The Trouble with Twins

by Nancy Warren

  “Can we do makeovers?” the girls wanted to know.

  “Is all your homework done for school tomorrow?”

  Twin eye rolls greeted her. “Yes.”

  Suddenly, she remembered the first day they’d arrived at her house bristling with bad attitude. How had they become so dear to her in such a short time? She smiled at the pair of them. “Okay, then. Makeovers it is.”

  She gave her attention to their father, but he was having trouble maintaining eye contact with her. She wondered if he’d slept at all in his redecorated room. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Seth had the box of home handyman stuff he’d bought her for her birthday, which he set on the front porch. She was so used to seeing him in business clothes that she took a moment to enjoy the sight of him in jeans and a gray athletic T-shirt with a navy hoodie over top. He wore a ball cap and perched on top of the box of household fix-it stuff were two leather baseball gloves and a grubby looking ball.

  Matthew came bounding to the door, his excitement beaming from him. “Hey, buddy,” Seth said.

  He took in the gloves and ball at a glance. “Where’s the bat?”

  “We’re going to start with throwing and catching. The bat’s next time.”

  “Okay.”

  “Would you like some coffee?” Melissa asked. The poor man looked as though he could use some.

  She wished she hadn’t offered when she saw Matthew’s face fall. She realized with a pang of sadness how much it meant to him to have an adult male take an interest in him.

  Fortunately, Seth saw it, too. Or maybe he didn’t want to chat with her over coffee. He said, “Maybe later. You ready Matthew?”

  Silly question. He’d been ready when he woke her at seven asking if Seth was here yet. He wore his oldest jeans and a sweatshirt with the name of his school on the front. “I forgot something,” he said and pounded back upstairs, emerging in less than a minute with his own ball cap on his head.

  “Have fun,” she called, as they sauntered down the drive together.

  They looked good together, she thought. Almost as though they fit.

  “Will you be back for lunch?” she yelled.

  “Na-ah. We’ll probably grab something out.”

  “Okay.”

  Please let it go well, she pleaded silently as she went to gather the three girls.

  She let them have free rein with her nail polish drawer, and each of them had a manicure. Alice, who’d never had polish on her tiny nails before, was beside herself with excitement.

  “Dad said you and Auntie Janice decorated his room,” Laura said while she was having bright red polish painted on her nails.

  “That’s right,” Melissa answered, doing her best to keep the brush strokes straight on the small nail. Laura and Jessie had tiny, delicate hands. She wondered whether they’d inherited those from their mother. “Are you okay with that?”

  “I guess.”

  “Dad said a swear word when he went in there last night. I heard him,” Jessie said. “But this morning, when he showed us, he said he likes it.”

  “Do you like it?” How did they feel about having all of Claire’s personal items moved?

  “It’s okay.”

  “You know, we saved all of your mother’s things. They’re stored at your Auntie Janice’s house. Any time you want to see them, they’re there.”

  “Okay.” Well, Melissa thought, she wasn’t sensing hysterics or hostility. She had the impression that the girls had accepted their mother’s death. Of course, the loss would always be there and probably would always hurt, but they were healing—a lot more easily than their dad.

  After manicures, they moved to lipstick and hair. It was fun taking the time to play with all the girlie stuff. After that, they washed up and ate lunch. “I wonder how the boys are doing,” she said.

  “Dad loves baseball. He made us go on a team last year, but we hated it so we quit. He made us practice all the time. Matthew’s going to be, like, totally bored.”

  But when the guys rolled in around three, it was clear that Matthew was anything but bored. His eyes were vivid with excitement. “Guess what, Mom,” he said, bounding into the kitchen. “I’m a natural. Seth said so.”

  “That’s grea—”

  “And we had jumbo hot dogs and I had two refills of Coke and next time Seth says we’re going to practice hitting. With the bat. Can we do that tomorrow?”

  “I have to work tomorrow. But we’ll do it again soon.”

  “Sweet.”

  Melissa and the girls were making sugar cookies. The table was littered with scraps of dough and Laura, Jessie and Alice were decorating cookies in weird and wonderful ways she’d never thought of.

  “If you wash up, you can help decorate cookies, Matthew,” she told him.

  “Or you can help me. I’m doing some home handyman chores.”

  She looked up in surprise. “Today?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “I can help with chores,” Matthew said, ultra cool. As though he’d handled power tools every day of his life. She wanted to hug him, but knew enough not to.

  Seth fetched the box from the front porch, and soon he and his helper were replacing the hinge on her kitchen cabinet. “You know,” she said, “this seems like a very sexist division of labor.”

  Seth sent her a glance from his tired, blue-gray eyes and halted in the middle of screwing in the new hinge. “Girls, do you want to help with some handyman stuff or decorate cookies?”

  The twins rolled their eyes in identical motions. “Cookies.”

  “Cookie,” Alice parroted.

  “Matthew? Do you want to do handyman stuff or decorate cookies?”

  “Handyman stuff.” There was an unspoken but implied “like, duh!”

  Seth managed to stow most of his smirk. “If you ask me, some things are hardwired.”

  “Well, every man should learn how to cook,” she stated.

  “And every woman should learn some basic home repair and auto maintenance.”

  She nodded.

  “But not today.”

  Later, when he was upstairs redoing the grout in the kids’ bathroom and Matthew was sanding one of the cracks they’d patched, she had a chance to get Seth alone.

  She liked the way he looked, leaned over the bathtub, his body stretched out, his arm muscles defined.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He glanced up at her. “For what?”

  “For today. With Matthew.”

  “Don’t thank me. He’s a great kid. I had fun.”

  She perched on the closed lid of the toilet. “How are you? After yesterday.”

  He turned back to his work. He smelled like healthy working man, a little warm and sweaty. “Okay.”

  “How did you sleep?”

  “Like shit.”

  What could she say? He kept working. She felt dismissed.

  “Well, I’ll let you get back to it.”

  She’d walked all the way out of the bathroom when he stopped her. “Melissa?”

  “Yes?”

  He held her gaze, looking sad and tired. “I’m working on it.”

  “Good,” she said softly.

  “Hey.”

  She turned again to see him scramble up off the bathtub and wipe his hands on his jeans. He’d apparently been doing that a lot—they were getting pretty disgusting.

  “Come back in here a minute.”

  She did, feeling her stomach flip. Once she was inside, he shut the bathroom door, making the space seem ridiculously small all of a sudden.

  He appeared frustrated and confused as he cupped her face in gritty hands. He kissed her as though he couldn’t help himself. She responded for the same reason.

  “If it was only sex, this would be a lot easier,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “I feel something for you. I don’t know what it is, but there’s too much at risk to do anything stupid.” His hands tangled in her h
air and he kissed her again, taking his sweet time.

  Oh, she thought, maybe it could be just sex. If they were careful, and discreet, why not?

  Except that it was already too late. She had no idea what she felt for Seth, but it was more than lust, though that was a huge ingredient in the confusing mix. It was more than friendship, though he was her friend. It couldn’t be love. Not yet, so that left her as puzzled and frustrated as the man currently nibbling at her earlobe and running his hands over her body.

  HOW MUCH LONGER DID he think he could wait?

  That was the question that was taking up a lot of Seth’s time recently. Melissa was sweet and sexy. A terrific mother. And she was good for him. The first few days after Melissa and Janice had redone his bedroom were tough. He hadn’t been able to sleep.

  It was like a miniversion of the way he’d felt after Claire died. But, somehow, he’d come through it. And he was honest enough to admit that he felt as though a heavy burden had been lifted.

  He’d pushed the bed back to its accustomed place because he hated the way those almost too-creative women had placed his furniture, but other than that he’d left everything as they’d done it. He was even thinking about painting the walls in his bedroom, something they hadn’t had time to do.

  Already his clothes were creeping over into Claire’s side of the closet, and he had to admit that it was easier to find stuff.

  He glanced at his desk clock, grateful it was a squash day and he could exercise away some of his sexual frustration. He grabbed his racquet and bag.

  They hadn’t had their date, he and Melissa. After all that had happened, he couldn’t imagine a dinner somewhere and then dropping her off at her home. They’d gone too far for that.

  The question of Melissa bothered him all morning, along with a question Jessie had asked him over breakfast.

  The tiny rubber ball bounced and ricocheted around the enclosed squash court like the idea that had taken root in his mind.

  He spiked the ball hard, heard the rubber squeak, protesting against the wall and scudding off into that sweet unreachable corner. Ron, his opponent, lunged and grunted as the ball eluded him.

  “Good shot, buddy.”

  He continued punishing the ball, driving relentlessly until both he and Ron were sweat-soaked and gasping.

  “Feel better?” Ron asked him after they’d showered and were walking out of the club together.

  “You know, I do,” he said, limping away to his car.

  “Why are you limping?” Melissa asked as he hobbled into her hallway later that afternoon, inhaling the scent of warm spices. “Are you hurt?”

  “Nah. I pulled a muscle playing squash.”

  “A hamstring?” She was all full of concern. “I could rub it for you.”

  “A groin.”

  “Oh.” Her face bloomed with delicate color, and the uninjured part of his groin perked up at her suggestion. She peered at him, caught the grin he didn’t even try to hide and rolled her eyes at him. “Try ice.”

  He followed her into the kitchen, helped himself to a speckled brown cookie right off the cooling rack and sighed with pleasure as he bit into the crunchy spice cookie. Man, that woman could cook. And always from scratch. He, who’d only recently mastered the secrets of cake from a box, could appreciate the fine art of real baking.

  Yep. There were a lot of things he could appreciate about Melissa.

  And lots of things he could only appreciate if she were naked. It had been two weeks since the disastrous weekend of her birthday, and he hadn’t stopped thinking about her in very non-babysitter terms.

  Their little chats when he dropped off and picked up the girls were charged with unspoken messages, their glances passionate. He must be crazy to try to ignore the obvious.

  He wanted that woman in the worst way, and unless he was way more out of touch than he believed, she wanted him, too.

  She’d put the kitchen island between them and was trying very hard to appear unflustered by their conversational exchange about his groin.

  “Why don’t you call the girls?” she asked. “They’re downstairs.”

  “Not yet. I want to talk to you.”

  Her forehead creased with anxiety. “They’re not in trouble at school again, are they?”

  “It’s not about the girls. It’s about us.”

  “Oh.” She scrubbed at cookie pans that already gleamed. How to start? How to get out what he wanted to say? “This arrangement. It’s not working. I—”

  The pans clattered into the sink, and her head sprang up. “But the girls are happy here. Aren’t they?”

  “They love you.”

  Her face lit up then, as pink and iridescent as one of the perfectly tended rose buds in her garden. “I love them, too.” Pleasure and relief coursed through her voice. She was so pretty, with her lips parted and eager, that he longed to kiss her.

  “You know what Jessie asked me this morning?”

  “What?”

  “She asked me if I was going to marry you.”

  The color faded from her cheeks. “Well, kids think everything’s easier than it is.”

  She slammed the shiny cookie pans into the dish drainer, then sprinkled baking soda in the sinks and started scrubbing.

  He grabbed her wrist to still the frantic scrubbing. “I’ve been thinking about it all day. It makes sense. We’re friends, we love each other’s kids, they get on great. And there’s obviously a powerful physical attraction here. Why don’t you? Marry me.”

  Even as he felt a jolt of shock vibrate through his bones at his own words, she jerked away, leaning against the island and glaring at him.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “It’s not supposed to be.” His lungs felt like collapsed balloons. He’d pulled a Brady Bunch, after trying to avoid even thinking about blending their families, doing everything he could to prevent Melissa and her kids from getting ideas about him. He’d pulled a childhood TV happily-ever-after blended family out of his pocket and handed it to Melissa. And, surprisingly, it didn’t seem so terrible now it was out in the open. In fact, them getting married made a lot of sense. Melissa could keep her lifestyle, her kids could stay in the same school. And Laura and Jessie would have Melissa around permanently.

  And he’d finally get Melissa in bed.

  There were a lot of positives here.

  Melissa didn’t seem to be seeing it quite his way. In fact, she looked as though somebody had died. “Why are you doing this to me?” she whispered, her eyes overbright.

  “It could work, Melissa. You’re a terrific person.” He scoffed another gingersnap. “You make excellent cookies, and the twins love you.”

  “What about you, Seth. Do you love me?”

  She had him there. He wasn’t sure what he felt about Melissa, where lust left off and love began. But she was a woman receiving a marriage proposal, and she deserved certain things. “I think I’m falling in love with you.” It caught a little in the back of his throat, like a stray speck of cinnamon, but he got the words out.

  For a long moment she stood there staring at him, a slow flush mounting her cheeks.

  “No, you’re not. You’re still in love with Claire. I can’t ever compete with that.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MELISSA WORKED IN THE garden feverishly, but she couldn’t find the peace she sought. All she saw was Seth’s stricken face when she’d turned him down.

  Married? Was he out of his mind?

  Daffodils were starting to bloom. The earth was becoming workable enough to get a head start on the weeding and think about the new growing season.

  He’d said he was falling in love with her. Convenient. What if he stopped falling before he got there?

  She wasn’t any clearer about her feelings than Seth was. There was so much baggage between them they could open a luggage store. Stephen was still missing and presumed to be in the Czech Republic. She and the kids hadn’t received so much as a postcard. More than the mon
ey, she wanted some kind of closure. And as for Seth, he was trying so hard to make everything right, for the twins, for her and Matthew and Alice.

  And yet, there was undeniably something good happening. It hovered in the air like an early hint of spring when they said good morning. It teased them with longing when they said good night and their eyes met over the noisy confusion of the four kids all talking at once in the entrance hall.

  Was that something love?

  Or was it loneliness? Need? Sexual desire rising up like the new shoots in her garden?

  She plopped down in the damp earth, the smell of rich dirt and growing things all around her. Idly, she watched a disturbed worm upend itself and burrow back down.

  Her anger had finally dissipated, and she realized his proposal hadn’t been the clumsy act of charity she’d first thought. But it wasn’t a sincere proposal from the bottom of his heart, either. His eyes had registered shock when he’d spouted out the words. No. He hadn’t planned to ask her to marry him. It had come from somewhere deeper inside himself.

  Maybe he did love her. She didn’t know and neither did Seth. She was no surer of her own feelings. The only thing she knew for certain was that she wouldn’t make another mistake.

  The trouble was that she definitely had feelings for him. A lot of them purely carnal. The whole sex thing shimmered and teased, promising her a lush paradise in the middle of her desert of a love life. What if it turned out to be a mirage?

  If only they loved each other, marriage would be the perfect answer. Still, even if Seth didn’t love her, he’d become her closest friend. And she’d hurt him.

  She was going to have to apologize.

  “IS SOMETHING WRONG with the phone, Mom?” Matthew asked, hunched on the floor sorting his new collection of baseball cards.

  “No.”

  “Then why do you keep picking it up and putting it down?”

  A glib answer came to mind, but she suppressed it. “I have to apologize to Seth. I said something that hurt his feelings. But I’m having a hard time working up the nerve.”

  Her son nodded wisely. “That’s like when my teacher made me tell Josh I was sorry for making his lip bleed. He was real mad—I thought he might hit me. But after I said sorry, it was okay. And I felt better.”