“I’ll have the men working around the clock so we can get you and your family back here as soon as possible,” Marco said kindly. He was only in his midthirties, but when he squeezed her arm in reassurance, his touch was oddly paternal. “Tomorrow morning you can come back to go through your things. The crew we hired is full-service, so they will assist with the cleaning and drying.”
“That’s a relief,” she said gratefully.
Marco lightly touched her arm. “I promise you, Ms. Breslin, everything will be taken care of. I apologize again for the inconvenience. I was not informed that the gutters were built improperly.”
She believed him. Marco had been genuinely horrified yesterday when he’d discovered the state of the ground-floor apartments. He’d already insisted she didn’t have to pay next month’s rent and had refused to budge when she’d protested.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be able to come home in three days, four days maximum,” Marco added before moving away.
Miranda loitered on the tidy front lawn for a moment, staring at the two-story building she’d been calling home for the past four months. White stucco made up the exterior, the tiled clay roof a pale shade of pink. There was no lobby, just an open walkway and two sets of stairs at each side of the building leading to the second-floor apartments. The place was nothing to brag about, but it was pretty and clean, and even though the backyard was small, it was big enough that she could plant a garden back there. And at least she had a yard—the upstairs apartments got balconies, which was why Miranda had been ecstatic to land a ground-floor one.
Well, she wasn’t feeling too ecstatic anymore.
With a weary exhalation she headed to the curb where she’d parked the sedan. It was nine thirty in the morning, the sun was shining and the sky was a cloudless blue. The only hints that a storm had ravaged the area yesterday were the leftover puddles on the asphalt.
Since morning had brought with it nothing but good weather, most schools were open today, including the twins’, and she didn’t have to pick them up until three. She’d been hoping to spend the day at the apartment cleaning up, but now that Marco had sent her away, she had no idea where to go.
Back to Seth’s? Both he and Dylan had been gone when Miranda and the twins wandered into the kitchen this morning. She knew they were at the navy base doing some kind of training operation, and she kind of hoped it lasted until the wee hours of the night because she couldn’t face Seth right now. She’d barely slept last night. Rather, she’d lain there sandwiched between her kids, tossing and turning, thinking about how incredible Seth’s kisses had felt and how badly she wanted to kiss him again.
Until she figured out how to get a handle on this attraction to Seth, she needed to keep her distance from him.
She finally decided to drive into the city. She’d seen on the news that most of the inland flooding had occurred in her neighborhood, Imperial Beach, along with several of the other coastal towns in the area, but San Diego hadn’t experienced much water damage. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check on the dance school.
To her relief, the building that housed All That Dance was in perfect condition, and when she wandered through the various studios, she found nothing but glossy wood floors and sparkling mirrors.
She ended up changing into a leotard and dance shoes, deciding to get a workout in as long as she was here. Popping her iPod into the dock near the door, she queued up her favorite play list, the one she turned to in times of stress. At the school she taught ballet and modern lyrical, but today she decompressed with straight-up hip-hop moves that left her sweaty and breathless by the time she called it quits an hour later.
That little dose of dance medicine was all she’d needed to brighten her spirits, and when she got back to Seth’s place a short while later, she was even whistling to herself as she let herself in with the key he’d given her.
The whistling died in a sharp wheeze when she entered the kitchen and found Seth at the counter. He wore black basketball shorts that hung low on his hips, a gray T-shirt, and his feet were bare.
“What are you doing home?” she asked in surprise.
The coffeemaker clicked, and Seth grabbed the pot by the handle and poured himself a cup. “We’re done for the day. Want some coffee?”
After a beat, she nodded, then accepted the mug he handed her. She blew on the hot liquid and said, “How are you done for the day? It’s barely noon.”
“Baby, I was up at four o’clock in the morning and in the ocean at five for some heavy-duty underwater demolition. I’ve earned the right to call it a day.” He sipped his coffee and headed for the sliding door, an unlit cigarette in his hand. “Join me outside?”
She hesitated again.
“Jesus, Miranda. I don’t bite.”
An unwitting laugh burst out. “Yes, you do.”
Seth’s lips twitched. “Yeah, you’re right. I do bite. But only the good kind of biting.”
He looked like he was waiting for her to ask “and what’s the good kind?” but no way was she opening that door.
Holding her mug with both hands, she followed him out to the concrete patio, which housed a small round table and two plastic chairs. Although the surrounding grass was mowed, the yard was as barren as most of the house’s interior. No garden or flowers or bird feeders or any of the fun things she and the twins had put in their own yard.
“You and Dylan really don’t care much for decorating, do you?” she said wryly.