Kisses And Kids (Congratulations Series #1)

by Andrea Edwards

  “In either case, thank you.”

  “Like I said, don’t mention it.” He stood up. “I’ve got some reports to go over tonight.”

  Trisha followed suit and also stood up.

  “Thank you again for the use of the van,” she said, holding out her hand. “But most of all, thank you for helping with the kids this weekend.”

  He took her hand. It was so soft, so gentle, yet he had a feeling there was steel inside it. He wished he had the time or courage to look for it.

  “It was no big deal.”

  “It was a big deal to the kids,” she said. “They really enjoyed having you along. You made quite an impression on them.”

  “I was just somebody new.”

  “Well, we could always use new blood, that’s for sure.”

  Pat held his breath. Something in the tone of her voice set off an alarm inside his head.

  “Maybe you could become more active with the club.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” His mind raced, searching for ways he could be of help. “I could do fund-raising and stuff like that.”

  “Stuff like that?” she said.

  He didn’t like the look in her eyes. “Yeah, stuff like that.”

  “Safe stuff,” she said.

  Her words stung like a whip. And he was surprised to see suddenly how old her eyes looked. But then, everyone aged faster on the west side. Even sweet, little suburban types like Trisha Stewart.

  “A lot of people can do fund-raising,” she said. “I was thinking that someone like yourself, someone who came from the neighborhood, could give something much more valuable. Something the kids could really use. Like yourself.”

  Her eyes had grown so intense that Pat had to look away.

  He knew exactly what she was talking about. Reach out and touch some kids. Get personally involved. Try to wean them away from the streets. But why would she ask him to do that? Hadn’t he told her about Angel? Didn’t she see that he’d tried once and failed? If he couldn’t help his own brother, how the hell was he going to help anyone else?

  “School is starting later this week,” she said. “A lot of the kids could use someone to guide them. You know, make sure they stay on top of things.”

  “I thought you usually got college kids for tutors.”

  “We have plenty of tutors from the high schools and colleges,” Trisha said. “I was thinking more of a big-brother figure.”

  Oh, yeah. That was something he’d be great at, especially with all his experience. He knew how to make a first-class mess out of that kind of a relationship.

  “We’re having a meeting for the tutors tomorrow night, a get-acquainted, coffee-and-cookies thing,” she said. “Why don’t you drop by?”

  Her manner was so easy, her tone so friendly. Yet she wouldn’t quit. He knew that. The odds were high that she wouldn’t leave until he said yes.

  Which, given his mood and mental condition, was the best thing to do right now. Say yes and get her out of the house. Get those lovely green eyes out of his sight. Then, after a good night’s sleep, he could call from the office tomorrow. Leave a message saying that something had come up. Back out gracefully.

  Back out like a coward, a little voice told him, but he turned a deaf ear to those words, telling himself that sometimes a body had to fight fire with fire.

  * * *

  Trisha looked out over the small crowd in the game room, making a conscious effort not to let her eyes linger on Pat. “Any more questions?” No hands waved. “Great. Then those people who tutored last year leave your schedule on the back table. New people should see Clarissa for their assignment. Thank you all for coming.”

  There was a general shuffling of papers and feet as people began to file out. Pat was sitting at the back, but Trisha took her time greeting people, trying to make all feel welcome. She was glad to see Pat here, but she was not going to let her heart make more of it than it was. That kiss Saturday night had been a gigantic mistake; it threw their whole relationship off and she wanted to get it back on the right footing.

  “Thanks for coming,” she told a pair of college students.

  “Good to see you again,” she said to a retiree who’d been helping out at the club longer than she’d been there.

  Gradually she worked her way to the back of the room, stopping at the table where Clarissa sat. “Need any help?” Trisha asked.

  “Honey, if I can’t manage this itty-bitty crowd, we’re in trouble.” She nodded over toward Pat. “Ain’t that the van man? And if it is, why are you talking to me when you ought to be rolling out the red carpet for him?”

  “I’ll get over there,” Trisha said. “I think all our volunteers should be made to feel welcome.”

  Clarissa made a big show of looking around Trisha toward where Pat was getting to his feet. “Funny,” she said. “He don’t look like he bites.”

  Trisha frowned at the woman. “Who said he did?”

  Clarissa just shrugged. “Must be some reason you’re scared to go near him.”

  “I am not,” Trisha snapped under her breath, then smiled brightly at a volunteer who stopped at the table. “Clarissa here can help you.”

  Trisha kept her smile in place as she nodded at the people filing out and made her way slowly back to Pat. She was not afraid of him in any way, but neither was she going to fuss over him. For all she knew, that would scare him away faster than anything. Still, her heart was beating a little bit faster the closer she got to him.

  “Hi,” she said and stopped in front of him. “Glad you could make it.”

  He nodded. “I was a bit late. Guess I misunderstood what time my secretary told me the meeting was.”

  “No problem.” She didn’t tell him that she’d purposely told Danielle the wrong time, just so he couldn’t drop by early with some excuse why he couldn’t get involved. “I don’t think you missed anything vital.”

  “That’s good.”

  They started walking slowly toward the door, following the last few people still in the room. The aisle was narrow, though, and they had to walk closer than Trisha would have preferred. She was all too conscious of his height and how he made her feel small and fragile. She was too aware of his arm brushing against her as they walked and the fact that his nearness seemed to drive all sensible conversation from her brain.

  “You ever think of going into sales?” he asked.

  She turned to frown up at him. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “You really had the troops stirred up,” Pat replied. “They were ready to follow you through fire.”

  “You’re exaggerating, but I appreciate the compliment.” Suddenly she wondered if he had been praising her or had been sarcastic. “That was a compliment, wasn’t it? Not another ballet remark.”

  “Am I ever going to live that down?”

  He grinned at her and she felt as if she’d been sipping champagne—light-headed and giddy. She was sorry she’d made the joke. It had been stupid, an opening for the intimacy that seemed to rise so quickly between them. But that she didn’t want.

  She went over to the refreshment table and unplugged the coffeepot. Then she began gathering empty cups, tossing them into the trash can near the door. “You have to fire the volunteers up,” she told him, her eyes on her work. “You have to get them filled with a positive energy that will carry them through the low points.”

  He took the lid off the coffeepot and pulled out the basket of grounds, emptying it in the trash. “And does it work?”

  “Most of the time.”

  Clarissa reached in to grab a cookie. “I got all the schedules here,” she said. “We should have most of the kids covered.”

  “That’s great. I’ll look at them in the morning.”

  Clarissa eyed them both, then turned back to Trisha. “Want me to stay and help clean up?”

  “I’ll help her,” Pat said before Trisha could think up a reason to keep Clarissa there.

  “Great.” The woman picked up the coffeepot. �
��I’ll empty this on my way out. See you in the morning.”

  Trisha watched Clarissa leave, sighing silently as she heard her footsteps die away down the hall. She was not worried about being here alone with Pat. He was a volunteer, that was all.

  She wrapped a plate of cookies in aluminum foil and went back to talking about her speech. “If I told these college kids about all the difficulties they would encounter, half of them would walk out before I finished my sentence.”

  Pat gathered up all the clean cups and stuck them in one corner of the table, then rolled up the dirty paper tablecloth. “We can’t have that,” he said.

  “You’re damn right we can’t,” Trisha said, spinning around to face Pat. “Without help, my kids are nowhere. My product is turning disadvantaged kids into good, useful, productive citizens. And I don’t care how I do it, but I will do it.”

  They stared at each other and Trisha could feel her hands quiver slightly. So now Pat knew that she would do anything to help her kids. So what? That certainly didn’t make her dishonest.

  Pat stuffed the paper tablecloth into the trash, then turned back to Trisha with a sigh. “I was going to back out on you,” he admitted.

  Now they were getting down to the nitty-gritty. “I thought so,” Trisha said.

  He pulled a chair over, turned it around and sat down, leaning his arms on the back. “How did you know?”

  “Law of averages.” Trisha leaned back against the table. “About half the people who volunteer try to back out of the commitment. A lot of times they agreed just to get rid of me.”

  He looked away. “I was going to call you this morning—”

  “And leave a message,” she finished for him. “Something unexpected came up. You wouldn’t have as much time as you’d first thought.”

  His gaze came back to her, an uneasy smile on his face. “It didn’t seem like a very manly way of handling the situation,” he said, clearing his throat before he looked away again. “So I thought I’d come down here early and talk to you one-on-one.” He turned back to look at her, shrugging a little. “But like I said earlier, I must have gotten the time wrong.”

  “Those things happen,” she replied.

  Suddenly his smile changed. Frown lines filled his forehead and his gentle look turned hard. A warmth moved into her cheeks but Trisha refused to look away.

  “That was kind of sneaky,” he said. “Wasn’t it?”

  There was no need to answer, so she didn’t.

  “I mean, giving my secretary the wrong time so we wouldn’t be alone when I got here.”

  Trisha just shrugged. “I told you I do whatever’s necessary to help the kids. And Rulli and Angie need all the help they can get.”

  He just continued looking at her.

  “They both have a lot of potential, but they’ve just had themselves a string of bad luck. Both their parents are dead— their father years ago, their mother just last year—and they’re living in a tiny household with a great-aunt and -uncle, and some older cousins. It was supposed to be a temporary situation, but nothing else has come along.”

  “That’s not uncommon,” Pat guessed.

  “No, but something’s going to have to change. Their great-uncle has emphysema and has been getting much sicker. Their great-aunt can’t take care of him and give the kids the attention they need. It’s a real unstable situation, but with someone like you working with them, they’ll have some stability in their lives.”

  Pat rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess you wouldn’t take my backing out very well, would you?”

  “I’d hit you with a big stick and stomp you into dust.”

  “I’m a big boy, you know. You don’t have to beat around the bush with me. Just tell me straight out what you’d do to me.”

  She smiled at him, a genuine smile straight from her heart. “I’d very much like you to work with Rulli and Angie.”

  He looked down at the floor.

  “I know it’ll be hard,” she said. “But the rewards are more than worth it.”

  Pat continued looking at the floor. Without seeing his eyes, she had no idea what his thoughts were.

  “I mean, when you see them walk across the stage and get that college sheepskin, you’ll burst with pride.”

  Pat’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. Oh, Lord, Trisha thought, she’d gone too far.

  “Okay. We’ll work on getting them into middle school first,” she said quickly. “All you have to do is be a role model, a guide, a friend.”

  That seemed to relax him. She slid off the table and walked over to where he sat, turning a chair around and straddling it, her arms resting on the back, just as he was sitting. Only a few tiny inches were separating them. She could breathe in the woodsy scent of his after-shave and see the tiny flicker of concern in his eyes.

  A strange boldness seemed to take hold of her. Maybe it was because she was tired, or still high from the camping trip. She didn’t really care as she reached out and took his hand in hers.

  “I know you can do it, Pat. You can do anything you set your mind to. You’ve proven that all your life.”

  “Right,” he replied. “Like if I want to run away, I can just turn around and go.”

  “Those kids won’t let you down.” She tightened her hold on his hand, as if she could pass her urgency along to him. “You’ll be paid back tenfold for everything you put into that relationship.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Hey,” she said. “You know what happens when you throw your bread upon the water.”

  “You get soggy bread?” He sighed and got to his feet. “All right. I’d be a heck of a role model and probably a lousy guide, but maybe I can handle being their friend.”

  “That’s great, Pat,” she cried, jumping to her feet. Without another thought, she threw her arms around him. “You’re going to make such a difference to those kids.”

  “Anything to please,” he said, his voice sounding slightly ragged.

  Trisha suddenly stopped, and looked up into his face. She felt a tiny spark flare up in her heart and saw an answering flame in his eyes. Her pulse was racing, her breath was nonexistent, her soul was aquiver. For several centuries, they seemed to stare into each other’s eyes, seeing each other’s soul, and words were somehow unnecessary.

  Then, ever so slowly, he leaned over to meet her lips with his. It was a sweet, deliberate kiss, a pledge of their friendship, a searching of their hearts, an acknowledgment of this strange attraction that seemed to bind them together. They pulled apart gently, but their eyes stayed locked.

  “This isn’t part of the ‘anything’ I’d do for my kids,” she said.

  “It isn’t part of what I figured volunteering here would include.” His smile turned infinitely tender and he reached over to tuck a curl behind her ear.

  “In fact, I’m not sure it’s wise,” she went on.

  “I’m certain it isn’t.”

  “Something between us would just complicate things.”

  “Or we can just ignore it.”

  She let her smile grow wider. “That’s always a possibility.”

  “One we should work on.”

  * * *

  “More windows to fix?” Carl asked.

  Pat nodded as he placed the window sash rope on the counter of the hardware store. It was Labor Day weekend and he had all three days planned—busy hands would keep his mind busy. Too busy to let a certain blonde wander into his thoughts.

  “Yeah,” Pat said. “That old house has a lot of windows.”

  “You ever thought of replacing them all with new ones?”

  “Sure,” Pat replied. “Just as soon as you start selling them. You know, those kind where the frames are made of plastic.”

  Carl gave him a frown before ringing up the sale. The Howard Street Hardware Store was the place where you could find a bracket for something installed fifty years ago. Pat knew that hell would freeze over before Carl would carry anything like plastic-framed windows.


  “When you going to quit fooling around with that house and hire a professional?” Carl asked.

  “That house has been around longer than the two of us together,” Pat replied. “There’s very little I can do to harm the old place.” He gave Carl even change and picked up his package. “Besides, I enjoy that kind of fooling around. Helps me wind down from the aggravation of my job.”

  “You ought to get married,” Carl grumbled, handing Pat his receipt. “You won’t know real aggravation until you do.”

  “Can’t do that.” Pat made his way to the door where he paused and turned. “I got me a real bad case of bacheloritis.”

  “I’ve seen bigger men than you fall,” Carl called after him.

  Pat smiled and waved as he stepped out the door.

  It wasn’t a matter of falling or standing. What it was, was knowing who you were. Knowing where you fit and where you didn’t. And he fit exactly where he was. Bachelor, manager and amateur refurbisher of an old home. He had everything; there was no reason to change. Yep, ignoring that spark between him and Trisha was the best thing he could do.

  “Excuse me.”

  Pat stopped just before running into a middle-aged woman coming out of the bakery next door. She looked almost like Trisha and his heart practically stopped. Was she so in his subconscious that he was seeing a resemblance in everyone?

  “Mr. Stuart, isn’t it?”

  Pat just stared at the woman. Usually he was pretty good at remembering names, but he was just drawing a blank. “Yes?”

  But the woman wasn’t looking at him anymore; she was leaning back through the half-open bakery door. “Honey, come out here and say hello.”

  “Mother.” The word was said on a sigh and it was only when the other woman came out of the bakery that Pat realized the second woman was Trisha.

  “See,” the older woman said. A note of pride was in her voice as if she’d bagged the largest salmon. “I told you it was him.”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t.” Trisha’s cheeks were bright red as she turned to him. “Hello, Pat.”