for a moment and then walked toward him. The beer bottles clinked together at the motion, joining with the frog song and the pitter-patter of rain.
Cole watched her advance, the fabric of the dress outlining her thighs as she walked, the flick of her ponytail swishing left to right behind her head. She stopped when she drew level with the wrought iron leg of the swing, looking down at him for long moments, and damn if Cole’s pulse didn’t skip a beat.
She was lovely in the night, shadows falling gently against her face and body, the soft gray mist shrouding her from behind.
“You look…ridiculously male sitting in that kitschy piece of nineteen-twenties floral garden furniture.”
And she looked very, very female in that dress that flowed and clung in equally fascinating measure. “I was a little worried I might break it, but”—he shrugged—“it’s sturdier than it looks. Plus it’s a lot drier under here then the steps.”
She nodded but didn’t make any move to sit. Or look away, either.
“The rain’s nice,” he said as the silence between them grew.
“Yeah.” She looked absently over her shoulder, then back again. “The grass needed a drink,” she added like something else was required of her before she lapsed into silence once more, her gaze fixed on his face.
Amused at her uncharacteristic muteness, Cole tipped his chin at the beers in her hand. “Is one of those for me?”
“Oh…” She passed him a bottle. “Sorry.”
Cracking the lid, Cole took a deep swallow. He’d been hankering for a beer since Rambo had bounced a ball and hit himself in the head about one minute after the clinic had started. When Jane didn’t make any move to sit, he raised an eyebrow and patted the cushion beside him. “You want to join me?”
It was almost comical the way she looked at the space next to him like it contained a live rattlesnake. She dragged her gaze back to his face, and Cole almost lost his breath at the intensity he saw there. “We can’t keep doing this.”
His belly pulled tight at her directness. He knew she was right, but he’d already become more than a little addicted to their nightly tête-a-têtes, and the thought of stopping made him twitchy. “What?” He smiled and feigned ignorance. “Beer drinking and performance appraisals?”
She refused to return his smile, her gaze holding his, obviously determined to tackle their situation head-on. “You and I both know that’s not what we’re doing.”
Cole sighed. “Yeah.”
“We can’t be making out like teenagers. I’m not a teenager, Cole. I’m a single mother of a four-year-old, and I’m here to do a job. I can’t take my eye off either of those balls, no matter how much I might want to play with you.”
His gut clenched at the infinite possibilities in her frank and unexpected admission of attraction. Cole would like nothing more than some playtime with Jane Spencer. “You want to play with me, huh?”
Jane was clearly not in a joking mood. “Cole…I have responsibilities.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I know.”
He did know; he understood she wasn’t footloose and fancy-free. He also understood, as he suspected she did, that neither of them would be able to play in half measures. He already knew it would be all or nothing between them.
“So…we’ll be friends, then.”
Her brow crinkled. “Friends?”
“Sure. Why not? We get along, and I’m still looking after Finn. I can be friends with a woman I’m attracted to and keep it platonic.”
99 percent sure, anyway. Possibly ninety-five. Maybe closer to ninety. But that was still pretty good, right?
“And how many times have you done that?”
Cole made a great show of mentally calculating, but the reality was he didn’t have to think about the number at all. “Zero.”
“Exactly.”
“Just because I haven’t done it before doesn’t mean I can’t. I’m a grown-up, Jane. So are you. Just because we’ve been acting like horny teenagers doesn’t mean we have to continue that way. If you want to keep this all aboveboard, then I can do that. I’m certainly willing to give it a go if you are.”
“I am.” She nodded emphatically. Really emphatically. So emphatically Cole wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince.
“Okay. Good.” That was that, then. It’d been decided. He and Jane were to be friends. No more kissing on the back steps. He patted the cushion again. “Sit down, come and listen to the frogs with me, and I’ll tell you a story about why you should never let a group of four-to-five-year-olds loose with a football.”
She