Page 77 of Heart Breaker

Lottie bends to hug her and when she straightens, her gaze catches mine over Poppy’s shoulder. Neither of us looks away. I cross the yard before I can think better of it, our eyes never straying, as Poppy keeps chattering about hide-and-seek and tree branches and how unfair manual labor is.

The words drift around us.

“That was pretty sweet,” Lottie says when I reach them. She brushes a hand through Poppy’s curls. I look down at my niece, who’s tucked into Lottie’s side.

“Which part?” I ask.

“The part where you nearly had a heart attack when she wandered into the trees.”

I rub a hand across my jaw, not bothering to deny it because she’s right. Poppy looks up at me with big eyes as her fingers play absentmindedly with the hem of Lottie’s tank top.

“You know,” she continues softly, “for someone who works so hard to convince the world he doesn’t care, you’re actually terrible at it.”

I huff out a small laugh. “Is that right?”

“Really, really bad.” She shakes her head, her eyes staying on mine a beat longer than necessary.

We stand together in the morning sun for another minute, Poppy telling a story that both of us only half listen to. The breeze stirs a loose strand of hair across Lottie’s cheek, and without thinking, I tuck it behind her ear without breaking eye contact.

Wham, there’s that feeling low in my chest again.

Poppy tugs at Lottie’s hand, and the moment slips away. Still, when Lottie looks back at me, there’s the faintest hint of color in her cheeks.

“Come on, P,” Lottie says, squeezing her fingers. “Let’s go make your uncle some breakfast. I’m pretty sure he’s exhausted after all that hard work.”

I snort.

Poppy points dramatically at me. “Do you know how exhausting it is working for him? Every branch needs to go in a perfect pile. He has branch rules.”

“Nothing wrong with branch rules,” I grumble.

“Uncle Wes, you should just relax. No more work. Deal?”

“No deal, peanut.”

She rolls her eyes at Lottie. “Uncle Wes can be bossy.”

Lottie presses her lips together, fighting a smile. I know we’ve talked about boundaries, about keeping things uncomplicated, but right now, the only thing I want to do is to complicate things. Seeing her in those jeans with her sun-kissed skin isn’t helping the situation happening in my pants.

“I get it, P,” Lottie says. “Being bossed around is never fun.”

My eyebrows rise. “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t complain, Peach.”

Lottie’s eyes go wide as color blooms across her cheeks, but I can see she’s trying to hold back a smile. She clears her throat. “Breakfast will be ready in twenty minutes, Pilot.”

Poppy leads the way into the house, and I watch as Lottie follows her. “I’ll be in soon,” I say roughly as I try to mentally list every Canadian Prime Minister in order to get my hard-on to deflate. “Just need to put the bin in the garage.”

She half-turns and gives me one last look over her shoulder before shutting the glass door behind her, leaving me outside alone with a head full of wildly inappropriate thoughts and my last remaining shreds of self-control.

TWENTY-NINE

Lottie

Watching Wes with Poppy in the yard was probably a mistake.

I should have looked away or gone inside, found anything else to do other than stand there and witness how sweet, protective, and vulnerable he was with that little girl. And now I can’t stop replaying in my head the way she launched herself into his arms without hesitation, knowing he would be there to catch her.

Until now, it’s been easy enough to focus on the obvious things: Wes’s smile, his broad shoulders, those steel gray eyes, and of course the whole pilot thing, which is so incredibly hot. I’ve been able to keep my attraction to Wes in a box, packed away and neatly contained. But watching him play hide-and-seek in the backyard with Poppy has shifted the ground beneath my feet.