She was right.
Evie made a disenchanted face and lifted the crayon again. “Oh.”
“She’s right,” a voice said from above them. Betsy looked up, up, up, and into the smiling face of Matt Pollard.
He stood a few feet away, holding a large paper bag in one hand and looking like the kind of person who could handle anything, even a sweet-faced vandal. “Hi.” He gestured between her and Evie. “Having a private conversation, or can anyone join in?”
Betsy breathed a silent sigh of relief that he was there to help. “Feel free to contribute. I was just telling Evie the best place to draw her pictures.”
“So Evie’s an artist, is she?” He caught Betsy’s gaze and raised an eyebrow, clearly asking if this was the budding graffiti artist she had mentioned.
Betsy gave a small nod to indicate that yes, indeed it was, and pointed to the crayon in her hand. “Evie was just about to draw some flowers on the wall.”
Evie held the crayon higher so he could see it. “Blue ones.” She looked up at him with the same surprise Betsy felt at suddenly seeing him there. Then her mouth curved into a shy smile, and Betsy could almost see her little heart melting at the sight of the big guy with the sexy, five-o’clock shadow smiling back at her.
Or maybe he just reminded her of the father she’d lost. Betsy’s own smile faltered at the thought. “Evie, this is Matt. He’s a friend of mine.”
Matt squatted in front of the child and leaned toward her. “Hi, Evie. You know, I just realized, I have heard about your talent as an artist, and I’d love to own your drawings, but Betsy’s right. I mean, I couldn’t take a wall with me, so they’d really have to be on paper.”
Betsy nodded enthusiastically to drive home the point. “Definitely on paper. And then you can put all kinds of pretty frames around them.”
“That’d be the best.” Matt leaned closer to Evie, his tone sharpening with excitement. “I’d even buy them from you.”
Betsy nodded again, even more enthusiastically than before, eagerly seconding Matt’s bribe. “I’d buy them, too. And hang them on the wall in my apartment.”
Evie’s eyes grew wide at that. “Yeah?”
“Definitely,” Betsy said.
“No question about it.” Matt flashed his killer smile at the little girl.
Evie grinned, looking positively enthralled at the prospect. “’Kay.”
Betsy wanted to hug Matt because he was so good with kids. Well, at least with girl kids. Of course, so far he’d been pretty good with her too—a grownup girl—so maybe he was just good with girls of all ages.
The backdoor opened, and Iris came into the hall, looking slightly the worse for wear, but also looking visibly relieved because at least the search had been a success. She grasped one twin firmly by the hand and held the other against her breast, his tiny legs wrapped around her waist. “I found them.” She smiled at Betsy. “They were trying to climb into a dumpster. Thanks so much for helping, Ms.—”
“Betsy Kincaid, apartment Six-A.” Betsy started to get up.
Matt quickly stood and held out his hand to help.
“This is my friend Matt Pollard.” She gestured to Matt as he pulled her to her feet.
“Hi.” Matt smiled at Iris Donnelly.
It was the same kind of big, masculine smile that had sent the daughter’s heart into melt-mode, and Iris smiled back, obviously just as charmed.
Yep. Betsy bit back a silent sigh. The guy was definitely good with a wide range of the female demographic. She bet he really rocked the granny set, too.
“I’m Iris Donnelly, Twelve-C. You’ve already met Evie, and these are the twins—Richie in my arms, and Dougie holding my hand. My eldest son, Butch, is spending the night with one of his friends from first grade.” Iris’ voice and expression said, thank God for small favors.
“We’ve just been discussing Evie’s artistic talent, and she’s agreed to draw some pictures for us,” Matt said.
Seeing the sudden alarm on Iris’s face, Betsy quickly added, “On paper, so we can have them framed and hang them in our apartments.”
“Paper.” Iris breathed out the word, her voice a sigh of relief. “That’s wonderful. Thank you. Sometimes Evie likes to draw on things that aren’t completely appropriate, so I really appreciate your encouraging her to use a more suitable canvas. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get this group upstairs.” She wrinkled her nose and set Richie on his feet. “And wash the dumpster smell off my three-year-old explorers.”
“I’ll give you a hand.” Matt gave the paper bag he was carrying to Betsy. “Curry beef, diced-chicken-and-shrimp combo, and vegetable dumplings. It’s our dinner,” he told her, then turned and scooped Evie into his arms.
The crayon fell to the floor, but the little charmer was too busy grinning and clinging to him to notice, so Betsy did a quick sidestep, moving in front of the crayon to hide it while the child’s attention was still focused on the ride Matt was about to give her.
“You coming?” Matt looked around at her, but Betsy shook her head and held back. There was something she had to do first. “You go on. I’ll be along soon. Meet you at my apartment.”
Nodding, he hugged Evie a little tighter, making her giggle with delight as he bounced her in his arms and jogged to the elevator.
Holding each twin securely by the hand, Iris started after him, then paused and turned back to Betsy, lowering her voice to a confidential, girl-to-girl whisper as she nodded at Matt. “You have a nice one there. Good with kids, too. That’s always important.” She winked at Betsy. “If I were you, I’d keep him.” Then she turned and followed Matt to the elevator.
Betsy watched them pile inside, Matt still bouncing the giggly Evie in his arms and Iris carefully herding her twins before her.
Keep him. She watched the elevator door slide shut. As if something like that was even vaguely possible. After what he’d done to her over the past few days, her body would have loved to keep him. But gay guys were by definition un-keep-able for women, and Matt was doubly so since they weren’t in love, and never would be. Besides, even if he had been straight, Matt had already said that he wasn’t interested in permanent. Certainly not now. Maybe not for a long time to come.
“Crap,” she muttered as she looked down at Evie’s thwarted attempt at wall painting. Just thinking about their first two lessons was making her feel horny. She forced the memories away, put Matt’s Chinese takeout bag in her tote, picked up Evie’s fallen crayon, and took out a tissue and the small bottle of hand sanitizer she always carried with her. Then she scrubbed at the lone crayon mark, smiling when the color began to fade.
After a few minutes, she examined her handiwork and nodded. Good enough. There was still a small blue dot on the wall, but it was so vague that even Mrs. Lattimer would need a magnifying glass to find it.
Having done her good deed for the day, she went up to her apartment, the spicy scent of Chinese takeout filling her nostrils and the even spicier memory of her lessons with Matt Pollard filling her mind.
Chapter Eleven
Matt arrived at her door a few minutes later, carrying three drawings Evie had whipped up especially for him. “I wanted to give her a buck apiece for them”—he laid the drawings on an end table—“but Iris said it was too much, and if I promised Evie I’d buy them, then a little loose change was more than enough. So now I’m fifteen cents poorer, but several freshly minted Evie Donnelly artworks richer.”
Betsy shuffled through the drawings and smiled. They were different sizes and colors, but aside from those minor variations, the three were almost carbon copies of one another—a skirted stick figure bending over to smell a group of smiley-faced flowers.
“I think I detect a unifying theme in Evie’s work.” She put the drawings down and headed to the table where she’d set up Matt’s Chinese takeout.
He shrugged as he followed her. “Obviously her signature motif.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
Betsy nodded and sat down at the table. “Very cool.”
“What about you?” He sat across from her.
She began spooning rice from a serving dish at the center of the table and heaping it onto her plate. “What about me?”
“When I left Evie, she was starting to work on your art collection. Know where you’ll put it?”
Betsy smiled. “No problem. Her drawings are already guaranteed a place of honor on the wall near my desk.” She pushed the rice over to him and reached for the dish of curry beef, happily inhaling the savory-sweet aroma of succulent meat spiced with cinnamon and cumin. “Here, dig in. And thank you for the food. And for coming.”
He nodded as he filled his plate with rice. “My pleasure. Want to talk about why I’m here?”
Betsy stopped smiling and kept her head down, concentrating on the beef instead of his question. Of course, that was silly. He already knew how deficient she was. He’d even called her on her apologetic walk, so being evasive with the man made no sense. “Simple.” She looked up at him. “I tried to follow your advice.”
“My homework assignment, you mean? Different walk, different attitude.”
Betsy nodded. “The same. Anyway, I tried to follow it. I wasn’t doing too badly either, and then I saw Tyler with this co-worker, a real babe.” She shook her head and thought about how they’d looked together and how inferior it had made her feel. “He had his arm around her shoulders and this big, suggestive smile on his face, and…I don’t know, I just gave up.”
“What makes you think you were doing okay before he showed up?”
Betsy piled beef on her rice, then attacked the mound of food with her fork. “Someone in the office—he’s a little old for me maybe, but definitely male—winked at me when I arrived. He’s never done that before. No one there has ever done that before, not even Tyler when he was trying to get to know me, so I knew something about me must have been different.”
Then there was Flo’s great-sex comment, which pretty much summed up how Betsy felt—and obviously looked—that morning, but for some reason, it wasn’t something she wanted to share with Matt.
She picked up the dish of curry beef to pass to him, but he was already working on the diced chicken and shrimp so she put it down again. He shoveled the food onto his plate. At least she’d been right about something in her life. When she saw him eat breakfast the day they met, she thought he might have a big appetite for other things, like sex. It wasn’t far from the truth. She just wished she could be the same way. But she wasn’t.
Putting her fork down, she slumped back in the chair and closed her eyes with resignation. “Let’s admit it, Matt, I’m a failure.”
“We’re both failures.”
Betsy opened her eyes again and stared at him in disbelief. “Not you.”
He nodded. “Big time. Sam called me commitment-phobic, among other considerably less complimentary things.”
She shrugged and opened the container of vegetable dumplings. “Tyler said I had no sizzle.”
He pointed his fork, tipped with shrimp, at her. “I’m not against commitment, if I meet the right person.”
Betsy bit down on a dumpling. The crisp skin crunched beneath her teeth, oozing oil and shredded bok choy. “I sizzled for a while this morning.”
He pulled the shrimp off the fork tines and popped it in his mouth. “Gerri once said my foreplay went on too long.”
“Jim claimed I was frigid because I wouldn’t sleep with him.”
“No way are you frigid.”
Betsy set her dumpling aside and looked up at him. “No?”
“Remember lesson two?” He smiled as he chewed shrimp. “Actually, you were also damn hot during lesson one.”
Betsy smiled back. “Oh, yes, I remember lesson two. And lesson one. And your foreplay is terrific.”
“Not too long?”
She sighed. “Perfect.” Then she shook her head. “But I’m not perfect.”
Matt tossed his fork down and stood up. “Come on.” He grasped her arm and pulled her out of her chair. “Over on the sofa.”
Betsy reached back toward the table, desperately trying to snag the curry beef she’d left behind. “Food. I only had a salad for lunch. I’m hungry.”
With a groan, he grabbed the dumpling container and carried it with him as he tugged her toward the sofa.
“Hey!” She tried to shake him off, but it couldn’t be done. The man was pure muscle, up to and including his obstinate head.
Gritting her teeth in frustration, she dug her heels into the rug to stop their progress. But that also failed. With someone built the way he was, a little shoe friction just didn’t cut it, and a minute later, they were at the sofa, and he was pointing down at it with the dumpling container.
“Sit.” He pushed the container at her.
Betsy frowned at him, but sat and cradled the container against her. “Well, it’s true. I’m not perfect.”
He dropped down heavily beside her, making her bounce on the cushions. “Who is?”
Betsy ignored the question and its obvious answer. “You know something really dumb?” She reached into the dumpling container as she sneakily changed the subject. “Whenever I’m in a physical relationship or meet a man I think I’d be interested in having one with, I always get a bikini wax.”
“I know.”
She stared at him. “Oh.”
He shrugged. “I mean, I sort of noticed. Couldn’t help it, actually.”
Which made a lot of sense, so she stopped staring and relaxed against the pillows. “Uh-huh. Eighty-five dollars a session. Hurts like hell.”
He nodded. “Imagine it would have to.”
She plucked a dumpling from the container and rested her head against the back of the sofa. “I guess you never—”
“Had a bikini wax? No way.”
She made a face at him. “That’s not what I was going to ask. I was going to say, I guess you never did silly things you feel embarrassed about.”
Sliding lower so their heads were level, he snagged a dumpling from her container. “Sometimes I pick my teeth at the table. It always drove Andy crazy.”
Betsy frowned at this new guy suddenly appearing from out of nowhere. “Who’s Andy?”
Matt shrugged. “Another doomed relationship.”
Betsy stopped frowning. “Should have guessed.”
He nodded. “Back in college. After six months of what I considered to be a pretty good relationship, one glorious night, Andy raided my wallet, took the five-hundred bucks I had in it, and disappeared without bothering to say goodbye.”
“Oh God, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry, Matt.”
He shrugged. “Long time ago. Not important anymore.” He eased closer to her.
Even though she was still a little ticked he’d dragged her away from her curry beef, she didn’t even think about moving away, especially not after what he’d just told her about Andy.
“Once I got pissed at my sister Amy and buried all her dolls in the backyard.” He flashed a smile that told her the memory was more amusing than upsetting.
Relieved he was moving on to happier thoughts, Betsy bit into her dumpling. “That’s sort of harsh, isn’t it?”
He crunched into his dumpling, too. “Hey, I was only nine, and she’d just tossed my brand-new, indestructible, death-ray gun out of the attic window.” He shook his head and laughed. “Indestructible piece of junk smashed to smithereens on impact.”
Betsy winced. “Ouch, that’s even harsher than a buried doll. Okay, you’re forgiven. Amy deserved it. I once tied all my brother Danny’s underwear in knots after he told the boy next door I had a crush on him.”
Matt turned his head on the cushion and grinned at her. “That’s a little harsh too, but well-deserved.” He took
another bite of dumpling, chewed thoughtfully for a minute. “I cheated on my chemistry final in college, then went out drinking, got bombed and blabbed about it to this guy who blackmailed me into doing all his political science course papers for the following semester.” He shrugged. “I was good in political science, lousy in every other kind of science.”
This time, Betsy was the one who eased closer, touching shoulders with him, then hips, then thighs. “I tried to put a curse on this really mean bitch of a supervisor in the last place I worked. I was hoping it would get her fired.”
“Didn’t work, huh?”
“Nope. Instead, I got laid off and she got promoted to V.P.”
“Gotta be careful about those curses.” He polished off the last of his dumpling. “They can backfire on you pretty good.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t even think about doing it to Tyler.”
When his face seemed to darken at the mention of Tyler, Betsy forced back a sigh, sure it was probably because of all the trouble their breakup had caused him. She leaned forward, desperate to get their conversation back on track. “Matt, why did you become a lawyer?”
He blinked, and his expression smoothed out again, as though coming back from wherever his annoyance had taken him. “I really wanted to be a doctor like my sister Diana. But I have no aptitude for science.”
Betsy nodded with relief. “Hence, your chemistry-final disaster.”
“Exactly. So I went into law instead.”
“Do you regret it?”
“No, I love it.”
It was what she wanted to hear, and she smiled. “Good, I’m glad you found the right profession.”
“What about you?”
Betsy shrugged. “My job’s good, too. I’m satisfied.” She bit off the last piece of dumpling. “Are we going to have another lesson tonight?”
He moved closer. “We’re having it.”
“We are?”
“Sure, baring our souls and cuddling.”
“Cuddling is a lesson?” For some reason, it seemed like a whimsical idea to her, but one she could easily get into. What woman couldn’t?
“Better believe it.”
Operation Sizzle Page 13
