Single Mom Seeks... by TERESA HILL Read Free Book Online Page B

uncle?”
    Lily hated asking the question, but there it was. It had just popped out, oh so innocently. Okay, not so innocent. Probably not innocently at all. She felt really bad about it, but there! She’d asked.
    Jake looked puzzled. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
    Lily went back to steaming the wallpaper in hopes it would just peel off the wall, wishing quite firmly that she hadn’t asked. She hadn’t seen Audrey Graham lurking around the Malone house, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. Audrey was sneaky and quite determined. There was no telling what Lily had missed.
    And then she wondered if maybe Jake was trying to look out for her, to warn her that Audrey had been hanging around, and maybe she wasn’t bothering Nick. Maybe Nick was enjoying himself.
    Maybe he’d changed his mind after the neck-nuzzling incident. Maybe Audrey had done something to change his mind.
    Lily made a face, then tried to wipe the look off her face before Jake saw.
    She really hated the idea of Nick with Audrey Graham. Having to see them next door. Hear them. Think about them.
    Nick neck-nuzzling with Audrey Graham.
    Lily wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream or cry.
    “Are you okay?” Jake asked.
    “Of course,” Lily lied, not too badly she hoped.
    “So…Mrs. Graham has a daughter, right?” Jake asked, as he scraped the wall clean of the residue left on it, despite Lily’s careful steaming and peeling off of the old wallpaper.
    Daughter?
    “Yes,” Lily said. Had she completely misread the whole conversation so far? Was she so obsessed with Nick Malone that she’d completely jumped to the wrong conclusions? “I think she probably goes to high school with you.”
    Jake turned an interesting shade of pink, and Lily didn’t think it was coming from the heat of the steamer.
    Okay, now she got it.
    The Graham women captivated men of all ages.
    Lily rolled her eyes. “Andie,” she said. “You know Andie?”
    “Well…yeah. I mean, I doubt she remembers I’m alive. But…I’ve seen her around.”
    Oh, I just bet you have, Lily thought.
    She tried to think of the last time she’d seen Andie Graham and if the daughter took after the mother in her wardrobe choices.
    Lily hoped not, for Jake’s sake.
    “Isn’t she a little old for you, Jake?” Lily tried, because he was so adorably awkward and sweet, and if Andie was anything like her mother, she’d chew him up and spit him out without thinking twice about it. Lily hated to see him hurt.
    “Only a year older,” Jake said.
    Lily nodded.
    “Do you know…like…what she likes to do? I mean, where she might hang out? Or anything like that?” Jake asked.
    “I think I’ve seen her at the mall a few times,” Lily told him.
    Andie really looked like a mall kind of girl.
    She had a feeling Jake would be spending every spare moment there, hoping to run into Andie.
    Trying to let him down easily, Lily told him, “I think, last I heard, she had a boyfriend who’s in college now. Someone who went to her high school last year.”
    “Oh.” Jake looked completely dejected.
    A college boy.
    Lily kept steaming. Jake attacked the wall, scraping so hard Lily was afraid he was going to gouge the Sheetrock underneath.
    “Hey, why don’t we take a break while I start dinner, okay?” she suggested.
    “Dinner?” He perked right up at that.
    “What would you like?” Lily asked, shutting off her steamer and heading for the refrigerator. “Come on. You can pick.”
    If he couldn’t have Andie Graham, he could at least have a good dinner.
    They dug through Lily’s refrigerator, Jake settling on a chicken and rice dish Lily had made last week that he’d particularly enjoyed. She’d bought twice as much as she had the week before, astonished at how much he could eat and wanting to have enough to send home to Nick, too, and maybe for leftovers.
    She’d learned Nick and Jake lived on takeout and her leftovers, and decided she was going to teach Jake to cook. Otherwise, they