The Littlest Matchmaker

by Dorien Kelly

  The sadness faded from her eyes. “Yeah, we can be just as tough as we need to be.”

  The front door opened, and another of Courtney’s charges came in.

  “You’ve got me beat, taking on this wild crew,” he said to his sister, softening the words with a wink.

  She laughed, as he’d hoped she would. “Go on out back and wrestle with your boxes. And, Kevin…thanks.”

  He knew that she meant for far more than the boxes. Her appreciation of his one or two good traits took some of the edge off not knowing how to deal with Lisa Kincaid’s lack of the same.

  “Any time, kid,” he said, then went to finish his day’s work for his sister.

  Kevin retrieved his tool pouch and cell phone from his truck’s cab. He buckled the well-used pouch around his hips and stuck the phone in its holster. He knew he’d be lucky to go five minutes without a call, and he really could have used some kickoff caffeine.

  By now, he’d usually be at Shortbread Cottage having one coffee, black, the scone of the day, and sharing some laughter with Lisa. Courtney was dead-on with that observation; this had been his morning ritual for years, now. But after Lisa’s most recent hurried escape, he would skip the scone. He didn’t have the stomach for it.

  As he walked to the backyard, he checked his phone for missed calls. Four of the six listed were from Scott, his youngest brother and partner. Scott was spending the day at a job site up the river, in Clinton, that was giving them fits. They seemed to be running through a streak of bad luck with subcontractors who couldn’t keep on schedule, so Scott was babysitting the drywallers today.

  That was the big debate in the construction business—how much work to have performed by direct employees and how much to contract out. After three years with a pared-down crew, Kevin was nearly ready to bulk up on direct employees and deal less with subcontractors, but with the slower winter months coming that would be a bad financial move. Better to wait for the spring. And for a few dark memories to fade a little more.

  Kevin opened the safety latch to the backyard’s gate, then closed it behind himself. The yard, with its professionally designed playscape, was empty, since the kids didn’t come out until just before lunch. At first he’d thought Courtney was officially losing her mind when she’d asked him to stockpile boxes, since the kids already had that marvel of modern architecture to climb through. Then he’d recalled how the empty boxes from his dad’s construction jobs had always been the Decker kids’ favorite toys. Even though his only steady exposure to kids was a few minutes of Jamie Kincaid’s company each weekday morning, he was sure that this part of childhood hadn’t changed.

  Kevin dragged the appliance boxes, one by one, over to the edge of the playscape area, where the ground was thickly padded with shredded, recycled tires. He pulled the utility knife from his tool pouch, locked the blade into place, and began creating doorways and windows in the corrugated cardboard. He half wished that his life were once again so simple that a pile of boxes could become a castle. But in his world, boxes were boxes and castles were castles. He wasn’t sure when the magic had faded. Probably about the time Pop had broken both legs in a fall on a job site. Kevin had been eight and he’d wanted to drop out of school to cover for his dad. Needless to say, Pop had told him to hang on a while longer. He’d ended up waiting until the day after high school graduation.

  Sometimes he couldn’t believe that sixteen years had passed so quickly. His dad had cut back to part-time hours in the office about eight years ago, then retired altogether three years subsequent to that. Scott had joined the company after college. It wasn’t arrogance to say that they were kicking butt.

  But everything in life was about balance, Kevin guessed. On the other side of the scale from that business success remained the truth that his social life wasn’t so great, and that he had to bear the burden of the mistakes—financial and otherwise—he’d made since taking over Pop’s company. Some mistakes were easier to get past than others.

  Kevin paused to survey the boxes he’d altered.

  “Almost good enough,” he said to himself.

  While he was making sure that all rough edges and loose staples had been removed, he glanced toward the playroom. Jamie Kincaid was gazing wistfully out the window. He gave the kid a wave and smiled at the subtle “so teacher can’t see me” wave he got in return. He liked the boy as much as the boy’s mother had apparently grown to dislike him.

  Kevin could name with depressing precision the day Lisa had started looking at him as though he were Public Enemy Number One. That day wasn’t three years ago, when, by all rights, she should have started viewing him as a life-wrecker. No, she’d forgiven him the nearly unforgivable long before he’d been able to forgive himself. Instead, she’d started treating him like the village felon a few weeks ago, when he’d made the critical mistake of asking her whether she was feeling okay. Go figure.

  He couldn’t believe that he was the only person in East Davenport who’d noticed that beneath her smiles and quick humor, Lisa had begun to change. He was perfectly willing to admit he wasn’t all that perceptive when it came to the nuances of emotion, so he just didn’t get why Courtney and the others couldn’t catch the difference. Maybe, though, there was some unwritten rule of platonic semifriendship he’d missed. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to acknowledge the lost expression he caught Lisa wearing every now and then. Or maybe he was supposed to buy into that public image she worked so hard to keep in place.

  The problem was, he had no intention of following those rules anymore. Something had changed in him, too. Time was that he could look at Lisa and see only the business owner and friend—if she’d ever really been a friend. Their relationship had always been a tough one to categorize.

  Now he saw the woman. He saw the sleek, red-brown hair that she kept tied up and wondered what it would feel like to free it. He saw her body’s slender curves and wondered how they’d fit against him. And most of all, he wondered if her skin would taste sugary sweet from all her time spent baking. Not that these thoughts were wrong…. He was just flat-out crazy to think anything might come of it.

  Kevin took one last look at the boxes and deemed his job done. He considered just a quick stop at Shortbread Cottage for a coffee for the road, but rejected it. Friday, maybe. He’d try out that old proverb and see if absence would make her heart grow fonder, or at least more tolerant. Assuming she noted his absence. Pushing aside thoughts of Lisa, he jammed his utility knife back into its slot in his apron, then winced at the poke he felt through the thick leather.

  “Smart move,” he said to himself.

  He’d forgotten to sheathe the blade. A quick check after locking it down confirmed that the apron had done its job, and he hadn’t managed to stab himself.

  Kevin shook his head at his own idiocy. If he didn’t get his act together and focus on work, Lisa Kincaid just might be the death of him. And damned if that irony didn’t cut more deeply than his utility knife ever could.

  Chapter Two

  “You’re going to need your party manners,” Lisa said to Jamie as they pulled up to her parents’ house that evening. “Grammie and Grampy have company.”

  Two strange cars were parked out front on the street. The first was an aged vehicle plastered with the standard assortment of indie rock band stickers and high school cheerleading and volleyball decals—a definite babysitter ride. The other was a sleek sports car, no doubt owned by someone Lisa’s parents had duped into being the date candidate du jour.

  She pulled past the sports car, which Jamie was excitedly viewing from the elevated perch of his safety seat.

  “Pretty,” he decreed in a reverent tone.

  “Don’t get too attached,” she said under her breath as she parked her six-year-old and not so very pretty—but paid for—vehicle in the driveway.

  Lisa got out of the car and went to the back passenger door to help Jamie out of the constraints of his seat. She glanced up at the house and saw her mother flit by one of t
he library windows, where she must have been waiting for their arrival. This was definitely a setup; her mother had been wearing a dress. Lisa surveyed her own garb of faded jeans and white short-sleeved top. There would be some severe style clash going down at this meal.

  She and Jamie had barely reached the front door when it swung open. Next to her mom stood a perky-looking teenager.

  “You’re a little late, dear,” Lisa’s mother said to her before focusing on Jamie. “Jamie, this is Amber. You two are going to have a pizza party in the jungle room.”

  Mom had this all figured out, down to letting Jamie eat in the glass-walled conservatory, his favorite room out of the many in her parents’ home. She could scratch using Jamie as an excuse to bolt.

  “Whose sports car?” she asked her mom after Jamie and Amber had left for their pizza safari.

  “We’re in the living room,” her mother replied.

  “And?”

  Her mother smoothed her hands down her already unnaturally wrinkle-free pale blue linen dress. “And what? Come to the living room and meet the car’s owner.”

  Lisa still balked. “Mom, after last time, you promised you’d never do this again.”

  “I don’t believe I did, and you know I’m very careful with my words.”

  Which was an understatement. A thirty-year career as a corporate attorney, from which she’d recently retired, had made her mother a tactical genius. In fact, Amanda Peters, aka Mom, stood among Lisa’s pantheon of heroes. She’d managed to work full-time, deal with the fact that Lisa’s dad, a physician, worked just as many hours, keep her house so that it looked as though it had sprung fully-formed from a glossy magazine, and still be there for all of Lisa’s activities as she’d been growing up. But none of this meant that Lisa had to go willingly onto the merger block.

  “Do I have the pizza in the conservatory option, too?” she asked.

  Her mother gave an impatient shake of her head. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. It won’t kill you to socialize a little.”

  “What do you think I do at work all day?”

  “That’s not the same thing at all. Now come along.”

  Because she loved her mom, if not her mom’s meddling, Lisa pinned on her smile and steeled herself for yet another awkward dinner.

  Her dad and the latest victim were standing at the back windows overlooking her mother’s gardens. Lisa held in a laugh as she heard her dad telling the victim that he’d like to put in a putting green. That would happen only if her mom could make it of low-growing thyme, with a lavender border.

  “Hey, Dad,” she said as she joined them, and then gave her father a hug.

  “Lisa, this is Jeff McAdams,” her dad said. “He just joined the practice’s Bettendorf office.”

  Which would make it very, very hard for Dr. Jeff to turn down dinner with his new boss. She felt sorry for the guy, especially since between his looks and his career, he was far from the sort to need a setup for a first date. They shook hands and she felt no zing at all, which came as a relief after her encounter with Kevin Decker this morning. She far preferred the feel-nothing mode.

  “Iced tea?” Lisa’s mom asked her.

  “That would be nice.” Long Island style—chock-full of liquor—would have been even more helpful.

  “So, Lisa, Jeff has just moved here from Ann Arbor,” her mother said as she poured tea into a tall, ice-filled glass, then settled a lemon wedge on its rim. “Jeff, Lisa attended the University of Michigan.”

  They had only reached the credentials stage of Mom’s merger negotiations, but it was time to shut down this show.

  “I dropped out,” Lisa neatly inserted. “No degree and no desire for one. I run a bakery and coffeehouse down in the village. And I have a son, Jamie. He’s four. Want to come meet him? He’s having pizza down the hallway.”

  Because Dr. Jeff was the polite sort, even if a little confused by her out-of-the-blue offer, he agreed. Lisa took her tea from her mom and met her exasperated expression with an “outmaneuvered you this time” grin.

  “We’ll be right back,” she said to both parents.

  She led Dr. Jeff down the hallway and just outside the conservatory’s doors, then stopped.

  “I didn’t really bring you out here to meet Jamie.”

  “I had figured as much,” he replied.

  She laughed. “I don’t suppose you could have gotten through medical school without having a clue, could you? But I know this has to be as uncomfortable for you as it is for me. I’m betting that my father didn’t even tell you I’d be here.”

  “Actually, no, he didn’t, but you’re not a bad sort of surprise.”

  While she appreciated the sentiment, it was wasted on her.

  “Here’s the thing,” Lisa said. “You look like a nice guy…in fact, just the sort of guy my girlfriends would tell me that I’m crazy to be giving a quick escape route. But my life is wrapped around keeping my business cranking and being the best possible mom I can be to Jamie. I don’t want to date, which is making my mom nuts. I’m sorry you got dragged into this, and I figure we can handle it one of two ways. First, you could stay for a dinner that’s going to turn out to be more like a joint interview than a real meal, or you could let me go back into the living room and tell my parents that your pager went off and you had to leave.”

  He gave her a slow smile. “Do you always talk so quickly?”

  “I do when I know my mother’s hot on my heels and about to reel you back in. So what’s it going to be? Door Number One or Door Number Two?”

  He laughed. “Door Number Two.”

  “Deal,” she said, and then just as quickly as she’d separated the good doctor from her mother’s plans, she saw him out. Mere moments later, the purr of an expensive sports car departing the area heralded Lisa’s return to the living room.

  “Dr. Jeff got paged about a patient,” she said to her parents.

  “Of course he did,” was her mother’s dry reply. “Now may we have dinner?”

  “Absolutely. I’ve suddenly rediscovered my appetite.”

  Her father’s poorly disguised chuckle didn’t sit well with Lisa’s mom.

  “Don’t encourage her, Bob,” she said, giving her husband a light nudge before linking her arm through his.

  “Then maybe you should stop ambushing the girl.”

  Lisa followed her parents to the dining room and smiled at their loving banter. Forget the degrees and careers and contributions to the community. For all of her parents’ accomplishments, the one that awed her most was that they really, truly loved each other after all these years. If she could pull off that, and only that, she’d feel accomplished, indeed.

  Except for the empty place setting in memory of Dr. Jeff, which her mother had declined to let Lisa remove from the table, and for Jamie continuing his safari in the conservatory, their meal followed the course of every other Wednesday. Mom tried to overfeed her, as though there were even a remote chance that while living in a bakery, Lisa couldn’t find enough to sustain herself. As usual, Dad talked River Bandits baseball. During the season, she and her dad took Jamie to see as many of the local minor league team’s games as they could. The park was a kid-friendly place, complete with a playground, and Lisa loved building these traditions with her son.

  With the stuffed chicken breast and spinach salad consumed, Lisa stood to begin clearing the table, but her mother stopped her.

  “Let’s sit and chat a little as long as Jamie is still having fun with Amber, shall we?”

  “Okay.” Lisa sat and scrutinized her parents’ faces. Mom’s was pretty much neutral, but there was something off in her father’s expression. Her overstuffed stomach lurched a bit. “What’s going on? You’re not about to spring something else crazy on me, like a divorce or that I was adopted or something, are you?”

  Her mother put one hand to her chest. “Heavens, no!”

  Lisa relaxed. “Good. There are some things in life that I need to know won’t change.”

>   She watched as her mother gave her father a raised-brow prompt to speak. He didn’t appear all that willing.

  “Lisa, your mother…well, your mother and I…we wish you’d consider moving back home. We’re not saying you should close the business, we just wish you’d give yourself some distance from it. Jamie loves this house, and it’s your home, too. You belong here.”

  “And we could get someone to watch Jamie while you’re at work,” her mother added. “And of course we’d get him to Hillside for school.”

  Lisa took a sip of her iced tea to cover her surprise at the course the conversation had taken. Not once, not even after James had died, had her parents suggested she move home. She wanted to ask why the big push now, when she really was back on her feet. But encouraging conversation would leave an opening for her mother, who was a lot more deft and subtle than tonight’s attempt at a date fix-up would indicate. If Lisa wasn’t careful, she might find herself back in her childhood room, still historically intact with its pink gingham canopy bed and My Little Pony dolls.

  “Thanks, but it’s covered. Jamie has somebody to watch him, and Courtney does a wonderful job,” she said. “She also has a van and driver to get all the preschoolers where they need to be.”

  “We know, but there’s so much we could be doing for you, and for Jamie,” her father said.

  She knew that, but she didn’t want any more of their money. Hillside Academy’s tuition she had to swallow for Jamie’s sake. She knew what a benefit a fun and early start to education could be. But that was where she drew a big, fat line. She had paid back their start-up loan for Shortbread Cottage as soon as she’d been able to find other financing. Neither did she want them even unintentionally chipping away at her self-confidence. She was feeling strange enough these days as it was.

  “I love you both so much and I know that you worry about me, but you don’t need to. Really. Jamie and I are fine at Shortbread Cottage. It’s our home and we love it.”