Harlequin Special Edition September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Maverick for HireA Match Made by BabyOnce Upon a Bride

by Leanne Banks

  After a squeeze of her arm, he picked up Erica’s bag and went to Sara, handing over Erica and the bag.

  Kaitlyn felt as if she wanted to be the one watching Erica. But that was silly. Erica wasn’t hers. Adam wasn’t hers. Still, she felt proprietary of both of them. Just what did he want to ask her?

  In the baby section of Thrifty Solutions, there was a swing much like the one Adam used at his condo. Sara settled Erica in that.

  Adam spoke to Erica for a couple of minutes. Not just nonsense, either, but gentle words about being right there and that he’d be back soon and Sara was going to play with her. All things a dad would say. Did he even realize that?

  Kaitlyn was sorting blouses according to their sizes and dressiness when Adam went to the garage-type door where a truck had backed in to unload. When he returned inside, he had three boxes stacked on top of each other on a dolly.

  He unloaded them onto the floor and looked around the racks that Kaitlyn had been setting up. “Where does all this come from?” he asked.

  “That’s hard to say. The Mommy Club started with one original benefactress. No one knows who she is. She set up the foundation to draw on for anything families might need. Then that foundation endowed this thrift store and bought storage units where volunteers can stow furniture that families might be able to use. There are many benefactors now. Anyone who’s helped by The Mommy Club usually gives back. It’s a circle that never stops.”

  “Sort of like a wedding ring,” Adam mused.

  Kaitlyn jerked her head up, surprised to hear that come from him. With his kiss too much on her mind, with making love with him always on her mind, she wondered how much he thought about marriage. She knew he didn’t think much of it.

  “What makes you say that?” she asked.

  “Wedding rings are supposed to symbolize the never-ending circle that keeps two people united for a lifetime. As long as each does their part, the circle stays intact. But if somebody doesn’t, that circle breaks open.

  “I’ve seen good marriages work,” she said, that old dream still tugging at her.

  “Have you? So far I’ve only seen Jase and Sara’s and they haven’t been married very long.”

  She considered Jase and Sara. “That golden circle is protection when the rough times come. That’s when you have to hold on tighter and make sure it doesn’t break. Mine did and I still wish there was something I would have been able to do about that.”

  “Do you still wish you were married?”

  “I wish my marriage had survived. I wish it could have been all we’d dreamed it should be.”

  Adam left the stack of boxes and came close to where she was standing at the rack. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt today. His hair was tousled, and there was some beard stubble on his chin as if he’d rushed this morning, but he looked altogether sexy, and her heart was jumping around like a wild teenager’s at a rock concert.

  Get a grip, girl, she told herself. But how could she when she remembered his body on hers, his body inside of hers.

  “I’d like to ask you something personal,” he said.

  “You can ask.”

  “I know what that means. If you don’t want to answer, you won’t. That’s fine.” He paused a beat, then he asked, “Do you still love your ex?”

  That question caught her totally off guard. Was this what he wanted to ask her? “Love Tom?”

  Adam just waited, studying her face, gazing into her eyes. He’d confided in her and now he expected the same of her.

  “Tom was smart and wanted to know everything about the world. We had deep discussions, maybe more than we laughed together. I missed my mom and dad. Maybe that’s why I married him. I thought our lives would fit together like puzzle pieces, but they didn’t. Before I got pregnant, I think we both knew we were growing apart. He was having trouble accepting my professional life. I was having trouble accepting the social events he wanted to go to. Our lives were shifting under our feet. He was my first serious relationship, and because of that, I’ll always think of him fondly. But love...the love we once felt for each other is gone.”

  “You’re sure about that? Maybe you still love him, and that’s the reason you can’t move on.”

  “Who says I can’t move on?” she protested.

  “You say it every time you run.”

  There was no escaping the certainty in his voice. “And what would you do if I stopped running?”

  “It would be fascinating to find out, wouldn’t it?”

  Jase had hopped off the truck and wheeled in another dolly load of boxes. “The interview is on Tuesday at four. You got my email?”

  “I got it,” she said. She’d checked her emails quickly this morning and hadn’t had time to answer them. “I just don’t know how much I really want to go into on TV. That seems so much different than writing.”

  “Are you nervous?” Adam asked.

  “I guess I am. I shouldn’t be. Jase tells me the interviewer will be sympathetic.”

  “Would you like me to be there for moral support?”

  The longer she was with Adam, the more she wanted to be with him. He could have a calming effect on her. He could help her keep her perspective. “Yes,” she responded to his question, feeling as if she was committing herself to...something.

  Sara had walked Erica over to where Kaitlyn, Adam and her husband were standing. She said to the baby, “See. I told you Uncle Adam was right here. He’s not going to leave you.”

  “I can probably bring her along to the interview,” Adam said. “But I am going to need a sitter for tomorrow night. I give a lecture at Wilson University.”

  “I’d be glad to babysit her,” Sara offered. “Marissa and Jordan are coming over for dinner.”

  “Are you sure that’s okay? Three kids to watch?”

  “We’re fine. Babies stay where you put them.”

  When Sara moved away with Erica again and Jase went outside, Adam turned back to Kaitlyn.

  “Are you busy tomorrow night?”

  “I don’t have any plans.”

  “Would you like to come with me? You might be bored, but you’d learn a little more about what an environmental geologist does, and the careers the students are planning to move into. What do you think?”

  “I think I’d like to go along to see a different side of you.” Adam was a fascinating man and, in spite of herself, she was intrigued by him.

  “No different sides. I like what I do, and you’ll see that.”

  Somehow they were standing close together again. Adam looked like he wanted to kiss her, and she certainly wanted to kiss him. But Jase or Sara could be back at any minute. He seemed to realize that, too. He cleared his throat and said, “We’ll have time together tomorrow night.”

  She was looking forward to that. Maybe a little too much.

  * * *

  On Monday evening, Adam watched Kaitlyn as Marissa’s little boy, Jordan, ran toward her with a giggle and wrapped his little arms around one leg.

  She laughed, scooped him up and asked, “So what are you having for supper?”

  There was a streak of cheesy sauce across his lip and on his hand.

  “Careful,” Marissa told her, hurrying over with a wet paper towel. “I was just going to wash him up. He got his fingers into the macaroni and cheese.”

  “A little yellow with this pattern isn’t going to make a difference,” Kaitlyn returned with a smile.

  Adam was always amazed at Kaitlyn’s aplomb with kids, and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he hadn’t witnessed many women who were good with children. Most of the women he’d dated seemed adverse to babies. But Kaitlyn didn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around them. Neither did Marissa or Sara.

  Standing by the sink, Sara came forward now to take Erica from his
arms. He was finding it harder and harder to allow Erica to be in someone else’s care. He wanted to make sure nothing ever happened to her.

  He handed over Erica saying, “I’ll bring in her portable crib.”

  Five minutes later he’d set it up in the cavernous kitchen. Jase and Sara had moved into this house with Jase’s dad, Ethan, after some renovations were completed. It was certainly big enough for everyone to wander around. From the table, Sara’s daughter, Amy, grinned at him as she spooned macaroni and cheese into her mouth. Adam bet the flower arrangement on the table came from the nearby gardens. He thought about his condo, how sterile it seemed compared to this. If he ever had kids—

  Kids? Really? What was he thinking?

  Still, a family needed grounding. A family needed a house. Maybe not one as grand as this, but one that was welcoming and gave everyone a sense of belonging.

  He’d never felt as if he belonged anywhere. Maybe divorce just did that to kids.

  Marissa had seated Jordan in his high chair and was spooning a little more macaroni and cheese onto his dish.

  “You’d think we’d be eating something more nutritious,” Sara said with a laugh. “But Amy and Jordan like mac and cheese as much as French fries and we gave in for tonight.”

  Adam plopped the diaper bag on the counter. “Everything you need should be in here.”

  “What I need,” Marissa said, “is a book on plumbing. How do you fix a leaky sink? I was going to ask Jase how to do it, but he’s stuck in a meeting with Liam.”

  “A leaky sink? I can take care of that,” Adam assured her. “I was looking for a way to pay you back for watching Erica tonight. How about I stop by tomorrow morning?”

  “Oh, you don’t have to—” Marissa began.

  But Kaitlyn stopped her. “Adam doesn’t like to owe anyone. I’m sure he could fix it for you.”

  “That would be great then. I’m sure Jase will let me take a few hours.” After a pause, Marissa looked from one of them to the other and smiled. “Are you two dating?” she asked bluntly.

  They answered in unison, “No.”

  Sara and Marissa exchanged a look.

  Sara said under her breath, “Well, something’s in the air. But if you say you’re not dating, I’ll believe you.” She looked at Kaitlyn. “So you’re just going along to listen to his lecture?”

  Kaitlyn blushed a little. “Yep.” That’s all she said.

  * * *

  Two and a half hours later, Adam thought about Sara’s comments as he guided Kaitlyn into a campus coffee shop after his lecture. Dating was such an old-fashioned term, yet he found himself wanting to spend more time with Kaitlyn. Wasn’t that what tonight was all about? Wasn’t that what a date was all about?

  As they gave their orders and took their coffees to a table for two, Adam realized he and Kaitlyn had started their relationship backward. Of course, the night he’d kissed her at the winery, he’d never realized they might have a relationship.

  Adam was black coffee all the way, and he discovered Kaitlyn was, too.

  They sat elbow to elbow. She said, “Your subject matter really is fascinating.”

  “You mean you didn’t catch any of the students sleeping?”

  She laughed. “No. They were all interested and engaged, and the question-and-answer session got really lively. They liked you.”

  “You sound as if that’s unusual.”

  “I don’t know. Some of the lectures that I sat through in med school were so impersonal. But yours wasn’t. You kept them involved. That’s the sign of a good teacher.”

  “I enjoy it when I make the time to do it. And the head of the department tries to hire me every time he sees me. Actually, on the job site, I’m teaching more than I think I am. When I start out on a new project, sometimes I don’t even know my team, so I have to feel my way with instructions and questions and let them have input. It’s sort of like a college lecture.”

  She studied him for a long moment until he finally asked, “What?”

  “You’re not at all what I expected,” she said.

  “Expected?” He couldn’t keep the amusement from his voice.

  “At the winery the night I met you, you were dressed in an expensive suit, you knew just what to say, you were a great conversationalist. You acted like a...jet-setter.”

  “Is that why I swept you away?”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t swept away.”

  At his arched brow, she admitted, “Maybe a little swept away. I just hadn’t expected a man to make me feel so...special. Not after everything that had happened.”

  “You told me a little about your marriage, about what you’d written in the article. Now tell me what wasn’t there. Tell me what really split you up.”

  He hadn’t expected the conversation to turn this serious. After all, if it was a date, and it seemed close to it, he’d wanted Kaitlyn to have a good time. But for some reason, he had to know more about her marriage.

  “You told me your story, and now I have to tell you mine?” she asked, looking more unsure than he’d ever seen her.

  “You don’t have to, Kaitlyn, but would it hurt to share a little bit about it? We did sleep together.”

  His bluntness surprised her, and she looked embarrassed. He reached over and took her hand. “Was your husband a jerk?”

  She shook her head. “No. He’s a decent guy. My pregnancy happened sooner than we planned. I was on an antibiotic and birth control failed. But we both did want children. We wanted this child. After the miscarriage, he accused me of never putting him first. He accused me of never wanting the baby.”

  “I haven’t known you that long and I know that couldn’t be true.”

  The look in Kaitlyn’s eyes was pure vulnerability, and he wondered if anyone really understood her, if she let anyone really know her.

  She shook her head and said in a low voice, “To this day, I don’t know if the miscarriage was my fault. Did I not want to see the signs? Was that even possible?”

  Sitting around the corner from her, he didn’t think twice about dropping his arm around her shoulders, about pulling her closer...about bending his head and kissing her.

  Oh, he didn’t take it too far. After all, they were in a public coffee shop. But he took it far enough—far enough that she knew he wanted to make love with her again...far enough to show her he might already know her better than her husband ever had.

  * * *

  On Tuesday morning, Adam emerged from under Marissa’s sink, feeling victorious. “You’re good to go. You just needed a new shutoff valve.”

  Marissa had watched Erica, along with Jordan, while he’d driven to the hardware store to gather everything he’d need. It had been an easy fix.

  “Is there a reason you didn’t call the landlord?” he asked, curious.

  “Yep. It would have taken two weeks for him to get someone here. My kitchen would have been underwater till then.”

  Marissa’s apartment was charming because of the way she’d decorated it and cared for it, but it was definitely worn around the edges. He could tell the landlord didn’t do much with the outside, either.

  “How about a piece of chocolate cake?” Marissa offered. “Jase gave me the morning off so you could fix this. I baked it to take some to him and Sara, but there’s plenty left.”

  “I skipped breakfast. Chocolate cake sounds good.”

  “I have a pot of coffee brewing to go with it.”

  Jordan sat in a corner of the kitchen, happily playing with pots from the lower cupboard. He banged two lids together.

  Startled, Erica gave a little cry from her car seat, but then she settled again.

  “I probably keep my place too quiet when she’s sleeping,” Adam decided.

  “I did that with Jord
an, too. Sugar and milk with your coffee?”

  “Nope. I take it straight.”

  She laughed, and her pretty black curls bobbed around her face. Adam hadn’t been around Marissa much, but he liked her. Still, he didn’t feel the sparks of attraction as he did with Kaitlyn. As he sat at Marissa’s small table for two, she cut a piece of cake large enough to feed two people and set it in front of him.

  “This single parent thing is tough,” he said just to make conversation.

  “It certainly is. I don’t know what I would have done without The Mommy Club.”

  “You don’t have family?”

  “No. My mom passed on two years ago. I never expected to get pregnant,” she said honestly with a little shrug.

  “The dad’s out of the picture?”

  “Way out of the picture. He doesn’t even know about Jordan.”

  Adam wasn’t sure what to say to that. If he fathered a child, he’d certainly want to know about him or her.

  She must have seen his dilemma, because she said, “It’s complicated. He has a life that doesn’t include roots. He left town before I even knew I was pregnant.”

  “And he hasn’t been back?”

  She hesitated a moment and then explained, “Rodeo circuit.”

  Adam certainly didn’t know anything about that, yet he suspected a cowboy on the circuit was on the road most of the year.

  “So how did The Mommy Club help you? From what I’ve seen, it’s mostly a network.”

  “Exactly. The first thing they did was help me find a job so I had insurance benefits. That’s when Jase hired me. I was living in a boarding house at the time, and they helped find me this apartment. After Jordan was born, I went to a workshop for new parents and that’s how I met Kaitlyn. She’s absolutely super. And the free clinic she’s helping with next week will benefit a lot of moms and kids. Dads and kids, too, I guess.”

  He smiled. “I think this might be a little easier for women. I’m not sure why.”

  “I don’t know about easier,” she responded. “Maybe we talk to each other more. The truth is, I’d rather do it alone and have a network like The Mommy Club than always wonder if a man is going to stay.”