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Aspen’s eyes widen as if she recognizes that it’s not a playful encounter that Lily manifested in her mind, and heat rises to my neck. But I’m not embarrassed. The teddy bear picnics have been a tradition on Tuesdays every week since we took custody of her. If I’m away on business, Caden or Pike take the lead, but neither has ever complained. Not when it comes to Lily.
“I would love to join your teddy bear picnic,” she tells the child, and Lily’s face lights up like a firework.
“Can we go, Papa Flint?”
“It’s not Tuesday, darling,” I sigh, not wanting to disappoint her. If I did not have so much work to do today, I would take her anyway, but she could not have asked on a worse day.
But that’s just my life, isn’t it? I’m always stuck cleaning up someone else’s messes. Never able to do what I want to do.
But Aspen had a solution.
“Can you show me where you go for the teddy bear picnic?” she asks Lily. “So I’m prepared tomorrow?”
This compromise appeases her, and Lily gestures affirmatively, taking the woman’s hand. Aspen flashes me a gorgeous smile that gives me a semi hard-on, much to my shock. I follow her undulating hips all the way out the door as I sit back in my swivel chair, exhaling slowly. But the moment of peaceful, horny elation passes as my office phone and cell phone chime in unison.
There’s no rest for the wicked, after all.
CHAPTER 5
Pike
Beads of sweat roll down my forehead, but I’m possessed, paint flying from my brush over the canvas as I work furiously. Soft, jazz music pipes out from an antique radio I’ve had from the days I lived in that stinking apartment in Memphis, trying to catch my first break, living like a real starving artist, ignoring the fact that I was, in fact, a trust fund kid.
“Turn that shit off!” I can almost hear Mr. Mulligan howling at me from the balcony next door. “You’re listening to the devil’s music!”
Jazz and blues. The devil’s music, according to Mr. Mulligan and all the other ancient skeletons who occupied the apartments in Riverside. I wonder what they would have thought of Caden’s rock and metal choices.
Abruptly, I stop, the most delicate scent catching my nostrils, and even before my subconscious can notify my conscious, I hear Lily’s chittering voice piping up the pathway through the ravine. I blink, coming to my senses entirely.
Damn. Is it Tuesday? No, it’s Friday. No, it’s…
I set my brush down and wrack my brain furiously, trying to recall the day of the week.
Monday. It’s definitely Monday. What is Lily doing out by the stream today?
I have my answer in seconds, the gorgeous new nanny emerging from the thick of trees, her smile freezing when she sees me standing by my easel, my face as stunned as hers.
“Hi, Papa Pike,” the little girl calls out, breezing past my easel toward the water. “I’m showing Aspen where we have the teddy bear picnic.”
Aspen falters, suddenly unsure of herself as she realizes she’s interrupted my work.
“I’m sorry.” She quickly tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and looks down. “I didn’t know you were out here.”
A slight grimace crosses my face, and I turn my attention back to the painting that refuses to take shape. My jaw twitches as I consider staying, the urge to use the pair as muses gnawing at me.
Don’t be stupid.
Gathering up my supplies, a gruff, “It’s fine” escapes my lips.
“We’ll find something else to do.”
“I said it’s fine,” I growl, stuffing my paints into my carry box.
Aspen inhales, and I recognize how harsh I sound. I swallow thickly and take a breath of my own, reminding myself that she isn’t the enemy. We need her here. Lily needs her here.
Slowly, I turn back to her. “I often come out here to paint.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she promises quickly, sidestepping me to hurry after Lily.
