Free Single Mom Seeks... by TERESA HILL

out of it if he hadn’t started shoving you backward with that little finger of his. Besides, it’s not like I hit him or pushed him up against the side of the house or anything, and believe me, from where I stood, he deserved it and I sure wanted to give it to him.”
    “Okay.” Lily would have freely admitted Richard poking her in the shoulder had really annoyed her. “But I could have handled him.”
    “I didn’t say you couldn’t have, Lily. I just thought…you shouldn’t have to.”
    “Well, he’s my ex. I was crazy enough at one point to trust him and marry him, to have children with him. That means I have to deal with him,” she reasoned, not wanting to think about how it felt to have another man act like he had the right to protect her from the big, bad world. That was too much to think of at this moment with so many other things going on that she had to deal with.
    “All right. I’m sorry,” Nick said. “I have trouble standing by when a guy is manhandling a woman.”
    Lily wasn’t sure what Richard had done would qualify as manhandling, but she let that one go.
    “Tell me to stay out of it in the future, and I will,” he said, sounding like he meant it. “Unless I see him put his hands on you in a way I don’t like, and then you’re just going to have to be mad at me. Because if I see him do that to you, I’m not walking away from it.”
    “Well, if that’s as reasonable as you get…”
    He rolled his eyes in surrender, blew out a long, slow breath and finally backed down. “Maybe we could work out a signal or something. One for me to stay the hell out of it and one that says I can do what I want with him?”
    “That I’d accept,” she said, laughing. “What did you say you do for a living, Nick?”
    “I don’t think I did.”
    “Mommy?” Ginny came running toward them, holding out a tape measure. “Is this what you and Nick needed?”
    Lily took it from her. “Yes, sweetie. That’s it.”
    She looked back at Nick. “I forgot the paper and the pencil. I’ll go back.”
    And then she turned and ran back to the house before Lily could stop her. All because one take-charge-kind-of-man had taken over and started issuing orders.
    Lily looked back at him and said, “Let me guess. Cop?”
    “Army for a long time,” he admitted. “Most recently, FBI.”
    “Oh.” Even more dangerous than she thought. But she could see it in him. A man who didn’t stand by while someone pushed a woman around, and one who was used to sticking his nose into unpleasant situations.
    “I’m on leave right now, to get Jake settled,” he said. “But I’ve worked Missing Persons in D.C. for the last three years. There are a lot of nasty people in this world, Lily.”
    “Richard’s an insurance agent. I think by definition, they’re not very dangerous.”
    “You never know. People you’d never think would do something violent can get pushed too far, especially when strong emotions are involved—like in a divorce. And then they can do things you wouldn’t believe possible.”
    “Then we’re perfectly safe, because the only real emotion Richard seems to have left toward me or the girls is annoyance,” she shot back, then immediately wished she hadn’t.
    Because it hurt to say it, to admit it and to have anyone else know it.
    “Oh, damn,” Lily said, feeling it like a fist in her midsection.
    It happened like that sometimes. She could be going along, living her life, taking care of her girls, thinking they were all just fine, and then some nasty little memory popped into her mind of great times or awful ones. And then it felt like someone had shoved a fist into her belly, catching her completely unaware, and it just hurt so bad she could hardly stand it.
    She shot Nick an exasperated look and then put her back to him, wishing she could just disappear.

Chapter Six
    H e gave her a minute to get herself together, for which she was grateful, and she took the time to lean against the tree,