in the door, I took a second to watch Cameron and Callie before pushing it open and making myself known.
“Hi, Ms. Webster.”
I looked to the side to see their teacher, a pretty high school senior, wringing her hands in front of her.
“Hey, Megan, what’s up?”
“Well…we, um, had some…issues today with Cameron and Callie.”
Not good.
“What happened?”
Just as I asked the question, Callie released a war cry that would have made a Viking proud and went charging straight at her brother, plowing into him and taking them both to the ground. It all happened so fast; there was no time to react. Cameron screamed out as Callie planted herself on his stomach and shoved her foot is his face.
“Kiss it. KISS IT!” she yelled at him as Megan and I ran into the chaotic fray.