Desiring the Reilly Brothers. Maureen Child

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       “You are nuts. You’re volunteering to go back to South Carolina, for God’s sake, in the middle of summer, when the heat’ll probably kill you, not to mention the fact that your ex is there.”

       “That’s the main reason I’m going, remember?”

       “Yeah,” Janet said, easing her six-months pregnant bulk down until she could sit on the edge of her friend’s desk. “I just don’t think you’ve thought this all through.”

       “Sure I have.” Tina sounded confident. She only wished she were. But if she stopped to think about this anymore, she just might change her mind and she didn’t want to.

       At twenty-nine years of age, she could hear her biological clock ticking with every breath she took. And it wasn’t getting quieter.

       “Look,” she said, staring up into Janet’s worried brown gaze, “I know what I’m doing. Honest.” Janet shook her head. “I’m just worried,” she admitted, running the flat of her hand across her swollen belly with a loving caress.

       Tina’s gaze dropped to follow the motion and she swallowed back a sigh that was becoming all too familiar lately. She wanted kids. She’d always wanted kids. And if she was going to do something about it, then it was time to get serious. “I know you’re worried, but you don’t have to be.”

      “Tina, I didn’t meet you until six months after your divorce,” Janet reminded her. “And you were still torn up about it. Now, five years later, you still carry his picture in your wallet.”

       Tina winced. “Okay, but it is a great picture.”

       “Granted,” Janet agreed. “But what makes you think you can let him back into your life and not suffer again?”

       A nugget of hesitation settled in the pit of Tina’s stomach, but she ignored it. “I’m not letting him into my life again. I’m dropping into his life. Then I’m going to drop out again.”

       Janet sighed and stood up. “Fine. I can’t talk you out of this. But you’d better call me. A lot.” “I will. Don’t worry.”

      Of course, Janet would worry, Tina told herself as she came back from the memory. If she wasn’t so determined on her own course, maybe she would be worrying, too. Her gaze slid from the front porch to the driveway and the garage and the apartment over that garage.

      Maybe, she told herself, Janet was right. Maybe this was a mistake.

      But at least she was doing something. For the past five years, she’d felt as though she’d been standing still. Sure, her career was terrific and she had good friends and a nice house. But she didn’t have someone to love. And she needed that. Now, whether she was making the wrong move or not, at least she was moving.

      That had to count for something.

      “Of course,” she muttered, tearing her gaze from the apartment, “you’re not moving at the moment. And you’ve only got three weeks, Coretti—so don’t waste time.”

      Grabbing her luggage from the trunk, she pulled up the handle and rolled the heavy case along the bumpy brick walk leading to the front door. The suitcase thumped against the four wooden steps and the wheels growled against the wide planked front porch.

      When she unlocked the front door and stepped inside, Tina stopped in the foyer. The big front room was bright with sunshine streaming through the picture window. The air was cool, thanks to the air-conditioning her grandmother insisted on running even when she wasn’t home and a vase full of lemon-yellow roses scented the room. It was just as she remembered and for a moment or two, Tina just stood there, enjoying the sensation of being home again.

      Until the frantic barks and yips cut into her thoughts and reminded her that she wasn’t entirely alone.

      Closing the front door, she abandoned her suitcase and walked through the living room, into the kitchen and straight back through the mudroom to the back door.

      Here, the noise was deafening. Tina chuckled as she fumbled with the deadbolt. Thumps and scrapes against the outside of the door blended with more high-pitched barking that had the same effect as fingernails scraping across a blackboard.

      In self-defense, she whipped open the back door and the noisemakers tumbled in, as though they’d been balanced against the door. Which they probably had been. Instantly, the two little white puffballs leaped at Tina. What felt like dozens of tiny feet with needlelike claws clambered over her legs and feet.

      Muddy paw prints decorated the legs of her pale green linen slacks, looking like smudged black lace. The two little dogs tumbled over each other in their quest to be the first one petted. The sniffing and licking continued until Tina gave up trying to calm them down and fell to the floor laughing.

      “Okay, you guys, I’m glad to see you, too.” She tried to pet them but they wouldn’t stand still long enough. And, as if sitting on her lap wasn’t nearly good enough, both teacup poodles tried to dig their way inside her, squirming and pushing each other off Tina’s lap.

      Muffin and Peaches, one a pale cream color and the other, well, the color of ripe peaches. Nana’s unimaginatively named, unclipped poodles were nuts about women and hated men. Which, Tina thought, put them pretty much in the same boat with a lot of Tina’s friends.

      Tina on the other hand, didn’t hate men.

      She didn’t even hate the one man she should have.

      In fact, that one man was the real reason she’d come back to Baywater.

      Oh, Nana had asked her to stay at the house and take care of “her girls” while the older woman and two of her friends were taking a tour of Northern Italy. But the timing of Nana’s trip and Tina’s private epiphany seemed destined by fate. It was as if the universe had grabbed Tina, given her a shake and said Here you go, girl. Go get what you want.

      Because as happy as Tina was to do Nana a favor, there’d been another, more important reason for agreeing to come home for two weeks.

      She wanted to get pregnant.

      And the man she needed to get the job done was living here, over the garage.

      Her ex-husband.

      Brian Reilly.

      Chapter Two

      The two spoiled mutts sent up a racket the minute Brian pulled into the driveway. Scowling, he shut the engine off and shot a grim look toward the backyard where the little bastards were probably trying to scratch through the gate to get at him.

      Shaking his head, he climbed out of the car and wondered again why the little dogs hated him. Maybe in a past life he’d been a dogcatcher or something and they could still smell it on him.

      “Knock it off, you guys,” he bellowed, not expecting his shout to do a thing about shutting them up. And he wasn’t disappointed. If anything, the noise level climbed and the frantic urgency in their yips and high-pitched barks escalated.

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