“Your landlady,” Ben said in a reverential whisper. “That was your landlady.”

“I think it was.” She hadn’t looked like that when he signed the lease. Beautiful, yes—she’d been beautiful, but in a wholesome, unthreatening sort of way. She hadn’t looked so . . . so . . . Words failed him. She was a mother, for God’s sake, he reminded himself. She wasn’t supposed to look like that. “She’s got a kid.”

“Yeah? What kind?”

“Human, I think.”

“Come on.”

“A boy,” Coop said absently. “This high.” He held a hand, palm down, about three feet from the ground.

“She may have a kid, but she’s also got legs. This high.” Ben waved a hand in front of his own throat. “You got a charmed life, Coop. My landlord’s got arms like cinder blocks, and a tattoo of a lizard. You got one who looks like a centerfold.”

“She’s a mother,” Coop said under his breath.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind coming home to her for milk and cookies. See you at the sweatshop.”

“Sure.” Coop stood where he was, frowning at the quiet street. Mothers weren’t supposed to look like that, he thought again. They were supposed to look . . . motherly. Safe. Comfortable. He blew out a breath, willed away the knot in his stomach.

She wasn’t his mother, he reminded himself.

By midnight, Zoe’s feet were screaming. Her back ached, and her arms felt as though she’d been hauling boulders rather than drink trays. She’d deflected six propositions, two of them good-hearted enough to amuse, one of them insulting enough to earn the gentleman in question a bruised instep, courtesy of one of her stiletto heels. The others had been the usual and easily ignored.

It went with the territory, and it didn’t bother her overmuch.

The lounge earned its name from the shadowy effect of neon and all the dim corners. The decor was fifties tacky, and the waitresses were dolled up like old-fashioned mindless floozies to match.

But the tips were excellent, and the clientele, for the most part, harmless.

“Two house wines, white, a Black Russian and a coffee, light.” After calling out her order to the bartender, Zoe took a moment to roll her shoulders.

She hoped Beth had gotten Keenan to bed without any fuss. He’d been cranky all day—which meant he was nearly over his sniffles. He’d put up quite a fuss that morning, Zoe remembered, when she’d nixed the idea of him going to school.

Didn’t get that from me, she thought. She’d never fussed about not going to school. Now, at twenty-five, she deeply regretted letting her education slide. If she’d applied herself, tried for college, she could have developed a skill, had a career.

Instead, she had a high school diploma she’d barely earned, and was qualified for little more than serving drinks to men whose eyes tried to crawl down her cleavage.

But she wasn’t one for regrets. She’d done what she’d done, and she had the greatest prize of all. Keenan. In a couple of years, she figured, she’d have saved enough that she could turn in her bustier and take a night course. Once she had a few business courses under her belt, she could open her own flower shop. And she wouldn’t have to leave Keenan with sitters at night.