Read Online On the Fly by Catherine Gayle - Free Book Online Page B

to
argue with me? Or maybe it just seemed like she was always arguing
with me.
    “ You can stay off them any
time I can pick you up.” I didn’t want to let the implications of
that sink in. “Come on. Let’s go eat.” I took her out the door,
grabbing her coat from the hall closet, and taking her keys from
the hook just inside the door.
    Babs followed behind us, holding onto
Tuck’s hand. He held his other out for Maddie, but she hurried
forward and took her brother’s instead. Then I locked the
door.
    By the time we got down to the parking
garage, Rachel had given up on whatever had kept her tense in my
arms and put her arm around my shoulder for support. I liked it a
lot. Too much.
    I opened the passenger side door to my
SUV and started to put her in it, but she squirmed to get
out.
    “ The kids’ booster seats.
They have to have them.”
    “ Give me her keys and I’ll
get them,” Babs said.
    I tossed them his way. “You don’t have
to do everything yourself,” I said to her once he headed over to
her car, both kids in tow.
    She let out a little laugh, but she
definitely wasn’t amused. I shut her door, but I caught her rolling
her eyes through the window.
    Babs returned and started getting the
kids situated in the back, and Rachel moved as though to get out
again.
    I turned around to block her. “What
now?”
    “ My purse. I didn’t bring
my purse.”
    All she needed was a damn key to get
back in her place, which I’d grabbed for her on the way out. “You
don’t need your purse,” I said. I probably sounded a little too
gruff. I couldn’t help it. She was frustrating me, and I didn’t
like that it was so easy for her to frustrate me.
    “ To pay.” She said it as
though that should explain everything.
    I backed her into her seat again and
pulled her seatbelt, securing it in place around her. “You aren’t
paying, so you don’t need to worry about it. You don’t need your
purse.” I let my hand linger a little too long by her hip before I
jerked it away.
    “ But—”
    “ No buts. You fed Babs and
Razor the other day. You intended to feed Babs again this morning.
You’re not going to pay.” Then I closed her door and went around to
the driver’s side. By the time I got there, Babs had both kids and
himself in place in the back.
    I climbed in and fastened my belt,
trying to ignore her sexy pout.
    Yeah, Rachel Shaw
definitely needed a keeper, or a helper…or I didn’t know what. But
she needed something . And damn if I didn’t want that something to be me.

 

     
     

    “Yes! I beated you! Woo woo!” Tuck’s victorious squeal bounced
around to fill every corner of Brenden and Jamie’s shared living
room. He dropped his controller and leaped up from the floor, both
hands fisted as he punched them through the air in time with the
goofy dance of his feet. “I beated Mr. Jamie! I beated Mr. Jamie!”
he chanted in a sing-songy voice.
    He continued pumping his fists into
the sky while he raced circles around Jamie, who was seated
cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV in a posture that made
him look like an overgrown boy, and Maddie, who was lounging back
on a beanbag chair. Both of them held video game controllers in
their hands.
    I hadn’t intended to come to the guys’
place after we’d finished eating. I’d meant to take Tuck and Maddie
back to our condo and go on with our lives as though the disaster
of our surprise breakfast for Jamie had never happened, but halfway
between the diner and our building, Jamie had asked the kids if
they wanted to come over and play Mario Kart with him. Tuck’s
excitement had been so great, and even Maddie had seemed interested
in playing, so I hadn’t been able to tell them no.
    And now, here we were. Exactly where I
didn’t want to be.
    “ I want a rematch,” Jamie
said. “Maddie and I both want one, don’t we?”
    Maddie’s beanbag chair was
far enough away from Jamie that she could feel safe. Or maybe it
was far enough away