The Real Mr. Right

by Karen Templeton

  Not that, in theory, he wouldn’t mind witnessing such an explosion, but at the dinner table—with the kids, anyway—wasn’t what he had in mind.

  And, yes, he was well aware their little do-si-do in the kitchen had brought this on. Amusing, since—God’s honest truth—he’d only intended to drain the pasta. Help Kelly out like he would his mom, who’d always struggled with the spaghetti pot when it was full. Although he’d forgotten exactly how small that kitchen was.

  Smiling at something Aislin said, Matt took another bite, resisting the temptation to nudge Kelly’s foot under the table just to see her jump. But again. Kids.

  Even so, even if they’d been alone, even though she’d become outraged on his behalf about Marcia’s infidelity, and had taken his hand in the park, and invited him to dinner again, he knew she was only being kind. That she probably felt bad for him after what he’d told her.

  Although to be honest he’d been horrified when he realized, a little later, that he’d probably sounded like he was playing the pity card. God knows, men did. Some men, anyway. And for some men, it worked. But Matt would stab himself in the eye before resorting to such a lame tactic.

  Especially with someone he actually cared about. And he did care about Kelly. More than he probably should, more than she might ever know. However, never again would he push, or manipulate, or try to be someone he wasn’t just to “get” the girl. Because he’d rather live out the rest of his life alone than in a relationship based on dishonesty.

  So they’d finish dinner, and he’d offer to clean, and to read to the kidlet if she wanted, and then he’d leave. No harm, no foul, nobody making a fool out of himself.

  A half hour later, he’d almost finished wiping down the counters when Kelly returned from putting the baby to bed, heaving herself up on one of the bar stools behind the breakfast bar. In some ways, she reminded him of that first night in his dad’s kitchen—hair a mess, exhaustion pulling at the corners of her mouth. But the fear that had screamed in her eyes that night was gone.

  Or at least changed. Although into something he couldn’t have defined if his life had depended on it.

  “Where’s Coop?” he asked.

  “Taking a bath. Under duress, believe me.”

  “Yeah, little boys and water are not a match made in heaven.”

  “Unless the water is coming out of the sky and the little boy is on a bike.”

  “He likes to ride in the rain?”

  “He would like to ride in the rain. Not gonna happen. Shoot, I have enough trouble letting him ride in the dry.”

  “So I’ve noticed—”

  A shrill toddler cry shunted down the hall. Sighing, Kelly pushed herself off the stool. “Linnie sometimes gets night terrors as she’s falling asleep. Be back in a few....”

  A minute or so later, the shrieks dulled to broken whimpers. Matt squeezed out the sponge and stuck it in the dishwasher to clean with the dishes, only to nearly have a heart attack when he turned to find a dripping little boy in a sloppily draped towel standing in the kitchen entry.

  “Thought you were in the bathtub?”

  “The water got cold.” Shivering, and slightly squinting, Coop lifted a corner of the towel to scrub his ear. “Where’s Mom?”

  “With your sister.” Matt stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Where’s your glasses?”

  “In my room. Or maybe the bathroom. I only need ’em to see important stuff, like at school.” He squinted. “Or when I’m on my bike.”

  Matt smiled. “Need help?”

  Another squint, then he said, “M-mom forgot to put pajamas in the bathroom with me. I think they’re in the d-dryer—she was washing clothes earlier.” More shivering. “And I d-don’t like going in there.”

  There being the utility area of the basement, Matt assumed, where the furnace, hot-water heater and washer and dryer lived. As basements went, it really wasn’t that creepy, if bare-bones. But probably not someplace a little kid wanted to be at night.

  “Okay, come here....” Matt steered the child into the living room, rearranged the towel so he was actually covered then left long enough to dig spaceship-bedecked flannel pajamas, as well as a pair of SpongeBob underpants, out of the dryer.

  When he returned, Coop had somehow gotten on the sofa without dislodging the towel, where he sat with his legs stretched out, squinting at his wiggling, shriveled toes. Spotting Matt, he scootched forward, grunting, until he was standing, snatched the items from Matt’s hands with a muttered “Thanks” then penguin walked—the towel might’ve been a little tight—back to the bathroom. A minute later he emerged, glasses on, duly jammied and mostly dry, scrubbing his still-damp curls with a hand towel.

  “Need anything else?” Matt said, grabbing his coat off a nearby chair.

  “So do you like my mom or what?”

  He might have reeled. “What—”

  “You were holding her hand. In the park.”

  Okay, technically, Kelly had been holding Matt’s hand, but... “Friends sometimes hold hands.”

  This time the squint wasn’t because the kid didn’t see.

  “Sooo...you’re Mom’s friend?”

  He half expected to see air quotes around friend.

  “I’d like to think so.”

  “Huh.”

  Kid looked so serious, so...beleaguered, that all Matt wanted was to give him a hug. To reassure him that everything would be okay, even if nobody knew yet what “okay” was going to look like. But he knew little boys could be uneasy with hugging—he sure as hell had been—so instead he sat on the wooden coffee table in front of the sofa, meeting Coop’s wary gaze.

  “Yes, I like your mom. Same way I like you guys. It’s nice, hanging out with you. All of you. And I know things probably still feel a little...off for you right now—they do, don’t they?” After a moment, the boy nodded. “New school, new town, new house—”

  “And Dad,” Coop said, his gaze unswerving. And unnerving.

  “Yeah,” Matt said, figuring if the kid could shoot straight from the hip, so would he. “And you and I, we barely know each other. I’m, like, a total stranger to you, am I right?”

  “Well...not a total stranger. But yeah. I don’t know you. Really.”

  “Then you have every right to be cautious. To want to protect your mom and your sister. And yourself,” he said quietly. Behind his glasses, the boy’s eyes widened slightly. “But I swear to you, Coop, I’d never, ever do anything to hurt any of you.”

  Gaze glued to Matt’s, the child apparently let that sink in before he said, “So...you and Mom...?”

  “Like I said. Friends. That’s all.”

  He twisted around to look over his shoulder, then frowned back at Matt and whispered, “Promise?”

  Matt placed a palm over his thumping heart...as a shadow flickered on the wall in front of him. Kelly, no doubt, he thought with a smile, listening in. “I swear. But...”

  The shadow didn’t move. But something inside Matt did, as he fully admitted to himself that there was something here he wanted. Or at least would like a shot at.

  “I gotta be honest, though,” he said, lowering his hand and smiling into the kid’s still leery expression. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind being a bigger part of your lives. But...that’s totally up to you guys.”

  “You mean that?”

  “Absolutely. Whatever happens—” he stood and slipped on his jacket “—it has to be right for everybody. So. Are we good?”

  A beat or two passed before the boy extended his hand, giving Matt’s a surprisingly firm shake. “We’re good,” he said, and Matt felt his heart crack.

  * * *

  Cloaked in the hallway’s shadow, Kelly pressed her hand to her mouth. She couldn’t see them, but she’d heard every word. And those words—particularl
y Matt’s—only further eroded that restraint she wanted so badly to cling to.

  Eroded? Try pulverized. Because while her head kept reiterating the myriad reasons why she shouldn’t fall in love with the guy, her heart was sniggering and whispering, Too late, babycakes.

  And if that weren’t enough to warrant an all-expenses-paid trip to Crazyville, her little boy’s bravery, not to mention his grasp on the situation, had also done a number on her. Mothers always think of their children as their babies, for sure, but...perhaps Kelly was being a trifle overprotective?

  Except Coop was still only eight. Meaning even if circumstances had stolen some of his innocence, damned if she’d let them rob him of all of it. It was not Coop’s responsibility, or place, to look out for her, which he was clearly doing. Yes, cute, to a point. But also scary as hell—for both their sakes.

  “Hey, guys,” she said, moving into the light like an actress out of the wings, all smiles and ta-da! “Oh, good, sweetie, you’re in your jammies. Thanks for getting them, Matt, I totally forgot about the laundry!”

  “No problem,” Matt said with an odd little smile. “Linnie okay?”

  It startled her to hear him call her Linnie. Since only family did that—

  “She’s fine. I fell asleep, too, lying with her.” As her jumbled hair undoubtedly attested. Jumbled hair that seemed to absolutely fascinate Matt. “Well. Come on, Coop,” she said, holding out one arm, pathetically batting her hair with the other. “Time you hit the hay, too.”

  Coop nodded, then looked at Matt. “’Night, Matt. Thanks for...getting my pj’s for me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They watched the kid tromp down the hall, accompanied by a silence thick enough to insulate the entire house. Finally Matt said, “Guess I’ll be going, too. Lock up behind me.”

  In case her brain leaked out of her ears and she forgot?

  Then he was gone, leaving behind his scent and his goodness and, oh, my God, what he’d said, about being open to...more. But that it was completely up to her. Well, them.

  Except...it wasn’t up to her to ease Matt’s obvious pain, to fill the hole his ex had left in his life, his heart. No matter how much, in many ways, she wished she could. Because...

  Because he deserved someone whole. Someone who could love him without worrying about losing herself in the process.

  Because he wasn’t the only one here determined not to repeat his mistake.

  Her eyes burning, Kelly hotfooted it into the kitchen and dived into her freezer for that secret stash.

  Chapter Eight

  At o’dark thirty a couple days later, Kelly was divesting the dryer of her unmentionables when Matt popped downstairs, his laundry basket propped on one hip. And there she was—hair uncombed, apple plugging up mouth and outfitted in an ancient college sweatshirt over a pair of pajama bottoms with a hole in one knee. Charming.

  Then again, after the talking-to she’d given herself the other night—not to mention the sadly empty ice cream container—the crazy street-lady look could only work in her favor, no?

  “Nice,” he said, grinning at her overflowing basket as his crashed to the cement floor. Clearly having no issue with crazy street ladies. Drat.

  Standing at the card table/folding station, Kelly removed the apple—nothin’ to be done for the hair and the ensemble—and picked up a pair of her stretch briefs, about as sexy as boxed mashed potatoes. And nearly the same color. Blah cream. “You can’t be that hard up.”

  Chuckling, Matt started to mash his clothes into the washer. Yes, lights and darks together. Apparently his mother had missed that part of his domestic education.

  “Eh, it’s what’s inside that stuff that counts. The packaging’s not that important to me.”

  “I see.”

  “Would it be rude to mention you’re blushing?”

  “Extremely.” She paused, then decided that by her mid-thirties she could talk to a man about underwear, if she so chose. Maybe not without turning the color of a radish, but you couldn’t have everything. So she continued folding for a while until Matt tossed in what looked to be a brand-new white T-shirt with his jeans, and every anal predilection she had screamed.

  “Really?”

  “What?” he said, looking genuinely perplexed.

  She pointed to the disaster about to unfold in the washer. “You can’t mix denim and white.”

  “Watch me,” he said, and she sighed. He chuckled. “If it makes you feel better, I do know that ‘rule.’ But what can I say, I’m a rebel.”

  “A rebel in a baby-blue T-shirt. Fetching.”

  “Actually, they usually come out sorta gray, which is fine with me.” At her obviously horrified expression, he shrugged. “Since nobody’s ever gonna see it but me, I don’t care.” He tossed in more clothes. Including a red...something. Boxers, maybe? “So neither should you, sweet cheeks.”

  And this was her life, ladies and gents: a bizarre flirtation—if that was what this was—over boxers and briefs beside a belching boiler in a Jersey basement.

  She picked up her apple again, chomped off a chunk. “So,” she said, chewing—because, really, could this exchange get any screwier? “Did you buy lingerie for your ex?”

  “Once.” He poured in detergent without measuring. No fabric softener. Punched on the machine. Leaned his butt against it with his arms crossed over his flannel shirt, clearly in no hurry to leave. “She said she had ‘very particular tastes.’ So she returned it for something she liked better.” He snorted. “Which sums up our relationship, actually.”

  “Honestly, Matt!” Kelly didn’t even try to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “Why on earth did she marry you? Or you, her, for that matter.”

  His gaze darkened. “I have no idea why she married me. Unless she thought she could make me over or something. Some women are like that, don’t ask me why. Men aren’t houses, for God’s sake, you can’t rearrange their brains like a bunch of rooms. But obviously she saw me that way. As for why I married her... She did change. Into, I suppose, who she really was. I mean, obviously we got along okay at the beginning. Had fun. And I thought we were on the same page, wanted the same things.” His mouth pulled flat. “Like kids, for instance.”

  “She didn’t want to be a mom?”

  “Apparently not. And that’s her choice, absolutely. But it would’ve been nice if she’d told me that before we got married, you know?”

  Ya think? was what Kelly wanted to say, but she took another bite of the apple instead, and mumbled, “How many children did you want.”

  “Fifteen,” Matt said, deadpan, and Kelly coughed, shaking her head when Matt went to thump her on the back. Assured she’d live, he said, “I never thought of a number, really. But we always had a full house when I was growing up.” His mouth curved. “Which you know.”

  Recovered, Kelly smiled back. “Since I was part of it, yeah.”

  “Well, I liked it. Having all those people around.” He paused, then shrugged. “Miss it, too.”

  It was the matter-of-factness of his words, the simple honesty, that made Kelly jerk her gaze away to dump out a slew of Aislin’s stuff from a second basket, start folding like mad. As if that would keep his loneliness from infecting her. Right.

  One of her cotton nightgowns had gotten mixed in with the load. Long. Soft. A delicate print, sprigs of violets on white. Downright virginal.

  “That’s pretty,” Matt said. “No, really. It looks like, well... You.”

  She held it up, her forehead pinched. “What it looks like is something a mother wears when her kids tend to crawl in bed with her during the night.”

  “Which is why it looks like you.”

  Half smiling, she quickly folded the gown and laid it on top of Aislin’s clothes. Heard herself say, “Rick bought me all ki
nds of sexy stuff in the beginning. Actually, well past the beginning.”

  “Did you wear it?”

  “Of course. It made him happy. And when he was happy, I was, too.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  The combination of confusion and anger in Matt’s voice made her smile. “I did eventually figure out how nuts that was.” She picked up a pair of little blue jeans with embroidered flowers on the pockets, spent more time folding them than necessary. “But I’m not a lace-and-satin kind of gal. Never have been. I know that stuff makes a lot of women feel...desirable. Pretty. But oddly, it had the opposite effect on me.”

  “I imagine so,” Matt said, still obviously pissed. “If you felt like you were pretending.”

  Kelly gave a miniature hot pink hoodie a sharp shake, pressed it to her chest. “Good call. But even worse...it made me feel invisible. This was about something other than, um, fantasies. Having a little mutual fun. This was...”

  A rogue tear surprised her, trickled down her cheek. Stiffly, she quickly folded two, three, four items. “Apparently it was the stuff that turned Rick on. Not me.” At his silence, she shouldered away the tear, then lifted her face, almost flinching at his expression. “No comment?”

  “Yeah,” he said, coming closer. “This...”

  And then his warm hands slid around her neck and through her tangled hair—which, at his touch, was probably standing on end—and before she could say, “I haven’t brushed my teeth! Or showered!” his mouth was on hers. Not that he apparently cared. And it wasn’t fair because he clearly had done both, and she’d only come in here to get her clothes out of the dryer, for heaven’s sake, and oh, dear God his mouth was soft, and warm, and wonderful, and could he tell she wasn’t wearing a bra...?

  “You’re thinking too much,” he murmured, and she reared back.

  “Please don’t tell me you read minds, too.”

  One eyebrow lifted. At least, she thought it did; he was still really, really close. As in, pelvises touching. And all the double-chocolate-chunk ice cream in the world wasn’t gonna compensate for this, nope.