crept over Violet’s cheeks as she struggled to recall the last time she’d spoken to her grandma. “We don’t talk as much as we used to. I’ve been busy since Maggie was born.”
“How old is your baby?”
Violet chewed her bottom lip, debating how much to tell him about her life “Eight months. She didn’t sleep for the first four, but she seems to be making up for it now.”
He smiled.
“I can’t complain. Even single moms need a break sometime, right?”
Wyatt’s sharp brown eyes snapped in her direction. His gaze drifted to her left hand, then rose to her eyes. “Not married?”
“No. Never. How about you?” she asked. “Any children? Got a Mrs. Stone at home?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Why not?” The words were out before she’d thought better of them. Then again, maybe this was the smart move. If he’d openly admit his inevitable defects, then she’d stop imagining the snare of electricity coursing between them at every turn. The fact that they were virtual strangers should have been enough to keep her from wondering what his hands might feel like on her hips or in her hair, but it hadn’t. Maybe knowing he was a womanizer, gambling addict or married to his job would do the trick.
“I hear I’m a pain in the ass,” he said, making the final few twists of his screwdriver. “Apparently, I’m cynical, distrusting and tenacious to a fault.”
Violet laughed. “Comes with the job, I’d suppose.”
“You’re not joking.” He slid the chain into the slot and tested the door. “I make my brothers crazy, and I’ve guarded their lives in combat. If they can’t handle me, I’m not sure why anyone else would want to try.”
Violet swept a pile of broken glass onto a dustpan and transported it into the trash. “How many brothers do you have? Any sisters?”
“No siblings.” Wyatt frowned over his shoulder. “Sorry. I meant my brothers-in-arms. Sometimes I forget they aren’t my blood, but we are undeniably family. Sawyer, Jack, Cade and I formed Fortress Security about two years after my military discharge. We’ve all tried to fit back into our civilian lives, but it didn’t work for us. We’re too far changed, and our particular skill sets don’t translate well to civilian life.” Wyatt packed up his tools, jaw clenched. “Eventually I decided to open a business where we could do what we’ve been trained to do. Guard and protect.”
Violet’s stomach tilted at the mention of his military service. “What branch did you serve in?” Maggie’s dad was a marine.
“US Army Rangers.” He seemed to stand impossibly taller as he reported the information. “Sawyer and Jack were, too. We met at Fort Benning.” Pride puffed his chest and deepened his voice.
Violet found herself drifting closer, hungry to know more. “A security firm run by army rangers? Also impressive.”
“It would be,” he said, smiling, “but Sawyer’s brother, Cade, was a jarhead.”
Violet’s mouth went dry. She didn’t mean to judge an entire branch of the US military by the actions of one pregnant-girlfriend-abandoning creep, but the association was there nonetheless, roiling in her gut.
“We’ve all got our mottoes and taglines,” Wyatt said, “but the bottom line for Fortress Security is honor first every time. Doesn’t matter how you word it.”
“God. Corps. Country. Family,” Violet groused.
“Exactly.”
Exactly. Violet set her broom aside and went to see what she could clean in the dining room.
Wyatt Stone might be kind, sexy and undeniably charming, but that marine motto had pulled her back to reality. The truth was that men like Wyatt would always put family last.
And that would never be good enough for Maggie.
Violet woke on a gasp of air. Her heart caught in her throat as the faceless monster of her dreams vanished with the warmth of morning sunshine drifting through her grandma’s bedroom window. The beloved scent of her childhood was everywhere, on the pillows and sheets, in the curtains and carpet. She took a long steadying breath of the floral dime-store perfume before peering over the bed’s edge into her daughter’s portable crib.
Maggie grinned around a mouthful of her toes, drool running down her chubby cheek. She released her foot instantly, reaching tiny dimpled fists greedily toward her mama.
Violet scooped her daughter into her arms and rolled back onto the antique sleigh bed for a long snuggle. “Today will be a better day,” she promised. “We’ll go see Grandma, and the doctors will say good things, and soon we’ll be having breakfast with her instead of the enormous cowboy sleeping on the couch.”
Maggie laughed and slapped Violet’s cheek with one slobbery hand.
Ten minutes later, the Ames ladies were dressed in jean shorts and tank tops, prepared for another hot July day. Violet left her hair down, curling over her shoulders to her ribs, instead of pulled coolly into a ponytail. She told herself it wasn’t for Wyatt’s sake despite the already rising temperatures.
There was something about the way he’d turned those knowing brown eyes on her last night. The way he’d watched and listened to her, seeming to perceive everything, as if he could read her mind.
Given the handful of inappropriate things she’d fallen asleep thinking about, all starring him, she was thankful to be wrong about the mind reading.
Violet braced her shoulder against the curved wooden headboard and put her weight into shoving the bed away from the door. Barricading the room seemed silly by the light of day, but she wasn’t exactly the best judge of men and inviting one the size of Wyatt to sleep over had seemed questionable after she’d come upstairs.
Doorway clear, Violet popped Maggie into a baby sling and headed silently downstairs to start breakfast without waking Wyatt. Six fifteen was early for anyone. It had to be an unthinkable hour for someone who had needed caffeine to stay awake at ten last night.
The beloved scent of fresh-brewed coffee met her in the stairwell as she descended into the kitchen, and Violet hurried toward it. Could Wyatt be awake already? And have had time to make coffee?
His bare back came into view a moment later, and she stopped to appreciate the way his low-slung basketball shorts gripped his trim waist, accentuating his ridiculously broad shoulders and thick, muscular arms.
“Hungry?” he asked without a single look in her direction. It was the second time he’d seemed to magically know she was there.
Violet moved casually into the kitchen, pretending not to have been ogling him. “I thought you’d be asleep.”
Wyatt shuffled scrambled eggs around one of her grandma’s iron pans and smiled over his shoulder. “I like to run before dawn. Watch the sun rise. Clear my head for a new day.”
Violet gave a small laugh. “You’ve already been out for a run?” The only thing she liked to do before dawn was sleep.
“Sure. A run. A shower. Breakfast. I brought some aerial photos of your grandma’s land with me in case I needed them this week, so I used them as guides and went around the property’s edge. It worked nicely because I didn’t want to go far from here without letting you know I’d be out. I wasn’t sure when Maggie would wake.”
Violet worked to shut her mouth. He remembered Maggie’s name? She’d only introduced her once, and her baby had been asleep the whole time.
“Mrs. Ames has a nice setup here,” he said. “Nearly fifty acres.