Home to Me

by Bybee, Catherine

  He looked over the rim as if considering her suggestion. “That might work with my white seventies suit I wore at a theme party last year.”

  “You dressed up for a theme party?”

  “You sound surprised. Isn’t that what people do at parties created around a theme . . . dress up?”

  Erin took two steps back and opened the door for him to come in. He handed her the glasses as he walked past.

  “You really didn’t have to rush these over for me.”

  “Considering you left them at my place a few days ago, it’s safe to say I didn’t rush.” He walked into the kitchen and did a double take at the mess. “Spring cleaning?”

  More like raw nerves getting the best of her, but cleaning was helping immensely. “You could say that,” she told him.

  He walked past the mess, opened the fridge, and pulled out a beer she’d returned to a clean shelf. “Do you mind?” he asked.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s your brother’s, so, no . . . I don’t mind.”

  Matt didn’t need any more encouragement. He twisted off the top and tossed it in the trash. “It’s happy hour. Want one?” he asked.

  “Beer isn’t really my thing.”

  He reopened the fridge. “There’s wine in here. I’m sure Parker won’t mind.”

  “Oh, that’s mine.” She stood rooted in place while Matt buzzed around the kitchen like he lived there. She’d seen his truck parked in the driveway a lot since the rain had stopped. Even though Colin hadn’t officially moved in, he was there a lot and apparently his younger brother spent a lot of time with him.

  He grabbed the wine and closed the refrigerator door. “You’ll join me, then?”

  She opened her mouth to say no and hesitated.

  His eyes caught hers and he tilted his head slightly, tempting her.

  Erin opened the utensil drawer she was standing beside and handed him a corkscrew.

  “That’s my girl.” His words flowed so easily they didn’t even register until she’d turned around to finish cleaning the last of the shelves.

  She wasn’t his anything, but she didn’t know how to correct him without sounding pathetic, so she pretended not to have heard him instead.

  “Glasses?” he asked once the cork had popped free of the bottle.

  “The cupboard above the coffee maker.” She added a point of her elbow to aid him in finding a wineglass.

  With her drink poured, he stood beside her and waited for her to turn off the water before handing her the glass. He stopped her from taking a sip by lifting his beer in the air for a toast. “To Colin and Parker.”

  “That’s sweet.” She didn’t see that coming.

  They both sipped their drinks.

  “I have to give my brother credit. If he hadn’t had the hots for Parker, I wouldn’t have met you.” He put his beer down and grabbed a dish towel.

  “Matt.” His name was a warning.

  He lifted the glass shelf and started to dry it. “You can never have too many friends, right?” he asked.

  Friends? She didn’t think he was talking about friends. “Right.”

  “Right,” he agreed with her.

  She watched him take the shelf to the fridge and put it back inside. “Does all this go back in?”

  “You don’t have to help.”

  “Payment for happy hour.” He proceeded to put everything back in order.

  All she could do was stare. Matt wasn’t a small man. She was five eight and he had to be six three with shoulders that filled out every shirt she’d ever seen him in. From the back, all you could see were muscles that ran down to a narrow waist and a tight . . .

  Matt turned and caught her staring.

  She closed her eyes and pivoted away.

  He chuckled. “Busted,” he said.

  “Sorry.” She felt her face grow hot. She reached for her wine. How many shades of embarrassed could she turn getting caught checking out his ass? “I-I was trying to picture you in that white zoot suit.”

  “Ah-huh . . . sure.”

  Oh, this was bad. “No, really.”

  He walked around her, picked up his beer. “It’s okay, Erin.”

  She dared a look at him and found his soft hazel eyes and boyish smile looking back. “I’m not used to seeing a man work in a kitchen.”

  “Your dad never helped your mom out?”

  It was her turn to move to keep her nerves from showing. “As sexist as that sounds, the answer is no. My mother didn’t know the kitchen existed, and the only experience my father had with one was to pay for it.” She quickly shuffled food back inside the fridge.

  “Who cooked?”

  Maids.

  “We got by,” she said instead.

  “But—”

  “My parents divorced early, and after my mom left, my father hired babysitters. They cooked.” Babysitters sounded a lot easier to swallow than nannies.

  “What about when you were at your mom’s . . . did she hire babysitters, too?”

  Erin huffed a laugh. “I misspoke and gave my mother too much credit. I haven’t seen my mother since I was seven. She abandoned us.” Something she’d gotten over a long time ago. Her mother wasn’t part of the equation.

  “Damn, Erin . . . that sucks.”

  She shrugged. “It is what it is. So if I was staring—”

  “You were staring,” he interrupted her with a grin.

  Squaring her shoulders and lifting her eyes to once again look at him, she said, “It really was because I’m not accustomed to seeing a man working in a kitchen.”

  “So you weren’t staring at my ass for the pleasure of it.”

  Blink . . . blink . . .

  Words failed her.

  He started to laugh.

  “You are so full of yourself.”

  That boyish smile went full wattage. “I adore the way you blush.”

  She brought both hands to her cheeks and tried to cool them off. “You’re awful.”

  “I know. I should be destroyed.” He turned and reached for the garbage. “I’ll take this out while you construct a witty response to my teasing.”

  Matt had many traits worth touting, but he had to admit, charming women was at the top of that list. And tonight he felt like he’d just received the Golden Ticket from the judges when it came to getting what he wanted.

  He wiggled his way into happy hour, which was two drinks in before he helped Erin finish making dinner . . . which he invited himself to . . . almost like a player on first base stealing second without the pitcher seeing. He sat beside Austin so he could watch Erin as she ate.

  “Are you getting excited about graduation?” Erin asked Austin.

  “I can’t wait to get out of that place.”

  “I remember that feeling. I have to tell ya, though . . . it only gets harder after high school,” Matt told him.

  “That’s what everyone says.”

  “Are you going to college?” he asked.

  Austin shook his head. “Trade school, I think. I’m taking the summer to figure out which one.”

  “Parker’s okay with that?” While Parker was the sister and not the mom, she stood in as a parent for Austin and Mallory for the past three years.

  “She’s cool. Says that college isn’t for everyone. Besides, it isn’t like colleges are going anywhere if I decide to go.”

  “That’s true,” Erin said.

  Matt found his attention back across the table. “Did you go to college?”

  She nodded.

  “Where?”

  The question seemed to have caught in her head because she didn’t answer right away. Finally she said, “Back east.”

  He found the answer strange. Most college graduates boasted their alma mater with a Go Cougars, or Yeah, Huskies.

  Much as he wanted to press, he saw her thumb start to rub against her finger as she pushed food around her plate instead of eating it.

  “Did you go to college?” Austin asked him.

 
; Erin grew silent as Matt told Austin his journey to becoming a firefighter. Junior college, then time on a hotshot crew before finally landing a position in LA County Fire. It had been his dream and it had taken forever. Five years of applying and testing all over the state and even Arizona, Idaho, and Nevada. Not that he had any desire to move away from his family . . . but he was willing to go anywhere to get into the field and then bank on the ability to transfer out and back home later in life if he needed.

  “I was one of the lucky ones,” he finished his story. “A lot of my buddies gave up. Some went on to join the police force, some went back to school or took other labor jobs in construction.”

  “I don’t see a person who wanted to be a firefighter working behind a desk,” Erin said.

  “That sounds like my personal hell.”

  She smiled at that.

  “Mine, too,” Austin said. “Which is why I think college is a waste of my time. I liked the heavy equipment that was here all winter.”

  Matt nodded. “Good work. Great pay. Can’t be outsourced.”

  Austin dished up another portion of mashed potatoes. “I know, right? Can’t buy that from China.”

  “Another great job is a lineman,” Matt told him.

  “What’s that?”

  “Working on power poles. Running lines.”

  Erin placed her fork down on her plate. “Oh, God . . . don’t put that in his head. Parker will have a heart attack.”

  Matt grinned. “It’s okay. I taught Colin CPR. She’ll be fine.”

  And so the conversation circled. Austin kept things interesting with only a few comments from Erin. When they were finished, only half of the food on Erin’s plate had been eaten, and he and Austin made a pretty good dent in the rest of it on the table.

  “That was really delicious.” Matt took his plate to the sink.

  “You helped,” Erin told him.

  “Tossing a salad isn’t really cooking.”

  Austin placed his plate next to Matt’s and moved back into the dining room. “So are you guys dating, or what?”

  Erin’s plate hit the counter a little too loud. “What? No.”

  Her cheeks were crimson in one second. They matched her red hair, which was fading to more of a strawberry blonde. Emphasis on the strawberry. He would bet his next paycheck red was not her natural color. In the six months that he’d known her, she’d grown out her hair past her midback. Her skin was quickly bronzing with the addition of sunshine, further making him believe that the trait of red hair was not in her gene pool. “Not for my lack of trying, kid,” Matt said, bringing a new shade of red to Erin’s face.

  She glared now, in a playful kind of way. “You do need to be destroyed.”

  Hearing his words tossed back at him had him wiggling his eyebrows.

  Erin, on the other hand, rolled her eyes. “I guess you’ll be wanting coffee, since you wheedled happy hour and dinner out of the evening.”

  “And here I thought I was being stealthy.” He cleaned off his plate into the garbage can and moved to help with the dishes. “But since you offered, coffee would be great.”

  That earned another chuckle before she turned to put on a pot.

  Ten minutes later the dishes were done, Austin had gone to his room, and Matt sat with Erin on the front porch drinking coffee while the sun went down.

  “Next time I’ll cook you dinner,” he told her.

  Erin stared at him over her cup of coffee. “I already told you I wasn’t ready to date.”

  “I didn’t say date. I said dinner.” He sipped his coffee. “Oh, wait. Was this a date? I didn’t realize or I would have brought flowers.” Teasing took the worry out of her eyes.

  “Does this work on all the ladies?” she asked.

  He played dumb. “Does what work?”

  “Assuming a position in someone’s life.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”

  “Oh, please. Your moves are very practiced and smoother than a newborn’s bottom.”

  He put his coffee aside, purposely drinking it slowly to prolong the night. “As crazy as it sounds, I don’t usually have to ask a woman out repeatedly before she says yes. Since that didn’t work with you, I’m trying something different.”

  “Assuming a place in my life.”

  “Technically, I’m already in your world since it is in Parker’s and Parker is in Colin’s . . . and Colin—”

  She stopped him with a wave of her hand. “Okay, okay.”

  He flashed his dimples. “So you’ll go out with me.”

  “Oh my God. I didn’t say that.”

  From dimples to pout. “Fine. Dinner, not dating. I’m at work tomorrow but I can do Saturday.”

  She put her cup down. “Matt. We are not . . . I don’t have time to date.”

  “You need to eat.”

  She paused.

  He was getting to her, he felt it.

  “Mallory and Jase are coming over on Saturday.”

  “Great. I’ll barbeque. And it will be ‘just dinner.’ Not a date.” Which is what she needed to hear. The fact that he’d caught her checking out his butt earlier and that all the teasing resulted in her blushing like a woman with a crush told him all he needed to know.

  Erin Fleming was into him. She just didn’t want to be.

  And that, Matt could work with.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “It’s been a solid year since the protection order was in place so the judge is granting a hearing.”

  Just listening to Renee’s words made Erin’s pulse race.

  “He almost killed me.”

  “Which I will argue on your behalf. But there was no official police report and the car accident was recorded as just that. The only reason we received the protective order in the first place was because of the stack of ‘accident’ reports obtained by urgent care. Since there is nothing new, and no contact between the two of you, I don’t think we have much hope of keeping the order in place.”

  Erin stared out over the property, thankful that Scout was by her side, and blinked away tears. “That’s only because he doesn’t know where I am.” Or so she hoped.

  “I’m going to point that out. But I have to warn you, I’ve read his rebuttal and his attorney’s statement. They’re pretty convincing,” Renee warned.

  “He’s a master at manipulation.”

  “Most narcissists are. Look at it this way . . . once the order is lifted, his ‘reasons’ for not signing the divorce documents are out of the way.”

  “He won’t sign them.”

  “He will eventually.”

  Her gut said differently. “Do what you can, Renee.”

  There was silence on the line. “Do you really think the restraining order is the only thing keeping him away from you?”

  No. She knew from the beginning that the order was never going to stop Desmond from coming after her. But once it was off the table, there was one less emotional security blanket she could hold on to.

  “He doesn’t know where you are, Maci.”

  “That isn’t my name anymore.”

  Renee sighed over the line. “How are you holding up? Are you meeting new friends?”

  “So they can learn about my true past?”

  “You can’t be a hermit. It’s not healthy.”

  “I’m fine, Renee. Thanks for your concern.” Scout lifted his head off his paws, stood, and put his head in her lap. “It’s okay, Scout.”

  “Scout? Is that a pet?”

  “A dog.”

  “Dogs are good. Great companions, perfect alarms for bad guys.” Renee’s voice was hopeful.

  “When is the hearing?”

  “Next Friday. I already postponed once. The judge will throw it out if we don’t move forward. I’m going to fight hard. You know that, right?”

  Erin ran her fingers over Scout’s head, scratched behind his ears. “I know. Call me when it’s over.”

  “I will.”

  Th
ey hung up, and a single tear dripped off her cheek.

  What if Desmond knew where she was all along and was waiting for the restraining order to go away? What if he’s been watching her all along, and the hair on the back of her neck standing at attention wasn’t just her imagination. What if he showed up and hurt Parker or went after Austin?

  Scout added a paw to his nose in her lap.

  Erin looked down at the dog. “You’re too big to be a lap dog.”

  A second paw jumped into her lap as Scout tried to prove her wrong.

  She’d have to leave. If Desmond showed up, she’d have to leave to protect the people she was starting to care for. Because he would use them to get to her. Just like he promised to do to her sister. Which was why it was best Helen didn’t have any contact with her at all.

  A year ago, before she moved to Santa Clarita and found refuge in Parker’s tiny guesthouse, she thought she would be running for the rest of her life. Only the past six months had given her hope that she could set down roots, at least shallow ones, and try to live a real life.

  If she knew for sure Desmond wasn’t looking for her.

  But he was.

  “If you leave me, I’ll hunt you down, and I will find you. When I do, you’ll know just how disappointed I am.” These words were delivered in her ear as he pounded into her after a fight. Although she couldn’t call what they did fighting.

  He hit.

  She cowered.

  She looked at her hands, remembered the wrist splints, finger splints, and arm cast.

  Her head started to pound and forced her to think of something else.

  But first, Excedrin.

  Matt and his crew spent much of their day driving their route and checking weed abatement on commercial and residential properties. Most of the time people greeted them with smiles and handshakes, but there was the occasional homeowner who decided it was none of the fire department’s business if their weeds were three feet tall and resting against their homes.

  No matter how diplomatic Matt’s team was, those property owners always made the biggest noise and screamed the loudest when a fire actually blew through.

  It was a part of his job he didn’t enjoy in the slightest.

  Putting water on fire, running into a burning building to save a life . . . he’d take that any day over policing people’s gardening habits.