Fully Involved (Island Fire Book 3) Read online

  Payton considered what she said, then shook her head. “I don’t want a tattube.”

  “Then you never have to get one,” Andie said, chuckling at Payton’s sound logic.

  “I have a butterfly book,” Payton said, abandoning her serious tone of five seconds ago. “Wanna see it?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll go get it.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  oOo

  Clay stepped back out of sight on the middle landing of the outdoor stairway, where he’d been watching Payton and Andie. He couldn’t get over how open and easygoing his hard-edged renter was with his daughter. Not to mention how accepting Payton was of Andie.

  She’d broken a rule, though, and he couldn’t let it go unmentioned.

  “Payton,” he said quietly but firmly when she was two feet away from him, oblivious as she sang something about butterflies.

  “Hi, Daddy.” She gave him a look that said she knew she was busted and was waiting to see what he would do. “I’m getting my butterfly book.”

  “You went downstairs without me.” He kneeled to her level.

  Payton nodded slowly, nailing him with those brown eyes.

  “That’s against the rules, honey.”

  “Sorry, Daddy.”

  “Come here,” he said and lifted her into his arms. He took her upstairs as he explained. “You always have to have an adult with you in the backyard. It’s dangerous to go near the swimming pool alone. You could get hurt badly, girly.”

  “Miss Andie’s a adult.”

  So she was. “But she’s not the adult in charge of you. You have to have Daddy or Aunt Bridget or Miss Macey or Miss Selena...”

  “Or Mr. Evan?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Mr. Derek?”

  “Exactly. Those are the adults who take care of you.”

  “Miss Andie has tattubes, just like you,” she said as they went inside. “Hers has a butterfly.”

  He gave his imagination free rein as to where it might be located. Shaking his head and grinning, he realized Payton had just successfully distracted him from disciplining her, even if it was innocent on her part.

  “Payton, I need you to be clear on this. When can you go to the backyard?”

  “When there’s a adult.” She proceeded to list the appropriate names again, adding her grandparents to the list.

  “And nobody else.”

  She shook her head dramatically, eyes big.

  “Not Miss Andie.”

  “I like Miss Andie.”

  “I like her, too, girly, but she’s just our neighbor. In a few weeks she’ll move away.”

  Clay hadn’t let Payton out of his sight for more than two minutes and she’d escaped down nearly forty steps. He’d caught up in time to see her wander through the gate and had stopped his full-speed pursuit when he saw Andie there, interested in how she would act with his daughter when he wasn’t around. But that didn’t mean he wanted to make a habit of running into her.

  She’d handled his daughter’s never-ending questions well and had seemed to take the girl seriously instead of dismissing her.

  Points for the biker girl — if he were keeping score. But it was his daughter’s life, not a game. And he couldn’t afford to like anything about the Harley-riding woman too much.

  Once in their place, Payton went up to the top floor, a small, low-ceilinged attic room he’d hired Selena to cover with murals of fairies and butterflies and rainbows. She returned a few seconds later carrying one of her favorite books, Blue Butterfly, under one arm as she made her careful way down the stairs to him.

  “Come on, Daddy.”

  “Come on what?”

  “We hafta show Miss Andie my book.”

  “You weren’t supposed to go down there in the first place, Payton.”

  She craned her neck to look up at him. “I promised her.”

  Clay held in a grin, realizing Payton had picked up the phrase from him.

  “I’ll take you down this time, but if I ever catch you in the backyard without one of your adults, I’ll have to take your butterfly book away for a few days.”

  “Put it in time-out?”

  “A long time-out. Let’s go show Miss Andie your book and then we’ll make lunch.” He wanted to check out the tattoo anyway.

  Going down to see Andie was a mistake, Clay thought as soon as they opened the gate. From

  upstairs, his view had been partially blocked by the bushes and foliage along the fence. The eyeful he got now wasn’t something he would forget anytime soon.

  She wore a red-and-black string bikini and was stretched out on her stomach. His eyes were drawn to the firm curves of her barely covered ass and her long, slender legs, then up to her narrow waist. Her skin was lightly tanned and looked as smooth as ice cream and just as mouthwatering. And that was a completely inappropriate thought, especially when you were holding the hand of your three-year-old daughter.

  “See?” Payton said, touching the tattoo on Andie’s upper back without hesitation.

  Andie jerked her head around and Clay suspected she’d dozed off in the sun.

  “Payton, don’t touch. Not good manners.” There was no way not to see the giant tattoo. Somehow, though, it wasn’t obnoxious or gaudy, as he’d expect something that size to be on a slender, pretty if rough-edged woman. Instead he found it intriguing. Fitting. Andie-ish. He wanted to lean closer and inspect the detailed scrolling, the designs in the butterflies’ wings, and the flowers.

  “It’s okay,” Andie said. “Did you bring your book, Miss Payton?”

  “See?” She held the book out and Andie sat up, lowering her feet to the pavement, providing Clay with an excellent view of her cleavage.

  Andie opened the book in front of her and Payton wormed her way between Andie’s knees, facing the pages. As she usually did, Payton began narrating the pictures on the pages, making up her own story to go with the images.

  “Once upon a time, there was a garden full of flowers…”

  Clay wandered to the opposite end of the pool to check the water temperature and the skimmer. They didn’t need to be checked, but he was grasping for any damn thing that would distract him from the view.

  That all worked fine until Andie and Payton were done flipping through the book and his daughter called out to him.

  “Can I go swimming, Daddy?”

  “I thought you wanted lunch, girly.” He had to get her into some swim lessons so he wouldn’t worry about her around the pool this much.

  She shook her head. “Swimming. Please?”

  “We’ll go get your suit in a minute. I need to talk to Miss Andie.”

  “Am I in trouble?” Andie said, grinning as if she knew that, in that bikini, she was all kinds of trouble.

  “Payton is. She’s not supposed to come down here without me. I hate to ask, but if she does it again while you’re out here, would you let me know right away?”

  “Sure, but she was no problem. She’s a great kid.”

  “Payton, wait for me,” he called out. She was halfway up to Andie’s landing. “Thanks. I agree. But she’s not your responsibility,” he said to Andie, more harshly than he’d meant to.

  Andie sized him up. “You don’t want me to be seen with her. Probably smart. This yard isn’t very private.”

  “Nothing personal.”

  Their eyes met and neither spoke for several seconds. “Of course,” she finally said. And the truth was that it was, indeed, very personal.

  She nodded as she gathered her book and drink. “I’ll get out of your way so you can enjoy your pool.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I do, but it’s okay. It’s best this way.”

  She stood and picked up her towel, her smile regretful … or was that wishful thinking on his part?

  It was going to be hard enough keeping Payton away from Andie and as detached as possible. The more pressing challenge, it appeared, could be to keep himself detached. />
  Chapter Six

  Clay watched every tantalizing step of Andie’s departure until his view was blocked by his sister.

  Bridget hugged Payton, then looked questioningly at Andie, who gestured toward Clay. As Andie went upstairs, Bridget and Payton walked toward the pool, where Clay still sat like a guilty teenager checking out a porn site.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure?” he said, hoping to cover his thoughts of thirty seconds earlier.

  “Gorgeous day,” she said cheerfully. “This girl needs some fun in the sun.”

  “We were just going to change into swimsuits, weren’t we, girly?”

  “Yes!” Payton jumped up and down and dragged Bridget by the hand back toward the stairs.

  “I’ll come up with you,” Bridget said.

  The three of them left the pool area, and Clay closed the gate behind him. Payton scurried to the stairs and started up, while he and Bridget took their time.

  “So,” Bridget said heavily, once they’d passed Andie’s landing, “What’s going on with her?” She pointed toward Andie’s door.

  “Not a thing.”

  Bridget stared hard at him when they got to his landing.

  “What?” he said. “What do you think is going on with her?”

  “You sound defensive.”

  “You sound offensive.”

  Bridget laughed as they went inside. Payton was already coming down from her room wearing her pink-and-purple swimsuit.

  “Don’t forget your towel,” Clay said, and Payton went back upstairs. When she was out of earshot again, he added, “Andie’s a renter. For a month. That’s all.”

  “You were drooling, Clay.”

  “What man wouldn’t drool at a woman who looks like that in a bikini?”

  “A man who’s trying to fight a nasty custody battle, maybe? Look, Clay, I don’t know Andie, but from my objective viewpoint, maybe you shouldn’t mess around with just anyone right now. Unless you have wedding bells in mind, it’d be smart to be a good boy until after the hearing.”

  As if he wasn’t already aware of that. “Got it under control, Bridge,” he said, fighting to keep his tone level. “I’m going to change.”

  When he returned, Bridget had helped herself to a glass of apple juice.

  “No coffee?” he asked, checking the pot he’d brewed earlier. It was still half-full, so he poured some into a travel mug.

  “Giving it up, actually.”

  “Let’s go!” Payton said, rushing between them and grabbing their free hands.

  “Lead the way, girly. What’s up with no more coffee?” Clay asked as they trooped down the stairs again. He made a concerted effort not to glance at Andie’s door as they went by.

  “Well…” Bridget took her cover-up off to reveal her simple bright blue one-piece suit. Pointing at her abdomen, she said, “This bulge? Is not due to fat.” She grinned widely, glancing toward Payton to make sure she was otherwise occupied.

  It took several seconds for what she’d said to get through to Clay. He stopped as he was about to jump into the water and looked at her belly again — which, yes, was slightly swollen — and then at her face. Her eyes were full of excitement. “Bridget?”

  She laughed and nodded. “I’m pregnant.”

  If people could glow, she definitely was.

  “Congratulations,” he said, studying her. “I take it you and Reid are happy about this?”

  She nodded enthusiastically. “Very. He’ll be such a good father.”

  A month ago, Clay would’ve heartily agreed. Now he found himself wondering what the heck a good father was. Fatherhood seemed to consist of constantly walking a fine line — between friend and disciplinarian, between protecting and letting a kid breathe.

  “Reid’s a decent guy. If anyone can find his way on this twisted path, he can.”

  “Thanks for the overwhelming support,” Bridget said, then added as if it just occurred to her, “You’ll find your way too.”

  “Hope it’s before my daughter turns thirty,” he said with a grin. He glanced around at Payton, who had wandered over to the turtle-shaped sandbox in the corner of the yard. She was intent on shoveling sand into her pail. “When are you two getting hitched?”

  She tested the water with her toes. “We aren’t.”

  “You’re not.” Clay sat on the edge of the pool and dipped his legs in.

  “No.”

  “You love each other.”

  “Of course we do.”

  “You’re having a baby.”

  “Right again.” She lowered herself to the ladder, submerging to the waist as she sat on the top rung and bracing herself against the cool water. “We don’t need a marriage certificate to verify our relationship.”

  “You’re going to be parents though.”

  “Yes. We live together, Clay. We love each other. We’ll raise the baby together. Just like if we were married.”

  “So why not get married?”

  She stared at him for several seconds, head tilted. “I thought you’d be the one to understand.”

  “Why? Because I have a kid and I’m not married? Bridget, that’s entirely different. I don’t love Payton’s mother.”

  “Did you ever?”

  He hesitated. “I thought I did. Before she got pregnant.”

  “Well, I love Reid. He loves me. That’s all we need.”

  “You two are lucky. Why won’t you take that final step for the sake of your child?”

  “Marriage isn’t what we want.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why? Because everyone else does?”

  “Yeah, actually.”

  Bridget shook her head, her forehead wrinkling in disgust.

  “Mom and Dad aren’t going to be okay with this.”

  “If so, it’s my problem. Not yours.”

  Clay laughed mirthlessly. “I wish that were true. They’re going to blame me for being a bad influence on you.”

  “Clay.”

  “They will. I set the bad example for my little sister.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I know it, and you know it, but they love to see me as the bad guy.”

  “So you were the rebel boy growing up. So what? You’ve changed. The minute you found out you had a child, you cleaned up. Enough of the doom and gloom ‘I’m the bad guy’ crap. No one in the family still believes that.”

  “Parenting is … hard, Bridge. I don’t get why you’d want to be single…”

  “Not single. There will be two of us.” Bridget launched from the ladder into a leisurely sidestroke. She grabbed the wall next to Clay. “I get that you’re scared. Getting custody so suddenly would make anyone’s head spin.”

  “I’ve been trying for this for so damn long… Now that I have her, all I can think of is what if I screw it up?”

  “You’re doing absolutely right by her,” Bridget said quietly. “Trust yourself.”

  “This was supposed to be about you,” he grumbled, not liking how easily she’d hit on his Achilles’ heel. “Not me.”

  He studied his little sister. There was no denying the joy in Bridget’s eyes.

  Who was he to judge her or try to change her mind? He had as much as he could handle with Payton … and then some.

  The princess in question pranced toward them then, spilling sand with every step. She burrowed into his side for a hug. Clay picked her up and set her on his lap, squeezing her tightly, and kissed the tip of her nose. “Hey, girly.”

  “Hey, Daddy.”

  He held her close, wondering whether his sister was right. Was he doing okay? He was doing the best he could, dammit.

  And yet he would always worry it wasn’t good enough.

  How could a man who battled fires and handled every kind of emergency imaginable be felled by three and a half feet of toddler?

  oOo

  “Really? You’re going to a baby shower?” Andie said to Derek as she climbed into the backseat of Macey’s Corolla t
hat evening.

  Derek frowned as he backed the car out of Clay’s driveway. “Not a shower,” he said. “I’ve been assured this is just a party.”

  “It’s a party to celebrate the impending birth of Evan and Selena’s baby,” Macey clarified from the passenger seat.

  “You invited boys,” Andie remarked.

  “Lots of ’em. Lots of firefighters, several of them single.” Macey turned enough to raise her brows suggestively at Andie.

  “Also lots of beer,” Derek said. “Which is the only way to get lots of firefighters to a baby party.”

  “This should be interesting,” Andie said.

  “Yeah,” Derek said. “Who will be most out of place? The men? Or you? Female or not, you don’t really seem the shower type.”

  “You’d be correct with that assessment,” Andie muttered, leaning back in the seat and wondering how early she could cut out for the evening.

  The party was at the home of Pilar and Curt Silver, who lived on the mainland, just a couple of miles past the bridge. Curt was a firefighter on the island. Andie remembered meeting Pilar a few times at the Shell Shack last summer — she worked in administration at the fire station and socialized a lot with the firefighters. With everyone, actually. Extrovert to the extreme, but she wasn’t so bad.

  Andie stood at the edge of the large backyard when they arrived, watching the hostess make her rounds, cracking jokes with the guys, hugging the women, making sure everyone had something to drink.

  Might as well be on another planet, Andie thought.

  Macey was in the kitchen with the caterers. Good thing she was used to being an outsider.

  “Miss Andie, I’m sure glad you came back to San Amaro to see me,” Gus said, hobbling up to her. Derek’s uncle — one of the only other people Andie knew in the whole place — wore a shirt with a wild chili pepper print on it and a tight belt to keep his khaki pants on his scrawny body. As always, his light blue bucket hat was perched on his head of wispy hair.

  “You’re looking fine, too, Gus,” Andie said, genuinely happy to see him. “Are you going to introduce me?”

  By his side was a woman who looked even older than his eighty or so years, with snow-white hair, cheekbones that jutted out from her thin face but must’ve been beautiful years ago, and a vibrant energy about her that said Gus would have to work to keep up with her.