“If there’s enough, go for it. Here,” Kelly said, handing Coop the apartment key; boy and dog barreled out onto the porch, Aislin pounding the boards right behind them. An instant later all three were bouncing around in the front yard as though they’d had jumping beans for dinner.
“Yaaay!” Coop said, arms outspread as he whirled, and Kelly pressed her hand to her mouth, tears stinging her eyes that something as basic as snow, with a giant dog galumphing around them, was working magic on her little boy.
Coop grinned back at her. “Can we stay outside for a couple minutes? Please?”
“I suppose. But don’t you dare lose that key!”
“I won’t, I promise!”
He grabbed his sister and spun her around, their laughter mingling with the dog’s excited barking, and Kelly laughed as well, then lifted her head, breathing in the clean, snow-scented air.
“A foot, maybe, they said,” she said, almost reverently.
“Lucky us, right?”
Frankly, she’d been avoiding looking at Matt, afraid of what she might see. Or, worse, what he might. Poker faces were not her strong suit. Even so, between the gentle snow and her kids’ laughter and frankly being too tired to give a doodly-squat, when Kelly finally did turn to him she somehow felt...at peace. In control. Then he said, “I made up your bed, too,” and the peace shattered, severely wounding the control in the process.
“Even though I told you not to.”
“You can rip it apart and remake it if you want,” he said, and she looked away again. In the light from the streetlamp, fat, lazy flakes sparkled and twirled. As did Aislin, who then stumbled into the dog and went plunk on her butt...and let out a scream of laughter that made Kelly chuckle, too. Then she sighed.
A really heavy sigh that got a questioning look from the man standing beside her, close enough to get a whiff of leftover aftershave.
“What was that all about?” he said.
“Nothing. Really.”
“And if that’s true, you’d be the first woman on earth to actually mean it...and what the hell is she doing here?” he said as his sister’s seen-better-days Subaru pulled up in front of the house. A second later, Abby emerged, androgynous in her jeans and UGGs, a ridiculously long scarf coiled several times around her neck and shoulders.
“Hey, guys!” she called, and kids and dog all bounded over to her, where the two wee humans regaled her about the “great big snowman!” they were going to build tomorrow. After Abby promised that, sure, she’d help, she stomped up the porch steps.
“Out of hot chocolate mix, figured I could score some here....” Her brow slightly knotted, she looked from Kelly to Matt. “Everything all right?”
“Uh...yeah?” Matt said. “Why wouldn’t it be...?”
“Mom?” Cooper yelled over. “We’re freezing, so we’re going inside—”
“You guys want some hot chocolate?” Abby yelled back. “Stupid question, of course you do, you’re kids. Hang tight, I’ll get it and be there in a jiff—”
“No, it’s okay—” Kelly began.
“I was leaving, anyway,” Matt interrupted, but Abby shot them a look that would have quelled God.
“Whatever I interrupted,” she said under her breath, “you need to finish. And don’t give me any crap, either one of you.” Then she vanished inside the house, emerging almost immediately with the Nesquik, giving them both a you-may-now-proceed wave before trundling down the steps.
“She was a lot cuter when she was little,” Matt said, and Kelly smiled.
“And I think that’s called selective memory. She was a bossy little twerp, even then.”
“True.”
Silence pulsed between them for a few painful seconds before Matt said, “So. Is there something we need to finish?”
“Not that I can see,” she said, and started down the steps, hearing Matt follow, the boop-boop of his car unlocking...and suddenly years of keeping quiet, of keeping the peace, exploded in Kelly’s brain, and she whipped around and said, “Why did you make my bed when I told you not to?”
* * *
His car door already open, Matt turned, frowning. What the hell? “Because I’m a nice guy?”
“Of course you are,” Kelly said on puff of air, then sank onto the bottom step. In the snow.
Matt shut the car door. Leaned against the fender, his arms crossed. “Is there a problem?”
She yanked her coat closed, then linked her arms around her knees. “Yeah,” she breathed out. “You.”
“Excuse me...?”
“Because you are a nice guy. Too nice, maybe. And it’s not that I’m not grateful for everything you’ve done—I mean, the apartment kitchen? I was good with it the way it was, you didn’t have to redo it—”
“Actually, I did. Trust me.”
“Fine, whatever. But—” she rocked back and forth for a minute, like she was trying to work up to whatever she had to say “—I can’t let you keep doing stuff for me. Not that I don’t like it, or...or don’t appreciate it, because I do. Really. But letting other people take care of me... I’ve done that all my life. And now...I don’t dare. Not anymore.”
“I see,” Matt said. Not that he did, but it seemed the prudent thing to say.
“Because that’s what got me into trouble. Before, I mean. With Rick. It’s how I was raised, to let the man handle all the important stuff, to make all the decisions....” She shook her head. “And didn’t that blow up in my face?”
Matt pushed off the fender to go and sit beside her, but her hand shot out, stopping him. “No. Stay over there. Please.” When he settled back against the car, swiping snow off his hair, she said, “Rick promised to take care of me. I was good with that, and so was he. We each had our role and all that. And for a long time, things were good. But...”
She lifted her eyes to his, blinking in the snow. “It was all an illusion. Like...like a stage set for a castle wall. Looks real enough, but push it too hard, and wham.” She smacked the heels of her palms together, then tucked her hands back under her folded arms. Matt thought her teeth might have been chattering. “Wasn’t until things started going south between us that I finally realized I had to man up. And fast. For the kids’ sake, especially. And amazingly enough, I discovered I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself, and my children, of doing a heckuva lot more than I’d believed I could. Except...”
From the basement, they could hear, faintly, the kids laughing, the dog barking. A slight smile curved her mouth. “I’m not out of the woods, yet. I still feel...vulnerable.”
“For God’s sake,” Matt said quietly, “anybody would, in your situation. It’s been a rough week. Hell, from what you told me? A rough couple years—”
“I know that. Just as I know there will always still be times when I’ll need support from other human beings. Same as anybody else. That nobody can get through this crazy life entirely on their own. Which is why I brought the kids to your dad’s house. The problem is...” She laughed, a shaky, embarrassed sound that made Matt hurt for her.
“I mean, you’re a prince. Seriously. And I get that you can’t help being who you are. What you are. Unfortunately I can’t help being who I am, either. What I am. And what I am right now—and maybe forever—is someone who doesn’t dare let herself get sucked in by someone like you.” She almost smiled. “You are too good, Matt. Too kind and giving and, well—” the smile stretched a little more “—noble.”
“You say this like it’s a bad thing.”
“But that’s just it. For me, it is. A very bad thing. Because this nasty little voice keeps telling me I’m worn out and stressed and oh, my God it would be so easy to let you take care of me. To let you be The Man. But...I can’t grow if people don’t give me room to do that.”
“People meaning me, I take it?�
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“Meaning anybody. But since you’re the one standing here...”
Her voice drifted, but her gaze ka-plowed into his. Only for a second, but that was one intense second before she broke the connection, looking off to the side.
Huh.
God knows, Matt was no mind reader. Especially when it came to women, if his marriage was anything to go by. But it wasn’t like he could come right out and ask if there were more to Kelly’s objection than her simply not wanting him to play Sir Helps-a-lot, was it? Not without probably making things worse. And, anyway, random zings happened. Ninety-nine percent of the time they meant nothing. And he sincerely doubted this was that one-percent exception. On either of their parts. So that was one dog he was not about to wake up.
But he could ask... “So if this is such a problem, why are you here? Living in my house?”
She rubbed the toe of one boot for a moment, then looked up again. “Because the schools are great and the rent is good and because I know you won’t let the kitchen faucet drip for three weeks before you finally fix it. Probably.”
At that, he chuckled. “No, I definitely won’t let the faucet leak for three weeks—”
“Not that I couldn’t fix it myself, but that’s not my job.”
“Right—”
“And also because I’m not about to let my own issues get in the way of what’s best for my children.”
No. She wouldn’t. Again, Matt thought about that overheard conversation, the way she interacted with her kids. What she’d risked for their sakes—
His cell phone buzzed. Frowning, Matt plucked it off his belt, read the text through the snow, looked over to her. “It’s Abs. You ready?”
Nodding, Kelly stood, still hugging herself. “Did... What I said... Did you understand what I was getting at?”
“That you need your space? Sure.” Still, he heard the Colonel’s voice in his head, to watch out for her. Not that he needed any prodding. “Which you can have right after I walk you around to the apartment.”
“For heaven’s sake—”
“So sue me,” he said, hands crammed in his jacket’s pockets. The wind picked up, making him blink in the snow. “I’ve got this thing about looking out for people. Always have, from the time I was little.”
“I remember that,” she said softly, coming closer. “Even though Ethan was older, you were the one who’d keep an eye out on the younger kids. Especially the fosters.”
He felt his mouth stretch as they started around the house. “Pop used to say I must’ve been a border collie in another life.”
That got a little laugh. “Yeah, I can see that.” Kelly made a circling motion at her own face. “Around the eyes, especially,” she said, and Matt snorted.
But when they reached the apartment’s door, he touched her arm, making her face him. Droplets of melted snow streaked her glasses over cheeks reddened from the cold and another wave of tenderness shunted through him. Entirely inappropriate though it may have been.
“I can stay out of your way, if that’s what you really want. But if you need me—for anything—I’m here. Got it?” Then he walked away, feeling honorable as hell.
Or something.
Chapter Six
By mid-February, life had finally settled into something resembling a comfortable routine. Although, Kelly supposed, as she inched forward in the elementary school pick-up lane, Aislin’s tuneless singing behind her competing with the cold, relentless rain pounding the van’s roof, that depended on how one defined comfortable. Or routine.
Yes, she had her new health-department-approved catering kitchen and had lined up enough events to keep the wolf at bay for some time. And she’d found a fabulous part-time babysitter in Mrs. Otero, her always cheerful next-door neighbor. Matt had also been as good as his word, leaving her alone. Although she could tell, when they ran into each other—which they frequently did, since he was around all the time, working on the house and such—that it was killing him not to ask how she was doing, if there was anything he could do. But so far he’d kept his promise.
Except for the texts. The text giving her Mrs. Otero’s number, or the lead on the kitchen—honestly, the man had more connections than a sorority sister—or telling her that his brother Tyler coached Coop’s age group in soccer, if she was interested.
Oh, and giving Coop Ty’s old bicycle. The kid had outgrown his first two-wheeler a year ago, but with everything else going on Kelly hadn’t gotten around to replacing it.
Yeah, the dude was her angel, all right. An angel who refurbished twenty-year-old Power Rangers bikes so they looked practically new. Especially to her slightly weird third-grader who actually thought it was cool that the bike was old.
Her slightly weird, but very brave, third-grader who’d announced he wanted to try going back to school before Kelly even broached the subject. Three weeks in, things seemed to be going well on that front, too, thank God.
Through the downpour drenching the entire East Coast, she saw Coop slaloming through a million other kids toward them. She waited...waited...then punched the side-door button at the precise moment that allowed the child, but not the deluge, access. Bam.
“How was your day?” she asked once he was buckled in.
“Okay. We had a math test. Where’s Alf?”
Kelly eased into the line of cars circling toward the street. “You think I’m gonna bring a hundred-and-twenty-pound dog out in this,” she said over Linnie’s singing, “you’re nuts. And how’d you do on the test?”
“I got a 95.” Kelly gave him a thumbs-up between the bucket seats. He giggled, then said, “Can I ride my bike?”
“In this weather? As if.”
“It’s only rain. And I got a 95!”
“No.”
“I’ll wear my helmet and pads—”
“No.”
“Fine,” the kid said on a “Moms, yeesh” sigh. “In other news...I made another friend. Tad. I think he lives close, can he come over sometime?”
“You bet. Any homework?”
“Nah, ’cause I already did it. But I’ve got a library book to read and do a report on....”
For the rest of the short drive back to the house, Coop nattered on about PE—dodgeball—the assorted critters living in his classroom and the sucky food in the cafeteria...could he please take lunch? And the normalcy of the conversation was such a relief Kelly nearly cried. So what if it was boring? Right now, boring was good. Heck, boring was heaven. She wanted to wrap herself up in boring, marry it and have its babies—
“Hey—what’s Matt doing on the roof?” Coop asked as they pulled into the driveway.
Being an idiot? Kelly thought, unbuckling her seat belt as her firstborn exploded from the car. Although the rain had downgraded from monsoon to miserable, still not exactly ideal weather for tramping around on two-story roofs. What the hell?
Matt looked down as the wind puffed out his gray poncho, making him look like an evolving jellyfish. And yet still sexy. Go figure.
“Leak,” he yelled down. Not smiling. Understandable, since poncho or no, he had to be soaked to his skivvies.
“Oh, no,” Kelly yelled back, lamely, trying to nudge her brain past skivvies, soaked and Matt in the same thought. She’d have better luck herding cats. Or, in this case, a fascinated eight-year-old into the house.
“Coop!” she called, trying to coordinate springing Aislin from her car seat while putting up her umbrella, a move that, alas, she’d yet to master. With any grace, at least. “In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s pouring! Get inside!”
“Jeez, Mom! I’m not gonna melt!” Hand still visoring his face, he glanced over. “And no, I’m not gonna get sick, either. Germs make you sick. Not weather.”
Briefly, Kelly mourned the removal of “You’ll catch you
r death!” from the Top Ten Mom Threat List, only to decide to skip logic—outdated or not—and go straight to “Because I said so.”
“Cooper Eugene Harrison! Inside! Now!”
Seconds later, the warm, dry, beef-stew-scented apartment greeted them like an old friend. Amazing, she thought as she wiped her fogged glasses, then peeled damp—or, in Coop’s case, sodden—clothes from little bodies, how quickly the place had begun to feel like home. Yep, warm, and dry, and safe—
Alf’s sudden crazed barking nearly gave Kelly a heart attack.
“Someone’s knocking!” Coop yelled as Aislin, curls a blur, shoved past the dog, yelling, “I got it, I got it!”
“No, you don’t got it, little girl,” Kelly said, scooping her eager little door-person into her arms before checking the peephole. Even though, given the dog’s frantic whining and scratching at the door, who else would it be? And explain to her how Matt Noble was the only person in the world who, through a peephole, didn’t look like something out of a freak show? “We do not open doors unless Mama says it’s okay,” she said into those curls. “Got that?”
“Uh-huh. ’Zit okay?”
“Since it’s Matt, yes,” she said, setting the child on the floor and thinking, as she unlocked the dead bolt, steeling herself against all those humidity-plumped pheromones, so much for safe. “So you may open the door.”
After much tugging and grunting—heavy door, good to know—it finally swung open. And there he was, looking good. Wet, but good. And clutching a large plastic bag with a toy store name on it.
“Hi, Matt,” the baby said, doing her half twisting, half bouncing Linnie wiggle. As was the dog, who was yodeling as though she hadn’t seen Matt in years. “Mama said I couldn’t...open the...door unless she said it was okay. But then she did. ’Cept...” Midwiggle, Linnie frowned up at Kelly through the wild curls, and she moved “trim Linnie’s hair” up on the to-do list. Because three-year-olds really shouldn’t look like Medusa. “You didn’t say if he could come in.”
The Real Mr. Right Page 9
