“What?” I asked.

“We fly there together. Get you a rental car, a hotel where you can hang but not sleep. I go get the kids and talk to Chelle. I spend time with them Friday, tell them about you. Friday night, late, when they’re in bed, you come to me, sleep with me, leave before they get up. Saturday, we do somethin’ together. Maybe a water park. Somethin’ fun. Somethin’ they’ll like. Somethin’ not on their home turf. You take off, come back when they’re asleep, leave again before they get up and we fly back together.”

Had I said before that Creed was genius?

Creed was genius.

“That would work,” I told him quietly and watched him grin.

“Will you be able to keep yourself occupied?” he asked.

I grinned back. “Totally.”

“Then it’s decided,” he muttered, his eyes on my mouth.

“It’s decided,” I agreed, getting the words out about two seconds before his mouth hit mine and he kissed me, deep and sweet.

When he lifted his head, he was not grinning. His gaze was intent and I’d since learned from seeing that look before to brace. So I did.

“Beauty,” he whispered.

“What?” I asked.

“Beauty. It’s pure beauty you don’t wanna be away from me. I don’t like that, baby. I love it.”

My hand slid up his chest to his neck where my fingers curled around. Once they reached their destination, they moved and slid up further into his hair. Then they put pressure on to bring his mouth back to me so I could kiss him.

When my tongue slid in his mouth, I planted a foot in the bed and rolled him.

Then I kissed other parts of him.

Suffice it to say, it took us a while to get back to sleep.

When we did, we both slept easy.

* * *

“I’m walking up to your house now,” I said into my phone, hitching up the strap of the bag on my shoulder and got a, “Gotcha. I’ll be at the door,” back from Creed.

Just an FYI, Phoenix in July was hot. Not your normal brand of hot. Hotter than the hinges of hell kind of hot. I’d never been in hot that hot. I didn’t even know hot that hot existed. It was eleven thirty at night and the heat had not left the day.

Not good.

After we flew in and rented the car, I followed Creed to a nice hotel close to his house. We checked in, got the lay of the land and he took off to meet Chelle for lunch prior to picking up Kara and Brand. I got changed directly into my bikini and made an appointment for a mani/pedi and facial for later that afternoon at the hotel spa. Then I hit the pool because, everyone knew, if you went to a place with palm trees, even if only for the weekend, you came back with a tan, including kickass bitches like me.

This was a mistake.

Lying by the pool was not relaxing and enjoyable. It was like baking in an oven. Even the water of the pool wasn’t cool but beyond warm. Although it provided relief, it wasn’t much and didn’t last long.

Therefore, I gave up on the tan and went back to my room, showered, did my spa treatments and hung out watching movies and ordering room service until Creed called to say the kids were in bed.

On the plane, I’d decided on a plan for the weekend, a weekend I’d spend mostly away from Creed and also meeting his kids.

I didn’t normally plan. I usually flew by the seat of my pants. My dead partner Ron told me this was one of my three great skills. I could think on the fly better than anyone he’d ever seen, including during his stint in the Marines. I could cast a mean lure. And last, I was better than Marion in that arctic bar in Raiders of the Lost Ark during a one-on-one drinking contest.

But this was too important not to have my shit together. So my plan was, tan and relax on Friday, hopefully get through Saturday without making his kids hate me and discover Phoenix on Sunday to see if I wanted to be the one to make the move for Creed and his kids.

My time by the pool was, unfortunately, not conducive to me wanting to make the move for Creed and his kids. My time walking up to his house, albeit this lasted probably ten seconds, didn’t help either.

I lifted my flip-flop clad foot to take the step into the covered front entry of his adobe-style, terracotta tile-roofed house, the door opened, Creed stood in it and I felt much better.

“Hey,” I greeted quietly, grinning up at him.

Creed didn’t reply. He leaned deep, reached out with an arm, hooked me around the waist, took me off my feet and suddenly I was in the cool house. The door shut behind me, my back arched over his arm, my front plastered to his and Creed’s mouth was on mine.

Yeah, feeling much better.

He lifted his head and when he caught my eyes he muttered, “You don’t have to be quiet for the kids. They both sleep like the dead and even if they didn’t, their rooms are at the back of the house. Tonight they were wired because of our plans tomorrow so it took them a while to go to sleep but now that they’re out, they’re out.”

I nodded, he released me with one arm to step to my side and pull me into his place.

At first sight, my breath caught.

Holy shit.

My house was a place to exist and crash.

Creed’s house was... not.

I stared.

It seemed half show home and half just plain home if you were relatively loaded and gave one serious shit about where you lived.

Man, Creed really must charge a fuckuva lot more than me.

I was stunned. Not much surprised me but this... this did. Hugely.

Creed told me he had his Expedition as well as a nondescript Ford sedan to do work in during jobs he needed to be invisible. He also told me he had a Harley, a speedboat he took to the lake with his kids and a three bedroom house on a hill.

Of all of this, I was excited about the speedboat and Harley. The speedboat said good times on the water that included such things as inner tubes, skis and Creed wearing nothing but swim trunks. Who wouldn’t like all that? A Harley elevated anyone’s badass status about seven thousand levels. Owning a Harley and looking and acting like Creed made him even more badass than Ron and Ron was a fucking Marine.

Creed did not tell me his “three bedroom house on a hill” was a showplace.

My eyes scanned as Creed moved us through.

To the left through an archway was a study. Handsome furniture with a modern bent, the space clearly used but organized, even tidy.

Straight ahead was open space and lots of it. It also screamed, “Make no mistake! You’re in the Southwest!”

A long, rustic, wooden, rectangular dining room table with eight chairs was just in from the front door and beyond the recessed study was an open plan kitchen with modern cabinets, shiny granite countertops and top-of-the-line appliances. The kitchen/dining room and living area was delineated by a red felt pool table.

Yes, a pool table. That was how vast the space was.

Past that was the living area with a big, comfy-looking sectional accompanied by a massive chair and ottoman and an enormous flat screen TV in an enormous wall unit. The floors were shining wood throughout except the kitchen was tile.

There were stunning prints with a southwest feel on the walls but none of them were stereotypical. They were unusual and exquisite. Art deco desert landscapes that Creed would tell me later were by Ed Mell. Whimsical portraits by L. Carter Holman. Colorful cacti in bloom by Diana Madaras.

The entirety of the space had a feel of rustic as well as modern mixed with a heavy hand of southwest. It was decorated in brick red, terracotta and cream with hints of turquoise, purple, golden yellow and sun burnt orange.

It was amazing.

Beyond the living space was the showstopper. Floor to ceiling windows with a view to a lit pool that looked more like a rocky grotto including a small waterfall. All of this was surrounded by a massive pool deck and handsome deck furniture. There were manicured, graveled in areas around the pool deck filled with palm trees, fruit trees and weird but attractive cacti. Since Creed’s house was on a hill, the pool’s backdrop beyond an adobe wall was the lights of north Phoenix.

The house was amazing.

The back patio and view were awesome.

In truth, the whole thing was. Well-appointed, well-decorated with personality and thoughtfulness, open, airy, clean and tidy but with a comfortable feel.

Therefore, like I mentioned, I was stunned.

The Creed I knew lived in the broken down house that he shared with his mother. A house that, when he grew older, he was constantly working on to keep the roof from leaking, the plumbing working and the space livable until we could take off on my eighteenth birthday finally to start our lives. The furniture was old, worn and in some cases, hand-me-down. Creed’s Dad had inherited the property from his Dad and had died before he’d been able to give his family better. Winona Creed was a mess who could barely take care of herself and didn’t bother taking care of her son or home. This included the fact she didn’t clean, as in ever.

These thoughts entering my head, harking back I remembered something I’d forgotten.

Creed did clean. He vacuumed, did the dishes and did the laundry. He hated that house and not just because it was ramshackle but because it didn’t smell good, didn’t look good and it was a pain in the ass to clean not only his own mess but that of a drunk of a mother who didn’t give a shit. Like me but for different reasons, he couldn’t wait to get out.

Still, even remembering that, it must be said I didn’t know what I expected of single Dad Creed but this definitely wasn’t it.