More Than Protect You (More Than Words #6.5) - Shayla Black Page 0,35

myself determined to win her. I want more days like today. More nights where she sings Oliver—and maybe the children we have together—to sleep. I don’t care if it sounds crazy anymore. I’m listening to my gut.

Suddenly, she looks up and catches sight of me. “What are you doing?”

Her whisper isn’t meant to be sexy, but somehow it lights me on fire. “Watching you. You’re beautiful. Barclay was an idiot for throwing you away.”

Her lips curl up in a shy smile. “You’re only saying that because you’re trying to seduce me.”

“No. Well, yes, I’m trying to seduce you, but I’m saying that because it’s true.” I lean against the doorway. “Is it working?”

Chapter Seven

After Oliver fell asleep, cuddled up with his plushy toy train, Mandy and I do the dishes in silence. I can tell she’s thinking—so hard I can almost feel it.

She’s in the middle of drying a frying pan when she abruptly turns to me. “How long were you married?”

“Ten years officially, but Ellie and I have been separated for nearly two. She asked for ‘space’ one night. A few months later, I realized I was more relaxed, more…myself—not walking on eggshells, wondering if I was saying the wrong thing all the time—so I filed for divorce. She didn’t fight me.”

“No children?”

I shake my head. “We tried. Eventually doctors told us she wouldn’t be able to get pregnant.” No reason to get into all the medical stuff, and I doubt Mandy cares about my ex-wife’s ovaries. “It’s one of the things that changed her perspective on life, I think. After we heard that without something like IVF she wouldn’t be able to have kids, she started focusing on ways to improve herself, which I supported. She wanted to go to college. Fine. I was busy with the gun range. She helped when she could. But…we started living two different lives and grew apart.”

“Did you want children?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you still?”

I tucked that hope away years ago, after the doctors gave Ellie and me the bad news and she refused to discuss adoption. But now? “If the opportunity arises, I’d like to. The sooner the better. I want to be young enough to enjoy them.”

Mandy nods. “Is Ellie your age?”

“Six years younger.”

“Do you think the age difference was the problem with you two?”

The easy answer is no. When Ellie and I got married, we were both in our twenties and at roughly the same place in life. But I’m not sure that’s what Mandy is really asking. “Maybe. I don’t know whether the age difference had anything to do with her refusal to try working it out. Maybe it was immaturity. Or maybe it was the realization that her thirties were just starting and she didn’t want to spend them tied down to someone she didn’t see a future with?” I shrug. “I don’t know. But she was always looking for something. Herself, I think. I’m not sure how much of a role age played in that.”

“Thank you. I’m not trying to be invasive.” She sets the frying pan aside and blinks up at me in the too-bright kitchen. “I’m trying to figure out if we’d be a good fit.”

I suspected as much. “Take your time. When you decide, I want you to be sure.”

“Does my age bother you?”

“I’ve given it thought, but no. Does my age bother you?”

She shakes her head. “I was never attracted to anyone my own age. Even in fifth grade, I had a crush on my teacher.”

“When did you first think of Barclay as something other than your dad’s friend?”

“Honestly? I don’t think I ever saw him that way.” Mandy hesitates. “It’s funny. My mother was always reluctant to let me spend summers with Harlow at the Reed house because she worried Maxon or Griff would try to hustle me into bed.”

“Did they?”

“Never.”

“Were you ever interested?”

She wrinkles her nose. “They were like older brothers to me, teasing, tormenting… So no.”

I nod, taking that in as I put away the last of the dishes while she wipes down the counter. “Be right back.”

“Sure.”

A few steps later, I exit the front door into the Hawaiian night. The breeze is balmy, the air perfumed. I flip on my phone’s flashlight and check the front gate. No evidence of tampering, and it’s shut tight. Then I walk the perimeter of the house. Since there’s no fence at all in back—wouldn’t want to block the ocean view—there’s nothing to deter intruders. I wish the house itself had an alarm system. That