Free An Improper Situation (Sanborn-Malloy Historical Romance Series, Book One) by Sydney Jane Baily Page B

don’t want the responsibility because of your work. The children want a home and are excited by coming out west. Their grandmother wants them, but Ann didn’t want her to raise them. I’ve got a law practice to which I must return, but I can’t shirk my responsibility as executor of the will.”
    He brought one ankle to rest comfortably on the knee of his other leg, as he draped his arm along the back of the wooden swing. That was almost her undoing, the feel of his fingers resting ever so lightly just behind her left shoulder. It was as if all her skin was supersensitive, honing in on whatever part of his body came close to her.
    “You’re a smart woman,” he concluded. “You tell me how I should tie this all up in a neat package and make everyone happy.”
    She stared at him and was at a loss for words. They could not be on the same side since they were of opposite opinions as to where the children should be. If she let the children stay, it wouldn’t be the same as it was now. There would be all the little details to work out, and she wondered if the upkeep money he’d mentioned covered her need to hire a woman to help with the cooking and cleaning.
    Could she concentrate on her writing with them in the house? She would be there with them alone, and Reed Malloy would be thousands of miles from Spring City. She sighed and turned away. Why should that be the one thing uppermost in her mind now?
    “ Thanks for the input, Miss Sanborn,” he said, wryly.
    She laughed and the sound was foreign to her own ears. It startled her and she raised a hand to her throat. “Well, it has been fun.”
    “ That was the last thing I expected you to say.”
    “ Do I seem such a stick?” She was extremely interested to learn Reed’s perception of her. He was a man who must know a lot of people—many of them women—and she wondered how she compared.
    “ No,” he said firmly, with a shake of his head. “Your laughter is lovely, just not heard often enough. You have your priorities and they don’t seem to include any amusements. Instead of being a wallflower, Miss Sanborn, try being a wildflower.”
    She should have been affronted at his presumptiveness, but she smiled at that curious image he’d conjured. “I do have to support myself, all on my own hook, even though I need very little money for my lifestyle.”
    She stood up, moving away from him to lean against the railing, resting the side of her head against the porch post. She surveyed the stars of the sky so familiar to her, aware all the time that he was studying her profile.
    “I honestly don’t know how to resolve this situation. I only know what my lifestyle is, for good or for ill. It seems to have suited me so far. If I had the children then I’d need . . . a wife, I guess.” She looked at him.
    He appeared as startled at that as she felt, then they both laughed. He stood up, too, and suddenly the porch seemed to be much smaller. Standing so close, she could feel the heat from his body, and absurdly, she wanted to be enveloped by that warmth. He made her feel as if something special was always happening.
    It was probably just the strangeness of having an adult male in the house who wasn’t her father or her brother. But now she couldn’t take her eyes from his blue gaze that seemed to be looking at her so earnestly. She didn’t know enough about Reed Malloy to guess whether he was affected by her presence, too, but he did have a curious expression on his usually confident face.
    “ And do the pressures of your career mean you cannot go to a barn dance, Miss Sanborn?”
    So that was what was on his mind. She smiled crookedly. “No, I believe I can manage one dance, much better, in fact, than I can manage two children.” Or one man, she added silently, needing to escape before something foolish came out of her mouth.
    But just as she would have moved, he startled her by placing one steady hand on the porch post above her head. She craned her neck to