What I Love About You Read Free

play for . . .” She paused before adding, “Five moe minutes.”
    He’d lived in a dirt hole and crawled through swamps. He’d eaten bugs and pissed in Gatorade bottles. For twenty years, his life had consisted of hard, rough edges. When he’d retired from the teams, he’d had to make a deliberate effort to keep the F-word out of every sentence and his hand off his nuts. He’d had to remember that in civilian life, creative swearing wasn’t a competitive sport and that ball scratching wasn’t a public event. He had to remember the manners his mother had pounded into his and Beau’s heads. Nice, polite behavior toward everyone from little kids to little old ladies. Today he wanted this kid gone before he ripped his skin off, and he chose not to remember those nice manners. He purposely narrowed his eyes and gave the kid the hard steel gaze that he’d used to make terrorists cower.
    “What’s wrong with your eyes?”
    She didn’t seem at all afraid. She was definitely a little slow in the head. Another time he might have taken that into consideration. “Get your ass in your own yard.”
    She gasped. “You said a bad word.”
    “Go home, little girl.”
    She pointed at the cat on the front of her T-shirt. “I’m a big girl!”
    Another day, another time, he might have admired the kid’s guts. He leaned forward and towered over her like his father used to do to him and Beau. “I shit bigger than you,” he said, just like his old man.
    The kid sucked in a scandalized breath but wasn’t intimidated at all. She wasn’t shaking in her little shoes. Was there something wrong with the kid, besides her thinking she was a horse, or was he losing his touch?
    “Charlotte?”
    Blake and the kid spun toward the sound of a woman’s voice. She stood a few feet away, wearing a little yellow T-shirt and those shorts he’d had the privilege of seeing from behind. The shadow of a big straw hat hid her face and rested just above the bow of her full lips. Pretty mouth, nice legs, great ass. Probably something wrong with her eyes.
    “Mama!” The kid ran to her mother and threw herself on the woman’s waist.
    “You know you aren’t supposed to leave the yard, Charlotte Elizabeth.” The shade of her hat slid down her throat and T-shirt to her breasts as she looked down at her child. “You’re in big trouble.”
    Nice-size breasts, smooth curve in her waist. Yeah, probably had funky eyes.
    “That man is weally mean,” the kid wailed. “He said bad words at me.”
    The sudden sobbing was so suspect he might have laughed if he was in a laughing mood. Behind him, Johnnie whispered his name, and in front, the shade of a straw hat rested on the top of a nice pair of breasts. The shadow dipped into her smooth cleavage, and lust plunged straight down Blake’s pants. He went from irritation to desire to a combination of both in the blink of an eye.
    The brim of the hat rose to the bow of her lip again. “I heard him.” The corners of her mouth dipped in a disapproving frown.
    His frown matched hers. He’d always avoided women like her. Women with children. Women with children were looking for daddies, and he’d never wanted kids. His or anyone else’s.
    “Please don’t swear at my child.”
    “Please keep your child out of my yard.” Women with children wanted men who wanted relationships. He wasn’t a relationship kind of guy. Out of all the SEAL teams, Team Six had the highest divorce rate for a reason. It was filled with men who loved to throw themselves out of airplanes and get shot out of torpedo tubes. Filled with good men who weren’t any good at relationships. Men like him, and until recently, like his brother. Men like his father, whose wives divorced them after twenty years of serial cheating.
    “Fine.” Her lips pursed like she was going to hit him or kiss him. Off the top of his head, he’d guess the former. “But what kind of man talks like that to a child?”
    The kind who was white-knuckling