Matt glared at his brother. “A few hours, to all day. Depends on . . .” He looked around, considered his next words. “Stuff.”

Parker silently laughed.

“Okay, well, let me know if you need any help with the . . . stuff.”

Once Matt and Colin were out of earshot, Parker leaned over and said, “Told you he’d make excuses to stay late.”

Erin rolled her eyes as if she were blowing Parker’s observations off.

Hours later, when they were planning dinner, her eyes didn’t roll so flippantly.

CHAPTER FOUR

Matt and Colin made a pact to finish the job before cracking open the first beer or risk not completing their task. And just to ensure the day wasn’t going to end when the work was done, Matt had texted Grace, and encouraged her to invite herself over for dinner.

His baby sister didn’t disappoint. She’d called Parker after noon and said she was feeling left out. Parker, being Little Miss Hostess, gave her an open invitation to come by. Sometime after three, Grace showed up with a macaroni salad and strawberries. Next thing he knew, the women were mixing up margaritas. Only then did Matt pick up the pace so he and Colin could finish the job and join the fun.

He and his brother were walking back from the gate where they’d mounted the camera, but would have to wait until the rest of the trench was dug to run the wire, when they heard someone splash in the pool.

It was four thirty and the sun had started to move past the point of scalding closer to tolerable.

“Looks like the party got started without us,” Colin said as they cut through the yard.

“I hope you have an extra set of swim trunks here.”

“I have ya covered,” Colin told him.

Matt craned his neck in hopes of seeing Erin in a bathing suit before she noticed him looking.

“Could you be more obvious?” Colin called him out.

“Yes, but our mother taught us better.”

They laughed.

“I think you might be growing on her.”

Matt didn’t need Colin to clarify who the her was.

“You think?”

“Yeah, she didn’t flinch from you once today.”

Matt kept his voice low as they moved closer to the girls. “I also haven’t been within two feet of her since this morning.”

Colin nudged his arm. “Well, you’re going to have to show her how to use the system, and that requires a cell phone and monitor tutorial. And since I’m part of the labor force, and not the education department, that’s on you.”

Matt wiggled his eyebrows. “Go find me those swim shorts. I do my best work shirtless.”

Colin patted his side with laughter and walked up the path to the main house. He yelled over the music the women had turned on to catch Parker’s attention. “Need anything inside? I’m changing.”

Parker stood beside a blender they’d brought outside. “More ice.”

Colin gave her a thumbs-up.

The splash in the pool had come from Austin.

Grace sat on the side, dangling her feet in the water, and Erin was missing.

Matt’s mouth watered in anticipation of her in a swimsuit and hoped she was inside changing.

“All finished?” Parker asked as she poured a generous amount of tequila into the blender.

“That we are. The gate is going to need more attention, but you knew that.”

Parker was all smiles. “Erin is going to be so happy.”

He looked around again. “Where is she?”

“Inside changing.”

Yeah, baby.

“Don’t look so eager. You’ll scare her off,” Parker chided.

Matt forced his smile to fall.

“You want one of these?” Parker lifted a half-empty glass of margarita in the air.

“Absolutely.”

She used his cue to push the button, and their conversation was cut off by the noise of the blender doing its thing.

“. . . c’mon, you’re not that much older than I am.” Austin was treading water and talking with Grace.

“You’re twelve,” she told him.

“I’m eighteen.”

Grace rolled her eyes with a wide smile.

“What’s going on here?” Matt asked.

“Austin is hitting on me,” she said with a sip of her drink.

Matt’s mouth fell. “He’s what?”

“Dude, look at your sister. She’s hot.”

The adolescent misplaced remark would have spiked hair on his neck if the kid were ten years older. Instead Matt shrugged and said, “It could work. Go for it.”

Grace kicked her foot in the pool, splashing him with water. “Hey!”

That’s when Erin emerged from around the corner wearing a sheer cover-up that tried to hide the bathing suit underneath. It failed. It was a black one-piece. The kind models wore for magazines that weren’t labeled Playboy.

His mouth watered.

Those long legs peeked through, and even though he couldn’t see all of her, his body knew she was there. All the right parts of him took notice.

Behind him, Parker handed over a drink. “Don’t stare.”

Shit!

“Thanks.” He took a gulp of the drink and instantly winced. The ice rushed to his brain and froze off sections he hoped he never had to use in his life. He closed his eyes and forced down a few choice words.

“Slow down there.”

He shook the cold from his head.

“You okay?”

Erin’s voice was as smooth as whiskey and as comforting as a warm breeze on a summer night.

“I drank it too fast.” He opened his eyes to find her standing in front of him.

His brain short-circuited any and all cognitive thought.

“It’s in the sinuses.”

“What?”

“Here.”

He watched as she placed her thumb between his eyes and started to rub. She had the most mesmerizing blue eyes with long eyelashes.

“Press your tongue to the roof of your mouth.”

There were places he wanted to press his tongue, but his own mouth wasn’t one of them.

He enjoyed the feel of her touch, even if it was only one digit on one place that wasn’t remotely sexual.

“Better?”

“Almost,” he lied just to keep her there a little longer.

“What’s going on here?”

Matt heard his brother’s voice before his words registered.

“Matt has a brain freeze. Erin’s doing some kind of Vulcan mind trap, and this little dude is hitting on me,” Grace explained from the shallow end of the pool.

There was a solid ten seconds before his brother responded. During that time, Erin moved her touch away.

“Go for it, Austin.”

“For fuck’s sake . . . Parker, help me out here!” Grace cried.

“Austin,” Parker laughed. “Knock it off.”

“Thank you.”

Matt fist-bumped his brother in light of Grace’s unease.

“You do realize that Parker is my sister, not my mother, and I don’t have to do what she says.”

“That’s debatable,” Parker said.

“And I’m eighteen. So I’m legal.” Matt almost lost it when Austin ran a hand down his puffed-up chest, which was nothing more than a smattering of underdeveloped muscles that would need two hours of gym time a day to impress his sister.