Dating a Single Dad by Kris Fletcher - Comeback Cove 01 - Dating a Single Dad Page A

and naked beneath her robe and instead of feeling shy, it made her bolder. She had been irresistibly aware of the skin peeking through the rips in his jeans and the holes in his chamois shirt. There had been one spot above his navel, just the right size to hook a finger through. She’d stared at it and wondered what would happen if she were to snag it with her pinkie and yank. Hard. Hard enough to pull him closer, hard enough to shred that fabric and reveal the muscles hiding beneath his shirt, exposing his skin to the cold air and then pressing her own still-hot-from-the-shower body against him.
    And then—because fantasizing about knocking him into the dying snowbank hadn’t been enough—she had dragged him down the hall and thrown out words like proposition with that overly tempting bed just three steps away. She’d pulled him into that tiny space where a deep breath meant they would be almost touching, and she’d caught him peeking at her clothes— oh, like you really forgot your bra was lying on the bed, Catalano? —and her hormones had jumped to a level that usually required candlelight, wine and some serious adventures in foreplay. If it had been up to her body she would have cued up an endless loop of MythBusters for Millie, then dragged her daddy into the bedroom to create a few explosions of their own.
    Thank heaven he’d frozen her out when she offered child care. Not that she enjoyed being made to feel like a kid who couldn’t get a clue. Far from it.
    Get out of here, Brynn. You’re not needed.
    She shook her father’s voice out of her head. Hank’s refusal hadn’t been condescending or patronizing—just brusque enough to slap some common sense back into her.
    Well, at least back into her brain. Her body still hadn’t gotten the message—probably because it had been busy ogling his biceps.
    She needed a distraction. A punitive, unpleasant, totally gag-worthy one that she could remember the next time she was breathing in the sawdust scent of Hank North. One that would help her remember that she was here to make things less complicated, not more.
    She grabbed her phone and sent Taylor a text.

    Shopping?

    As she’d expected, the response was swift and affirmative. She closed her phone with a determined nod.
    So she was hot for Hank North. Now that she was painfully aware of that fact, she could work around it. Accept the facts and respect his boundaries and move on. It was only a couple of months. She could last that long.
    In the meantime, there would be shopping, God help her, then ice cream and a long talk about the ways to put distance between a screwed-up female and a totally unsuitable man.
    And Taylor would never know that the lecture would be aimed at Brynn even more than at her.
    * * *
    T HREE NIGHTS AFTER Millie pulled her disappearing act, Hank was finally starting to breathe easy again. They had hashed things out, drawn some lines. Much as he’d hated to do it, he’d had to remind her that not all their future guests would be like Brynn. Some wouldn’t want a little girl intruding on their privacy. Others might be very eager to welcome her for all the wrong reasons. Millie had to learn the boundaries and rules now, for the sake of both their future guests and her own safety.
    So they had talked. They set up a schedule for Daddy’s work, and the rewards Millie could earn by letting him get his chores done. They decided what Millie should do if she wanted to visit Brynn—because he wasn’t fool enough to believe that he could keep her away completely—and sent Brynn an email with the plan. Her response had been crisp and agreeable, professional and responsible. All was as it should be.
    Best of all, he’d seen Brynn only once since the day of the bathrobe, and she’d been on her way to her car, bundled and shapeless. There had been nothing to remind him, nothing to tempt him.
    He could do this.
    He was on his back beneath the kitchen sink in the Grindstone cabin, trying to