Free Single Mom Seeks... by TERESA HILL Page A

fighting for a steadying breath of her own.
    She was supposed to be a strong, capable woman after all.
    She’d just argued that very thing to Nick, and here she was ruining it all by nearly dissolving into tears at the idea that her ex didn’t give a damn about her and the girls.
    “You okay?” Nick came to her side, put an arm around her shoulders.
    Lily fought against that, too. Honestly, she did.
    No one held her anymore. No one had in a very long time.
    And it felt so good to have someone close, a grown-up, someone big and strong who wasn’t depending on her to take care of him. Who actually seemed interested in taking care of her.
    He would have no idea how seductive that idea was to a woman in Lily’s shoes. Someone to take care of her for a change.
    “You can just cry it out, if you want,” he offered. “I can handle a few tears. I mean, I don’t like them, but I’m tough enough to take it. Go ahead.”
    Lily laughed through a shimmer of tears in her eyes and she thought she might be able to hold back now.
    “You’re not one of those men who just dissolves into nothing at the idea of a woman crying?”
    “Now what kind of man would I be if I did that?” he said easily, still holding her pressed against his side.
    Okay, Lily thought. Just for a minute.
    She leaned into him, feeling how solid he was, how capable he seemed, how calm in the face of her little emotional storm and Richard being such a jerk.
    It was like something inside of her was inching ever closer to Nick, the sweetness of him, the steadiness, the strength, the temptation of him, and she wasn’t sure she had the strength to pull away.
    What would be so wrong with it? she asked herself.
    “Ah, Lily, I’m sorry,” he said, giving her a little squeeze, his chin, his nose, then his lips nuzzling against her forehead.
    Lily got herself together and backed away, shakily, but she did it.
    Because of how very much she wanted to stay right there in his arms.
    She shrugged, tried not to look like she’d just lost it and then had to tear herself away from him. “It just…sneaks up on me sometimes…how bad it can still feel to think of everything that’s happened.”
    “I’m sorry, Lily. Really, I am. Especially if I made things worse by getting in the middle of it,” he said, still too close for her own comfort.
    She was grateful in a way for the high-handed way he’d gotten in the middle of everything with Richard, to have Richard see her as someone who’d have a new, gorgeous man by her side. And she appreciated the way Nick had stepped back immediately when he heard the girls coming. She didn’t think they’d seen any of it.
    But it was sheer pretense, and it needed to stay that way. Because it was dangerous to depend on anyone else but herself. Richard had taught her that very well. She no longer believed a woman could count on promises of any kind from a man.
    Which made Nick Malone an obviously very nice, but very dangerous man.
    Lily took one more step back to try and save herself.
    “This is not your fight, Nick,” she said quietly.
    “I know,” he agreed. “I won’t do it again unless you ask me to intervene. I mean it.”
    “Okay.” Lily nodded. “And it’s really not up to you to decide whether I tell my girls their father’s a jerk or he shows them that he’s a jerk.”
    “Yeah. I know. I thought he probably wouldn’t be able to look them in the eye and walk away from them today, and then I thought, if he’s really going to do that, he should at least have to face them.”
    “He deserves that, yes, but I’m not sure if that’s the best thing for my girls right now, and that’s my decision to make,” she insisted.
    “You’re right. It is. I’m sorry, Lily. The guy just really pissed me off.”
    “Well, join the club,” she said.
    She was trying to figure out where they went from here when Jake yelled from the back of the driveway, “Hey, did you mean this one?”
    He was carrying a small