Jane."
"You know Jane?"
"Know all the pretty girls on the beach," he said, tipping his bottle at Tess. "Always looking to end my bachelor status."
"Right," she scoffed. "You and all the other handsome firefighters are on the endless search for your better halves."
He appeared to consider her remark seriously. "Can't speak for everyone else, but I do know what I want."
Tess could only feel envy. "What's that?" Maybe I can co-opt your same wish.
"You..."
Her swallow of beer almost went down wrong.
"...or should I say, what you have."
She coughed now, clearing her throat as well as clearing her mind of any unbidden image that might be trying to form. "And what do I have that you want?" she asked, trying for rueful. "A crying baby, a rebellious teen, two little boys that... Never mind, just don't ask me about Cheetos."
He laughed. "All of the above...except maybe not the Cheetos since I don't know where that's going. But I grew up in a very lonely house without brothers or sisters."
She thought of the quiet little kid he'd been, trailing after Griffin and Gage.
"I want the whole big, messy family."
"We're that, all right," Tess said with a wry smile. Child clutter was everywhere, from the pairs of rubber thongs jumbled by the front door to the action figures locked in mortal combat by the built-in bookshelves. Surely there was a lurking plastic block or two somewhere, ready to wield brutal pain on an unsuspecting sole.
Teague settled into the corner of the couch. He wore ancient jeans, a Hawaiian shirt he could have stolen from Griffin's closet and leather flip-flops. He looked a little lazy and a lot male, and she felt another small ping of awareness below her breastbone. Heat gathered where her hairline met the nape of her neck.
His eyes on her, Teague took a slow pull from his beer, and his swallow moved along the tan column of his neck. He settled more comfortably on the cushions, and as he stretched out one long leg, the edge of his sandal met the side of Tess's bare heel, the contact as light as a butterfly kiss.
She froze, her gaze dropping to the label of the beer she held, though her peripheral vision didn't miss their tiny point of connection. Did he know they were touching? It wasn't flesh-on-flesh or anything, but wouldn't a normal person pull back from even that small invasion of personal space?
Maybe he didn't notice.
Maybe he was asking a question with that near-nudge.
She'd given him the answer before, though, hadn't she? That first day on the beach she'd explained she was the mother of four. Married.
But how true was the married thing? And wasn't she more than a mother? She was supposed to be figuring that out. Tonight.
Now the heat at her nape traveled around and down, and she automatically pressed the cold beer bottle to the thin skin below her collarbone, bared by the stretchy yoga top. She glanced over at Teague, found him staring.
A sheepish grin curved his mouth. "I told you about that crush, right?"
Another opening. She wasn't such a wife and mother that she didn't know it. The woman in her recognized that she could make a move of her own right now, twitch a toe, find something flirtatious to say, and this moment could possibly turn into something different.
Could turn into someone different.
Tess opened her mouth -
- and heard Russ begin to cry. She was up so quickly she stepped on Teague's foot. But the contact barely registered as she hurried in the direction of the hall. "He's been fussy," she said over her shoulder. "I think he may be getting another tooth."
Her guest was rising from the couch. "I should go?" But then Russ squawked again, and Teague answered his own question. "I should go."
She didn't bother seeing him out. It took twenty minutes to soothe her baby. Humming under her breath, she held his head against her shoulder and rocked back and forth, standing outside the room he shared with Duncan and Oliver. Once he was down again, she pulled a lightweight throw over his sailboat-printed jammies and arranged his special blanket under one arm. He reflexively gathered it close to his chest.
David used to do that to her when they were in bed.
David hadn't touched her in bed in months.
Back in the living room, she cleaned up the bottles and snack and then returned to her original place on the couch. She stared at the photo of the kids in front of