by Lisa Plumley
At her front door, he stopped. “Maybe I will take that blanket after all. It’s January. It’s cold out. While I could probably take the other hobos in a battle for blankets, I’d rather arrive with my own gear. Is your offer still good?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Natasha said. “You’re staying here.”
Damon raised his chin. “You really weren’t done messing with me.” He swore. “Remind me not to make you mad ever again.”
“No!” At his reminder of her earlier teasing boast—I’m not through messing with you yet—Natasha stood. She rushed over to him, feeling her heartbeat pick up speed as she got closer. More than likely, her body recognized the idiocy of this decision, even if her overenthusiastic mouth didn’t. “I’m not messing with you, Damon. I mean I was, a minute ago, but—”
Proudly, he stared at her door. His shoulders were stiff, his arms motionless at his sides. For the first time, Natasha remembered how cocky Damon had always been. How confident. Coming here could not have been easy for him. Especially since he’d come for the express purpose of begging for her help.
“—but now I’m not messing with you anymore,” Natasha finished quietly. “Stay. Stay and prove to me you’ve changed. Maybe I can talk to Jimmy on your behalf. If you behave.”
Gruffly, Damon asked, “You’d really do that?”
“Of course.” Natasha took his elbow, urging him to come back to her sofa. With hardly any persuasion at all, she got him seated again. “I might sound tough, but I’m still me—sentimental and easy to persuade. Plus, you found my Achilles’ heel—my secret weakness that renders me unable to resist.”
Unwaveringly, Damon’s gaze swerved to the junction of her thighs. Unwillingly, Natasha remembered feeling warmer and warmer, wishing his hand would move a little higher, needing …
“Your secret weakness?” Inquisitively and a little devilishly, Damon raised his eyebrows. “What’s that? Exactly?”
“I can’t resist any man who’s willing to treat Louis to all the food-cart tacos he can eat. That’s a brave man, indeed.”
At that, Damon grinned more broadly. “You have no idea. I stared down my own mortality at that taco stand. I’ll never be the same.” Then he sobered. “I mean it. Thank you for helping me, Tasha,” he said. “I honestly thought I’d lost you forever.”
Surprisingly moved by the emotion in his voice—and by his use of that nickname for her—Natasha fell silent. Then, “Nope!” she said brightly. “You only lost me long enough to miss me.”
“That’s too long,” Damon told her. “Way too long.”
Just like that, as they gazed into each other’s eyes, the scales of the universe seemed to right themselves again. With a nearly audible clink, balance was restored.
No, wait, Natasha realized as she propped up Damon’s leg again and set the frozen peas in position. That wasn’t the clink of the universe’s equilibrium being restored. It was her back door slamming shut. Footsteps came next. Then snuffling. Uh-oh …
She’d forgotten all about Milo. And Finn.
“Damon,” she said in a warning tone … but she was too late.
Before Natasha could explain, they were already there.
Chapter 13
Damon was still gazing into Natasha’s eyes, feeling grateful and relieved and incredulous and glad—and also strangely as though everything was going to be all right now, in a universal and fated-to-be sense—when all hell broke loose.
One minute, Damon was wondering if he could really behave, as Natasha had so explicitly stipulated he do. The next, he was wondering exactly what would happen if he let his hand wander a little too high on her jeans-clad thigh again, because although the first time had been a bona fide accident, now Damon was dying to repeat the experience and relive Natasha’s hot-hot-hot reaction. The very next minute, he was being slobbered on.
A clumsy, drooling, fluffy black mutt bounded into the living room. Like a beacon, the dog homed in on Damon. It yipped, showed its pink jaws and puppyish teeth, then leaped.
He couldn’t defend himself. Natasha had expertly made sure Damon’s injured ankle was propped up on her pillows again. The position was enough to leave him vulnerable to attack.
He would have preferred it was Natasha over-affectionately leaping on him. Instead, it was her dog. Her big, muddy-pawed dog.
“Finn! No!” Natasha cried at the oversize puppy. “Get down.”
The dog tried to behave. It did. With canine enthusiasm, Finn tromped all over Damon’s lap, trying simultaneously to do what Natasha wanted—get down—and do what he wanted—sniff Damon.
Damon could relate. He was often torn between duty and pleasure. He, too, wanted to please Natasha. That’s probably why he let the dog’s fluffy tail smack him in the head. Next, Finn’s muddy paws stomped onward, crushing Damon’s ’nads. His Puppy Chow breath panted in Damon’s face with goofy canine abandon. For Finn, Damon realized, this encounter was love at first sight.
“I’m sorry,” Natasha said as she ineffectually tried to coax away her wriggling dog. “He’s not usually so quick to warm up to strangers. Usually Finn is skittish with new people.”
“He’s not new!” someone piped up. “We met him outside.”
With effort, Damon got the dog into a more manageable, less gonad-crushing position. Feeling like a kid, he gave Finn a pat.
He liked dogs. Evidently, this one liked him, too. At the moment, Finn was even being cooperative enough—lulled by Damon’s nonstop belly rubs—that Damon could see who’d just spoken.
A child stood there in Natasha’s living room, a boy of seven or eight or … hell, Damon had no real idea. He could have been a gigantic mutant toddler, for all he knew. The kid was blond, like Natasha. He was sort of angular, like Natasha. He had an open, friendly face, brilliant blue eyes, and a demeanor that suggested he knew all there was to know about the situation.
Again, like Natasha. This must be one of the kids she babysat, Damon realized. It would be just like her to make the boy feel totally at home at her place. Probably all the neighborhood kids hung out at cool Mrs. Jennings’s house.
“You met Damon outside?” Natasha asked, sounding baffled.
“Yeah.” The kid shrugged. He glanced at Damon. “Hey, guy who rescued my Frisbee from the tree! How’s it going?”
“Pretty well.” Grinning, Damon adjusted the dog so that Finn’s bushy tail wasn’t going up his nose. “Did you have fun?”
“I guess so.” The kid frowned. “Is your ankle worse?”
“Worse?” Natasha glanced between them. “What do you mean?”
“After he got my Frisbee for me,” the kid said with a nod toward Damon, “he kinda fell out of the tree that it was stuck in. A branch broke. But it wasn’t too far down to fall.”
Natasha speared Damon with a look. “I thought you said it was a kid on a skateboard who collided with your ankle.”
“It was.” Having gotten Finn settled in for another belly rub, Damon nodded at her. “That hurt my ankle a little. Then I took a header out of that tree and finished it off.” He cast her an aggrieved look. “Why did you think I was so reluctant to hop in here? I’m not a wuss! A once-sprained ankle wouldn’t slow me down, but a twice-sprained ankle is another story. I did it, though,” Damon pointed out with a fearless nod. “For you.”
Natasha appeared gob-smacked.
“Don’t worry. The peas will help.” Upon offering that preternaturally wise-sounding statement, the kid meandered over to Damon. He sat on the coffee table, planting himself beside Damon’s recuperative pile of pillows. He seemed thrilled that Damon was there—and fully prepared to spend the evening grinning at him. Back when Damon had still possessed his usual mojo, this kind of thing had happened to him occasionally. He hit it off with children—probably because he was a kid at heart himself.
“My mom says frozen peas are good for scrapes and stuff,” the boy said. “I’d rather eat them, though. Do you like peas?”
Damon enjoyed this kid’
s friendliness. No wonder Natasha was willing to babysit him. He wasn’t a squalling, sticky-fingered poop machine obsessed with goldfish crackers, like the miniature Huertas he’d road-tripped with. “Peas?” Damon mulled over the matter. “I’m more of a green-bean man myself.”
“Me too. Green beans are the best! Peas are disgusting.”
Damon grinned. “But peas are infinitely better than beets.”
“Totally!” the kid agreed sagely. “Everything’s better than beets.” He shifted his gaze to Natasha. “Have I ever had beets, Mom? Because I’m pretty sure I hate them, just like he does.”
Illustratively, the kid jabbed his chin in Damon’s direction, while Natasha struggled to come up with a beet-friendly argument.
Damon went still. All he could hear was that single innocent word, echoing in Natasha’s cozy-feeling living room.
Mom. Mom. Natasha was a mom? His Natasha was a mother?
How had he not known about this before?
On Damon’s lap, the dog whined, echoing the disorientation and shock he felt. When that didn’t get results, Finn shoved his wet nose under Damon’s hand in an obvious doggie bid for more attention. Belatedly, Damon remembered Natasha telling people at work that she’d gotten a new puppy—a cute, black golden retriever/bulldog mix—but she’d never mentioned having a son.
A son! Damon shifted his astounded gaze to her …
… and instantly believed it was true. Natasha was warm. She was nurturing. She was naturally giving and insanely sweet. Of course she had a son. No one would have been a better mother.
In fact, Damon realized as he took another look at the living room, he was the moron for not having realized it sooner.
There were framed photographs of Natasha and her son on the walls and the end table. Through the passageway to the kitchen, childish finger-painted artwork was visible on the refrigerator, stuck on with a smiley-face magnet. A Nerf football perched in the nearby hallway, poised to trip an unsuspecting guest.
The Nintendo system he’d spotted wasn’t for Natasha, Damon realized upon further reflection. She probably didn’t care about Pokémon Red, De Blob 3, or Mario Sports Mix 2. The pint-size Converse sneakers near the window would never fit her. Neither would the Nike-logo sweatshirt tossed beside the lamp or the small windbreaker hung neatly on a hook near the front door.
Natasha most likely didn’t play with the multicolored Legos stuffed in the plastic bin on the shelf beneath the coffee table; she probably, Damon knew, didn’t drink from juice boxes with straws attached—especially if they contained “froot punch.” Yet there was one such container visible on the TV.
Natasha’s apartment wasn’t just cozy, Damon thought. It was downright homey. It was nice. It felt like a home, like a place where a family came together—a family that included Natasha, the little blond-haired tyke who was helpfully holding Damon’s bag of frozen peas in place … and Damon’s new arch-nemesis, Pacey.
He never should have intruded here, Damon understood then. No matter how much he needed Natasha, her family needed her more. Even now, her son needed her to explain about beets.
“Well,” Natasha was saying diplomatically, “you haven’t tried beets yet, Milo. Somehow they slipped under my radar. But next time I buy groceries, I’ll be sure to pick up some for us.” She smiled warmly at the boy. “We’ll try them together.”
Her obvious affection and enthusiasm for motherhood only endeared her to Damon more. Feeling flummoxed, he gawked at her.
He didn’t get it. He liked single women. Free women. Unattached, fun-loving, carefree women who would run off to Rio on a dare—and wear topless thong bikinis when they arrived.
Natasha’s motherhood ought to have made her less appealing to him, not more, Damon told himself. This whole scenario was not his thing. Hearth, home, maternal instincts. Ugh. And yet …
He couldn’t take his eyes off Natasha. It was as if her whole body was suffused with love. It flowed from her in waves and wrapped everyone nearby her with joy and comfort.
How had he never felt that love before? Damon wondered in awe and surprise. Maybe all he had to do was get close enough. Maybe it would touch him, too. Maybe it would save him from—
“I think Milo has adopted you,” Natasha said, breaking into Damon’s thoughts. She smiled as she gestured at her son, who was currently rearranging his posture so that his foot was propped on the sofa cushion opposite him in clear mimicry of Damon. “If you’re not careful, he’ll rope you into a game of Donkey Kong.”
Milo’s eyes widened. He brightened. “Can we? Can we, Mom?”
Natasha bit her lip. Her gaze met Damon’s. “It’s okay with me, as long as Damon agrees. But if he says no, don’t push.”
At that, Milo turned into a more blatant con artist than Finn the dog. He adopted an expression of pure entreaty, clasped his hands together in an eager pose, then begged outright.
“Do you want to, Damon? Do you? Puh-leeze? It’ll be fun.”
“Sure.” Damon shrugged. “Let’s fire it up.”
As though blasted from a Damon-said-yes cannon, Milo jumped down from the coffee table, all thoughts of becoming a miniature Damon impersonator temporarily (and obviously) forgotten. The kid dropped to the floor beside the Nintendo console. He flipped through the abandoned video game cases with evident zeal.
“You’ll like Donkey Kong,” Milo promised Damon as he cracked open one of the cases. He extracted a game, then inserted it into the Wii. “It’s the newest one. Jason and Amy got it for me for Christmas. I’ll even let you be Diddy, even though you’re bigger, like DK. Diddy has all the coolest moves.”
Eagerly, Milo dumped a wireless controller into Damon’s lap. Damon watched the boy hunker down to set up the game, his little face a study in concentration, even in profile. From his busy hands to his powers of focus, he was a lot like Natasha.
Damon couldn’t help loving that about him. Adapting to the moment, Damon blinked. He wiggled into a more combative pose, preparing to make the most of “Diddy’s moves.” On the sofa beside him, Finn sneezed his displeasure. The dog groaned, then tried falling asleep while drooling as much as possible.
Natasha nudged Damon. “I’m sorry to surprise you this way,” she said in a hushed voice. “I try to keep my work life and my home life separate.” She glanced at her son with evident fondness as the TV screen flared to life, ready for gaming. “It hasn’t been easy. Like any mom, I want to brag about Milo. I want to show his pictures around the office and bring him in for Take Your Child to Work Day—”
“Milo would love that!” Damon said. “Spending the day at a chocolate shop? What kid wouldn’t go crazy for that?”
“Well …” Natasha bit her lip. She seemed on the verge of commenting on that further, then didn’t. “But since I work—worked—for you, I didn’t have a typical workday. One day we’d be in the office brokering a partnership, and the next we’d be doing a ribbon cutting at a new international Torrance Chocolates Café. One week I’d be doing paperwork, and the next I’d be accompanying you to a commercial shoot in L.A. It was—”
“It was not an ideal job for a dedicated parent,” Damon understood then. Natasha must have struggled every time she’d had to leave Milo to go on a business trip, while Damon had never thought twice about a jaunt to Tokyo or Paris. “All that travel. All that uncertainty about what I’d be up to next.”
“That’s for sure!” Natasha laughed. “You’re not like Jimmy, spending all your time in the development kitchen dreaming up new chocolates. At least Debbie knows where he is all the time.”
“She knows he’s not with her spending their golden years together the way they’d planned,” Damon said, thinking of his mother’s ongoing displeasure over his dad’s workaholism—and Jimmy’s long-delayed retirement. His dad probably would have retired by now, Damon reasoned, if he’d stepped up to the plate in a creative (and not just business-networking) sense. “She has her book club and golf team and yoga classes, though.”
&
nbsp; “That’s true,” Natasha mused. “Debbie stays busy. I’d probably be doing some of those same things, if not for Milo.”
“And Pacey.”
A baffled glance. Then, “Oh. Right. Paul.”
Why couldn’t Damon remember her husband’s name? “Anyway,” Natasha said, “that’s why I didn’t tell you. I figured it was better to keep things separate. Especially because, well, like you always say, I’m me, and you’re you—”
“And I’m not exactly the best influence on an eight-year-old.” Damon frowned down at his Wii controller. Just the way he held the thing proved it: he hadn’t even employed the built-in safety strap. It hadn’t occurred to him. Defiantly, he didn’t use it now, either. Screw safety. “I get it. I’ll try not to take Milo out boozing and cruising for chicks while I’m here.”
Natasha looked upset. “That’s not what I meant.”
“But it’s true, all the same.” Feeling painfully aware of that fact, Damon glanced at the boy. “Ready, sport? Let’s go.”
For a long moment, Natasha just watched Damon. He began to feel sure she was going to tell him to leave before he accidentally corrupted her son. After all, they both knew Damon couldn’t help being himself. What was that she’d said earlier?
You’re you. I can hardly expect you not to screw up, Natasha had told him nonchalantly. That would be like expecting the sun to feel cold or the ocean to stop making waves.
Who did he think he was kidding? He couldn’t cope with this. He couldn’t behave. He was a globe-trotting playboy with a penchant for supermodels, a taste for tequila, and a love of fast cars. He didn’t belong here in suburbia. He didn’t belong with Natasha. But if Damon was ever going to get his mojo back …
He would just have to try to blend in. Somehow.
The video game blared to life, blasting gorilla sounds and jungle drums. Milo clicked himself and Damon into action.
Just like that, Damon was on his way.
“I’d better hunt down some dinner,” Natasha finally said. She stood, then checked on Damon’s frozen peas as if making sure they were still properly healing his ankle. “Who’s hungry?”