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“What? No, it’s fine. Why would this be a bad time?” Did either of them notice the unnatural high pitch to her voice? One quick peek at the way Lee was staring at her as though she had ten heads answered that question. Why the hell did this man make her so stupid?
Thunder scratched his chin then flicked his gaze between her and her brother a few times. Mak nearly burned up as the hot blast of embarrassment rushed her. Did he think…
“We’re about to eat.” Lee’s curt statement had her face even hotter.
Right. She was standing there in a stained T-shirt, with a toddler on her hip and a man in the doorway looking like a possessive ape. Of course, he’d assume something inaccurate. Mak cleared her throat before gazing up at her scowling brother. “Then maybe you should go put the pasta in the water, Lee,” she said, giving him the fiercest get-the-hell-out-of-here glare she could muster. “It should be boiling by now.” He frowned at Thunder for another few seconds before sauntering off. Had she been thinking properly, she’d have handed Emmie off, but as it was, Thunder’s presence made her completely forget how to think.
“Sorry,” she said with a shake of her head as she stepped out onto the stoop with him. “My brother can be a little intense at times, but he’s a good kid. Uh, what was it you needed to talk to me about?”
“Brother?”
“Yeah, that was my brother, Lee.”
The smile she’d become familiar with over the past week or so curled his lips in its usual fashion. “And this little princess?”
“Um, this is my sister, Emmie.”
“Dis is my mommy,” Emmie said, patting Mak’s face with the non-gentle affection of an excited two-year-old.
“Mommy?” Thunder asked, eyebrows drawing down.
“Uhh…” She so did not want to get into any of that right now, or ever. Especially not with the sexiest man she’d ever met. She shifted Emmie to a more comfortable position on her hip. “So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“You sit next to me!” Emmie announced as she launched herself out of Mak’s arms without warning.
“Oh, shit, I mean, crap, uh..fu—fumble!” Thunder shouted as his hands shot out on reflex. The poor guy had his arms full of a spirited toddler before he knew what hit him.
Makenna would have laughed at the look of complete and utter panic in his eyes if she wasn’t already more embarrassed than she’d ever been in her life. “Emmie,” she said, voice firm. “Come back, Mr., uh, Mr. Thunder”—God, how ridiculous—“didn’t come here to play with you. Come on down.”
Emmie’s face screwed up, and she shook her head. Awesome, they’d be dealing with a full-on tantrum in no time.
“It’s all right,” Thunder said as he moved her sister to his hip, mimicking the position Mak had held her in. His wide, slightly wild eyes betrayed his calm words, but damn if the sight of the charming man holding her kid sister didn’t make her insides all warm and squishy.
“You sit by me,” Emmie proclaimed again.
“Uh, we kinda do a family thing for lunch on Sunday’s, and we missed this week since I worked, so we’re doing it for dinner tonight. Would you like to join us? It’s nothing fancy,” she rushed on. “Just spaghetti and meatballs. Garlic bread. Uh, and salad.” She almost called Lee back so he could slap his hand over her mouth and keep her from word vomiting.
“Yucky, salad,” Emmie said, wrinkling her nose.
“I’m with you, kid. Salad is yucky.”
Emmie beamed and batted her lashes at Thunder. She was in full-on flirt-mode.
“So, dinner. We’d love you to join us.”
Say no, say no, say no.
“Sure,” he said, shifting his gaze to the happy toddler now squealing in his arms. The poor guy looked like he’d rather be anywhere but standing on Mak’s stoop holding a child.
Well, if anything came from this mortifying debacle, it’s that she wouldn’t have to stress about fending off his advances anymore. This meal would pretty much guarantee he’d never see her as anything but an overworked charity case with too many mouths to feed.
IF ANYONE HAD asked him what his plans for the afternoon were, the dead last answer would have been sitting around a huge wobbly wooden table with six other people, five of them children. Well, maybe Lee didn’t qualify as a child. The guy had to be seventeen or eighteen, maybe even nineteen.
It was as though he’d stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone. The two younger kids stared as though he was a zoo animal. Lee glared at him, and the other two girls he’d been introduced to as Amy and Rissa concentrated on loading their plates. Apparently, the six of them were all siblings. They looked it, with their dark hair and blue eyes. Emmie was the only one whose coloring differed.
