âIâd be lying if I said I wasnât interested in you.â
âAnd Iâd be lying if I said I was interested in you.â Peyton brushed at her skirt as if kissing him had left her dusty, or as if she just wanted to whisk away the memory of his touch. âI'm here so you have a chance to get to know your daughter. Nothing more. And I mean that, Luke. Nothing more.â
âThen why did you kiss me back?â
âI â¦â She opened her mouth, closed it. âI didn't mean to. I got caught up in the moment andââ
âOvercome by the heat? Swept away by the romantic atmosphere of a children's zoo?â He shifted closer. Still, she kept her distance, stood strong and cool, dispassionate. If he hadn't been there himself, he wouldn't believe that ten seconds ago this same woman had been leaning into him, letting out soft mews of desire. âDon't pretend you didn't enjoy that. Don't pretend it was nothing.â
* * *
The Barlow Brothers: Nothing tames a Southern man faster ⦠than true love!
Chapter One
When Peyton Reynolds was a little girl, tearing through her grandmotherâs house on her way to whatever excitement waited outside the front door, her grandma Lucy would reach out, corral her granddaughter in a fresh-baked-bread-scented hug and say, âGoodness gracious, child, you gotta slow down. Life is just gonna pass you by if you donât learn to take a breath or two.â
Peyton never had learned to slow down. Sheâd taken every day of her life ten steps at a time, running from high school to college, graduating in two and a half years instead of four, and putting in more hours at Winston Interior Design than any other designerâearning her four promotions in three years. Then, a month before her twenty-third birthday, her world turned upside down when her older sister Susannah died in a car accident, suddenly leaving forty pounds of cuteness and need in Peytonâs full-time care.
In that instant, Peyton had put the brakes on her rising career while she figured out how to be a surrogate mom to her niece, Madelyne, and still stay on the fast track in the design industry. Sheâd been so very close to a promotion to associate, just a step below her goal of partner, but in the past four weeks, everything she had worked for started to fall apart. And it wasnât just her career self-destructing that had Peyton worried...
It was the quiet. The words unspoken, the tears unshed.
Maddy hadnât grieved, hadnât asked about her mother, hadnât wanted to talk about it. Sheâd gone on playing with her toys and eating her meals and brushing her teeth, but her mood was more somber, her heart more distant. Her laughter dulled, almost silenced.
That sad quiet was what finally spurred Peyton to go back home from Maryland, arriving yesterday in Stone Gap, North Carolina, one of those small Southern towns where it seemed the world stopped spinning. Where the trees and green landscape seemed to offer peace, and quiet, and healing. And where the last man on earth she wanted to see lived. A man who had no idea she was about to upend his world in a very big way.
For a very good reason. Peyton could only pray that he would see it that way, too.
âAuntie P?â
The soft voice of Madelyne, four years old next week and as beautiful as a ray of sunshine, rose from the space on the carpet between the two double beds in their hotel room. Peytonâs only niece, and the only real family she had left. There were times in the days since her sister had died that Peyton wondered how she could move forward, take a breath, without letting the grief drown her. Then sheâd look at Maddy, at her bouncy blond curls and her lopsided, toothy smile, and a blanket of warmth would surround Peytonâs heart. For Maddy, Peyton would do absolutely anything.
Peyton came around the beds, then bent down and offered her niece a warm smile. âWhat do you need, kiddo?â
âCan you play dolls with me? I gots a house set up and everything.â Maddy waved toward an empty suitcase tipped on its side, flanked by a quartet of blond-haired, blue-eyed Barbie dolls in various stages of mismatched glamour. The moment Maddy had arrived back in Stone Gap, she had made herself at home in the hotel room, taking over every square inch of space with toys and clothes, a bright explosion among the tired and boring cream-colored decor.