Never.
Even his sister—who could be a major pain in the ass—never got him this riled up.
And that was saying something.
Wiping away at the remnants of her tears, Sydney nodded. “Fine. Truce. Just…”
“Yeah, I know. No nicknames,” he said before she could. “Got it, Ms. Albright.”
And without another word, Sydney walked back into the house.
In a move that was becoming all too familiar, Sydney rested her back against the door and let out a shaky breath.
Like it wasn’t bad enough that the man pushed all her buttons by just being who he was and reminding her of a time she’d rather forget, he had to call her that stupid nickname and then see her cry.
Awesome.
Yeah, she was definitely not living her best life right now.
Although she was due for a good cry.
For the last two weeks, she had been doing better—crying less. She seriously felt like she had turned a corner and was finally moving on from her grief. But now that she let those first tears fall, she knew it wasn’t going to be easy to stop.
Right now, Haley was out with her friend Janie and there wasn’t anything that she had to be doing. Pushing away from the door, she walked down the hall to the guest room she was using—she still hadn’t been able to sleep in Tracy’s room—and closed the door. In the distance, she could hear Kyle working, but she tuned him out. Instead, she curled up on the bed and let out a long breath, and before she knew it, tears were flowing.
And they kept on flowing until she heard Haley calling her name.
When she glanced at the clock on her nightstand, she saw over an hour had passed and she felt both mentally and physically drained. It was four in the afternoon and she had no idea how she was going to make it through the rest of the day.
Maybe she should have gone with her parents to Florida. Perhaps she needed to take some time to truly come to grips with all the ways her life was changing.
Maybe if she did, she wouldn’t have emotional breakdowns in front of strangers.
Okay, technically Kyle Jones wasn’t really a stranger. She knew him as a boy, a young man. This version of him—all grown up and sexy as hell—was a stranger to her.
“Aunt Syd! I’m home! Can Janie stay for dinner?”
That was her cue to get up and stop feeling sorry for herself. Wiping at her face, she left her room. “I’ll be out in a minute!” she called out before going into the bathroom and quickly washing her face. Her reflection still showed that she looked like a mess, but it couldn’t be helped. Hopefully Haley wouldn’t comment on it either.
Pasting a smile on her face, she walked down the hall and out into the kitchen. “Hey! How was the pier?”
“It was great! We’re going to go out in the yard and practice for gymnastics tomorrow. I think I totally mastered my back handspring today!” And before Sydney could question her more on it, they grabbed a couple of bottles of water and were walking out the back door.
The sound of laughter was music to her ears, and after a minute, she grabbed a bottle of water for herself and followed the girls out to the yard. It finally made sense why her brother-in-law had made it such a priority to do the property before tackling the house. As Sydney looked down from the deck, she saw Haley doing cartwheel after cartwheel across the yard—and laughing as she did it.
Slowly, she made her way down the steps and did her best not to be too obtrusive and simply observe. She sat on one of the lower steps and smiled as both girls just tumbled and flipped and seemed to bounce all over the yard.
Somewhere out front, she heard the sound of a car door slamming and wondered who was here. She was about to stand up when Kyle came wandering around the back. Haley instantly spotted him and ran over to tell him about her newest achievement.
Great.
Before she knew it, her niece was putting on a total performance and Kyle was gushing over it. There was no way she could possibly tell them to stop without coming off like a total bitch.
Not that she minded coming off that way to Kyle, but Haley didn’t deserve that, and she certainly wouldn’t understand why she was carrying on.
So she moved from the stairs to sit on one of the large Adirondack chairs on the patio. For several minutes, Sydney watched as Haley did one move and then another while talking excitedly to Kyle the entire time. When he dove to the ground dramatically while pretending to do a cartwheel, both girls went wild with laughter. It had been so long since she’d heard her niece laugh like that—a genuine belly laugh—and it made her heart ache for her.
And apparently her earlier crying jag unleashed something in her because she felt the sting of tears again.
“Dammit,” she muttered, carefully wiping at her eyes. There was no way she needed Kyle to see her cry twice in one day.
“Aunt Syd! Aunt Syd!” Haley cried as she ran toward her. “Can we get a balance beam for the yard?”
“Um…what?”
“Sorry,” Kyle said as he gave Sydney a lopsided grin. “I just thought we could build a make-shift one from some of the lumber we have out front and Haley could use it to practice on.”
With a smile in place, she focused on her niece. “Uh…sure, I guess. If it’s not too much trouble.”
“I can work on it over the weekend,” he explained. “It shouldn’t take too long.”
“Why can’t we do it now?” Haley whined. “If you have the wood right out front, why wait?”
She wanted to tell Kyle to think before he spoke, but they’d already established that he didn’t. “Because Kyle’s got other things to finish first. Things his boss wants him to do and that we need him to do.”
“Whatever,” Haley huffed before turning and running to the other side of the yard. Sydney started to stand to go after her, but Kyle held a hand out to stop her.
“Yeah, so…sorry. That was all my fault.”
“No kidding.”
He frowned. “Can you just please cut me some slack here? How was I supposed to know she wouldn’t want to wait?”
“Maybe you could have asked me first?” she said sweetly, her smile tight. She could tell there were things he wanted to say, but she had to give him credit for holding his tongue while he thought about it.
“Look, can we just agree that I was trying to do something nice?” he asked with just a hint of sarcasm. “I didn’t think encouraging her was going to turn into all this, but I’m not sorry for it either.”
And that’s when she knew she was being overly sensitive. It wasn’t the first time Haley had thrown a bit of a tantrum when she didn’t get her way, and she had a feeling it wasn’t going to be the last. Right now, it was simply easier to blame Kyle. It gave her more of an excuse not to like him.
“You’re right,” she finally said. “It…it’s actually very sweet of you to come back here and praise her. I’m sure after all the work you did today, you’d prefer to be home resting.” She paused and gave him a tentative smile. “Or at least doing something with other adults.” When she looked up at him, the strangest thing happened. He smiled and she felt like a dozen butterflies had taken flight in her belly.
It was both familiar and…new.