by Terese Ramin
“It goes out when the door is closed,” Kate assured him firmly. “Trust me.”
“Yes, but how do you know?”
“Yes,” Mike echoed. “How?”
Kate eyed them thoughtfully for an instant, shrugged, and went to pull open the refrigerator door. She leaned over to point out the heavy round sliding peg on the door’s inside frame. “See this button?”
They nodded.
“Watch.” She pushed the button in and the light went out, then she looked at the boys’ disappointed faces and sighed. Another piece of magic exposed for the charlatanism it was. “That’s how I know.”
“Oh.”
Deflated, Mike and Bele each pushed the button several times, swung the door in and out to make sure that it would indeed push the peg in as it closed, then dragged off in search of more interesting mysteries to solve. Swallowing a grin, Hank crossed the kitchen to help himself to coffee; offered a cup to Kate. She declined.
“Do you always pop their balloons like that?” he asked.
“What?” Puzzlement cleared. “Oh. you mean the door?”
He nodded.
She shrugged. “Yeah. I hate to do it, but with two of ’em the same age with the same curiosities at the same time...” Another shrug accompanied by a grimace. “It’s the two-puppy theory. What trouble one doesn’t think of to get into on his own, the other will. Better I should puncture a few balloons than let them figure stuff like that out the other way.”
Hank lifted a brow, an unspoken question.
“You know,” Kate said, gesturing with the French-toast turner, “One of ’em gets inside the fridge, the other one shuts the door...”
A grateful fizzle of tragedy averted ran down Hank’s spine. “Ah,” he muttered, mentally shuddering at the unwelcome picture imagination painted. Thank God he hadn’t had to think about that particular accident, trying to raise Meg by himself. “Preventive parenting.”
Kate nodded wryly. “Only kind there is. Jamal—” She turned to the lanky youth who put down his last piece of flatware and looked at her—almost painfully eager, Hank thought. “You wanna call everybody in? Breakfast’s about ready.”
“Sure, Kate.”
Jamal went out through the mud room and onto the porch to jangle the bell beside the door. Kate listened for a moment before going back to the stove, tapping her toes and humming the way she’d been before Hank came in. Sipping his coffee, Hank watched her, fascinated by her lack of inhibition, disturbed by how...simple...it had become in two short weeks to stand in the Anden kitchen every morning while Kate cooked or did whatever else came to hand and just...be.
It was hard to remember a time in his life when things hadn’t been complicated, complex. And it wasn’t as if they weren’t now, but somehow...he couldn’t define it even to himself. The hard stuff just seemed to feel like less here, the better stuff like more.
Quit trying to analyze it to death and enjoy it while you can, he cautioned himself.
He straightened and did his best to follow good advice. A sudden snatch of the lyrics Kate sang penetrated his consciousness, making him nearly choke on something between astonished laughter and an unexpected surge of heat when he realized what she was singing.
“Oh, I wish that I could wiggle like my sister Kate,” Kate sang, doing a two-step twirl with the spatula, over to get a box of eggs out of the refrigerator. She returned with an exaggerated set of shoulder-arm jiggle-shimmies that set her entire upper body asway accompanied by an ain’t-misbehavin’, throaty-voiced, “shimmy, shimmy like jelly on a plate...”
There was more, but all at once Hank found himself laughing too hard to understand the verse. Personally, Kate’s wriggles didn’t so much remind him of a plate full of jelly as they did the gentler sway of a thick, rich pudding. Chocolate mousse with fine chocolate shavings was his personal favorite. Eaten slowly, flavor savored, spoon licked...
But it wasn’t a spoon and chocolate mousse his wayward imagination put into his mouth, let alone made him envision.
Already warm, fever lit him without warning from the inside out. Unprepared for the quick, harsh wrench of desire, he inhaled too sharply and swallowed coffee wrong. Abruptly he found himself coughing and choking instead of laughing. Jamal left the bell clanging and was beside him in an instant, pounding on his back.
“Hank—Mr. Mathison—you okay?” he asked anxiously. “You need some water or somethin’? Bete—” He gestured to the child who’d returned to the kitchen in response to the meal bell. “Get him some water.”
“Dad.” The mud-room door banged and Megan came in, put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right, Dad?”
“Fine,” Hank wheezed. “Just give me a min—”
Kate’s hand was on his, pressing a glass into it. “Here’s some water.” The coolness of her fingers burned into his; he jerked away. The glass dropped to the floor in a clatter of plastic and splashing liquid.
Their eyes met; heat scorched between them, unbearable and provocative, seething and undeniable.
“No,” Hank said hoarsely. Then he pushed by his daughter, through the herd of Andens coming in for breakfast and slammed out of the house.
Intent only on restraining physical urges that threatened to overwhelm him, Hank didn’t feel the hand that reached for his shirtsleeve, nor see the wounded, little-girl-lost look Megan sent after him; didn’t hear the soft, frightened, “Dad?”
Couldn’t see, then, that for convoluted reasons she’d never been able—and wasn’t able even now—to articulate, Megan thought he was running from her....
In a small pocket of quiet surrounded by chaos, Kate, Megan and Jamal stood trying to sort it out
“Man, I’m starvin’,” Ilya said in his exaggerated American accent. “What’s for breakfast?”
“No apple juice?” Grisha asked, head in the refrigerator. “I think I would rather have apple juice this morning than orange juice.”
“Mom, did you make bacon?” Mike rummaged in the meat keeper in front of Grisha. “Hey, Bele, look what I found.”
Bele jammed himself into the open refrigerator beside his brother. “Huh, so that’s where it’s been. What’s my baseball doing in the fridge?”
“Don’t know,” Mike said. “Maybe you forgot it was in your hand when you got an orange or somethin’—”
“Ilya, keep that blasted dog away from the girls. She’s been teasing ’em again.” Li, sounding disgusted, came in slapping a pair of goatskin gloves on her jeaned thighs. “She’s covered in Ilama spit and now it’s all over me, too.”
“Phew.” Ilya pinched his nose shut. “Get away from me. You stink.”
“Oh, I do not. It’s dry already, but if you don’t teach that animal some manners I will make you stink—”
“What’s up with Hank?” Tai removed his yellow-and-green John Deere tractor cap and stuffed it into his back pocket as he stepped into the kitchen. No hats at the table. It was a rule. “He looks like somebody’s set the hounds of hell after him.” He eyed Kate. “What’d you do to him, Ma?”
Too distracted to answer, Kate simply gave him a look. She couldn’t be sure what was going on with Hank, but she could venture a guess—something similar to the toe-curling, jelly-forknees shock she’d received when their fingers collided.
Jamal, deciding what he’d seen, said, “He inhaled his coffee. I think he went to be sick.”
“You do?” Megan asked, painfully hopeful, agonizingly tentative. “Do you think maybe I should go see—”
“No, I’ll go,” Kate volunteered quickly. Yes, it might be good for both father and daughter if Hank really was sick and Megan went. On the other hand, if he wasn’t, if it was something else...
A swift glance at Megan confirmed all Kate needed to know: insecure, bewildered child reliving some real or imagined parental slight from the past, mistakenly superimposing it on today.
Geez Lou-eeze, she thought. Like there isn’t something smarter I could do than go anywhere near Hank Mathiso
n with jello knees and kiss-me-senseless soup for brains.
Still, since somebody had to do it, it was undoubtedly better if she went than Megan. And truth be known, she was more than a little curious about what had caused Hank’s reaction.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you about curiosity and cats?” Sister Viveca had asked her once, reprimanding Kate over some mischief she’d caused while still a postulant.
“Sure.” Kate had nodded intemperately, too wise, too young and too inexperienced for her own good. “Curiosity killed it. But, Sister, it also teaches. When I was little I had to get singed before I really understood that fire burns. ” And so it seemed she would have to go get singed to understand now.
Sighing, she offered Megan the pancake turner. “You do breakfast,” she suggested. “I’ll see about your dad.”
“Would you?” Relief was evident in the way Megan snatched the spatula.
“Yeah.” Kate headed for the door, tossing directions over her shoulder as she went. “Mike, get a rag and mop the floor, please. Bele, help Meg. Don’t wait breakfast,”
Then, leaving order behind, she went in pursuit of chaos and the discombobulating Hank Mathison.
She found him in the shadows behind the equipment barn, soaking his head under the cold spray from the hose they used to fill the llamas’ water troughs.
Tongue tucked between her left molars, Kate watched Hank drench himself, torn between amusement and disbelief. There had been times when her brother was a teenager that their mother had told him to go soak his head and wash whatever immoral notions he was entertaining about his girlfriend—later his wife and Mike’s mother—right out of his mind, but she’d never known Mike senior to actually do it. She’d never known anyone to do it.
“Does it help?” she asked.
“What?” Startled, Hank straightened and swung about; icy water splashed over his shoulders, down his bare back and chest, soaked his fly. He cursed. “Damn, woman. I should’ve known you’d never leave well enough alone.”
“I am much better at interfering,” Kate agreed modestly.
Hank snorted something impolite. Kate would have laughed, too, but for some reason her throat refused to produce the sound.
It seemed silly for a woman who couldn’t understand why other women got so hot and bothered hunk watching at the beach to have to admit, but she couldn’t quite seem to take her gaze off Hank’s sculpted chest. Muscular without being overdone, his smooth pecs and abs held her attention to an indecent degree.
Made her wonder what they’d feel like to touch.
Air twisted, got fouled up in her throat at the mere thought. She couldn’t seem to breathe right—no doubt the reason she couldn’t find the breath to laugh. You’d think she’d never seen a half-naked man before, the way it felt as if her tongue was hanging out of her mouth, but of course she had. It was just that none of them looked like him. Had ever kissed her like he had.
Bad enough she couldn’t sleep without dreaming about that kiss, him, without having to deal with how the memory of it, the sight of him, made her feel when she was awake—particularly when he was around. Hot and bothered didn’t begin to cover it.
“So,” she said, forcing her gaze and her thoughts away from the tiny furl of heat igniting deep inside her. Her eyes lit on the towel hanging from a ring screwed into the side of the barn and she whisked it out of the ring and tossed it to Hank. “I take it you didn’t rush out because you’re sick?”
He caught the towel, began to wipe himself off. “Oh, I’m sick all right,” he assured her, “just not in the way you mean.”
Kate swallowed against sudden dry mouth. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she whispered.
He quit toweling himself, arrested by the sound in her voice. “Why?”
“Because...” She cleared her throat, moistened her mouth, suddenly uncertain how to proceed. Stunned by her unaccustomed hesitation, the desire to quibble.
She hated being at a loss for words, hated getting caught in inadequacy. Hated feeling that for Megan’s sake as well as her own she should ignore rather than address this silent struggle going on between them. She’d never been very good at pretending something didn’t exist when it did. In her experience ignoring a potential problem usually only made it bigger, instead of making it go away. Still, for perhaps the first time in her life; politeness won out over the desire to speak her mind.
“Jamal—” Another pause. Second-guessing herself. She hadn’t wasted time on second guesses since the last time she’d blown a true-false multiple-choice test in high school. Didn’t know why she was now. If this was what having a crush—or whatever it was adult women got—on a guy was like for a grown-up girl, no wonder so many teenage girls wound up in the kind of troubled relationships they did. “Maybe I should ask what you mean about how you’re sick or not first.” An uncomfortable twobreath lull. “For the, um, sake of, um ... clarity. You know?”
He viewed her as if he didn’t know who she was. “Clarity,” he said carefully, making sure he’d heard her right.
She nodded, looking at the toe of her right shoe, ducking his gaze.
Hank studied her. The gently mocking, always serene sense of self-confidence that usually radiated from her irritated the hell out of him, but this was far worse. Timidity didn’t become her. He didn’t want her wearing it, not for him. Not because of him.
Odd.
He’d thought the only thing he wanted was her to quit messing with his hormones so he could concentrate on Megan. When had how Kate Anden felt become important to him?
Oh, probably about the night he’d kissed her and she’d sent him reeling by kissing him back.
Funny how that worked. Where the body wanted to go, the mind followed.
So where did that leave the heart?
Lagging to the rear, making sure nobody got left behind.
Waiting to see if it was safe to catch up...
Eyes thoughtful on Kate, Hank rubbed the towel through his hair, which was shaggier now than he’d worn it since he’d accepted the assistant directorship. He wondered briefly if Kate liked it better shorter or longer. “You sure you want me to clarify for you what happened?”
“No.” She shook her head, didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. Raised her chin and looked at him. Shrugged her mouth and grimaced. “Do it anyway. Because if it’s me, we have to talk about it.”
He couldn’t resist. “And if it’s not you?”
“It’s not?” Relief and disappointment vied for position. She wanted to believe relief won, but it didn’t. “Then you need to let Meg know you ran out so fast because you had to be sick, that you’re all right now.”
“What?”
“She’s afraid she did something to make you leave.”
His expletive was harsh and self-directed. “She didn’t.”
“I know that. You know that. Jamal told her he thought you were feeling sick. She believed him enough to want to come after you. I figured that might be a bad idea if...” Her voice trailed off uncertainly.
“If it was you and not something else,” Hank finished.
Kate nodded. “But it wasn’t, so—”
“Yes it was,” he interrupted quietly. His eyes were dark, dangerously deep, his look as intense and intimate as a touch. “It is. You. I couldn’t stay in the same room with you, I wanted you so badly. Want you still.”
Stunned, Kate swallowed a ragged breath. No one had ever looked at her the way Hank Mathison saw her now, had ever told her...desired her...made her feel...
Like walking into him and drowning. Like turning forever into a moment. With him.
“Oh, spit,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” He nodded, troubled. “You could say that.”
“But we can‘t—I don’t—It wouldn’t—It’s not...” She pressed her lips together, staring up at him, lost. This wasn’t her area of expertise. She knew everything she was supposed to say to the kids, to Tai, to Li, the limits she’d put on Risto for his stay wit
h them. But that was them. This was her. This was her feeling things, both physical and emotional, she’d never felt before, that she’d never thought about feeling. That there had seemed no point to feel. Things that the wisdom of inexperience didn’t cover.
One kiss more than a week ago... It was something that filled out night’s restless dreams, that intimated a hundred things she understood only intellectually. Still, the roil of emotions, the sense of intimacy, produced by one kiss—even a kiss as hot as that one—should have subsided by now.
Shouldn’t it?
She’d know how to handle this, know what to say, if it had to do with one of the kids. She’d managed a lot of situations doing relief work in military zones, dealt with threats of rape and worse things. But this was different. She didn’t know what to say to herself, had no idea how to handle—or discourage—Hank’s desire for her.
Or her desire for him.
“The thing about being an adult,” her mother had once told her, “is that it means not having to act on all your desires. It means being able to choose the way you want to go, not just the way that gratifies the moment.”
Kate had believed her. But she’d never before in her life been presented with a choice or an admission like this..
“I don’t know what to say,” she told him baldly. “I’ve been in a lot of situations; but this is the first...” She stopped, shook her head. No, don’t tell him that. Keep it simple. He didn’t need her to tell him this tension between them was getting to be as hard for her as for him. “Isn’t there something you can do about...” A helpless pause. “Can’t you... I mean isn’t there some way for you to...” Another lapse while she hunted for evasive words. “deal with it...that doesn’t involve me?”
An almost bruised amusement flickered across Hank’s face; he nearly laughed. “I take it you weren’t one of those nuns who rapped boys’ knuckles then sent them to confession and told them they’d go blind if they dealt with it that way.”
It took her a moment to decipher her unintentional double entendre and his response to it. When she did, embarrassment stained the pale skin of her neck, bled upward with its attendant heat into her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, flustered. “I didn’t mean to suggest...” She stopped, deliberating. Embarrassment drained slowly, replaced by perception. “On the other hand,” she said thoughtfully, and Hank nearly choked, “That might be the practical solution, don’t you think?”