Worth the Wait (Picking up the Pieces #4) by Jessica Prince Page A

couldn’t do it. His clothes did wonders for his body. And even if I didn’t know the perfection that lay beneath, I’d still have found his body mouthwatering. Self-consciousness hit me like a freight train as I glanced down at my frumpy get-up. A day off for me meant yoga pants and ratty t-shirts, my hair up in a sloppy bun and I wore no makeup whatsoever. Why, oh, why couldn’t I have been bothered to put just a little effort into my outfit?
    “Brett!” the kids shouted boisterously as they came barreling toward us.
    I took a quick step back, immediately missing the heat from his body as they plowed into his strong legs, not even budging him a muscle.
    “Did you come to play with us?” Callie asked with a bright smile.
    “Of course I did. I missed my little buddies.” He swooped down and grabbed Callie by the waist and tossed her in the air, delighting in her shrill laughter before putting her safely on the ground and doing the same to Cameron.
    “Come slide wiff us!” Cameron shouted before he and Callie took off in that direction.
    Brett followed after, shooting a wink at me over his shoulder. Damn that sexy wink! Being friends with this man was killing me. If him being hot as sin wasn’t bad enough, watching him climb up that stupid slide and go down with both kids in his lap just about did me in. That was it. I needed at least an hour alone with my vibrator if I was going to make it through this friendship. It wasn’t lost on me that every other mom in the park was keeping a close eye on Brett’s every movement. I couldn’t blame them. There was nothing more attractive to a mother than a sexy man getting down in the dirt, not the slightest bit embarrassed to sit in a sandbox if that’s what made the kids happy. But that didn’t stop the nagging jealousy from rearing its ugly head every time one of them dared to get a little too close. Thankfully, I had to hand it to him; he had a talent of smiling politely as he brushed them off and went back to playing with the twins.
    I watched as he made my children laugh and squeal in delight as he spent time following them from play set to play set, never once losing his patience like Lance had been so prone to doing.
    About an hour later, Callie and Cam came running back over to me, out of breath and smiling a mile wide, with Brett trailing closely behind.
    “Mommy, did you see how high I swinged?”
    I scooped my little girl up in my lap and gave her a nuzzle, earning myself a laugh.
    “I did! I was afraid you were gonna swing all the way to the moon.”
    “Silly Mommy,” she giggled, kissing me on my cheek.
    “I’d have missed you soooo much if you went all the way to the moon.”
    I felt a shift on the bench as Brett took a seat next to me and pulled Cameron onto his lap, pulling his ball cap off and plopping it on my son’s head.
    “Hey, Mom. Brett said I can wear his hat all day !”
    “That’s really awesome, bub. It’s a great hat.” I smiled. “Did you tell him thank you?”
    “Yu huh. He said it has magical powers. It’ll make me strong like Spiderman!”
    “That’s right, bud.” Brett gave the brim a little flick. “My granddad gave it to me so I could grow up strong, and look at me now.”
    Cameron stared up at Brett in wonder, awed that the magic hat could possibly make him so big. “Wow,” he breathed out.
    “Yeah, my granddad was a pretty cool man.”
    Cameron turned back to me and asked, “Is my granddad as cool as Brett’s, Mommy?”
    I felt my smile falter at that question. I’d been dreading questions like that for the longest time, knowing I’d have to lie to them.
    “Yeah,” I croaked out, trying to maintain a cheerful face as I spoke past the lump that had formed in my throat.
    “How come we never seen our granddad?” Callie asked. My eyes went wide as I stuttered, trying to come up with an appropriate answer.
    Thankfully, Brett seemed to be in tune with my sudden mood shift and quickly jumped on a subject