Helen frowned. “Okay, I have that leftover from Katie’s last visit, but aren’t some kids allergic to peanut butter? I read an article—”
Erik cut her off. “Not these two. They’ve been at the restaurant once or twice, and Karen’s brought PB and J sandwiches for them.”
“You’re sure?” she asked worriedly.
“I’m sure. Now go or Daisy will be late for school and you’ll be trying to explain why you have her instead of her mother. I imagine that would not be a good thing.”
“You’re right. That would be awkward. I’ll hurry. I can check on them and have myself pulled together in two minutes,” she assured him.
She winced at the skeptical expression on Erik’s face. “I can,” she repeated, then darted off to make good on the promise. Maybe later she’d think about why Erik’s arrival struck her as salvation, rather than an annoying intrusion.
Erik wandered through the spacious house until he found Mack in a bedroom probably the size of Karen’s entire apartment. The toddler looked a little lost, sitting on the floor in his bright red shorts and sneakers, surrounded by a pile of inside-out T-shirts. Daisy was poking through them.
“His Superman T-shirt’s not here,” she explained. “That’s what he wears with his red shorts.” She frowned, then added emphatically in case Erik had missed the point, “Always!”
Erik looked over the pile of discarded shirts and honed in on the Spider-Man shirt. “This would look pretty cool with the red shorts,” he suggested. “In fact, Spider-Man is so totally awesome he goes with anything.”
Daisy studied the shirt skeptically. “You think so?”
“I know so,” Erik confirmed, already pulling it over Mack’s head. “Now, let’s hustle, pal. You need to get to day care.”
“How am I going to get to school?” Daisy asked.
“Helen’s going to take you.”
“Can you come, too?” she asked.
“If you want me to, I can. Any particular reason you want me along?”
“So you can make Helen stay in the car and not walk me to the door holding my hand. I can get to the door by myself.”
Erik bit back a grin. “I’m sure you can.”
“So, will you tell her not to do it again?”
“You could tell her yourself,” Erik suggested.
“I don’t wanna hurt her feelings. Mom said we need to be nice to her.”
“Okay, then. I’ll tell her,” he promised.
Within minutes Helen had Daisy and Mack belted into their respective car seats, which she’d borrowed from Karen. She was about to open the driver’s-side door when she noticed Erik opening the passenger door. She stared at him.
“You’re coming with us?”
“By special request,” he said softly, gesturing subtly to indicate Daisy. “She wants me to make sure you don’t take her hand and lead her to the door.”
Helen gave a small gasp. “I thought that was what moms did. I could tell by the look on her face that she hated it, but she didn’t say anything.”
“She didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
She sighed. “Do you suppose I’ll ever figure all this out?”
“You’re doing fine, especially for someone with no experience.”
“But you don’t have kids and you seem to know what to do. You knew about the toys and cartoons and peanut butter and jelly.”
“Like I told you on the phone, I have nephews. This isn’t rocket science, Helen. It just takes practice.”
“I hope so,” she said, sounding resigned.
In front of the school, though, she pulled to the curb, then turned to Daisy and gave her a smile that hardly looked forced at all. Only her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel gave away her tension. “You have a good day, okay? Frances will pick you up this afternoon.”
Daisy beamed at her. “Okay. Uh, don’t let Mack go by himself, ’cause he doesn’t know anything. He’ll get lost.”
Helen regarded her solemnly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
After Daisy was safely inside the building, she turned to Erik. “So that went well, didn’t it? And I’m not even a parent,” she said.
He studied her. “Ever want to be?”
“I’ve thought about it,” she said in a tone that warned him away from asking any more questions. “You?”
“Once, a long time ago,” he admitted.
“Before your wife died,” she said.
He nodded. “Yeah, that dream pretty much died with her.” He somehow managed to inject a lighter note into his voice as he peered into the back to check on Mack, who gave him one of those brilliant smiles that could melt a man’s heart. “Let’s get this little tough guy to day care. It’s only a few blocks from here. Something tells me he’s regressed to his pre-potty-training days. Unless you want to deal with it, we need to make a quick getaway.”
Helen grinned at his conspiratorial tone, then began to chuckle. “I am so with you on that. Think you can hustle him inside while I keep the motor running?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “We can be across town before they catch on.”
For the first time since he’d arrived at her house, Helen looked relaxed.
“How about I buy you that cup of coffee and some breakfast when we’ve made a clean getaway?” he suggested, giving in to an impulse that it would have been smarter to ignore.
“I don’t suppose I could talk you into making the coffee at Sullivan’s?” she suggested. “It’s the best anywhere in town.”
He grinned. “You angling for one of my omelets, too?”
She regarded him with unmistakable gratitude. “Please.”
“You going to help?”
“After two cups of coffee, I’ll do anything you want me to do,” she said fervently.
Erik stared at her ’til bright patches of color rose in her cheeks. “An interesting offer,” he commented. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
In fact, he suspected it would be quite a while before he could shake the thought.
9
“I just need to establish a routine,” Helen said, pulling a notebook out of her briefcase and setting it on the table next to her empty plate. She’d finished every bite of Erik’s ham-and-cheese omelet, along with enough home-fried potatoes with bits of onion and green peppers to keep her stuffed for a week. She was also on her third cup of his fragrant French roast coffee. She was feeling pretty darn invincible compared to the way she’d felt an hour earlier.
As she wrote “Routine” and underlined it at the top of the page, she caught Erik’s lips twitching. “What?” she demanded.
“You are talking about Daisy and Mack, right?” he asked in amusement. “Two little people about so high?”
She frowned at him. “Yes. What’s your point?”
“I think aiming for a routine is just a little optimistic,” he said.
“But children need routine,” she said, regarding him with puzzlement. Routine had certainly been lacking in her childhood. It was at the top of her list of things she’d do differently if she ever had children of her own. She expanded on her point for Erik’s benefit. “They need to know there are certain things they can count on. They need goals and expectations.”
“At five and three?”
“It’s never too early to start teaching them these things,” she insisted. “It’s important to be clear about what you expect and the consequences of not living up to those expectations. You have to be totally consistent. Mixed messages confuse them.”
“You’ve been reading parenting books, right?”
“Well, of course I have,” she said. “And I do have some experience to draw on.”
“Annie’s occasional sleepover at your place or a visit from Maddie’s kids?”
“No, it’s more than that. My childhood was chaotic, to put it mildly. I never knew when one or both of my parents would show up. I never had a curfew. Meals were catch as catch can, especially after my dad died and mom worked two, so
metimes three jobs.”
He nodded. “Ah, that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“The obsession with organization and routine.”
“You’re just not getting this,” she accused. “If Daisy and Mack are going to be with me, even for a few weeks, I need to handle things the way they’re supposed to be handled. What if I do something stupid and scar them for life? I need to be prepared for every eventuality. That’s the responsible thing to do.”
“So how many books have you read, Helen?” he taunted.
Avoiding his gaze, she replied, “I don’t know exactly. A few.”
Under Erik’s increasingly amused scrutiny, she was beginning to feel embarrassed about her obsessive need to read everything she could about parenting. Other people apparently approached parenting instinctively. She was clueless. Her own parents could have used a few books. Volumes, in fact.
Of course, it was hard to find five minutes to read them with two very active children around, which was why she’d been up past midnight last night. She blamed the lack of sleep for being so frazzled this morning. Now it was easier to understand why Karen had been so stressed out.
“What did you do, send that efficient secretary of yours to a bookstore and have her buy out the entire parenting section?” Erik asked.
She frowned at him. That was exactly what she’d done. How annoying that he could read her so well. “I wanted a variety of opinions.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. How about listening to one more?”
“You don’t have kids,” she protested. “You told me you weren’t even thinking about having kids.”
“No, but I was one. So were you. You said yourself that that kind of experience counts. And I do have all those nephews. You have Annie and Maddie’s kids. They didn’t come to any harm staying with you, did they?”
“No, but they never stayed for more than a night. I don’t think you can ruin a child in one night just by indulging his every whim. That’s what I did, you know. Pizza, candy, popcorn, ice cream, videos for half the night—you name it. My house was a no-rules environment.” At his incredulous look, she shrugged. “What can I say? I wanted to be Auntie Helen, the fun one. I wanted them to like me. Even I’m smart enough to know you can’t live like that on a regular basis. If I try that with Daisy and Mack, I’ll return them to Karen with a whole lot of very bad habits. I don’t think that’s the way to go.”
Erik nodded. “Okay, you have a point. Maybe the real answer is finding a routine for you, not the kids. My hunch is you’re the one making the biggest adjustment here.”
Helen regarded him with astonishment. “You’re absolutely right,” she said at once, seizing on the notion like the lifeline he’d intended it to be. “If I’m organized and on track, then everything will go a lot more smoothly. Obviously today’s schedule didn’t work. I’ll need to be up at 4:30 a.m., not five.”
She jotted that down and noted that extra half hour as her time to fix lunches, her own breakfast and coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.
“How did you do with bathtime last night?” Erik asked.
Helen regarded him with dismay. “Baths?” she echoed. “My God, they never had baths, Erik. I sent those children off to school totally filthy.”
“Don’t panic,” Erik consoled her. “I’m sure they were ecstatic, which is probably why Daisy, at least, didn’t remind you. You might want to make a note to yourself, though. Make sure they brush their teeth, too.”
Helen had remembered to make them brush their teeth, but she wrote down “Bath” in bold letters, then gave Erik a considering look. “I don’t suppose you’d want to come by and help,” she suggested hopefully.
“I don’t get out of Sullivan’s ’til nearly midnight,” he reminded her. “They need to be tucked in bed long before that.”
Helen sighed. “Of course they do.”
Erik regarded her with pity. “I am off tomorrow, though. How about I come by then to help out? We can take them out for burgers, then I’ll help you get them settled for the night.”
“Take them out?” she repeated incredulously. She hadn’t taken Maddie’s kids or Annie out to any kind of restaurant until the youngest was at least six. “Won’t they disrupt the other diners. There’s nothing more annoying than having other people’s children running wild when you’re trying to enjoy a pleasant dinner out.”
“Which is one of the joys of the fast-food restaurant,” he said. “You’ll be surrounded by other people with out-of-control kids of their own. They won’t pay any attention to yours.”
“Fast food, of course,” she said, jotting it down. “That’s perfect.”
To his credit, Erik managed to keep a straight face. “I’ll be by at five-thirty tomorrow afternoon,” he promised. “Now I’d better get to work before Dana Sue decides to dock my pay.”
Helen regarded him with a grateful expression. “I don’t know how to thank you for helping out this morning. I was on the verge of a full-fledged panic attack when you showed up.”
“Hey, no big deal. You could have managed.”
“I’m not so sure about that. These two kids don’t seem to be falling in line the way I anticipated. I don’t scare them.”
“You wanted to rule by intimidation?”
“I considered it,” she admitted. “But it seemed like a bad idea.”
“See, you are capable of making smart choices where the kids are concerned,” he said.
He spoke with such confidence that Helen left Sullivan’s feeling as if she had things back under control. It was probably an illusion, but at least it would get her through the day ’til the next test came along.
Helen had barely left and Erik was still gathering up their dishes, when Dana Sue came flying into the dining room at Sullivan’s.
“Was that Helen I saw driving away from here?” she asked.
“Hard to say,” he said evasively.
She frowned at him. “Don’t you dare try to trip me up on one of those technicalities you enjoy so much. Do you realize when you do that, you sound exactly like Helen when she’s cross-examining a witness?”
“Then I’ll stop it immediately,” he said, amused.
“Don’t try to sidetrack me, either. Was Helen here or not?”
“She was,” he conceded reluctantly.
“And you had breakfast together,” she surmised, her gaze on the plates, cups and silverware he was holding.
“We did.”
“Interesting,” she murmured, then studied him intently. “How did that happen?”
Now there was a can of worms Erik really didn’t want to open with the resident matchmaking queen. He shrugged. “No big deal. We ran into each other.”
“Where?” she persisted. “And why would you bring her here, instead of going to Wharton’s, which is actually open for breakfast?”
He shrugged. “What can I say? She likes our coffee better. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to get to work.”
“And I say you have time to answer a few more questions.”
“If I have that much time, I could leave and run a few errands,” he countered.
“You just want to avoid my questions,” she accused.
Erik grinned at her. “Gee, you think?”
“I’ll ask Helen.”
“Feel free.”
“She’ll tell me whatever it is you’re hiding,” she warned him.
“I doubt it. I don’t think she’s any more interested in encouraging this scheme of yours than I am.”
“What scheme is that?”
“To throw us together ’til we stick.”
She frowned at him. “I wouldn’t put it exactly that way.”
Erik laughed. “No, I’m sure you wouldn’t. You’d tie it up in some pretty, romantic bow, but it all amounts to meddling in something that’s none of your business.”
“You’re both my friends. That makes it my business,” she said as he brushed past her and headed for the kitchen.
>
It was too much to hope that she’d just give up. She followed him.
“Have you mentioned Tess’s problem to her yet?” she asked.
“The other day,” he said, relieved by the switch in topic.
“Then this morning wasn’t about that?” she said, her expression thoughtful. “What did she say when you told her?”
“That she’d follow up with Tess. I didn’t remind her about it today because with Karen’s kids under her roof she has enough on her plate at the moment.” He scowled. “Go away, Dana Sue. I mean it. Baking takes concentration.”
“Oh, please, you could do it with one hand tied behind your back while you’re listening to music on your iPod.”
“Neither of which is as distracting as listening to you go on and on and on,” he said. “I have to do today’s baking, plus tomorrow’s, remember? Or do you want tomorrow’s customers to discover the only dessert on the menu is ice cream from the Piggly Wiggly?”
Dana Sue sighed, but she backed off. “Fine. I’ll be in my office if you need me, or if you decide you want to talk.”
“I won’t,” he assured her.
The entire encounter was a warning, he told himself after she’d gone. If he was ever foolhardy enough to decide to ask Helen on an actual date, he might as well invite Dana Sue and Maddie along, as well. Otherwise he’d just have to fill them in on every detail later.
He wondered how the devil Ronnie Sullivan and Cal Maddox had done it, courted their wives with the other two women overseeing every single second. Dating Helen would be tricky enough. Having the other two chiming in every other minute would drive him completely nuts. No way. Next time he got that tingly feeling in the pit of his stomach or had the sudden urge to haul Helen into his arms and kiss her, he needed to remember that.
And then he needed to run like hell in the other direction.
Karen missed her kids like crazy. When she got back to her apartment after working at Sullivan’s, it was way too quiet and lonely. She should have been eager to fall into bed and catch up on some of the sleep she’d missed in recent weeks. Instead, she paced from room to room, switching on the TV in one, the radio in another, just to have some background noise.
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