Free Caitlin's Choice by Kat Attalla Page B

the headlights, she seemed stunned into immobility. Her breath quickened, warming his face.
    “Good night, Caitlin.”
    She shook her head and staggered back as if she had just been released from an invisible restraint. When she regained her composure, she glared angrily. “Don’t do that again.”
    “You didn’t like the kiss?”
    “Yes, I did. So don’t do it again.”
    She spun on her heel and started to leave. When she reached the door, she turned back, gestured irritably toward her son, and waited for Andrew to hand her the baby.
    Once she disappeared down the hall, he erupted into laughter. He had gotten her so flustered she had blurted out the truth. Perhaps there was hope after all.

 
     
     
    SIX
     
     
    Caitlin settled into the redwood lawn chair with Tyler squirming in her lap. She took a sip of iced tea, savoring the lingering taste of mint as the morning sun bathed her in warmth.
    “So do you like living in the Sinclair mansion?” Maggie asked as she plopped down in a lounge chair with her daughter squealing happily in her arms.
    Caitlin wrinkled her nose. “About as much as you did.”
    Her sister shot her a sympathetic smile. “Got quite a welcome, huh?”
    “Oh, yeah. They went out of their way to make me feel at home.”
    She glanced at her son resting against her bent knees. If she didn’t remind herself that this arrangement was in his best interests, she would lose her sanity. When she remembered the way she had let Andrew kiss her last night, she wondered if she already had lost it.
    “What about Drew?” Maggie asked.
    “What about him?”
    “How are the two of you getting along?”
    Caitlin raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “I haven’t killed him yet.”
    “But?” Maggie prompted.
    “He’s the most stubborn, arrogant man on earth. Everything has to be his way. He turned back my car to the leasing company without asking me. And then . . .”
    Tyler began to fidget as Caitlin’s voice rose. She ran a calming hand over his stomach, then lowered her voice to a soothing whisper. “He leased a Volvo for me. A Volvo. It’s bigger than my first apartment. He knows I can’t afford the payments, so he tells me that he’s paying. Now he’s got something he can hold over me.”
    “Maybe he was trying to be nice.”
    Nice? Poor deluded Maggie was still caught up in the fantasy. She honestly believed that this arrangement would lead to a declaration of undying love.
    “Why would he want to be nice to me?”
    “He wants you to see he’s not the same man he was last year.”
    “But he is, except when it comes to Tyler,” she admitted somewhat grudgingly.
    He fawned over the baby, showing a tender side of himself she wouldn’t have believed he possessed. She shook her head violently to clear the kind thoughts of Andrew.
    “Otherwise, he’s a pigheaded, pushy, unyielding thorn in my side.”
    Maggie giggled. “Sounds like someone I know well.”
    “Erik?”
    “No. You.”
    “Me?” Caitlin asked in disbelief. “I think the fact that I’m here proves I’m not stubborn.”
    “Sure. And he only had to serve you with papers to get you to talk to him, when we both know you’ve got it bad for the man. Why else would you have had his baby?”
    Caitlin stared at her smirking sister. She opened her mouth to deny the charge, but clamped it shut again when she saw the Sinclair brothers heading across the lawn. She waved innocently as they strode into the pool house.
    * * * *
     
    Andrew grinned and waved back. So Caitlin was complaining to her sister about him. He had seen the guilty glint in her eyes. Well, if she was talking about him, it must mean she felt something. Since she went to such lengths to appear indifferent, he wasn’t sure where he stood with her. On those rare moments when she let her guard down, he had a chance to reach her. Unfortunately, those times were few and far between.
    “Does Caitlin like living at the house?” Erik asked as he closed the