The Husband Recipe

by Linda Winstead Jones

  “Of course I do.”

  “I thought so. You’d make a really good mom.”

  Lauren’s heart broke a little, for the child who’d lost his own mother. “Maybe one day,” she said.

  She heard the mattress creak, and turned as Hank was crawling under the covers. “Don’t you need to brush your teeth?”

  “Nope,” he said decisively. “Around here we only do the minimum.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The minimum. Once a day is the minimum.”

  “No.” Lauren sat on the edge of the bed and straightened the covers around Hank’s neck. “After every meal is the minimum.”

  “No way,” Hank said softly, his eyes already closing.

  “Yes way.”

  “I don’t have many teeth to brush anyway,” Hank said, and then he was gone, asleep with a single breath and the comfort of his own bed.

  Lauren finished the job of tucking him in, then left the room with unnecessary caution. She could’ve been singing at the top of her lungs and Hank wouldn’t have heard a thing. She turned off the light, pulled the door partway closed, and took a deep breath. Tea, shower, pajamas…

  Lauren turned around and literally ran into Cole Donovan’s chest. It wasn’t fair; he even smelled good.

  She mumbled an apology and stepped back. He didn’t move at all.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  Tea, shower, pajamas, bed. It was a great plan, right? She looked up, caught those incredible blue eyes and mentally prepared a polite Thanks, but no thanks. But the word that came out of her mouth was “Starving.”

  Chapter Five

  Feeding Lauren was the least he could do. She’d rounded up some peanut butter crackers and juice for the kids at the hospital, thanks to an array of vending machines, but Cole was pretty sure his cute neighbor wasn’t a crackers-and-juice kind of woman. He hadn’t been able to eat, not with Justin bleeding all over the place, and if she was half as hungry as he was, she’d be happy with cardboard and tepid water.

  Cole opened the fridge and leaned in, studying the contents for something quick and tasty. Lauren came up beside him and leaned in, too, and he was strikingly aware of how close she was. For a moment, just a moment, he could barely breathe.

  “There’s leftover lasagna,” he said, peeking beneath the foil covering the dish.

  “No,” Lauren said decisively. “That looks like just enough for a meal for four. You should save that for supper tomorrow.” She reached in and touched the lid of a plastic container. “What’s this?”

  “Tuna salad.”

  “When was it made?”

  “Don’t you trust me?” He turned his head and smiled at her.

  She responded with a smile of her own and a very soft, “Humor me.”

  “It’s left over from yesterday’s lunch.”

  “Tuna salad it is.”

  Cole grabbed the container and they both backed away. Lauren made herself at home, grabbing a loaf of bread off the counter and checking a couple of cabinets for glasses. “I’m just going to have water,” she said. “You?”

  “The same.” It was that or apple juice or fruit punch, since it was too late for coffee. He needed to sleep tonight.

  Without talking they made sandwiches and glasses of ice water. It didn’t take long. He grabbed a bag of potato chips and tossed them onto the center of the kitchen table. When Lauren started to sit, Cole stopped her with a raised hand and a sharp, “Not there!”

  Lauren stopped, looked up at him and smiled wickedly. “Why not? Is this seat saved?”

  He found himself smiling again. “That’s Justin’s chair. You’re very likely to sit in grape jelly or pancake syrup. I haven’t checked today, but it’s possible.”

  Lauren looked down, studied the chair, declared it all clear and sat. He took the seat directly across from her, and they both took a few bites before they said another word. Sharing a quiet, late-night meal was strangely comfortable, even though he barely knew Lauren Russell.

  Considering her profession, he’d half expected her to turn up her nose at tuna sandwiches, chips and water, but she ate her meal as if it were as fine as her lasagna. Hunger would do that to a person, he knew.

  “I have to thank you again,” he said. “Sorry to say, I’m a complete wuss when it comes to any crisis that involves that much blood.”

  “That’s completely understandable,” Lauren said. “It was alarming for me, and I’m not a parent. Yet,” she added.

  His few dates in the past several years had all been disasters, but then, the women had been all wrong. He had a feeling Lauren could be all right, but did he dare to pursue the spark he couldn’t deny? His determination to wait aside, was there something here worth pursuing? Maybe so. The coward in him told him to eat in silence and then tell her good-night. A part of himself that had been buried for years wanted more. “Have you ever been married?”

  Lauren shook her head and grabbed another chip. “I was engaged once, but it didn’t work out. Just as well,” she added in a lowered voice.

  Cole tried to imagine what kind of an idiot would let a woman like Lauren slip through his fingers. Maybe she’d kicked the fiancé to the curb—that made more sense.

  He was exhausted and so was she. He felt drained, spent…and not in a good way. And right now he was perfectly happy to sit here and look at Lauren, for a while. Her skin was perfect and he had to make an effort not to reach out and take her hand to see if it felt as soft as it looked. Her hair looked as if it had been touched with sunshine, and her eyes were lively and smart. They didn’t miss much.

  Did they miss where his mind had taken him?

  Yeah, as if he’d make a move on a woman at the end of a day like this one.

  He had no spare time, and his recent history with dating was not encouraging, but he wondered if Lauren Russell could—maybe—be more than a helpful neighbor.

  “I looked you up on Google,” he confessed. “After you came to the door that first day.”

  She tilted her head and looked him in the eye. “You did?”

  “Yeah. No wonder the food you brought over was so good. You’re an expert in the kitchen.”

  She took a small bite of her sandwich and seemed to consider her glass of water while she chewed. “Not an expert, exactly,” she said after she’d swallowed. “There’s a constant learning curve. I’ve never mastered cooking on a grill, and I don’t think I’ll ever make a white cake as perfect as my grandmother’s.”

  “If I can be blunt, you need a new publicity photo for your website. You’re much prettier in person.”

  She blushed, a little. “I had a different photo up at first, but I kept getting email from men in foreign countries. And one in California. I was asked out on several dates, which would’ve required me to buy a plane ticket, either for myself or for the man who was doing the asking, and I even got two very passionate marriage proposals. If someone wants to stalk me it should be for my recipes, not for…well, whatever.”

  “So the turtleneck and the slightly insane smile…”

  “Very much on purpose.”

  Lauren lifted her sandwich, set it back down, and looked him squarely in the eye. “And since you’ve been honest I should tell you…I looked you up, too, that same day. Whiplash.”

  He laughed lightly, even though he knew very well what Lauren would’ve found in the simplest search. She knew it all. His career, losing Mary, leaving the game… He usually hated knowing his life was out there for anyone and everyone to find and study and pick apart, but he decided he didn’t mind that Lauren knew. “Nobody’s called me Whiplash for a very long time.”

  “My grandmother does. She was a big fan.” She left it at that, didn’t go into detail about what she’d found or ask questions about the decisions he’d made. After a moment, she smiled. “You know, we were probably looking each other up at the same time.”

  “Welcome to the big wide world of the internet.”

  What were the odds that he
’d buy a house next door to a woman like this one? There were pretty women everywhere, and there were more than enough single women out there. Lauren was different. He was at ease with her; he could be himself. Even though he knew it was unwise…he wanted more.

  She rose and started to clean the table, but he stopped her, standing and placing a hand over hers. “You’ve done enough today. More than enough. I’ll clean up.”

  He didn’t move his hand; she didn’t jerk away. In fact, she lifted her head and looked him in the eye for a moment that went on too long. That gaze fed him as surely as the food and water had.

  Bad idea.

  He snatched his hand away, and Lauren took a step back. She blushed again and turned her head to the side. “I have to get home. You must be exhausted and ready for bed.”

  It wasn’t his imagination that she almost choked on the word bed.

  “I’ll walk you to your door,” he said.

  She shook her head and walked out of the kitchen with purpose in her step. “That’s not necessary.”

  “But…”

  “Really, Cole, it’s not that far.”

  She seemed insistent—anxious to get away—so he compromised. “I’ll watch from the porch until you get inside, then.”

  She nodded, said good-night and headed for home. There was just enough light from his front porch, and hers, for him to watch the sway of those hips as she all but ran for home.

  Tea, shower…then what? Somehow her very clear and easy plans for the evening had been torn apart when Cole had asked her if she was hungry. Lauren slammed the door behind her and leaned against it. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and recited her list of requirements for a serious relationship. She noted all the requirements that Cole Donovan did not meet. She made herself remember the chaos that had first driven her to knock on his door…. And honestly, did she really think it would be a good idea to get involved with a man who had three children?

  Nothing and no one could blow a hole in her neat schedule and reasonable plans the way Cole Donovan could.

  But then she remembered the way she’d felt when Cole touched her hand; how nice it had been to sit across the table from him late at night, talking as if they’d known one another forever. Laughing, confessing…it had felt right and natural. And to be fair, the noise from next door didn’t bother her the way it once had. Cole’s children had a charm of their own, a devastating charm obviously inherited from their father.

  Cole was a little rough around the edges, not at all her type, but just being in the same room with him gave her the shivers.

  Lauren had thought herself immune to a man’s charms, more practical than she’d been in her younger years. She’d thought that by this time in her life she would be capable of separating cold, hard facts from the effects of hormones.

  Apparently not.

  Cole lay in bed, wide-awake long after he’d watched Lauren walk home. Justin slept on beside him, breathing deep and easy. There was no concussion, nothing more than a bad cut in a place that bled like there was no tomorrow. A good cleaning, a couple of stitches, a cherry lollipop, and Justin had been right as rain. The days when a lollipop could cure all ills were long gone for Cole. His head was still spinning; his stomach had been in knots since he’d heard Meredith scream.

  He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Lauren he didn’t handle crises very well. Not where his kids were concerned.

  The world wasn’t a safe place, not for anyone. Least of all for a child. At the same time, he couldn’t wrap his kids in cotton and hover over them 24/7. That wasn’t any way to live. Not for him and not for them. Knowing that didn’t keep Cole from worrying. He knew too well how fragile life could be. He knew too well how quickly a man could go from being on top of the world to wondering how he was going to make it through tomorrow.

  He wondered if he’d feel any differently if his mother was alive and close by. She’d died three years before Mary, and since Cole had never known his father and had no siblings, that part of his family had died with her. He still missed her; always would. Mary’s parents lived in Florida, and if their health allowed they made a couple trips a year up this way. Ted was in a wheelchair and Debra hadn’t been in good health for as long as Cole had known her. They weren’t—couldn’t be—the kind of grandparents the kids could rely on for stability, for caretaking. The kids loved their grandparents, and Ted and Debra loved their grandkids dearly. But when it came down to the nitty-gritty, all his children had was an aunt who was more overprotective than he was and him. They would always have him.

  As his brain began to unwind, the picture of Lauren Russell sitting in the E.R. with a couple of his kids wrapped around her popped into his head. He could see her walking away, making the short trip from his front door to her own with that nice, feminine sway in her hips. She was trouble of the worst kind, and he’d known it the first time he laid eyes on her. He didn’t think, like his kids did, that she was “after” him in any way. If anything, she was as wary of him as he was of her. To think of her as trouble wasn’t exactly right. She just had the potential to be trouble, if he allowed it.

  After Mary’s death, women had come out of the woodwork hoping to take her place. It had made him so angry that they’d thought his wife, the mother of his children, the woman he’d loved since he was sixteen, could be so easily and quickly replaced. It hadn’t helped matters at all that many of them had been groupies, women who wanted nothing more than to be a major leaguer’s wife. None of them had loved his children; none of them had even known them. Hell, they hadn’t known him, either. It was no wonder he’d withdrawn so completely from the opposite sex.

  Lauren was trouble because she was different. There were prettier women in the world, there were women who didn’t look at him as if they half expected him to take their heads off. He was sure there were women who could cook as well as she did—though he hadn’t ever met them—and many of them filled out their tank tops more generously than she did.

  So why was he lying in bed awake after midnight, thinking about her? Why was the image of her holding his kids in the E.R. permanently implanted in his brain? Why had he felt such relief, such comfort, just to share a sandwich with her at the end of a very bad day?

  Why did he have the urge to get up, go to the window and look out to see if any of her lights were still on?

  Cole went to sleep thinking that he really needed to stay away from Lauren Russell, but in spite of his determination to keep his distance, he dreamed of her. And his dreams were most definitely of the X-rated variety.

  Meredith turned over, punched her pillow and fought back new tears. She was so stupid! For a little while she’d actually believed that Lauren Russell might be a friend, a woman who could help with girly things. Not a replacement for her mother, but…something different.

  But she’d been right all along. Miss Lauren was just using her—Justin and Hank, too—to get to their dad. And Meredith was horrified that the schemer’s plan might be working.

  They’d pulled into the driveway so late, the rest of the neighborhood had been sleeping. Miss Lauren had called her friend Summer as they’d left the hospital, to let her know that Justin was okay. Summer was supposed to spread the word through the neighborhood.

  Miss Lauren had acted like she was so relieved, like she actually cared about Justin, but Meredith knew better. She’d seen the truth when she’d gotten up for a drink of water and had spied her dad and Miss Lauren saying good-night. Neither of them had said anything mushy, and they hadn’t kissed or even shaken hands, but Meredith wasn’t blind.

  Her dad had never looked at a woman that way, as if everything else had ceased to exist, as if the world had stopped and there was no room in it for anyone but the two of them. There was a new look in his eyes, something she’d never seen before. It hadn’t lasted very long, but Meredith knew what that look meant. It was, like, from a movie. The next step would’ve been for them to run toward one another and kiss. With tongue. Yuck.

>   If they got married, what then? No woman wanted someone else’s kids underfoot all the time. Miss Lauren would want babies of her own, brats who would take the place of the old kids. Meredith knew how this worked. She had two close friends in Birmingham whose parents were divorced and remarried, so she’d heard the horror stories about stepmothers and half brothers and sisters. Maybe she and her brothers would get sent off to boarding school, or worse. Maybe her dad would send them to Birmingham to live with Aunt Janet so he could have a new life with a new wife and new kids.

  Maybe it was a lot to take out of one quick, mushy look, but it all came together in Meredith’s head and she could see where this was leading. There was only one thing to do, only one thing she could do. She was going to have to put a stop to this before it went any further.