Sure he can’t. He flicked a look over his nephew’s head at Kimber, whose lips twitched in amusement.
She leaned down to eye level with Lyon. “How about I get you some water?” She smiled with a purity that squeezed Landon’s chest. He loved Lyon like he would his own kid. He should have been here when he said he would. Tomorrow, he vowed. Tomorrow, he’d get home in time to tuck him in. Balancing business and family this week had proven to be a challenge he’d failed. Thank God for Kimber.
She moved to the door. “I’ll put it by your bed, okay? Do you need me to read Green Eggs and Ham to you again?”
He shook his head, turning blue-green eyes up at Landon. “Will you read it, Uncle Landon?”
He smiled down at the boy swimming in what must have been one of Evan’s T-shirts. Black Sabbath. Interesting choice for a six-year-old. “You bet.”
“In that case, I’m going to go to bed.” Kimber hesitated with one hand on the door frame. “Thanks for the drink,” she told Landon. She flicked her gaze to Lyon, told him to sleep tight, and blew him a kiss.
When she pulled her palm away from her pursed lips and her gaze fettered to Landon’s, he swore a whisper of wind brushed along his cheek a second before she disappeared down the hall.
CHAPTER SIX
Kimber lifted her cell phone to her ear in time to hear it ring. She’d hung up on her employee, Neil, mid-conversation when she’d attempted to rest the cell on her shoulder while making Lyon a sandwich.
“You there?” she said when he answered.
“Here,” Neil said. “I can’t believe you were that close to a millionaire and didn’t kiss him.”
“I can. That would have been stupid.” And fun. And terrifying. The mere idea of her lips against Landon Downey’s had fear pooling in her stomach like an overfilling ditch. Only there wouldn’t be anything mere if she were to kiss him. It would be epic. Massive.
Overwhelming.
“Hang on,” she told Neil. Poking her head out of the kitchen, she found Lyon in the living room where she’d left him. “Lyon! Sandwich!”
He ignored her, as he’d done all morning, and continued swinging his plastic sword while wearing a Superman costume. Why the conflicting wardrobe and weaponry bothered her, she didn’t know. Maybe she was a purist. She dipped her voice low. “Lyon.”
Her “mom” voice. Who knew she had one of those?
“Are you going to count to three, next, darling?” her employee-slash-smart-aleck friend asked merrily.
She walked into the living room and caught the sword with one hand. “Lunch,” she said to the boy who was too cute for his own good. “Go eat and I’ll let you watch Man of Steel before bed.”
That worked. He ran into the kitchen and climbed dutifully into his chair, swinging his feet as he bit into a peanut butter sandwich.
“Color you Mary Poppins,” Neil chimed.
“Have you ever heard of a kid who didn’t like jelly?” she asked distractedly as she put the peanut butter back in the cabinet and brushed crumbs from the counter.
“Never.”
“Right?” She wiped down the counter and tossed the dishcloth in the sink. “You have a question about the store,” she prompted. Neil’s first words to her when she’d answered had been “Mick said to call you” as if he was apologizing for interrupting. Little did Neil know his call was as welcome as the housekeeper that had arrived at eight a.m. today to clean the six bathrooms in Landon’s penthouse. In a word, very.
Kimber missed Hobo Chic. Not just the store, but working—having a sense of purpose. She missed her morning habits she’d since abandoned to come and live in enviable luxury. Whether she was scheduled to work in the store or not, every morning she made her coffee and came down the stairs of her attached loft and into Hobo Chic. She’d sit on the for-decoration-only settee and turn on an elegant Tiffany lamp she refused to sell and take in her surroundings. She’d admire her handiwork: the clothing she’d procured at a recent estate sale or thrift shop, or a rescued piece she’d carefully mended the night before. Or sometimes she’d craft her homemade price tags, trimming squares of burlap, inserting gold eyelets, and threading pink silk ribbons to loop over the hangers.
Having something of her own made her feel proud. Proud in a way that living and going to school in New York, as lush as that had been, hadn’t been able to match. Maybe because she’d gone on her parents’ dime. They’d long since forgiven her for abandoning her major, and in her eyes, she was still very much in the fashion industry. Instead of forging ahead to the future, she was cleaning up remnants of the past, she thought with a smile. She wouldn’t have it any other way.