Forged of Steele Bundle (Books 1-4) - Brenda Jackson [50]
Kylie couldn’t help but smile, pleased with his compliment, but still…“Can’t you see the problems it will cause if our kids think something is going on between us?”
“No.”
“Chance,” she said, moaning his name in frustration.
“Kylie. We’ve had this conversation before and my feelings on the matter haven’t changed. We’re adults and what we do is our business. In fact I think Marcus will find it strange if I’m not attracted to you. He thinks you’re beautiful, so quite naturally he’ll assume that I’ll think you’re beautiful, too. And I do. I also think you’re someone I’d like to get to know better. He would assume as much as well. But you’re right. The camping trip will be about Marcus and Tiffany and not about us. Our time will come later.”
She wondered what he meant by that.
“Will it make you feel better if I promise to be on my best behavior when we go camping?”
Kylie shrugged. How could she explain to him that his behavior really had nothing to do with it? It was her own behavior she was concerned about. He didn’t have to do anything in particular for her to get turned on. Her dilemma was the fact that just seeing him did that.
“If you don’t go, you know what might happen, don’t you?”
Chance’s question recaptured her attention. “No, what?”
“The kids are going to feel that they can’t depend on us to keep our end of the bargain. We did tell them that we would agree for them to take part in supervised activities.”
“But we never said anything about overnight activities, Chance.”
“Neither did we clarify they had to be only daytime activities. They won’t understand what the big deal is since we will be there as chaperones. They will only see it as a cop-out on our part. I don’t think it’s fair to cancel out a weekend of fun for them just because we can’t keep our hormones in check for forty-eight hours. It makes us sound pretty damn selfish, don’t you think?”
Kylie sighed deeply. It hadn’t before, but since he’d put it that way, yes, it did make them—her in particular—sound selfish. Tiffany had never gotten the chance to go camping. Kylie had been too overprotective to even let her go with the Girl Scouts that time when she was ten. And now all her daughter wanted was to experience her first camping trip and her selfish mother, who couldn’t keep her overactive hormones in line, was standing in her way.
“Okay, you’ve convinced me. I’ll go.”
“Great! The kids will be happy.”
She laughed. “Yes, I’m sure they will be.”
“I’ll make the arrangements for next weekend. Will that work?”
“Yes, that will work.”
“And. Kylie…?”
“Yes?”
“The kids aren’t the only ones who’ll be happy. I’m going to be happy as well. Good night.”
Before she could say anything, he hung up the phone.
Chapter 7
A few days later Kylie was praying that at some point her life would resume a sense of normalcy. Since she’d told Tiffany of her decision to go camping, her daughter had been nothing but a bundle of mass excitement. So much, in fact, that Kylie had to wonder whether being with Marcus was the primary reason for her daughter’s happiness or the camping trip itself.
With teenage exuberance, Tiffany had gone on and on about all the things she planned to do, like swimming in the lake, fishing in that same lake, having a picnic by that lake and taking oodles and oodles of pictures of that lake. And she intended to do a lot of bird watching and had even checked out a library book on the various species. Of course that meant she would need a pair of binoculars, which her godmother had been quick to buy for her.
Kylie hadn’t talked to Chance anymore until he’d called early Saturday morning saying he would drop off a list of items she might want to bring along. The cabin’s kitchen was well-stocked with cooking utensils, but he thought it would be good if they cooked outside on the grill or a camp stove. He’d gone on to tell her that although the cabin had electricity, usually he and Marcus enjoyed faking it by using