She ignored him and turned with the boys to follow Jay’s extremely perfect backside out of the room.
As soon as they’d passed through the door he held open for them, he let it swing closed and the chatter and music from inside went hushed.
She felt a quick dart. “Are you sure this is okay? I didn’t intend to take you away from your work.” Not that she wasn’t going to enjoy it while she could.
His dark brown hair was short. Thick. Light caught in the glossy strands as his head dipped slightly toward hers. “Job of the day is to take care of the Fortunes,” he said conspiratorially. He really did have the sexiest deep voice. “You’re a Fortune, so...” He touched her elbow lightly, directing her into a waiting elevator.
She couldn’t help her shiver any more than she could help the laugh that escaped. “I’m not one of those Fortunes, though, so I’m not sure this counts.”
The elevator car was narrow, long and tall and had padded walls. He punched the ground floor button. “I didn’t know there were a these and a those.”
Her smile widened. If he’d been waiting on the table where her parents sat, he might have thought differently.
The elevator lurched softly as it stopped and the doors opened again. Jay led them through a back corridor made even narrower by tall racks sitting on one side, then pushed through another door into the fitness center. They crossed the spacious room and stepped through another door and outside onto a grassy area.
The music and laughter from the party upstairs carried easily down to them.
Toby was squirming so much she set him down on the grass. “Put these on before you move an inch,” she ordered, handing him the shoes and socks.
Tongue sticking out between his teeth, he quickly pulled on the socks. The heels weren’t in the right spots, but he didn’t seem bothered by it as he worked on the shoes. She knew better than to offer help. He had an independent streak a mile wide. Meanwhile, Tyler crouched down and began running a car she hadn’t even known he’d had along the cobbled pavers next to them.
She looked up at Jay. “Thanks for this.” She gestured at the boys. “My brother’s their guardian.”
He looked surprised. “Sorry, I thought they were yours.”
She shook her head. “Nope. No kids. Not married.” She felt her face flush.
His smile widened.
Butterfly wings fluttered inside her chest. “So, uh, how long have you worked at Hotel Fortune?”
“Almost a month now. They’re good folks here. Those Fortunes. Hey, pard, want a little help there?” He crouched alongside Toby who was still struggling with his shoelaces.
Toby duly considered the matter, then to her amazement, he shot out his small foot.
“Always had trouble with laces, myself,” Jay told the boy with a grin. “So my granny kept buying me cowboy boots. Just like these.” With a wink, he wiggled the toe of his boot and Toby giggled. “My mama, though, she said I couldn’t play baseball wearing boots so she taught me like this.” He stretched out Toby’s laces in a slightly exaggerated way. “Cross ’em over in an X,” he sang softly, “pull ’em down and now what’s next?”
Tyler came over to see. “Bunny ears.”
“Right,” Jay agreed. “Only my mama called them donkey ears. Cross ’em over in an X,” he repeated, in the same deep singsong drawl, “pull ’em down and now what’s next? Donkey ears—” he nodded encouragingly when both boys shouted the answer “—get all crossed up. Make ’em do a somersault. Now that’s done, what else is left? Pull ’em tight and kiss an elf.”
The boys wrinkled their noses and hooted. “Kiss an elf!” Toby stuck out his other foot and wiggled it back and forth. “Do it again!”
“All right,” Jay agreed, catching the toe of Toby’s shoe. “But you do the laces this time.”
Unspeakably charmed, Arabella watched them as Toby grabbed his shoelaces.
Jay started singing again. “Cross ’em over in an X...” He trailed off, as the twins took over the words, easily remembering the simple, catchy tune while Toby’s fingers tried to replicate the motions. Jay straightened then and his eyes seemed to linger on her face.
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Kiss an elf?”
“Mom was—is—a piano teacher.” His smile was so easy. So sexy with that slash of a dimple that appeared beside his mobile lips. “She never claimed to be a lyricist.”
Shoes successfully tied, Toby hopped to his feet and even though Arabella would have loved to linger a little longer with Jay, she knew she shouldn’t keep him. “Thanks for showing us the shortcut down here.” Already the two imps were chasing each other around the grass, burning off some of their never-ending energy.
“My pleasure.” He gestured at the hotel. “Afraid you’ll have to use the main elevator to get back upstairs. The door we came out doesn’t open from the outside.”
“What time do you get off work?” The words blurted out of her and she flushed. Not just because of the impetuous question, but because of the slow look he sent her way.
“Jay.” Another one of the servers from the party stuck her head out of the door, obviously looking for him. “Need you upstairs, dude.” She stood there holding the door open, pointedly waiting.
Jay offered Arabella a slightly pained shrug. “Sorry.”
“No.” Arabella waved her hand. “I’m sorry for keeping you.” She moistened her lips. “We can, uh, we can talk later.” She was practically stuttering.
She really wasn’t good at this. Inside her head, she pictured herself all smooth and maybe even a little sophisticated and sexy. Reality, though, fell far short.
Fortunately—miraculously—Jay didn’t seem any more bothered by her awkwardness than Toby was by his backward socks. “That sounds good,” he said and she was pretty sure it wasn’t her imagination that his deep voice seemed to go even deeper.
“See you later, pardners,” he told the boys as he went back inside. “Make sure you run enough to make room for birthday cake.”
Arabella let the boys run around a little longer than the ten minutes she’d promised Brady. But since she could see him upstairs in the restaurant through the opened balcony doors, she figured he wasn’t too anxious.
Which was fortunate because the butterflies fluttering madly inside her veins needed to burn off some energy as badly as the boys did.
Lights were coming on around the property when she herded the twins back inside through the main entrance and upstairs.