Looking at the blonde, he said, “You didn’t ask. I offered. And don’t worry about it. Besides,” he added with a grin for the toddler, “with this little guy around, you’re going to need water, right?”
Katie was still smiling at him as if he were some kind of comic-book hero. And she was still stirring him up inside, so he gave her a smile, then tugged his keys out of his jeans pocket. Best all around if he left now. “I’ll be back in a few minutes and we’ll get you set up.”
“Thanks.” Nicole whispered the word. “Really.”
Katie gave her a brief hug, then stepped up to Rafe and slid her hand into his. “I’ll walk you to the door while Nicole gets the broom and mop.”
His fingers curled around hers and he felt the heat of her skin zing through his system like a raging wildfire. At the front door, Katie looked back over her shoulder to make sure Nicole was out of earshot, then said softly, “Thank you for offering to help her like that, Rafe. Nicole couldn’t afford a plumber. You’re really doing something amazing for her.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“For you,” she said with another smile. “But for a single mom, it’s a catastrophe. Or it would have been. Without you. You’re my hero.”
Her simple words hit him with a crash. Always before, when people needed help, he wrote a check. Made a donation. It was safe, distant and still managed to salve the urge he had to help those who needed it. He hadn’t realized until just now how differently helping felt when it was up close and personal.
“I’ve never been anybody’s hero before.”
She looked up at him and he knew he could lose himself in the deep, summer green of her eyes. Her delectable mouth curved at the edges. “You are now.”
He reached up and cupped the back of her neck with his palm. “Keep that thought and hold on to it for later, okay?”
“I can do that,” she said and went up on her toes to brush a soft kiss across his mouth. Then she stepped away and said, “Hurry back.”
His lips were tingling, his breath was still strangling in his lungs and Rafe was suddenly so damn hard he didn’t think he’d be able to walk to his truck without limping.
Some hero.
Nicole and Connor joined them for the barbecue.
Katie told herself she was just being nice—Nicole was still upset and they were all tired out from cleaning up the mess in her kitchen. But the truth was, that moment with Rafe at the front door of Nicole’s house had shaken Katie enough that she had wanted someone else around during dinner. Not exactly a chaperone, just someone to keep Katie from jumping Rafe the moment they were alone.
Because that’s exactly what she wanted to do. He had been wonderful. Honestly, she thought back to her time with Cordell King and no matter how she tried to imagine it, she couldn’t see that man diving under a kitchen sink to fix something as a favor. He was too much a suit-and-tie man. Too focused on the bottom line of his company and not so interested in the “real world.”
Rafe though, was different, she thought, watching him gently toss a soft foam ball to Connor. The little boy waved both arms trying to catch it and Rafe laughed with him when he missed. The man was just…
“Amazing,” Nicole said, unknowingly finishing Katie’s mental sentence. “What?”
“Him.” Nicole smiled at Katie, then shifted her gaze to where her son was playing with Rafe. “That guy is one in a million, Katie.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Yeah?” Nicole pushed her paper plate aside, leaned both arms on the weathered picnic table and asked, “If you think so, why’d you have Connor and I come over and horn in on your date?”
“You’re not horning in,” Katie argued. In the year she and her son had lived next door, Nicole had become Katie’s best friend. They’d commiserated on the rotten tendencies of the men they’d had in their lives and they’d bonded over working from home. Katie had her cookie company and Nicole did the billing for several local companies.
“You’re my friend, Nicole, and you’re always invited over. You know that.”
“’Course I know that.” Nicole reached out and covered Katie’s hand with her own. “You’ve been great to us since we moved in here. But Katie, this is the first guy I’ve seen you date in like forever. Don’t you want some alone time?”
Katie stared at Rafe as he scooped Connor up and ran across the yard, the little boy chortling happily. “I do and I don’t. Seriously, Nicole, I’m not sure what I want.”
“Well I can tell you if he looked at me, the way he looks at you, I wouldn’t have any trouble deciding what I wanted.”
“It’s complicated.”
“I know. Cordell.” Giving her hand a squeeze, Nicole sat back and shook her head. “He messed you up bad. But Rafe isn’t Cordell.”
“You’re telling me,” Katie said on a sigh.
“Do you really want to risk losing a great guy because you’re still mad at a rotten one?”
“Have you been talking to Nana?”
Nicole laughed. “No. I haven’t. But if she agrees with me, then we’re both right and you should trust us on this. Give it a shot, Katie. What’ve you got to lose?”
Another chunk of her heart, she thought but didn’t say. But then again, if she never risked her heart, she’d never use it, would she? She’d die an old lady, filled with regrets, still holding on to her withered pride like a trophy with some of the shiny worn off.
Her gaze locked on Rafe again as he lifted the little boy high enough for tiny hands to swat at the glossy leaves of an orange tree. Her still-wary heart turned over in her chest as she watched the expression on Rafe’s face. He was enjoying himself. He was relaxed, at ease with her friends, in her tiny backyard. Cordell, in the same situation, would have—never mind, he never would have been in this situation. He had preferred five-star restaurants to picnics and three-piece suits to jeans.
Cordell had swept Katie off her feet because she had never been with anyone like him. Now she knew she should have kept it that way.
But Rafe…he was different from Cordell. He was the kind of guy Katie should have met first.
And if she had, she asked herself, would she have been so hesitant to take a chance on him? No, she wouldn’t have.
“Ooh, I can see by the look in your eyes you’ve decided to take a chance,” Nicole said. “Want me to take Connor home so you can get going on that?”