After dinner is over and Josh has brought his plate to the sink, he turns to Tim: “Can we toss around the ball in the backyard?”

I’m relieved that Josh still seems to like Tim, even though he isn’t his father. But as much as I want them to bond, I need to intervene. “Did you do your homework?”

Josh averts his eyes. “No…”

“Well, that’s your answer then.”

Josh groans, but Tim confirms my verdict—I love having another adult on my side. “Get your homework done,” Tim says, “and tomorrow we can go to the park with your bat. We can get in some real practice without breaking any windows.”

Josh nods eagerly and hurries up the stairs to his room. Tim has taken him to the park a few times, in between their home-improvement projects. I feel kind of guilty that my family is eating up his entire social life. I mean, he is a single guy. It’s not like we are in a relationship. He shouldn’t be stuck with us every single weekend, fixing stuff around my house and taking my kid to the park.

“You don’t have to do that,” I tell him after Josh’s door slams shut. Even though if he says he’s not going to take Josh to the park tomorrow, I might cry. I’ve gone to the park to let Josh practice batting, and I am epically bad at it. I couldn’t catch the ball if my life depended on it, so I spend most of the afternoon either ducking to keep the ball from hitting me in the head or chasing down the ball while Josh stands there.

“It’s fun for me too.” He lifts a shoulder. “You know, he’s a really

strong hitter. He can hit that ball further than I can.”

“He had the most home runs on his Little League team last year,” I say proudly.

“I believe it. He’s a natural athlete.”

Even though it’s a compliment, Tim’s comment sits heavy in my stomach. Because Shane was a natural athlete as well. Star quarterback and all that. If Josh ever asks to join the football team, I’m going to try my best to talk him out of it.

Tim gathers the remaining dishes from the table and brings them over to the sink. He turns on the hot water and grabs the bottle of dishwashing soap.

“I can handle it,” I insist. “There are only a few dishes.”

“I want to help.” He tugs the pan from the stove right out of my hands and dips it in the sud-filled sink. “Come on, what kind of jerk would I be if I came here, got a free dinner, and then took off?”

“To be fair, you did like six figures worth of repair work in this house.”

Steam comes out of the sink as Tim scrubs at the pan. “No way. It was

at most high five figures.”

I smack him playfully in the arm. Or I start to, but then my hand lingers on his biceps. He must… you know, work out. Tim looks over at me, his eyebrows practically at his hairline. For a moment, we just stand there, our eyes locked together. Then he reaches over and shuts off the water in the sink. He dries off his hands on a dishtowel.

Then he grabs me and kisses me.

I let him do it. Okay, I more than let him. More like, I grab him by the collar and pull him closer to me like I haven’t kissed a guy in the last decade, which is scarily close to accurate. For a good sixty seconds, we stand in the kitchen, making out like the world is about to end. That’s how long it takes me to remember that my son is right upstairs and then push Tim gently away.

His face is flushed, and he’s looking at me like if I said the word, we would go straight up to my bedroom. “Jesus, Brooke,” he says.

I have to take a second to catch my breath. “I thought you were only looking for friendship.”

“Yeah, well, that was bullshit and you knew it.” “No, I didn’t.”

He gives me a look. “Come on. You know I’ve been in love with you since I was four years old.”

My heart skips in my chest. Yes, I knew on some level that Tim felt that way about me. Even though he dated other girls, he never looked at them the way he looked at me. But I never felt that way about him. Not until recently.

“I just…” I glance up the stairs, hoping Josh’s door is closed. “We have a good thing going here. Josh adores you. And you’re my best friend. I feel like… I’m scared of messing that up, you know?”

“I agree—we have a good thing going.” He reaches out and takes my hand in his, and again, I let him. “But I think we could have a better thing going.”

He’s right, of course. As wonderful as it has been having him hanging around the last month, it would be better if he were here more. If our friendship were more. Tim and I—we could have it all.

“My life is just so busy between my job and Josh,” I point out. “Maybe you’d be better off with somebody simpler. You could still go out with that waitress from the Shamrock. Kelli, right?” Kelli was a little crazy, but she definitely liked him a lot, and she sure as hell didn’t have a ten-year-old son with her incarcerated ex-boyfriend.

“Brooke, listen to me.” Tim squeezes my hand as he looks me right in the eyes. “I haven’t seen you in ten years. In that time, I’ve dated a fair number of girls. But it never worked out—it couldn’t. And it was all because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Anyone else I dated, it wouldn’t be fair to them.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “I’ll never feel about anyone else the way I feel about you.”

I might cry. It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Tim is so sweet and sexy and he’s great to my kid. I should be throwing myself into his arms, and just thank my lucky stars.

But for some reason, I can’t turn off Shane Nelson’s voice inside my head.

Stay away from Tim Reese. He’s dangerous. Please, Brooke.

It’s ridiculous, of course. I knew it when he was saying it, and I know it now. But I can’t shake the feeling that this has worked out just a little too well. That Tim is just a little too perfect. Especially for someone like me.

“Brooke?” Tim is frowning. “Look, I don’t want to pressure you. If you don’t want this, we can pretend it never happened. If you just want to be friends, that’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine. It would completely suck. But

—”

“Shut up,” I say. I’m not sure if I’m saying it to Tim or to Shane’s voice in my head. But it doesn’t matter. “You’re right.”

A smile creeps back across his face. “I am? About what?” “Not being together would completely suck.”

I grab him by his shirt and pull his lips onto mine. He kisses me back just as eagerly. And all the while, I ignore the tiniest hint of sandalwood clinging to the collar of his shirt.