Taming A Fortune. Nancy Robards Thompson

the credits started to roll, he looked over and saw that Kylie and Justin had fallen asleep.

      “I guess we’ll have to carry them in to bed,” he whispered to Angie, who’d nuzzled into the pillow next to his.

      But she didn’t answer.

      He leaned over and, while tempted to brush back the strands of hair that had fallen across her face and tell her the movie was over, he let her sleep.

      Brian, thank goodness, picked up his blankets and pillow and made his way into the house on his own. But Toby had to carry the smaller kids one at a time.

      Thanks to Kylie’s overzealous efforts to make them all cozy for the movie, the mattresses were completely bare. Remaking all the beds seemed like way too much work to do. So instead, he went back to the grass, retrieved a couple of blankets and put one over each of the sleeping children.

      When he returned outside and saw Angie curled up under the stars, the corner of his comforter tucked under her chin, he stood there and watched her for a while.

      Now what? Wake her up? Send her home?

      Invite her inside?

      He looked back at the house. Considering the bare mattress that awaited him inside, he figured, what the heck.

      She looked so soft, so comfortable. Why not let her nap? He could certainly use a little snooze himself.

      So he lay down next to her, just as they’d done when the movie had first begun. Then he pulled a blanket over the top of them. Surely one of them would wake up in an hour or so. At that time, they could each go their own way, she to her house and he to his own room.

      And no one would be the wiser.

      Toby might not be able to invite Angie to actually spend the night in his bed, but this seemed like the next best thing.

      * * *

      Angie wiggled backward, not quite ready to wake up from her dream.

      When had her bed gotten so small and cramped?

      Her back was pressed up against a warm wall, her bottom nestled against something hard.

      Her waist was tethered down.

      She didn’t feel trapped or claustrophobic, though. Nor did she feel compelled to move away. Rather, she snuggled deeper into the cocoon of comfort.

      Whatever had been clamped on her waist slowly traveled upward until it reached under her shirt and began to fondle her breast.

      Ooh. Nice. She sighed and arched in contentment, her dream getting better by the minute.

      A warm breeze whispered along her neck, as lips brushed against the sensitive skin below her ear.

      She leaned her head back to provide more access to the mouth that was giving her such delicious pleasure.

      Swish.

      Swack.

      Swish.

      What was that flapping sound?

      Angie didn’t want to stir, didn’t want to ever wake up, but the annoying sound wouldn’t go away. She cracked her eyes open and saw something big and white floating up in the wind, then smacking down against the side of a huge, red barn.

      A barn that looked a lot like Toby’s.

      Why was her bed in Toby’s backyard?

      Wait. Whose pink-pony-covered pillow was wrapped in her arms?

      And whose hand held her left breast? Whose fingers had tightened over her taut nipple?

      “You feel good,” a sleep-graveled, baritone voice whispered against her ear.

      Toby?

      This wasn’t a dream, was it?

      Swish. Swish. Splat.

      Were those water droplets that just sprinkled her face?

      “What the—” Toby shot up, and his hand left her breast. “Oh, hell. The sprinkler.”

      Angie stared at Toby through wet lashes, fully awake now and trying to piece together why they’d been sleeping together outdoors, why he’d been holding her so intimately. But more water from a nearby sprinkler shot her in the face again, and Toby grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the house.

      “We have to get this stuff inside. Everything’s going to get soaked.”

      Angie, still dazed from her erotic sleep-induced bliss, didn’t take the time to decide whether Toby had been fully awake or dreaming. Instead she snapped out of it long enough to run for the movie projector, pull the hefty old machine off the relocated patio table and lug it, extension cord and all, inside the kitchen, trying to dodge the shooting sprays of water as she went.

      She set the reels on the table, just as Toby dropped the first load of wet blankets on the kitchen floor.

      “Why are you guys all wet?” Kylie asked, walking into the kitchen before Angie could process what had happened outside on the lawn.

      Angie waited for Toby to answer because she didn’t think the words would form in her throat.

      But a red flush on Toby’s face as he reached down for one of the damp pillows and placed it in front of his waist suggested that her hormones hadn’t been the only ones getting an early-morning workout.

      She didn’t know whether to laugh at his discomfort or run out of the room in embarrassment because, whatever had just happened—sleep-induced or fully conscious—their friendship had just taken a tremendous turn in an unexpected direction.

      Maybe it was best if she got out of here.

      She was usually good with smooth exit strategies, but she couldn’t seem to get her brain to engage.

      As much as she’d like to pretend this morning hadn’t happened, she hated to leave Toby to face the music alone. And judging from the pink tint blossoming underneath his stubble-covered cheeks, he didn’t quite know what to make of it, either.

      “The sprinklers came on early this morning,” Toby mumbled, not dropping the pillow. “So Angie and I were trying to get all this stuff inside.”

      “Why didn’t you bring it in last night?” Justin asked, making his way into the crowded kitchen, oblivious to the strong but awkward sexual attraction swirling in the room like a Texas dust cloud.

      “Sweet,” Brian said, padding in to join them, his red hair sticking up on one side of his head. “You guys had a sleepover.”

      Oh, great. That wasn’t going to look good in the social worker’s report—if one of the kids happened to mention Toby having a woman spend the night while the kids were home.

      Angie reached up to smooth her own sleep-tousled hair.

      Maybe she should tell the kids she’d been out for a morning jog and had decided to stop in for breakfast.

      She glanced down at her bare feet. No, they were too smart to fall for that. She needed to nip this thing in the bud before everyone in town heard that she and Toby had slept together—which, technically, they had.

      “It wasn’t really a sleepover,” she said. “I just dozed off while watching the movie.”

      “Then can Mike Waddell kinda fall asleep over here next Saturday after our baseball game?” Brian asked.

      The energy-drink kid? Angie could only imagine the hyperactivity that would come along with that night. But at least the focus was now off her.

      “We’ll talk about it later,” Toby said, finally releasing the pillow.

      “If Brian gets a sleepover, then can I have a slumber party?” Kylie asked.

      “How many girls do you want to come to your slumber party?” Angie asked.

      “My teacher said that, if we