Page 29 of Bombshell (Whiskey Dolls 1)

“Yeah, sure. That’s no problem. I’m not on at the club, so do what you have to do.”

“Thanks, Marin. I was also calling for another reason.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” The one word curiously sounded laced with humor. “I wanted to say thanks for getting Eli to eat vegetables. That particular fight’s a serious pain in the ass, so you just did me a solid.”

My back shot straight.

“But maybe try to refrain from teaching my kid any more words that’ll result in me getting a call from his principal? Oh, and if you let him, he’ll negotiate you right out of every bit of cash you have in your wallet, so be mindful of that, yeah?”

“How did you—?” My gaze began to dart all around.

“I’m surprised you’d have to ask.” Yep, that wasdefinitelyhumor in his voice. And damn it sounded good on him. “You’re the one who suggested I get a nanny cam, after all.”

“Yeah, but not to check up onme,” I cried. He burst into laughter, and I’d have given my left boob to have been able to see that in person. I lowered my voice so Eli couldn’t hear, and peeked into the living room to make sure he was still consumed in his cartoon. The coast was still clear. “It’s not like I’ll be doing any shirtless wrestling any time soon. I’m theperfectsitter.”

“From the side of the conversation I overheard you having with your sister, I’m not so sure.”

I rolled my eyes at his teasing and looked around for that stupid little camera. “Can you see me now?”

“Yep.”

I lifted my middle finger in the air and spun in a circle. “Just for not trusting me, you should know I plan on snooping through all your medicine cabinets and your underwear drawer.”

“Why am I not surprised?” he asked with a smile in his voice.

“Get back to work, you slacker. And if you’re lucky, you won’t have a d-i-c-k drawn on your living room wall when you get home.”

All of a sudden, his voice got all low and rumbly as he said, “You do that, I’ll have to think of a creative way to punish you.”

There was something in the way he said it that made his threat sound more like a deliciously wicked promise. My cheeks grew hot. My nipples pebbled, and I felt pressure coiling low in my belly.

I couldn’t form a sentence, the only thing I managed to get out was a shaky exhale before he told me he had to go and ended the call.

As I headed back to the couch—in a pretty intense daze—I only had one thought rolling around inside my head.

Oh my.

13

Marin

Eli was dressed in a pair of cute little PJs and snuggled under his covers by the time I stepped into his room later that night.

“I wanna read this one tonight,” he declared, holding up a tiny book with thick cardboard pages.

In the days I’d been watching Eli, this was the first time Pierce had had to work late, so it was the first time I’d been responsible for putting the little cutie to bed. I hadn’t been in his room before, but I wasn’t surprised to find it was what I imagined most little boys’ rooms looked like. The décor theme was sports. There were stickers on the wall and those glow-in-the dark stars stuck all over his ceiling.

The comforter on his bed was covered in cartoon drawings of baseball and football players, and the lamp on his nightstand was in the shape of a bat. The room was cute and totally him. But it was the picture frame beside the lamp by his bed that drew my eye and held my attention raptly.

As I moved toward Eli’s bed and sat on the edge, I stared at the woman in the photograph.

Eli’s mother.

To say she was beautiful would have been the world’s biggest understatement. The woman was breathtakingly stunning. She was standing in the middle of a garden, dressed in a white, flowy summer dress that cascaded down to her bare feet, the material blowing in the breeze. Her dark hair hung in a shiny curtain all the way down to the small of her back.

She had a long-stemmed rose in her hand and had lifted it to her nose. She was smiling in a way that I knew the picture wasn’t staged. It was a snapshot of her in motion, and her free hand was held out like she was waving off whoever was behind the camera, shyly telling them not to take her picture.

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