Awaken My Heart

by Maria K. Alexander

  Chapter Seven

  Ashley looked at the clock for what seemed like the fiftieth time since realizing Sean had gone missing. He should be home soon.

  With Nick.

  As a single mom, it was hard being the main disciplinarian. There’d been times when Ashley had to stay firm and lay down rules along with issue punishment. Being angry with Sean hadn’t been easy, especially when his dark brown eyes filled with tears and his lower lip quivered. Sneaking out of the house was out of character for him and had to go punished, even if it pained her more than it would him.

  Ashley dumped a bag of spring mix into a wooden salad bowl and added cut tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots. She set the bowl and an assortment of salad dressings in the center of the table and stepped back to see if anything was missing.

  Not accustomed to entertaining, she was nervous about making dinner for Nick. It had been years since she’d had a man over, even though this wasn’t a date or a typical family meal. Not that Ashley would know what a typical family dinner was like.

  As a college professor, her father had spent a lot of late evenings teaching classes or attending faculty meetings or functions. Ashley had learned at a young age to be self-sufficient. Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches were her specialty. Those along with peanut butter and jelly had been staples growing up.

  Since Sean had been born she’d taken several cooking classes, owned a shelf full of cookbooks, and spent hours watching cooking shows on TV. Despite her valiant efforts, she was a passable cook at best, and had never been able to successfully plan how to have all elements of a meal ready at the same time. As a result, the vegetables would be ready before the chicken and were either cold or dried out by the time the rest of the meal was ready.

  Sean liked to tease her and taught himself how to cook. He had a natural flair and creativity in the kitchen.

  Tonight, Ashley had made meatloaf and thought it may be her best one yet. Confident dinner preparations were under control, she went upstairs to shower. The warm water eased the tension in her shoulders.

  With a towel around her, she scanned the contents of her closet before dressing in jeans and a flowing green blouse that matched the color of her eyes. She yanked her hair free of the ponytail and brushed out the blonde tresses that reached her lower back. She’d always had long hair but wore it tied back so it wasn’t messy. After being constrained all day, it was a relief to let it down. A quick freshening of her makeup and a dab of her favorite cologne and she was ready.

  As she descended the stairs, the front door open and Sean walked in followed by Nick.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Ashley gave him her best mom glare that resulted in Sean hunching his shoulders and finding a sudden interest in his shoes.

  “Sorry I snuck out,” he mumbled.

  If it weren’t for the fact she was grateful he was back, she’d have sent him to his room.

  Reaching him, she placed her hands on his shoulders and hugged him. “We’ll talk about it later. Please don’t do it again. You took a few years off my life.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead, grateful he didn’t flinch as he had yesterday.

  She raised her eyes to Nick. “Thanks for bringing him home.”

  “Thanks for letting us stay in the park,” Nick said. Ashley was glad to see his anger from earlier had been replaced with something else.

  Uncertainty, perhaps?

  She could relate as she was most definitely uncertain about the next steps. Ashley was challenged in the conversation department on a good day. What now?

  Did you and Sean catch up on everything in his life for fourteen years?

  Did Sean tell you he learned to ride a bike without needing training wheels?

  How about his elementary and middle school graduations when he was selected to speak to the class?

  Her heart clenched as she thought back to random events during Sean’s life that had been special…that Nick missed because of her.

  “Dad, come see my science project.” Sean hung up his sweatshirt and string bag and darted off toward the family room.

  She’d been holding herself together since having spoken to Sean earlier but hearing him call Nick “Dad” caused her to fill up. Sean looked lighter…happier.

  “Are you okay?” Nick asked.

  Not even close.

  “I’m fine.” She brushed at her eyes. “I’ll take your jacket and then we can go into the family room.”

  His fingers brushed hers when he handed over his sweatshirt, causing a shock to run through her. Her eyes flashed to his, and she could see he felt it too.

  That raw, physical attraction they’d just started to explore.

  And would never get to pursue due to her mistake.

  Nick opened his mouth as though he was going to say something but snapped it shut and followed Sean down the hall.

  She pressed a hand to her stomach.

  You can—no, you will—do this, Ashley. Pull yourself together.

  After hanging Nick’s sweatshirt in the closet next to Sean’s—and yes, she couldn’t help noticing it held Nick’s musky scent—Ashley made her way to the family room. Sean was showing Nick the toothpick bridge he built in science class. It was due next week, even though he’d finished it a week ago.

  “We’re graded based on how much it can hold,” Sean explained.

  “It looks surprisingly sturdy,” Nick replied.

  “By my calculations, it should be able to hold one hundred and sixty grams,” Sean said. “Mr. McDonough said the largest amount anyone has ever gotten it to hold is one fifty. The top three will be featured in the science fair in a couple weeks.”

  “Well, my bet is on you. You’ll have to let me know when it is.”

  “You’d come?” Sean asked.

  “Unless something comes up with work, I’ll be there,” Nick said.

  Delight filled Sean’s face, and Ashley’s heart melted at the father-son bond that had started to form. It further substantiated she’d been completely wrong to keep Nick out of Sean’s life. But she couldn’t go back and change her decision. Best now to support them building a relationship.

  Only where did she fit in that equation?

  If only…

  No, she couldn’t go there. She’d given up hope for her own happily-ever-after a long time ago. Her life was fulfilled with work and Sean. She didn’t need anything—or anyone—else.

  Really.

  She didn’t.

  Mostly.

  Shaking her head to chase away the temptation for childish fantasies, she moved into the room.

  “Mom, I was showing Dad my bridge. He’s going to try and come to the science fair,” Sean said.

  “We’d like that,” Ashley said to Nick. “I’ll make sure you have the dates for upcoming school activities.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” Nick said.

  “And check it out.” Sean held up a photo album. “Dad brought this with pictures of him when he was a kid.”

  “I thought we could look through it after dinner,” Nick said.

  “Good thinking,” Ashley said.

  “What are we having?” Sean asked.

  “Meatloaf. Speaking of which, I should go check on it.”

  Ashley left the room and headed to the kitchen. She should have smelled it cooking, but the air held only the scent of the apple pumpkin candles she’d lit earlier.

  The timer on the stove dinged as she walked into the room. She went over to turn it off and opened the oven door and stared.

  “Need any help?” Nick asked over her shoulder.

  She hadn’t heard him behind her and jumped.

  She slammed the door closed and backed up against it. “We may have a small problem with dinner.”

  “May or do?” Nick asked.

  It was slight, but Ashley heard the amusement in his voice. The jerk.

  Ashley sighed and retrieved the uncooked meatloaf from the oven. “We do unless you eat your meatloaf raw.”

 
She wanted to crawl under a rock or bury her head in a book. Anything but look into Nick’s handsome face and see him pity her.

  But she risked a glance and while he was definitely amused, it wasn’t pity she saw in those sexy brown eyes.

  “Did the pilot on the oven go out?” Nick asked and started fiddling with the buttons on the stove.

  Sean came into the room. “What happened?” He looked at the meatloaf. “You turned the oven off by accident again, didn’t you?” he asked her.

  “I preheated the oven. I must have hit the button to turn off the oven when I went to set the timer.”

  “Again?” Nick asked.

  “Mom does this at least once a week,” Sean said.

  Nothing like getting thrown under the bus by her own son.

  Ashley cleared her throat. “In my defense, the person who designed the stove clearly never used it. The button to turn on and off the timer shouldn’t be right under the button to turn on and off the stove. I mean, what kind of idiot does that?”

  Now she had an uncooked loaf of ground beef and two hungry males before her. Not to mention she had only been able to eat half her sandwich at lunch thanks to Carole and her bouncing breasts.

  “Should I get out the tomato soup?” Sean asked.

  Her default dinner when catastrophes like this happened.

  “We’ll order take-out.” Ashley walked over to the drawer where she kept a stack of local restaurant menus.

  “Let’s see if we can do better.” Nick rummaged through her cabinets and pulled out canned tomatoes and a loaf of bread.

  “What are you doing?” Ashley asked.

  “I’m cooking dinner.”

  When he flashed a heart-stopping smile her way, Ashley knew she was in trouble.

  ****

  Offering to salvage Ashley’s failed attempt at dinner came naturally to Nick, even though it clearly surprised her.

  “Where are your frying pans?” he asked.

  “Cabinet next to the stove.” She reached for the handle the same time he did, causing them to brush hands.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she whispered, and hell if the faint tease of her breath against his cheek didn’t go straight to his groin.

  “I don’t mind. Really,” he added, when it looked like she was ready to argue.

  “What are you going to make?” Sean asked.

  “Spaghetti and meatballs. You have pasta?”

  Sean opened the pantry and held up a box of spaghetti. “Yeah.”

  “Okay. Who knows how to dice onion?”

  Nick had forgotten how much pleasure he got out of cooking. During his marriage, Franny did the majority of the cooking. But he’d been raised at the pizzeria his parents owned before they opened the trattoria. He knew how to make a pasta sauce—or gravy as his family called it—since he was younger than Sean. Improvising dinner was a cakewalk.

  It didn’t go unnoticed that Sean jumped in with enthusiasm. With him working at one end of the island cutting up onion, Nick started a marinara sauce of basil and tomatoes. While it simmered, he took the mass of meatloaf and placed it in a large bowl. He added seasoning and a couple of eggs.

  He wandered over to Ashley who he tasked with cubing bread. Of course, she was mutilating it more than cubing it.

  “It’s easier if you saw it.” Nick stepped behind her, feeling a spark jump between them. “Like this.” With his hand over hers, he moved the knife back and forth. It was by pure accident his hand brushed the side of her breast. He felt as well as heard the sharp intake of her breath.

  Guess he wasn’t the only one affected by their close proximity.

  “Thanks, I think I have it now,” she said in a raspy voice.

  Nick stepped away because hell if he wasn’t getting turned on and with his own son in the room.

  “What now, Dad?” Sean asked.

  “Add the onion to the pan with garlic, and we’ll sauté it in olive oil.”

  The smell of garlic held the familiarity of home and memories of watching his mother cook. Nick swirled the contents in the pan until everything was coated, and watched as it turned the slightest shade of brown. He poured the contents into the pot with the tomatoes and stirred.

  “The bread’s ready,” Ashley said.

  “Add the bread to the ground beef. Do you have grated cheese?”

  Ashley shook her head. “Sean’s allergic to milk and can’t eat cheese, so I don’t bother to keep it in the house.”

  Nick stopped filling a pot with water for the pasta and turned, thinking he’d heard wrong. “No milk products at all?”

  “None. It’s a common allergy,” Ashley said in a defensive tone.

  Nick knew from Gina and Joey there was a growing number of kids with nut allergies. The elementary school had a special nut free table, but he’d never heard of an allergy to milk.

  “How long has he had it?”

  “Since I was a couple weeks old,” Sean added.

  “Will you grow out of it?” Nick moved the pot to the stove and set the gas on high.

  Sean shrugged. “Maybe. I get tested every year.”

  “The allergist says there’s a chance he’ll outgrow it.”

  “That’s a drag.”

  “It’s a pain at birthday parties because I can’t eat pizza or even have the cake, but I’m used to it by now,” Sean said.

  Nick couldn’t imagine a life without cheese or milk products. Practically every meal his mother cooked involved either cheese or milk. He figured he’d now be learning how to make milk-free meals.

  “Okay, we’ll skip the cheese.”

  Sean watched with interest while Nick mixed the meat with his hands.

  “Do you want to help?” Nick asked.

  “Sure.” Sean pushed up his shirt sleeves before digging in. “It’s cold and squishy.”

  “It is at first. Don’t be afraid to really mix it.” Nick demonstrated.

  Nick felt Ashley behind him. The scent of her floral perfume reached him and brought back memories of their night together—of how it smelled against her skin when he kissed along her neck. She had a fabulous neck, along with the rest of her.

  “Now what?” Sean asked, jerking Nick back to the present.

  Get with the program, man, before you embarrass yourself with a hard on.

  Nick cleared his throat. “Now comes the fun part. We roll them.” He scooped a handful of meat and moistened his fingertips with water. “The water helps keep it together.” Using his palms, he rolled the chunk into a perfect ball and placed it in another pan coated with olive oil.

  “I thought meatballs came out of a box,” Sean said.

  “They did in my house,” Ashley said.

  Together, the three of them rolled. Nick couldn’t remember sharing a more enjoyable evening in years. He’d tried to teach Gina and Joey to cook, but they always found excuses. Sean seemed genuinely interested.

  With the pasta boiling and the meatballs sizzling, dinner was almost ready.

  “It smells fantastic,” Sean said. “Better than Mom’s cooking.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair. He was raised in a house of chefs. All I had was the Food Network as a role model,” Ashley said.

  “Maybe you could teach me how to cook,” Sean said to Nick.

  “I could. I can even bring you to the trattoria and show you how a fully functional restaurant kitchen works,” Nick offered.

  “Awesome,” Sean said.

  Ashley lifted the lid on the pot and stirred. “You realize you’ve spoiled both of us for jarred sauce.”

  “That’s a good thing in my book,” he said with a wink, pleased when she blushed.

  She looked away first and hurried over to a cabinet and grabbed three plates. “Would you like a glass of wine?”

  “I wouldn’t say no.” Nick removed the last of the meatballs from the pan and placed them on a plate lined with a paper towel to absorb the grease. “We’re about done here.”

  With the pasta done, Nick
dished out the food and Sean helped him carry them to the table. Then he went to see if Ashley could use help with the wine.

  She pulled the cork out. “I thought red would go better with pasta.”

  “Perfect,” Nick said.

  Her hand shook as she poured, although he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why she was nervous. He reached out to help, and that was how he ended up wearing a glass of wine.

  ****

  Ashley had been clumsy from childhood. Many kids had scrapes on their knees or elbows from playing sports. Not Ashley. Hers came from tripping up the stairs or bumping into a door she didn’t see because she was reading a book while walking.

  Spilling a glass of wine on Nick was par for the course.

  “Dammit. I’m such an idiot,” she rambled, hating the way her hand shook.

  Being near Nick unnerved her. He was big, broad, and confident, even in the kitchen—traditionally a woman’s domain, except in her case. Then there was the way her skin prickled whenever he touched her. Even her nipples perked up when he gazed at her with cappuccino-colored eyes that could—and had—melted the panties off her.

  “It’s okay, Ash. It’s just wine.”

  And now he’d called her Ash as he had the night they were together. Sure, it was only a shortened version of her name, but no one else called her that, and the intimacy of a nickname made her uncomfortable.

  And aroused.

  And wishing for white picket fences.

  He grabbed her hand. “I’ve had worse spilled on me.”

  Nothing bothered him. He took everything in stride, including her failed attempt at dinner and wine spilling.

  She yanked her hand free. “I’m sorry I ruined your shirt. We can soak it in seltzer water.”

  “After we eat, okay?”

  Together, they cleaned up the mess. By the time they sat at the table, Ashley’s nerves were shot, and she took a gulp of wine.

  “Do you say grace?” Nick asked.

  “Usually not. I’m Catholic, but we haven’t been to church in years,” Ashley said and bit her lower lip. There were so many things about him she didn’t know. Knowing he practiced his faith and she didn’t was something else to add to the bad single-mom column.