A Man Who Knows What He Wants Box Set 5 Page 6

  But there are a lot of different definitions of a successful businesswoman. I’ve met so many amazing women in my line of work and at the university. I’m just in awe of the female spirit and dedication to making it in the business world just as much as we women are making our houses homes. Homes full of happy children.

  All the business success in the world is great, but no matter what I feel like nothing can top the feeling of being a mother.

  But I guess I can’t say for sure. At least not for another month.

  But if it’s anything like I expect it’s going to be the best thing that ever happened to me…on an equal level as getting married to my possessive professor Parker.

  The man who watches over me and will soon watch over our child. The man who possesses every positive quality about a man I could ever hope for, and in doing so he possesses my heart…forever.

  He looks at my sketch again. “I love the detail you gave him in the eyes,” he says before looking back at me. “And more importantly…I love you. Every…single…thing…about…you.”

  He leans in and we kiss.

  “And I love you. And us,” I say putting my hands on my stomach.

  “Us,” he says, placing his hands over the top of mine.

  The kicking stops. Our baby knows we’re here, as close as we can be to holding him. Placing our hands on my stomach is the best we can do…but in a month from now.

  When our little bundle of joy arrives he, or she, is going to get real hugs. So many that our baby will feel like it’s glued to my arms. Because that’s where our baby will stay. In my arms.

  Parker’s hands come up off mine and he wraps them around me carefully.

  Just like I’m in Parker’s arms. Now and forevermore.

  52) FIREFIGHTER’S BABYSITTER

  FIREFIGHTER’S BABYSITTER

  Firefighter Bryson Blaze is a fireman with a lot of irons in the fire.

  By day he’s the outrageously fit older man in charge of the men at the Santa Barbara Fire Department.

  By night he’s California’s sexiest single dad trying to raise a little girl, and her pet dog, but he’s finding this kind of on-the-job training more breathtaking than a five-alarm fire.

  If balancing on ladders wasn’t enough now he’s balancing a career as a fireman and father to a little daughter all at once.

  From walking his dog one minute to teaching his daughter how to walk the next it’s hard to tell which direction his own life is headed.

  When smoke alarms suddenly go off at his own home he knows he’s in dire need of a babysitter, causing me to pass up a new opportunity in order to make a pass at the one man I’ve had my eye on for as long as I can remember.

  I leave my small town for the first time and I’m hoping that will lead to another kind of first time. The kind I’ve been secretly saving for him.

  But will my brother’s best friend only see me as his best friend’s sister…and his best friend’s little sister at that? Nothing more than his babysitter? Or will this older man younger woman situation lead to a California romance that burns hotter than the summer sun on Santa Barbara’s picture perfect shores?

  He’s made a living as a firefighter putting out fires. But tempers run hot when my brother plays with fire by showing up unannounced.

  I’m hoping my fabulous firefighter can stomp out the flames with my brother right away, so the spark the two of us share can burn white-hot…forever.

  *Firefighter’s Babysitter is an insta-everything standalone romance with an HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

  Chapter One

  Aubrey

  I step out of the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport and I see him immediately.

  The passenger window is rolled down and he’s in the driver’s seat. You can’t miss him.

  Not at six foot four and built of solid muscle. More like carved to be accurate.

  He’s out of his red Ford Explorer SUV immediately and approaching me.

  “Hey! How was your flight?” he asks, scooping up my wheeled luggage with one hand like the sixty pounds inside weigh nothing while leading me towards his SUV.

  I clear my throat, still in utter disbelief I’m even here. “Good. Thanks.”

  “That’s good. Well, welcome to Santa Barbara. As you can see the weather here is terrible,” he jokes. It must be about seventy-five degrees and I feel a light and refreshing breeze blow across my forearms and face. The air smells fresh, with just a hint of the salt from the ocean. I could definitely get used to this.

  But I still haven’t gotten used to the idea that I passed up a good offer to live and work in New York City in order to come here and be Bryson’s babysitter. Why did I labor through four grueling years of college just to watch after someone’s child?

  Because that someone isn’t just anyone.

  It’s the guy I’ve had a crush on since I was seventeen. I say crush, but it’s more like an obsession.

  My brother had stopped over one Saturday morning in a moving truck to pack up a load of furniture and other things that my parents wanted to put in storage. He had brought “my buddy Bryson” to make the job quicker and easier.

  Bryson and my brother would move the big, heavy things while my parent’s and I carried the boxes we’d packed the night before. I timed my steps so Bryson and I would meet at the front door each time one of us was coming or going. It gave me the perfect opportunity to look at him each time he stepped aside and let me through the door first like a true gentleman.

  And the more things he packed into the truck that morning the sweatier he got. And the sweatier he got the more transparent that pristine white T-shirt he was wearing became. And the more transparent that pristine white T-shirt became the hotter and wetter I became myself.

  I’d never had that reaction before to any boy I knew. And that was when I realized it was because I wasn’t attracted to boys. I was attracted to men, or at least this one man in particular.

  Him.

  But at seventeen he surely only saw me as his friend’s little sister. He was already twenty-six and working as a firefighter in a bigger town an hour from ours. At least that’s what Google told me the second he left and I ran back inside to check the computer.

  I remember seeing his picture there on the fire stations website. One picture was a headshot of him amongst a group of headshots and short biographies of all the guys who worked at the station.

  And in another shot he was stepping out of a smoking home carrying a small child in his arms. The look on his face was intense and the look on the child’s parents faces made the most emotional photograph I had ever seen. The mother was running toward him, tears in her eyes and her hands outstretched ready to take her child from Bryson’s arms. From the other side an EMT was running toward him with his hands out toward the woman’s direction, about to try and hold her back until the paramedics could get a chance to make sure her child was okay. It was the most heroic picture I’d ever seen, and it was like everyone was running toward Bryson.

  Everyone wanted a piece of him, and from that moment on everyone included me.

  I saw him a few times over the next five years, but not much. It was only when my brother came by and when he just so happened to have Bryson with him. They had met in college on the lacrosse team and had become best friends, leading their team deep into the NCAA tournament. When boys bond like that in sports it seems like they’re friends for life.

  And at the time my life was all about getting ready for college, or at least it should have been, but it turned out I just couldn’t get my mind off of Bryson and my focus was on his biceps and not my books.

  I did okay in school, but not good enough to get the scholarship I was on track for. I wound up going to a more regional school, which was a huge disappointment at first, but the silver lining was that I’d still live at home and it gave me more of those rare occurrences to see Bryson.

  But every time I saw him I got tongue-tied. I couldn’t say anything…literally nothing.<
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  And as bad as it was in real life it was even worse when I found out his station was putting together one of those hunk calendars for charity.

  Oh my god, I bought three copies. One for my room. One for my bathroom. One for safekeeping like it was a collector’s item that was going to be super valuable one day…not that it wasn’t already super valuable to me already.

  And my obsession with him only increased when I saw that not only was he selected for the cover, but his month was also my birth month.

  I tried to tell myself it was fate, but I knew it was just a coincidence. A one in twelve chance that just happened to work out perfectly for me.

  And speaking of perfect I graduated college two weeks ago and had a nearly perfect job offer, the one in New York, and was about to accept.

  That’s when my brother happened to mention Bryson was a new dad to a little girl and a dog and was doing the single dad balancing act…or more like a tightrope walking act and he was dangerously close to slipping.

  One Sunday morning he’d started preparing his little daughter, Delilah’s bottles, and his bacon and eggs, and in the meantime his Dalmatian puppy had started chewing through the pillows in his living room all at the same time. And of course some salesperson then decided to show up and ring the doorbell non-stop while a telemarketer called at the same moment.

  It was the perfect storm and the grease from the cast iron skillet popped and a fire broke out…in a firefighter’s house no less.

  He managed to get it under control quickly, but he realized his life was spinning out of control fast and he needed some help.

  Could you imagine a news story about a fire at a firefighter’s house? It would have been a PR disaster and extremely embarrassing for him. It could have even lead to suspension or worse.

  And that’s what led me to where I am now, which is watching as he opens the back door to his SUV for me to get in.

  And what do I see in the seat across from mine?

  Oh my, god. The absolutely cutest little girl I’ve ever seen.

  “Delilah. Oh my gosh you are absolutely adorable,” I say.

  I slide into the seat and stare at his little girl next to me. For the first time in my entire life my motherly instinct kicks in. It’s a feeling unlike any I’ve ever experienced and it’s hitting me fast…and hard.

  Just a few seconds later Bryson jumps in the driver’s seat up front. “We all ready back there?”

  I buckle my seat belt and check to make sure Delilah’s seat is still properly attached. “We’re ready,” I say.

  “Off we go,” he says.

  We pull out of the airport and I can’t take eyes off his little girl. She’s just so small and so cute. Eventually my vision wanders to the landscape. The hills. The sunshine, and of course the wide shouldered man in the front seat who smells like the deep notes of a masculine cologne.

  He appeals to my sense of sight. He appeals to my sense of smell. His rich voice definitely appeals to my sense of hearing.

  And his baby girl appeals to my suddenly newfound motherly instincts.

  This is too good to be true. The thought that I could have passed this opportunity up for a “real job” seems absurd now.

  And now the only thing on my mind is just how much he’ll appeal to my other two senses. Touch and taste.

  And how in the world will we get to that point?

  Chapter Two

  Bryson

  I’m a California guy through and through now even though I didn’t grow up in California. I grew up in the same area as Aubrey and her brother Adam miles away, but I’ve long since left my Middle America accent behind in exchange for the carefree coastal life. At least until I adopted Delilah and our Dalmatian Douggie to boot.

  And until I saw Aubrey again.

  Damn! She is F-I-N-E fine.

  I really did need a babysitter as soon as possible, but I didn’t think by putting a bug in Adam’s ear that the news would get to Aubrey so fast, let alone that she’d accept.

  I almost feel guilty that she’s out here. Surely she had some job offers lined up. The unemployment rate is really low right now and she’s a really sharp girl. I’m sure corporate America was beating down her door.

  But she chose me. Or at least she chose to come out to California and take in everything this beautiful state has to offer.

  And now that she’s out here I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure she stays here. Not having Adam around is going to make it easier…at least I hope. He’s still my best friend, but this is different. I need time alone with his sister. If he were here I know he’d try and step in and put a stop to it. He’s her brother. He’s protective. I don’t fault him for it.

  But I’d fault myself forever if I didn’t give Aubrey and I a shot.

  I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. Ever since that first time I saw her. It was on a morning and I was over at her place to help her parent’s move out some furniture. She was out there helping too. These days it’s hard to find a young person who’s willing to help out around the house, or be involved in family matters. They all seem to preoccupied with their phones and their “friends,” who from what I understand many of them have never even met outside the Internet.

  That world and way of living is completely foreign to me. The smartphone thing happened so quickly and it just makes me feel like a dinosaur. I mean sure I have WhatsApp and other messaging devices, but that’s just a way to communicate with my real friends. People I have real life experiences with. I usually just use messaging apps to schedule real face-to-face interactions, not FaceTime video chats or whatever they’re called.

  But Aubrey’s not like that. She got in there and helped move things along. And she’d even made homemade lemonade and offered it up to us when we finished. I know it’s only lemonade, but I’ll be darned if that wasn’t the best lemonade I’ve ever had. If she’s great at preparing the basics in the kitchen then she’s already won me over. I can’t wait for the chance to try her cooking once she gets settled in…if she feels like cooking that is.

  I have to remind myself that she’s here to be my babysitter, not my girlfriend or potential wife.

  Yeah…wife. I never thought I’d be the guy who would get married, let alone have a kid but life changes and more accurately I’ve changed. I’ve come to realize the shortness of life and the value of the people you allow in your own life. Having great friends and people that care about you is truly a blessing.

  And finding the right woman is the ultimate blessing.

  And I knew when I first saw her that she was the one for me. I haven’t so much as gone out on a single date with a woman since. No way. No how. It wouldn’t be fair to them, nor would it be fair to me.

  First of all my head wouldn’t be into it. I’d only be thinking of Aubrey. And second of all I’m not even interested in other women. Not at all.

  Aubrey is the only woman I’ve thought about for the last five years.

  And now that she’s twenty-two and finished with college and I’m thirty-one and established in my career the timing couldn’t be better.

  Let’s just hope she’s even one percent as interested in me as I am in her. That will be more than enough because I’m addicted to her…and she doesn’t even know it.

  I try not to sneak a peek in the rearview mirror at her in the back seat. She came to California ready. She’s going to fit in like a natural. And that small white top she’s got on that’s hugging her body is perfect for the warmer weather out here and my eyes. Wow, she looks incredible. And if she’s brought more form fitting outfits like that it’s going to be absolute torture for me.

  I have no idea how I’ll be able to resist her, not that I don’t want her. I mean I want to pull over right here and now and kiss her like she’s never been kissed before.

  And it makes me wonder if she’s ever been kissed before. She’s always seemed kind of shy and more interested in checking out a book on a Friday night than checking o
ut a new club a bar or “hip” spot.

  Like I said…she’s the perfect girl.

  And I wonder if she still is a “girl.” If she’s been saving herself.

  The thought of it makes me move around in my seat trying to relieve the pressure in my jeans.

  I imagine her soon becoming mine. Mine and only mine for life.

  The odds of me and my absolutely perfect woman coming together like that are more difficult than winning the California Powerball every week for a year.

  It just doesn’t happen.

  But this is my chance, and I’m not going to blow it.

  I know exactly what I want and that’s why she’s here.

  For me to make her mine. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

  Chapter Three

  Aubrey

  One of my marketing professors in college was really adamant on how people make decisions emotionally and then justify them logically.

  Even when that “logic” is nothing more than subconsciously tricking ourselves into allowing ourselves to rationally believe we need what in reality we just want.

  Yeah, it’s kind of a lot to wrap one’s head around and I wasn’t sure it was even true.

  Now I know. It’s absolutely true.

  I told myself if this didn’t workout at least I’d be in sunny Southern California and then I could look for a “real job.”

  But in my heart I knew that was never going to happen. I mean, sure, babysitting is great but it’s not my life’s passion or my life’s goal. I do want to be a career woman and at some point chasing around a toddler might just lose its appeal. At least that was what I assumed.

  Now I’m strangely questioning that. And it’s all happening in my head so quickly.