Thea had catered events for both women and men. She’d done functions for corporate CEOs—male executives. This man was no different.
And that was when she recognized the lie.
She liked Scott and that made him different. It made her as nervous as a dieter in a doughnut shop, which was why she wanted to turn him down flat.
Then she looked head-on into the intensity of his gaze and her stomach did that whole stop, drop and roll thing. From another lifetime she vaguely remembered this feeling. It was another good reason to refuse the job. But what did that intensity in his expression mean? Did he find her attractive? It had been too long since she’d wondered or cared about such things and she couldn’t tell. Her feminine instincts, too long turned off, were now unreliable. He probably didn’t care about her one way or the other and she was being a ninny.
“Earth to Thea. It didn’t take this long to build the Suez Canal. So what do you say? Will you take the gig?”
“Do you have a date in mind?” she hedged. “I need to check my schedule.”
“She’s graduating the middle of June, assuming there are no unexpected surprises with her grades. But she’s always been an honors student, so I don’t expect that.” He thought for a moment. “I think a Saturday night would work best.” Moving closer to her, he glanced down at the large, desk-blotter calendar. “How about June nineteenth?” he said, pointing to the date.
She noticed the strength in his wide wrist and tanned forearm. She watched the muscles there bunch and ripple, making it difficult for her to take a deep breath.
“I’ll check my day planner.” She unzipped her briefcase and pulled out the leather-bound calendar. After opening it, she found the date and tried not to let him see her relief when she spotted a conflict. Loophole. She met his gaze. “I’m holding that date open for someone.”
“Holding it?” He frowned. “I’m going to take a shot in the dark here. Do you have a signed contract? A deposit?”
“Not yet, but I promised to try and keep that date free and I feel an obligation to the client.”
He pulled a checkbook from the back pocket of his jeans. “I’m willing to sign on the dotted line right now and put my money where my mouth is.”
Of course as soon as he mentioned it, her gaze went straight to his mouth. Some subconscious part of her wondered how his lips would feel against her own and the thought made her shiver. What was that about? Fear? Awareness? Weather-related? Darned if she knew. But the reaction told her she should refuse his deposit and tell him if the date opened up, she would let him know.
He met her gaze and assumed a puppy-dog expression to ratchet up his persuasion. “Kendra would be very disappointed.”
Drat. That was the only thing he could have said to win her over. Thea couldn’t let down a teenage girl whom she suspected had been let down one too many times already.
“All right, Scott. You win. I’ll do the party.”
He grinned again, showing his straight white teeth and very attractive smile. She thought of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf and couldn’t help feeling she’d just stepped alone into the woods on her way to Grandma’s house.
Scott looked at his daughter biting into her enchilada. “Thanks for throwing dinner together, sweetie. I planned to get home early, but there was a problem at one of the sites.”
“That’s okay. Do you like it?” she asked, about the meal.
“It’s great.” And that was no lie. “When did you get to be such a good cook?”
“Thea gave me the recipe when she catered my friend’s birthday party. She said it wasn’t hard to make and almost impossible to mess up. I guess she was right.”
Thea Bell. He’d had trouble getting her off his mind since leaving her office that morning. And that wasn’t at all like him. He’d dated here and there, but nothing serious. And it had been a long time, so he wasn’t used to thinking about a woman. Normally work was the only thing that took his mind off the ups and downs of his kids. But he’d found Thea was one smart cookie and pretty intuitive. She’d been right about the fact that he should listen to his daughter instead of lecturing.
But there was still the matter of that pregnancy test and it was too important to ignore. He so badly wanted to tell Kendra to do as he said, not as he’d done. He didn’t want her to learn the same lessons he had learned in the school of hard knocks. But how could he get through to her? How would Thea approach this potential minefield?
He started to say there was something he wanted to talk to her about, then checked himself. That would be his daughter’s signal to shut down.
He looked across the dinner table and decided to try a different tack. “This is nice. Having dinner together.”
“Yeah. Nice.” Warily, she met his gaze.
“I don’t stop to appreciate it enough. And I should,” he added.
“Why?”
“Lots of reasons. Because I enjoy spending time with you. And because when your sister was a baby, I hardly ever got to share a meal with the family.”
“It’s not that big a deal, Dad,” she said. Her expression and tone told him she was ready to shut him down in a nanosecond if necessary.
“Yeah, it is. In those days, I was going to college at night and working during the day.”
“But it’s Grandad’s company.”
“That didn’t mean I could slack off,” he explained. “If anything, he was harder on me because we were related.”
“I know the feeling,” she muttered.
He refused to be sidetracked by even a mumbled verbal projectile. “The point is that between work and school, I put in a lot of hours away from home. It cost me time with you guys.”
She pushed her plate away. “What are you really trying to say, Dad?”
So much for his different tack. He put his fork down. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I made some choices that sent me on a path in life,” he said, recalling what Thea had said. “I love you and your sister very much and wouldn’t trade either of you for anything. But it was a path that took away my carefree youth. I don’t want to see that happen to you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Here we go.”
“About the pregnancy test,” he said. There was no subtle way to do this.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She started to get up.
“Sit, Ken. I need to know. Was the test positive?”
“You saw the stick,” she said, her hostility simmering. “Don’t you know?”
“Thea said the results are inaccurate if it’s been sitting for more than twenty minutes.”
She’d known right off the top of her head what the stick was and how to interpret it. Along with the rules that would affect the damn plus or minus sign. He’d had no idea. It must be a female thing.
“Look, Dad, I really don’t want to talk to you about this.”
“Believe me, I don’t like this any better than you. But I need to know if you’re pregnant or not.”
Her cheeks turned pink, and she stared down at her plate. “Not.”
The weight he’d felt on his shoulders lifted and inside he was pumping his arm and hollering hallelujah with an exclamation point. Outside, he struggled not to react at all.
“Okay. That’s good.” Now part two of the conversation that was every father’s worst nightmare. This was even worse than the birds and the bees talk that had led to an explanation of menstruation. At times like this, he was still angry as hell at his ex-wife for walking out. The hurt had disappeared long ago. But the resentment…he would carry that scar forever.
“The thing is, Ken, I’d have to be an idiot not to know you’ve had sex.”
She looked at the table, refusing to meet his gaze. “I so don’t want to talk to you about this. If you’re going to force me to stay, can you just give me the Cliff’s Notes on this lecture?”
“I’m not going to lecture,” he said. “This is a dialogue.”
“Meaning I have to talk?”
“T
hat would make it less like a lecture,” he pointed out. “Let me start by asking how you felt when you did the test.”
She looked as if she wouldn’t answer, then let out a sigh as she glanced up. “Scared,” she admitted.
“I bet. Believe me, I understand. But you dodged a bullet. You get another chance to get it right. By ‘it,’ I mean birth control.”
“I don’t need another chance.”
“If you think you’re immune from the consequences of unprotected sex, I’ve got news for you—”
“I know, Dad. I got the message when my period was late.”
“Then are we talking abstinence here?” he asked, his inner parent doing the dance of joy.
“Yes. I don’t ever want to do ‘it’ again.” Her eyes filled with tears.
He reached out and covered her hand with his own. It pleased him when she didn’t pull away because he couldn’t stand seeing her cry. Everything in him wanted to fix it—like he’d always done when she was a little girl. “What is it, Ken?”
“He was a creep. I can’t believe I was so stupid.”
“What?”
“In health class, the book said to use a condom because it’s not only about not getting pregnant. I asked him to, but he said it doesn’t feel as good. He said if I loved him I’d—” She met his gaze and said, “You know.”
Yeah, he knew. Damn it all to hell, he knew. He tamped down the urge to put his fist through the wall. “So you did?”
She nodded, rubbing at a spot on the wood table with her thumb when she couldn’t meet his gaze. “Then he dumped me. He went back to his girlfriend.”
“Son of a bitch—” Anger swelled like a mushroom cloud inside him. “Who is he? Josh Hammond?”
“No. We broke up a long time ago. You don’t know the guy.”
“How can I not know him? I always screen your dates.”
“Not always,” she said.
He didn’t have the reserves to deal with what he didn’t know about his daughter. “I’ll tear him apart. What’s his name?”
“No way. I’m not telling you,” she said, horrified. “I’d die. I’d have to go into the Witness Protection Program or something.”
He blew out a long breath. “Okay. No names. For now. But you can’t blame me for wanting to beat the crap out of him.”
“I don’t. But here’s the thing, Dad. After I knew I wasn’t pregnant, what bothered me most was how stupid I’d been. How I’d misjudged him.”
“Don’t feel like The Lone Ranger. I think that happens to everyone when a relationship goes south.”
“Like you and Mom?”
He’d felt betrayed for putting everything he had into making it work when she couldn’t have cared less. After that, relationship abstinence looked pretty good. And still did.
“Yeah, like me and your mom.”
Kendra shook her head as if she still didn’t understand. “But I’ve known this guy since kindergarten. How could I have been so wrong? Worse, how can I trust my judgment ever again? How can I go to UCLA, which is like a small city, and tell the good guys from the bad ones?”
Scott felt the Aha! light come on. On top of what Thea had said about leaving the familiar behind, this was part of his daughter’s problem with going away to school.
“You don’t have to know,” he said. “Don’t trust any guy. And above all, don’t sleep with any of them.”
One corner of her mouth quirked up. “That doesn’t help.”
“It’s good advice. Haven’t you ever heard the only man a girl can trust is her dad?” He grinned. “Seriously, Ken, I’ve said this before. You shouldn’t be—”
“Intimate until I’m in love or think I am,” she quoted in a singsong voice. Who knew she’d been paying attention? “The problem is, I thought we were in love. I didn’t know he wasn’t.” He opened his mouth to say something and she held up her hand. “Don’t worry. The false alarm scared me. I’m never sleeping with a guy again.”
He could tell her that in time she’d meet a nice guy who would appreciate the truly remarkable person she was. He could say that when she grew up, it would be easier to tell nice guys from the ones who were only after one thing. He could advise her not to judge all men by the one idiot. But he was a father, so he didn’t.
He patted her hand and said, “My work here is done.”
“Yeah, Dad,” she said, and rolled her eyes. But she was smiling.
“I guess it’s time to change the subject.”
“Oh, yeah,” she agreed.
“I have some news. I talked to Thea Bell this morning about catering your graduation party.”
“And?” Her blue eyes brightened.
To see that sparkle back where it should be had been worth eating a little crow. And Thea had only poked a little fun at him. If her cooking went down as easily as that crow, it would be a great party. “She took the job. I gave her a check and signed a contract.”
Kendra jumped up and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you, Daddy. You won’t regret it.”
How could he regret anything that made her call him Daddy?
“I’m sure I won’t.”
She sat down and pulled her plate toward her. “Don’t you just love Thea?”
Scott thought about the question and realized it was true. Not love; never again love. But he liked Thea. She was sweet, smart and sexy. Besides being all that and beautiful, too, she had an appealing sense of humor. And she was a widow. He realized that was all the 4-1-1 he had on the woman who knew so much about him.
He decided it would be a good idea to change that.
Several days later, Thea picked up the phone at her office desk to make a call when some movement on the sidewalk outside caught her attention. Her brain registered the fact that the strikingly good-looking man responsible was Scott Matthews. When her body got the message, her pulse and heart rate joined hands and started to boogie.
Boy, was she glad that Connie was in the back room. And that was silly because she would bet everything she owned that Scott wasn’t any kind of physical threat. Which could only mean some part of her believed he was an emotional hazard and her partner’s presence could prevent a meltdown.
He pushed open the door and walked inside. “Hi.”
“Hi, yourself.” She replaced the phone and noticed her hand was unsteady. Linking her fingers on top of her desk, she said, “To what do I owe this visit?”
Before he could respond, Connie walked into the front office. “T, I think we need to order—” She saw Scott and stopped. “Sorry. Is the dinger down? I didn’t hear anyone come in.”
Thea hadn’t heard the dinger, either, because she couldn’t hear a smart bomb go off over the blood pounding in her ears. So she ignored her partner’s question.
She held her hand out indicating the man in front of them. “Meet Scott Matthews. He’s the recently contracted client I told you about. Scott, this is my partner, Connie Howard.”
Scott held out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“You, too,” Connie said, blatantly checking him out as she shook his hand. “Thea didn’t tell me you were so—”
“How’s Kendra?” Thea shot her friend a warning look. “That’s his daughter. She’s graduating from high school and the reason he’s having the party we’re doing.”
“Right. The teenager.” Connie leaned against the desk without taking her eyes off him.
He looked from Thea to Connie and shuffled his feet. “Kendra’s fine.”
“Connie, don’t you have a cake to decorate back there?” Thea stared daggers.
The other woman stared back, then blinked and straightened. “Oh. Right. The Swanson shower. Bridal. Heart-shaped devil’s food with raspberry filling. Seafoam-green icing.”
When she was gone, Scott said, “Seafoam green?”
“The color of the bridesmaid’s dresses.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “How dense of me.”
“Yeah, I was going to say—” She shook her
head as one corner of her mouth quirked up. Then she met his gaze. “How is Kendra really?”
“Not pregnant.”
“I’m so glad,” she said.
“Me, too.”
“Was the conversation that produced this good news more listening or lecturing?” she asked.
“Half and half, I’d say. Actually when I shifted into lecture gear, she admitted she’d thought she was in love with the underhanded little twerp. He told her if she loved him she’d have sex without a condom.”
“Oh, no!” Shocked, Thea put her hand over her mouth.
“Oh, yes. But after sleeping with her, he dumped my daughter and went back to his girlfriend. I’d like to clock the little weasel.”
“Can I watch?”
His mouth curved up. “Unfortunately, Kendra swore me to nonviolence.”
“Too bad.”
“No kidding.” He folded his arms over his chest. “What’s worse, I think this is part of why she’s dragging her feet about college. She got burned by a guy she’s known practically all her life—”
“How can she trust herself with strangers?” Thea finished.
“Exactly.”
“Poor kid.”
“The silver lining is that she’s never going to have sex again.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
He sighed. “No. But if you’re the charitable sort, don’t give me a reality check for a while. This is my fantasy and I’d like to enjoy it for as long as possible.”
“Okay.” Thea laughed. “But I hope you told her that a man who really loves her wouldn’t be as concerned with his own pleasure as much as protecting her.”
“Actually, no. I was putting my testosterone to better use as I visualized the three hundred ways I planned to annihilate the little creep with my bare hands.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he slid her a wry look. “Besides, I’m a little rusty in that department.”
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