Getting Hotter (10 page)

Sophie stirred in her sleep and made a soft sniffling sound, prompting Miranda to lay still. She needed both her kids to get a good night’s sleep.

Because at this point, who knew what chaos tomorrow would bring.

Chapter Six

Oh, this was bad. It was so very bad Miranda actually felt like throwing up. Choking back the rising nausea, she met the sympathetic eyes of her landlord and said, “How long will the cleanup take?”

“To pump it all out and remove the floors, two days,” he replied in perfect, albeit heavily accented, English. “The crew will discard any contaminated items. Everything will be documented for the purposes of insurance.”

“What about all our personal belongings? When can I come in and catalogue everything?”

Marco didn’t answer for a moment, signaling to a passing member of the cleanup crew and calling out something in Italian. The men moving to and from the vans parked at the curb wore an array of protective gear—green hip waders, rubber boots, gloves, masks. You’d think there was a hazardous waste spill in there instead of a few feet of rainwater.

Then again, even one foot of water would have been an utter disaster. Miranda’s heart had dropped to the pit of her stomach when she’d followed Marco into the apartment to survey the damage. Most of the water had been drained, so she’d been able to walk around in her yellow rain boots with no trouble.

No, the real trouble was the fact that anything with the misfortune of touching the floor was soaking wet and most likely unsalvageable. Luckily, most of her clothing was dry—everything in the top dresser drawers had escaped the flood, as did the hanging items in the closet. Even better—her important documents had come out unscathed, since she stored them all in a portable file folder at the top of her closet. And the twins’ room had barely been affected, which was the biggest miracle of all because now she wouldn’t have to replace any of their gazillion toys.

“I’ll have the men working around the clock so we can get you and your family back here as soon as possible,” Marco said kindly. He was only in his midthirties, but when he squeezed her arm in reassurance, his touch was oddly paternal. “Tomorrow morning you can come back to go through your things. The crew we hired is full-service, so they will assist with the cleaning and drying.”

“That’s a relief,” she said gratefully.

Marco lightly touched her arm. “I promise you, Ms. Breslin, everything will be taken care of. I apologize again for the inconvenience. I was not informed that the gutters were built improperly.”

She believed him. Marco had been genuinely horrified yesterday when he’d discovered the state of the ground-floor apartments. He’d already insisted she didn’t have to pay next month’s rent and had refused to budge when she’d protested.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be able to come home in three days, four days maximum,” Marco added before moving away.

Miranda loitered on the tidy front lawn for a moment, staring at the two-story building she’d been calling home for the past four months. White stucco made up the exterior, the tiled clay roof a pale shade of pink. There was no lobby, just an open walkway and two sets of stairs at each side of the building leading to the second-floor apartments. The place was nothing to brag about, but it was pretty and clean, and even though the backyard was small, it was big enough that she could plant a garden back there. And at least she had a yard—the upstairs apartments got balconies, which was why Miranda had been ecstatic to land a ground-floor one.

Well, she wasn’t feeling too ecstatic anymore.

With a weary exhalation she headed to the curb where she’d parked the sedan. It was nine thirty in the morning, the sun was shining and the sky was a cloudless blue. The only hints that a storm had ravaged the area yesterday were the leftover puddles on the asphalt.

Since morning had brought with it nothing but good weather, most schools were open today, including the twins’, and she didn’t have to pick them up until three. She’d been hoping to spend the day at the apartment cleaning up, but now that Marco had sent her away, she had no idea where to go.

Back to Seth’s? Both he and Dylan had been gone when Miranda and the twins wandered into the kitchen this morning. She knew they were at the navy base doing some kind of training operation, and she kind of hoped it lasted until the wee hours of the night because she couldn’t face Seth right now. She’d barely slept last night. Rather, she’d lain there sandwiched between her kids, tossing and turning, thinking about how incredible Seth’s kisses had felt and how badly she wanted to kiss him again.

Until she figured out how to get a handle on this attraction to Seth, she needed to keep her distance from him.

She finally decided to drive into the city. She’d seen on the news that most of the inland flooding had occurred in her neighborhood, Imperial Beach, along with several of the other coastal towns in the area, but San Diego hadn’t experienced much water damage. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check on the dance school.

To her relief, the building that housed All That Dance was in perfect condition, and when she wandered through the various studios, she found nothing but glossy wood floors and sparkling mirrors.

She ended up changing into a leotard and dance shoes, deciding to get a workout in as long as she was here. Popping her iPod into the dock near the door, she queued up her favorite play list, the one she turned to in times of stress. At the school she taught ballet and modern lyrical, but today she decompressed with straight-up hip-hop moves that left her sweaty and breathless by the time she called it quits an hour later.

That little dose of dance medicine was all she’d needed to brighten her spirits, and when she got back to Seth’s place a short while later, she was even whistling to herself as she let herself in with the key he’d given her.

The whistling died in a sharp wheeze when she entered the kitchen and found Seth at the counter. He wore black basketball shorts that hung low on his hips, a gray T-shirt, and his feet were bare.

“What are you doing home?” she asked in surprise.

The coffeemaker clicked, and Seth grabbed the pot by the handle and poured himself a cup. “We’re done for the day. Want some coffee?”

After a beat, she nodded, then accepted the mug he handed her. She blew on the hot liquid and said, “How are you done for the day? It’s barely noon.”

“Baby, I was up at four o’clock in the morning and in the ocean at five for some heavy-duty underwater demolition. I’ve earned the right to call it a day.” He sipped his coffee and headed for the sliding door, an unlit cigarette in his hand. “Join me outside?”

She hesitated again.

“Jesus, Miranda. I don’t bite.”

An unwitting laugh burst out. “Yes, you do.”

Seth’s lips twitched. “Yeah, you’re right. I
do
bite. But only the good kind of biting.”

He looked like he was waiting for her to ask “and what’s the good kind?” but no way was she opening
that
door.

Holding her mug with both hands, she followed him out to the concrete patio, which housed a small round table and two plastic chairs. Although the surrounding grass was mowed, the yard was as barren as most of the house’s interior. No garden or flowers or bird feeders or any of the fun things she and the twins had put in their own yard.

“You and Dylan really don’t care much for decorating, do you?” she said wryly.

“Not really,” he replied, his cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He shoved a hand in his pocket and extracted a black Bic lighter. The lighter hissed as he flicked it, the tip of his cigarette glowing as he brought it to the flame.

Miranda didn’t lecture him. She wasn’t a smoker herself, but she believed in letting other people make their own mistakes. Besides, who was she to reprimand anyone about bad choices? She’d made quite a few of those in her own life.

“So what did your landlord say?” Seth sat down, exhaling a cloud of smoke in the direction opposite her.

She joined him at the table and quickly filled him in, finishing with a glum, “He said it’ll be three or four days before we can move back in.”

“You’ll stay here until then,” Seth said without delay.

She suppressed a sigh. “Thanks for the offer, but I think we’ll check into a hotel. Probably after I pick up the twins from school.”

“Why would you pay money to stay in a hotel when I have a perfectly good room you can use for free?” He sounded incredibly annoyed.

“Because…I don’t want to put you out,” she said feebly.

“Bullshit.”

She lifted her chin in defiance. “Fine, you want to know the real reason? I’m tired of the way you keep trying to get me into bed when I’m clearly not interested.”

A low laughed rumbled out of his chest. “You seemed pretty interested last night when we were making out on the couch.”

“It was a moment of weakness,” she admitted. “But it can’t happen again. There’s too much on my plate right now to get involved with anyone, even if it’s just a casual fling. I’m getting this dance school off the ground, getting used to a new city, trying to make a new life for me and my kids. And now our apartment got flooded and my stress levels are even higher.” She shook her head. “So if you’re offering us a place to stay in exchange for me going to bed with—”

“The offer isn’t conditional, for chrissake. I’m not asking you to screw me in exchange for room and board.” Seth’s gray eyes flashed. “Fuck, Miranda, what kind of asshole do you think I am?”

Guilt splashed around in her belly when she realized the wounded expression on his face was genuine. God, she’d actually hurt him.

“Seth…damn it, I’m sorry.” She suddenly wished she’d just kept her mouth shut. “I don’t think you’re an asshole, and I appreciate the offer, okay? But if my kids and I are going to stay, we need to set a few ground rules.”

His hard expression relaxed, but she noticed he took an extra-long drag on his cigarette. “Let’s hear it then.”

“No sex.” When he didn’t respond, she hurried on. “I mean it. An affair between us is a bad idea.”

“Whatever you say.”

His noncommittal tone brought a spark of irritation. “It is,” she insisted. “And not just because I don’t have the time or energy for it at the moment. I’m not cut out for casual flings. I can’t separate emotions from sex, no matter how hard I try, and I don’t want to get hurt.”

He grimaced. “Why must women always complicate the simplest things?”

She burst out laughing. “Sex is not simple. It’s the biggest complication of all, and if you don’t believe me, just look at my kids. They’re living proof of exactly how complicated sex can be.”

Seth didn’t answer.

“I won’t deny that I’m attracted to you—you know I am. But I can’t act on it. I don’t want a fling, and if you can’t promise to be a gentleman and stop trying to seduce me every other minute, I’m staying in a hotel.”

He took another pull off his cigarette, then leaned forward to snuff it out in the glass ashtray on the table. His mouth was set in a tired line as he rose from his chair, the muscles of his broad chest rippling beneath his T-shirt. The bottom of his tattoo poked out from beneath his sleeve, and the intriguing black design distracted her for a moment. She’d have pegged him as the skull-and-bones type, but she much preferred the ink he had.

Forcing herself to focus on the topic at hand, she shot him a firm look. “Can you promise me, Seth?”

Dragging a hand through his hair, he locked his gaze with hers and said, “For as long as you’re here, I’ll be a perfect gentleman, Miranda. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to lie down for a while.” He took a step to the door, then halted. “Help yourself to anything in the fridge if you get hungry. Dylan’s out shopping for groceries, so don’t worry, you and the rugrats will be well fed.”

As she watched him go, a tornado of conflicting emotions swirled through her body, making her feel exhausted. It drove her nuts that she could never quite get a handle on Seth. One minute he was the consummate badass, trying to lure her to the dark side with his mocking words and wicked kisses. The next, he was making sure there was enough food in the fridge to feed her and her children.

Who was he, really? Was his whole rebel thing an act? No, she doubted that—Seth was too rough around the edges to be faking it. But he must have a softer side, right? He couldn’t be all thorn and no rose, could he?

Biting her bottom lip, she fixed her gaze on the tall fence separating Seth’s yard from his neighbor’s. Did it even matter whether Seth possessed a warm and gooey center beneath that crunchy exterior of his? She’d made it clear that she wouldn’t be getting involved with him, so there was no point in searching for the “real” Seth or prying into his psyche.

What she really ought to be figuring out was how on earth she’d be able to spend the next three or four days in close proximity with the man without forgetting everything she’d just told him and ripping his clothes off.

To Seth’s annoyance, Miranda’s rugrats didn’t take the news well—once she informed them that they were staying with Seth for a few more days, both kids promptly burst into tears and clung to their mother like they were scared she’d be abducted by aliens if they let her out of their sight. It made for a rather stressful dinner, this time prepared by Seth, which had earned him an amazed look from Miranda. She kept shaking her head each time she glanced at the grilled chicken and roasted potatoes on her plate, as if she couldn’t fathom that someone like him could create such a meal.