by Susan Meier
Discovering he was married and realizing her loneliness had driven her to a bad relationship didn’t ease the pain of being alone after he was gone. Her bed wasn’t just empty; her life was empty. She had a fancy condo, new car and a degree, but her life was empty.
And that was what she saw when she really looked around this house—Matt’s house. Everything was perfect, beautiful, but untouched.
She rolled Bella into clean pajamas, telling herself Matt Patterson’s “untouched” house wasn’t any of her business. But she knew he was lonely, and his beliefs about relationships would keep him lonely. At least she was up front about her loneliness. At least she was trying to find real love in her life....
She snorted a laugh that made Bella giggle. Trying to find love? She hadn’t been attracted to a guy since Ben. Five years. And the first guy she’s attracted to is cold and unfeeling.
Yeah. She was brilliant at picking partners. Brilliant at working to cure her loneliness.
Still, he’d warned her he wasn’t the kind of guy who settled down or wanted relationships. She would be a good soldier and believe him.
She lifted clean and dressed Bella from the counter and nuzzled her neck. Matt Patterson might be a crappy choice for a boyfriend, but like it or not he had to be a dad. For Bella’s sake, she’d do whatever she could tonight to help him learn how to love this baby.
She carried Bella out of the bathroom and walked her into the room beside Matt’s bedroom to find Jimmy helping Matt put together a single bed.
“What’s this?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t want you sleeping on the floor.”
She hadn’t forgotten she was sleeping in the room next to Matt’s, but watching them put together a bed made it all very real.
“I called Jimmy and we brought this bed from storage.”
Jimmy inclined his head in greeting. “Brought your duffel bag up, too.”
She smiled. Jimmy was a funny, nice guy who didn’t put up with any crap from his boss, who seemed to have a knack for making her laugh. “Thanks.”
As they put the bed together, she carried Bella to one of the club chairs in front of the TV in Matt’s room and fed her a bottle.
When the bed was together, Jimmy left. Bella finished the last of her milk, her eyes drooping. Matt left the room for a minute and returned with clean linens.
Realizing they were for the bed she’d be using, Claire rose from her chair with sleeping Bella. “I’ll get those.”
“No. I’m fine.” He dumped the sheets on the single bed. “You take care of Bella.”
“She’s asleep.” Claire laid her in her crib, wondering how the heck this rich guy who wasn’t quite sure where to find a blanket knew so much about sheets. Not only was he making her bed now, but he’d put the sheet on the mattress in Bella’s crib. “And my work with her is done. So I can get those.”
“How about if we both do it?”
She walked over to the bed as Matt opened the fitted sheet, billowing it across the bed so she could catch her end and hook the corners over the mattress.
When it was on, Matt did the same thing with the flat sheet.
Uncomfortable with the silence between them, Claire said, “We really are running out of clothes for Bella.”
“We can buy new.”
“I know but she probably has tons of her own things. Wouldn’t it be nice to have some of the pretty things her mom picked out for her?”
Matt’s heart somersaulted. He knew Claire’s intentions were good, but every time he thought about Ginny his sadness got worse.
“Especially for that trip to Texas you’re taking. She’s going to be in a new environment again. It would be better for her to have some toys and her own clothes. Comfort things.”
Matt sniffed. “Comfort things?” He shook his head. “I’m the one who needs the comfort things. The whole trip-to-Texas family-reunion thing is going to be hell.”
“Hell?”
He stuffed a pillow in a pillowcase. “I haven’t really been involved in my family for a decade and this ‘reunion’ is all about meeting half siblings I didn’t even know I had.”
“You have stepsiblings?”
“Half siblings. It’s a long story.”
She glanced at sleeping Bella. “We have time.”
“My family doesn’t matter. I have Bella now. She’s my family. My life is busy. I have too much work to do to get involved with those people. In fact, the smart thing to do would be just not go to Texas. That way I won’t have to worry about Bella adjusting to more new people. We’ll stay here with her nanny, adjusting to the world she’s going to stay in, not visiting a bunch of people she’ll never see again.”
Shocked, Claire gaped at him. “Just like that, you’re giving up family?”
“My family isn’t the white picket fence, nice guys who sit around a Thanksgiving table counting our blessings. We keep secrets. We hide things. I’d rather be alone than be with them.”
He sucked in a breath. “Bed is made. Bella is sleeping. If there’s nothing else for me to do, I’d like to go downstairs to make some west coast calls.”
“Sure.”
He headed for the door, but stopped. “Make yourself at home. Shower if you want. Get yourself some cocoa or a snack in the kitchen.”
She nodded.
He walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
She glanced at Bella, sleeping soundly in the crib, and lifted her duffel bag from the floor beside the bed. She rummaged around until she found pajamas and her cosmetics case and took those into the big bathroom.
After pulling out her body wash, shampoo and other shower essentials, she stripped and walked to the big shower. She smiled. Good grief. Such luxury! She’d given up being pampered almost a decade ago, but suddenly a shower with sixteen body jets seemed like a lot of fun.
But when she was in the cube, being pelleted with warm water, the echo of the spray in the shower brought her up short. When she stepped out and dried herself in the ultrasoft towel, the sound of nothing—not another person, not a car on the street, not a TV or radio or CD player...nothing—assaulted her.
This was how he lived.
This man who rejected family, who said he didn’t need people, who said he loved his life, lived with servants and silence.
CHAPTER SIX
DRESSED in her pajamas and robe, Claire took Matt up on his offer and made herself a cup of cocoa in the cool, impersonal stainless-steel kitchen. Her every movement echoed around her in the quiet, underscoring the emptiness of the house.
A huge ball of empathy for Matt lodged in her tummy and the temptation was strong to go in search of him—if only to provide company. She suspected he was in the den, but with the size of his home, she also knew he could have a totally different office in another wing somewhere and her trip would be wasted.
Still, she stopped at the bottom of the stairs in the foyer. Her intimate knowledge of the pain of loneliness wouldn’t allow her to let anyone else suffer. But he didn’t want help and she didn’t want him to think she was interested in him romantically. They might have kissed and both enjoyed it, but they’d agreed they wouldn’t pursue their attraction. Plus, as he’d said, he had Bella to be his family. He didn’t need anyone else. What business was it of hers to think that wasn’t enough? Why should she care that he had family he didn’t wish to see?
She shouldn’t.
The wise course would be to simply do what she was here to do—help him care for Bella tonight—and leave him tomorrow.
She climbed the steps, walked through his bedroom to the single bed near the crib and removed her e-reader from her duffel. Curled under the covers, she read for an hour, so engrossed in her book she didn’t even feel time passing and suddenly the bedroom door opened.
Matt walked in. “Hey.”
She set down her e-reader. He looked tired and sad. Longing to make him happy rose up in her. But they’d agreed not to get any further involved than they
had to be for Bella.
So she said, “Did you get your calls made?”
“Yes.” He rolled his shoulders as if exhausted. “Bella still sleeping?”
“Soundly.” She glanced at the crib and smiled. At least something was going right. “In the four days I had her, she usually woke around ten. Since she slept past that, I think she’s happy with the new crib.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good.”
Claire narrowed her eyes. If he’d been worried that the baby wouldn’t like the new crib, why had he insisted they buy one? They could have easily gone to his ex-wife’s home and retrieved Bella’s old one. So why had he argued?
He motioned toward his room. “I’ll just take a few minutes in the bathroom—brush my teeth and stuff—and I’ll check on you guys again.”
Once again telling herself that things about him and his life were none of her business, she simply said, “We’re fine. You don’t need to check on us.”
He nodded and left the room. But in the bathroom, he leaned against the sink. He could smell her. The scent of flowers saturated the entire room. It could have been her soap or her shampoo. It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, it swirled through his nostrils, tickled his senses and awoke needs he didn’t want to feel for a sweet woman like Claire.
He shook his head. Could she have picked more prim and proper pajamas? Pink like cotton candy, the pants went the whole way to her ankles and the top buttoned at her throat.
He might have thought she’d dressed so primly to make a point, but something in his gut told him pajamas like those were what she regularly wore to bed. She wouldn’t try to entice a man.
He frowned. She didn’t have to. For some reason or another her proper clothes were sexier to him than the slinky red and black cocktail dresses worn by women with long nails and big ideas for how to pass the time until dawn.
With Claire he’d be the one doing the seducing....
Groaning, he told himself to stop thinking about her. He stripped, showered and brushed his teeth in record time. He walked to the closet at the back of the room and rummaged until he found an old pair of pajama bottoms, a gift from Charlotte, and slid into them, along with a robe.
If she wanted to be proper, he would be proper.
He strode through his bedroom, to make one more check on them, but Claire only said, “Good night,” and rolled over onto her side.
Okay. Fine. She wanted to go to sleep; he would go to sleep. It was late. After eleven. He didn’t have a problem with that.
Still, he tiptoed toward the crib for one final look at sleeping Bella. Her lashes rested on her plump rosy cheeks. Her lips were bowed in a smile. He wondered if she was dreaming about her parents and his heart skipped a beat. Even with all the trauma in his life, he couldn’t imagine what she was going through. He prayed he would be a good dad to this poor sweet child.
Then he left the room, shrugged out of his robe and climbed into bed—his bed on a pedestal.
Unable to relax, he sighed, plumped the pillow. He’d slept in this exact bed for years, lots of years, and suddenly tonight it seemed wrong for him to be in this big bed, like some king.
He wasn’t a king. He was an outcast. An outcast who’d used his wits and education to best every competitor who came his way.
He’d won.
Yet, tonight it didn’t feel like he’d won. Caring for Bella made him feel ill-equipped and vulnerable. And merely considering breaking his promise to his sisters, Charlotte especially—the only person in his family he still spoke to—and not meeting the family he didn’t want to meet, had also put him on edge.
Which was probably why he’d let some things slip to Claire when she’d asked about his family. He’d never wanted to talk about them before. But suddenly, with her, it was so easy to spill his guts. He blamed it on nervousness over the upcoming trip and once again considered not going. He didn’t want to know these people. He was fine on his own.
But what about his promise? Was he bound by a promise he’d made to his sisters in a moment of weakness?
He flounced onto his side, annoyed with the direction of his thoughts. Especially when he began to consider all the possibilities for fights and backbiting when the
Calhoun and Patterson clans got together. Technically, he was the oldest of the Calhoun children, but his “brother” Holt ran the family ranch, watched over the family holdings and “distributed” profits. With no will specifically naming Holt leader of the pack, Matt could come in and assert his rights. After all, who better to manage a family’s fortune than a man who’d made one for himself?
He didn’t want to think about how they probably planned to intimidate him into falling in line with Holt’s wishes. He’d rather think about Claire and her pretty pink pajamas not trying to seduce him but making him crazy with wanting her.
It was no wonder he’d kissed her.
Remembering the feeling of her soft mouth against his, the mating of their tongues, the intense heat that whooshed through him, he almost groaned. But she was in a bed only a wall away and, if he groaned, she might hear him.
And she would ask what was wrong because she was considerate like that, and God only knew what he’d say this time.
He pulled the covers over his head. What the hell was wrong with him? He never wanted to talk to anybody! Why did he suddenly want to talk to her?
He was letting her get too close. That was what was wrong. She was here to help him with the baby and he was out of his element, so in his vulnerability he was making mistakes. But no more. He would learn what he needed to know as quickly as he could so this unwanted vulnerability would go!
* * *
Bella’s crying woke Claire at around three. She’d slept an hour later than usual, which was good, but she hadn’t slept through the night.
Realizing all this was new to Matt and that some of it had clearly overwhelmed him, she rolled out of bed and sped to the crib.
“Shh. Shh.” She reached in and pulled out Bella. “I’ve got you! Give me two minutes to change your diaper and we’ll race to the kitchen to get your bottle.”
“I’ll get a bottle.”
Matt’s voice from behind almost made Claire jump out of her skin. She whispered, “You scared me!”
Matt headed for the door. “No need to whisper. With her lungs, Bella could have the whole household up by now...if anybody was here.”
She went to reply, but Matt opened the door and left before she could. No matter. She took the baby to the bathroom, found a diaper and had her changed before Matt returned with the fresh bottle of milk.
As he walked over to her, she sat on edge of her bed. But instead of handing the bottle to her, he took the baby. “We need a rocker in here.”
Shocked that he’d taken Bella and had arranged her on his arm to feed her, she gaped at him. “What are you doing?”
“Feeding her.”
“I can do it. You go back to bed.”
“I need to learn how to do this and I am.”
Respect for him rose up in her. Her father had passed everything to the various maids they’d had over the years. But Matt really wanted to care for Bella. She patted the bed beside her. “You’ll get a rocker tomorrow. Until then, you can’t stand to feed her.” She grimaced. “Well, you could. But it takes a few minutes for her to eat, so you’re better off sitting.”
He grunted, brought Bella to her bed and sat on the spot Claire had patted.
Bella gulped greedily and Claire laughed. “Are we a little piggy tonight?”
Bella grinned around the bottle’s nipple.
Matt slanted her a look. “Are we allowed to talk to her?”
“Sure. It’s like dinner conversation. It helps you to bond.” She paused, smiled at him. “Try it.”
He quickly glanced away. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say anything.” She paused. “Why not tell her about the new family she’s about to meet in Texas?”
He rose. �
��She’s getting done really quickly. We don’t have time to talk.”
Disappointment skittered through her. It wasn’t good for Bella to have him running hot and cold. And when it came to family he was definitely hot and cold. So she moved them off the topic of the Texas reunion and said, “You should probably burp her.”
He spun to face her. “Burp her?”
His incredulous question made her laugh. “If you don’t burp her the gas will wake her up.”
“The first thirteen years of my life I heard nothing but don’t burp...now you want me to get her to burp.”
“Your mom probably never said don’t burp. She probably said don’t burp in public.”
He snorted a half laugh. “All right. Whatever. How do I burp her?”
She hoisted herself off the bed and walked over to him. Lifting Bella from his arms, she said, “You have to put her over your shoulder.” She arranged the baby on his shoulder and he quickly put one hand beneath her bottom and one hand on her back. Their fingers brushed. Electricity skipped up her arm, reminding her of their kiss, but she ignored it.
“There. See?” She took a step back and quickly turned to walk back to the bed, far too tempted to check his face to see if he’d felt the zing, too. “Now, all you have to do is pat her back until she burps.”
He patted and Bella burped loudly. “Well, that’s interesting.”
“That’s actually great. Now, give her the bottle again.”
Bella finished her bottle, burped again, then fell asleep.
Matt whispered, “So do I put her in bed?”
“Yes, but expect to get up again soon. She’s never slept this much before.”
Sympathy for Bella flashed across his face, and Claire looked away. He was far too handsome and she was far too attracted to him to let all the sympathy and empathy she knew he felt sway her. Combining his good looks and her attraction with appreciation for his love for Bella, it wouldn’t be long before she found herself genuinely liking him—and they’d already decided they weren’t going there.