Kelly laughed. “Yes, sweetie. He can come in.”
Aislin faced Matt again. “She said it was okay.”
“Thank you,” Matt said solemnly, then crossed the threshold. But only as far as the tiled entryway. Kelly grabbed the towel she’d just used on the baby and tossed it to Matt, vaguely regretting that she couldn’t strip him down to dry him off—
“Thanks,” he said, wiping his face one-handed and draping the towel over the doorknob, then holding out the bag. “I bought these for the kids weeks ago. Except with everything that happened I forgot about them. And since you’re all home—”
“Mama! Mama! What is it?”
Kelly opened the bag, only to feel her breath catch when she saw the LEGO set. Crap. So she pulled out the sock monkey first—in rainbow colors, no less—and handed it to Aislin, who gasped, squealed then rushed Matt to hug his thigh. “Thank you!” she mumbled into his soggy jeans, then said, “I have to go show him to everybody else!” and tore down the hall.
Then, her chest still knotted, and with no way to give Matt a heads-up, Kelly handed the bag to Coop.
“This was so thoughtful, Matt,” she said, hoping against hope her son got the message. Still, she braced herself. Except after pulling the huge box from the bag, Coop slid down the wall to sit with it in his lap, awestruck being the only word to describe his expression.
Kelly’s eyes filled; she cleared her throat and prompted, “Coop?”
The boy bit his bottom lip, then whispered, “This is...” He clumsily hauled himself to his feet, then looked at Matt. “It’s awesome. I’ve wanted this one forever. Thanks.”
“Glad you like it,” Matt said, obviously releasing a breath of his own. “If you need help, let me know. My brothers and I built hundreds of these things when we were kids.”
“Thanks, I will.” Then, to Kelly, he asked, “C’n I go get started on it now?”
“Of course, sweetie.”
The dog, naturally, went with. A moment later, she heard Coop’s door close, then Matt quietly said, “You’re crying?”
Perceptive guy, that Matt.
Sniffling, Kelly went into the living room to pluck a tissue from a dented box on the coffee table. “A few years ago—” she shoved up her glasses to wipe her eyes, then blew her nose before facing Matt again “—there was...an incident. Involving Coop’s father and LEGOs.”
Matt blew out a heavy sigh. “Oh, God, Kelly, if I’d known...”
“How could you have? Heck, LEGOs and little boys go together like milk and cookies. And obviously it’s all good now, so—”
“What happened?”
Kelly glanced down the hall to make sure Coop’s door was still closed, then lowered her voice. “Lynn had given Coop one of those humongous sets for Christmas, one way too advanced for a five-year-old.” Her mouth twisted. “Or a man whose life was unraveling, although I didn’t know it at the time. I had to take Aislin for her six-month checkup, so I left Coop with his dad. I returned an hour later to find a explosion in my living room, Rick in a rage and Coop sobbing harder than I have ever heard anybody cry.”
At Matt’s muttered swear word, she nodded. “Yeah. Exactly. And before I could ask what happened, Rick stormed out of the house, leaving me with a hysterical little boy and a screaming baby, since naturally Linnie picked up on the distress. It took me forever to get the kids calmed down. And a lot longer than that before I found out Rick knew he was about to lose his job. But thinking I couldn’t handle the news, he held it in. And trying to assemble the stupid LEGO set sent him over the edge.”
Matt gave her one of those trenchant looks. “Was that the...beginning?”
“Of the end? Yes.” The real end, at least, when she’d finally realized that once a dream starts unraveling, there’s no putting it back together. No matter how badly you might want to. “Coop was petrified, cowering on the floor beside the sofa. And my first, horrified thought was that Rick had hit him. And looking back, I’m not sure he wouldn’t have if I hadn’t come home when I did.” The pain flared into fury. “I don’t care how unhappy you are, you do not take it out on a child. I didn’t let Rick back in the house that night. And I never, ever left Coop alone again with his father.”
“Good for you,” Matt said, his eyes never leaving her face, where a tight smile stretched her mouth.
“I was so angry and scared, it hurt. It still hurts. All those nasty what-ifs...” Kelly shuddered, raking her hand through her curls. “But even though there were no more rages—for a long time, anyway—the damage was done. Coop’s trust in Rick... It was as shattered as those LEGOs, whether I fully admitted it at the time or not. And Coop refused to play with them from then on, even though he’d been hooked on the things from his first DUPLOs when he was a toddler. So when he pulled that box out of the bag...” Her lips pressed together. “It could have been disastrous.”
“Meaning you haven’t bought LEGOs for him since then?”
“Would you have? Given the circumstances?”
A second or two passed before Matt crossed his arms. “Well, as you said, it’s obviously all good now. And even if it hadn’t been, my feelings would have survived, believe me.” He snorted. “Ethan’s oldest girl is a total pain to shop for,” he said, and Kelly smiled. “Anyway,” he said, “about the roof...”
Then he shut his eyes, breathing in deeply.
“What?” Kelly asked, slightly alarmed.
Eyes still closed, Matt inhaled again, then sighed. “I’ve been trying to ignore that incredible smell, but...” His eyes opened. “Damn. What are you making?”
“Beef stew,” Kelly said, relieved. That she didn’t have to call 911, at least. “Nothing fancy.”
“From scratch?” he said, sounding so pathetic she nearly laughed.
“Well, I didn’t slaughter the cow or grow the veggies, but yeah. So what were you saying about the roof?”
“The roof, right.” Palming the back of his head, Matt huffed a breath. “I was hoping to hold off until spring before replacing it, but it’s worse than I thought. Another rain like we had today...” His hands slammed back to his waist. “So the roofers’ll be here next week, if the weather holds. I don’t think the noise’ll be too bad down here, but figured you’d appreciate a heads-up.”
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”
And if she’d expected him to nod and leave, she was wrong. Instead he pocketed his hands and said, “So how’s Coop doing in school?”
“Good,” she said, as it hit her—the guy was lonely. An almost alien concept to her, since, between the kids and work and everything else, Kelly hadn’t had time to be lonely in... Gosh. Forever.
Or so she’d convinced herself.
“You going back to your dad’s tonight?” she asked, even though what she really wanted to do was sign him up for online dating. Or something. Anything. Because that hound-at-the-pound expression was not a good look for him. Or, alas, her.
“No, actually,” he said on a whoosh of air. “He returned this morning. Complete surprise, he’d said he was staying much longer. Can you imagine, voluntarily returning to Jersey from Florida in February? Anyway, so I’m back in residence. Not that you wouldn’t’ve figured it out on your own soon enough—” He lifted his head again. “Man...that smells so good.”
And she thought the dog was a beggar. Then again, considering everything he’d done since she’d moved in, including staying out of her way—and he had brought the kids gifts, which was very sweet and totally unexpected—she supposed the least she could do was invite him to dinner. In fact, she supposed it would be rude not to.
Of course, she supposed she could pretend she was dense. Or ungrateful. Or a bitch—
For crying out loud, this was nuts. The man had kept his promise, she felt totally safe around him—okay, mostly safe—and they were all adults, he
re—
“Um...the stew won’t be ready for a couple hours yet, but if you don’t have plans...”
Oh, dear. Man was watching her so intently she was surprised steam wasn’t rising from his wet clothes. “Unless you count channel surfing until I keel over from boredom...nope. No plans. No plans at all.”
And this would be so much easier if he weren’t so gosh-darn cute. “Then why don’t you come for dinner?”
After what felt like an eternity of more steamy staring, he said, “You sure?”
“Of course,” she said, all bright smile and whatnot. Hard to do and not breathe in those pesky pheromones. “Wouldn’t have invited you, otherwise. So...sixish?”
He grinned. Not a sly grin, or a sexy grin, just...a Matt-being-Matt grin that warmed her through and scared the bejeebers out of her at the same time. Because it was the very innocence of that grin that could lead to some very not innocent goings-on, if she didn’t keep her wits about her.
“What can I bring?”
“Not a thing. I made pies earlier.”
His pupils got real big. “Pies? Plural?”
“Yep. Apple-cranberry and rum custard.”
He pressed a hand to his chest. “Swear to God, if I had a ring on me I’d ask you to marry me right now. Is rum custard even legal?”
“Just barely,” she said, thinking those eyes were going to be the death of her. Speaking of things that shouldn’t be legal. “But fair warning, they’re experiments. And I am no stranger to culinary catastrophes.”
There went the grin again. “So I should bring ice cream as backup?”
“Wouldn’t hurt. Especially since there’s no way the kids will touch the pies.”
He laughed, tingling her to her tootsies all over again, then whistled for the dog. Coop’s door opened and Alf loped down the hall, only to put on the brakes when she realized what was up. Chuckling, Matt squatted, his hands on his knees. “I’ll bring you back later. I promise.”
She could have sworn the dog sighed before going to her master...and that Matt gave her a wink before he left.
Testing times, she thought this was called.
* * *
As Matt finished off his second piece of the rum custard pie, he thought, Nope, nothing even remotely terrible about this. Or the evening, for that matter. Yeah, he was feeling pretty damn mellow right about now. The stew had more than made good on its olfactory promise, and the kids’ conversation—you haven’t lived until you’ve heard a toddler’s and a third-grader’s very different takes on Monsters, Inc.—had kept him laughing the whole time they’d been at the table. And if promises of another sort were not on the menu, it was still nice simply getting out of his own head for a couple hours.
Afterward they’d moved into the living room, where Matt had stretched out across the brightly patterned area rug angled across the light-colored laminate floor. Coop was in the far end of the room, vanished into the land of LEGOs. And Aislin, who’d attached herself to Matt like a tick, had brought at least a dozen books out of her room and plunked them on the floor, before calmly plunking herself at his hip and handing him one, then another, and another after that. He’d been reading aloud—stopping every few lines to allow for the little girl’s running commentary—between bites of the heaven that was Kelly’s pie.
One book done, Aislin immediately replaced it with another. “This one’s my favorite, it’s about dogs.” At the word dogs, Alfie lifted her head from where she lay alongside Kelly’s thrift-store-find sofa, a bluish-greenish tufted-velvet number that had probably once been the showpiece in somebody’s grandmother’s formal living room. Keeping the sofa company were a deeply cushioned chair the color of a ripe tomato and a curvy rocker with lime-green cushions. A huge, and very welcome, change from the original bleakness—
“Sometimes books about dogs are sad,” the little girl was saying, “but I don’t like those ones. This one’s funny—”
“Linnie, for heaven’s sake,” Kelly said, returning from the kitchen with another piece of pie for herself. She folded one leg underneath her butt and sank into the corner of the sofa, actually looking somewhat relaxed. Certainly a helluva lot more than earlier, when she’d told him about that horrendous day with Rick and the LEGOs.
At that point it had taken everything Matt had in him not to hug her, showing his support like Mom had always done with all her kids—meaning any kid who set foot in her house, short-term or long. Like he remembered his own mother doing, even if the memories were pretty worn and faded by now. Words were tricky, words could trip you up. But touching... That’d been around since long before humans figured out how to move past grunting.
Not to mention touching was how a man expressed what he was feeling when his brain and tongue felt disconnected from each other—
Smiling for her daughter, Kelly jabbed the fork at her. “He’s already read three—that’s plenty.”
“And I promise,” Matt said, facing Aislin, both to disengage from that wayward thought and tweak one of those adorable curls, “we can do this again,” and the kid’s dimpled grin melted his heart even as it stirred up all the old regrets. Then he returned his gaze to Kelly, and something else stirred. Yes, that. But more than that was the truth: that, against all common sense and all sense of honor, the pull was still there. Meaning right now he couldn’t help but appreciate the way her hair glowed against the blue sofa. How her position, despite her baggy jeans and loose sweater, delineated a curve or two that hadn’t existed a month ago.... “If Mama says that’s okay.”
Kelly snorted around the tines of her fork as she sucked off a blob of custard, and Matt clenched his teeth. “You might want to be careful what you’re offering, she loooves books,” she said, and Matt thought, watching that fork as it slid back into her mouth, You might want to be careful about what you’re offering. Except she wasn’t. Not even subconsciously. And he knew it. But, hey. Fantasies happened. “Doncha, sweetie?” Kelly said, sliding the fork out of her mouth again, and what little mellow he had left disintegrated.
“Uh-huh,” Aislin said with a vigorous head shake, clutching the dog book to her chest. “But Mama doesn’t read as many as I want her to.” She leaned forward and whispered, “’Cause sometimes she falls asleep.”
“Aislin Marie! Honestly!”
Chuckling, Matt glanced over at Kelly again, catching the cute little pink blotches peeking out from beneath her glasses frames. Occasionally he wondered what she’d look like dressed up—in something other than that butt-ugly funeral dress, that is—but there was a lot to be said for her hey-this-is-me-deal-with-it wardrobe of jeans and sweaters and jackets. Lots of black, he’d noticed, he supposed since that was what she wore for work. But with that red hair and her pale skin, black was good. Hell, black was hot.
And a little more mellow floated away....
“And, anyway, little girl,” Kelly said, “it’s almost bedtime. So go get your jammies on, I’ll come help you brush your teeth in a minute—”
“Awww...”
“No, awww-ing. Now git.” With a dramatic sigh, Aislin heaved her small self to her feet and tromped down the hall to her bedroom as Kelly said to Coop, “You, too, honey. It’s later than I thought.”
“Mom! Since when do I go to bed the same time as Linnie?”
“Since tonight, ’cause it’s late. And no arguments. You know I have to get you guys to Grandma’s early so I can go to work. And I do not need to deal with a sleepy cranky-pants tomorrow morning. ’Kay?”
“’Kay,” Coop grumbled, unfolding himself from the floor and giving the partly built set a longing look before trudging off to his own room.
Matt curled forward into a sitting position, close enough to pat Kelly’s knee. That got a look—big surprise, right?—but not quite the look he would’ve expected. Oh, he caught the “watch it, bub,” but mixed in wit
h a little...what? Curiosity, maybe? Then again, could’ve been the light from the lamp by the sofa flashing off her lenses.
“I’ll clean the kitchen while you herd,” he said, getting to his feet.
“Don’t be silly.” Kelly stood as well, brushing pie-crust crumbs off...the front of her sweater. “You’re a guest, you don’t have to—”
“Kelly?” Matt clasped her shoulders, rock hard under his hands, saw her pupils widen. Her lips part. In surprise, most likely. With no small difficulty, Matt reminded himself that he was a gentleman, that the Colonel had drummed into all his sons’ heads that a real man respected women. Controlled his impulses. Always. Yes, even when that man’s mouth felt electrified with wanting to kiss the stuffing out of the woman right in front of him, when he itched to soothe away the tension tightening her forehead muscles, those shoulders. In any number of intriguing ways. “Hush,” he said quietly, as much to himself as to her, then released her and went back to the kitchen, where the cold, congealed leftover beef stew seemed to taunt him.
Or at least dampened his ardor enough for his brain cells to remind him that if this was him being protective, he was doing a piss-poor job of it.
* * *
When Kelly returned, Matt was sitting on the edge of the couch, his jacket across his knees as he leafed through a home décor magazine. Frowning.
“It’s one of my weaknesses,” she said, heart hammering as she moved around the living room gathering toys, coats, plates. Telling herself she hadn’t sorta hurried the kids through their bedtime routines, sorta hoping Matt would still be here when she came back out. The why part of that she hadn’t quite worked out yet. “They’re mostly the same every month, but there’s something secure about that.”
“This where you got the ideas for in here? These colors?”
Her arms full, she glanced up. “Um...maybe?”
The Real Mr. Right Page 10