Dating for Two (Matchmaking Mamas)

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Look,” she began awkwardly, “I’ve taken up your time long enough. I should let you get back to your evening and your son.”

  “This is my evening,” Steve pointed out. “Until you showed up with Tex Jr. there, my evening was going to be sending out for pizza and then watching Jason slay more aliens and save the world for the umpteenth time. The way I see it,” he told her, “for bringing peace into my world, I at least owe you dinner.”

  “Pizza?” she asked skeptically.

  “Hey, it doesn’t have to be pizza,” Steve pointed out, warming up to the idea of having her stay a while longer. “There’re a lot of takeout restaurants in the area. You can have your choice of cuisines and cultures—just name it.”

  Steve beckoned her over toward his kitchen. Once there he opened his “everything” drawer and began taking out the various folded menus he’d picked up and thrown in there.

  “Thai food, Chinese, Mexican, Indian—whatever your pleasure, I most likely have a takeout menu to fit your appetite.”

  Erin looked at him, amusement taking hold. “What about home cooked?” she proposed.

  “Home cooked,” he repeated, looking through his selection. “That would be Marie Callender’s,” Steve concluded. He opened up another drawer. “Got the menu here somewhere,” he told her, searching.

  “No, as in real home cooking. From your home,” she emphasized.

  He certainly had the kitchen for it, she thought, looking around. It appeared to be the last word in gourmet cooking, from its overhead shiny pots hanging on hooks from the ceiling to its six-burner stove and wide counters.

  He laughed and shook his head. “No, I had to take an oath that I would never attempt to do anything that involved an open flame and pots and pans.”

  “An oath to who?” she asked, curious as well as more than a little amused by his claim.

  “To the fire department and the E.R. staff at the local hospital,” Steve said in a perfectly serious voice.

  “You’re that bad, huh?” she asked, trying not to laugh.

  There was absolutely no point in denying it. “Actually, I don’t think they’ve invented the words to describe exactly how badly my culinary attempts have turned out. It’s a really dark place. Better not to go there,” he assured her.

  “This ban on bringing your stove and the foodstuffs in your refrigerator together—does that just apply to you, or does everyone who comes into your house have to abide by it?”

  “Well, a couple of Fridays ago, Cecilia did make dinner for Jason and me,” he said, recalling the way the woman had just taken charge.

  “Cecilia,” Erin repeated, trying not to sound disappointed. “Then you are dating.”

  He grinned broadly. He wondered if Cecilia would have been insulted or amused if she’d heard what Erin had just said.

  “Cecilia owns the house-cleaning company that keeps my house in the orderly condition you see—I’m not exactly much at cleaning, either,” he confided. “Cecilia herself is a wonderful, wonderful woman, but she’s around my mother’s age. I don’t think she’s interested in going out with someone my age.”

  Erin felt a wave of relief and tried not to really take note of it. She was offering to cook for the man. It was strictly a harmless endeavor. Didn’t mean anything, she told herself.

  “Mind if I take a look in your refrigerator?” she asked him.

  “Not much to see,” he warned her even as he waved her over to it.

  Erin took her own inventory quickly enough. “Eggs, milk, margarine,” she noted, then opened the freezer door. “Frozen mixed vegetables.” She glanced at him over her shoulder. This wasn’t half-bad. “Not nearly as bare as I thought it would be.”

  Another careless shrug accompanied his words. “Well, in an emergency, I can make scrambled eggs if we’re snowed in.”

  Amusement made it hard not to grin at his statement. “This is Southern California. The only snow you’d find around here is up at Big Bear—in the dead of winter—and you have to go to it, not it to you.”

  “My point exactly. I haven’t had to break any eggs in a very long time.”

  Erin frowned, taking a second look at the carton that was in the refrigerator. She didn’t detect any telltale smell of rotten eggs, but then, she still hadn’t taken out the carton and opened it.

  Glancing at him over her shoulder, she asked, “Exactly how old are these eggs?”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he told her. “Don’t worry. Cecilia had one of her cleaning ladies pick up the carton the last time she was here. She said I should keep them and the rest of the groceries you see in the refrigerator around just in case. Oh, and the milk, by the way, is fresh. It goes with Jason’s cereal. I do know how to open a box of cereal.”

  She grinned. “Good for you,” Erin quipped. She eyed the various items her hunt had yielded and made her decision. “Okay, where do you keep your frying pan? Or did the fire department confiscate that from you as a precautionary measure, too?”

  He opened up one of the cabinets and took out the pan for her, then placed it on the stove. “No, but I promised not to use it and my word was good enough for them,” he deadpanned.

  “Well, you’ll be keeping your word to them—I’ll be the one doing the cooking.”

  One of the things he’d picked up on during his brief venture into the dating realm was that most professional women had no time—or desire—to learn how to cook. He’d just naturally assumed that Erin was like the rest in that aspect.

  “Didn’t you say that you were too busy trying to catch up on everything you’d missed out on doing because you were in the hospital?”

  “Yes, and cooking was one of those things.” She laughed. “A creative person has to have more than one outlet in order to feel fulfilled and on top of their game. Me, I come up with some of my best ideas cooking. Cooking relaxes me,” she explained.

  “Funny, it has just the opposite effect on me,” he said.

  “Your strengths obviously lie in other directions,” she countered.

  Steve had to admit he appreciated the way she tried to spare his ego.

  He watched Erin as she practically whirled through his kitchen, getting unlikely ingredients out of his pantry and his cupboard. She assembled everything on the counter within easy reach, then really got busy as she began making dinner.

  He had never been one who enjoyed being kept in the dark. “If you don’t mind my asking, exactly what do you plan on making?”

  “A frittata,” she said cheerfully. Combining a total of eight eggs in a large bowl, she tossed in a dash of salt and pepper before going on to add two packages of the frozen mixed vegetables. She would have preferred to use fresh vegetables, but beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers.

  “A what?”

  In another pan, she’d quickly diced up some of the ham she’d found as well as a few slices of cheddar cheese from the same lower bin drawer in the refrigerator.

  She was about to repeat the word, then realized that it wasn’t that Steve hadn’t heard her—the problem was that he didn’t know what she was referring to.

  Opening the pantry again, she searched for a container of herbs or spices. There were none. She pushed on anyway, adding everything into the bowl with the eggs.

  “Just think of it as an upgraded omelet. You have ham and bread,” she said, pleased.

  “That’s because I also know how to make a sandwich without setting off the smoke alarm,” he told her.

  “There is hope for you yet,” she declared with a laugh.

  Watching her move around his kitchen as if she belonged there, he was beginning to think the same thing himself—but for a very different reason.

  Chapter Eight

  “What is this?” Jason asked between bites.

  They—inc
luding Tex Jr. because Jason had asked for his new friend to be given a chair, as well—were all seated around the dining room table, eating Erin’s creation.

  “Jason, what did I say about talking with your mouth full?” Steve reminded him.

  “Not to,” Jason said dutifully, “but the food’s not going to fall out. I got my chin up,” he argued.

  Erin didn’t bother trying not to laugh. “I think his lawyer genes are showing up early,” she told Steve. Turning toward the boy, she answered his initial question. “It’s a frittata.”

  Erin noted, with no small pleasure, that Jason was making short work of her creation. She’d given him what she judged to be a decent-size portion for a seven-year-old. There were about two forkfuls left. He’d been inhaling it.

  As had, she realized, his father. While the latter might have felt obligated to make a show of enjoying her spur-of-the-moment impromptu meal, she’d learned that children were far more honest in their dealings. If Jason hadn’t liked it, he would have indicated as much, even if he hadn’t given voice to his disdain.

  Instead he was devouring it.

  “A fri-what-a?” Jason asked, clearly having trouble wrapping his tongue around the word.

  “A frittata,” she repeated, then suggested helpfully, “How about we call it an omelet with everything?”

  “Okay.” Jason was quick to agree, bobbing his head up and down for added emphasis. “I like this,” he told his father.

  Erin had always had trouble accepting compliments and had always been quick to downplay any credit sent her way. “It’s probably the ham,” she told Steve.

  “Funny, I was going to guess that it was probably the cook,” Steve told her. “This really is good,” he said, adding his voice to his son’s praise. “I’d ask you to write down what you did, but like I said, there’s a restraining order to keep me from getting within a hundred yards of the stove when it’s turned on, so even if I had your directions, there wouldn’t be anything I could do about it.”

  Her eyes met his. “Then how would you be able to make those scrambled eggs in an emergency as you’d mentioned?” she asked innocently.

  She had him there, he thought. “Good one. I’ll have to get back to you on that,” he said. “In the meantime, feel free to come by anytime to work that magic on my stove—” he glanced toward Jason, who was busy “feeding” his new friend “—and my son.”

  That caught Jason’s attention. His head swung around in her direction and just like that, she had his undivided attention.

  “You do magic?” Jason asked, wide-eyed.

  “No, I don’t do magic,” she said to the boy. “Your dad’s just kidding.”

  He appeared disappointed for exactly five seconds. “Oh. But he’s not kidding about you coming back, right?” Jason asked her, his eyes all but pinning her in place. “You will come back, right?”

  “Would you like that, Jason?” Steve asked his son before Erin had a chance to say anything in response to the boy’s question.

  “Yes!” Jason declared with more enthusiasm than Steve had seen his son display in two years.

  Steve smiled at him even as he slanted a glance toward the woman who in his opinion was solely responsible for the boy’s transformation.

  “Me, too,” he told Jason. And then he looked at Erin. “Well, I guess that makes it unanimous. You’re officially invited back to our house anytime—even if you don’t feel like whipping up a frittata,” he added with a smile. He didn’t want her getting the mistaken idea that her main allure was that she seemed to know her way around the kitchen.

  “And when you come back, you can bring Tex with you,” Jason told her.

  Erin cocked her head, looking at the boy. “So my return is a done deal?”

  “Yeah!” And then the wide smile on his face drooped a bit around the corners as Jason struggled to understand the meaning behind her question. “Don’t you wanna come back?”

  Instead of immediately answering, she glanced at Steve, arching an eyebrow and waiting to see what he would say about the matter, one way or the other. She didn’t want to presume too much. That was how people fell flat on their faces.

  “Hey, I’m with him,” he said, throwing his vote in with his son’s.

  Maybe she should be just a little clearer about this, Erin thought. “Well, I’ll come back if I’m invited.”

  “You’re invited. Right, Dad? She’s invited,” Jason declared, looking at his father expectantly, waiting for backup.

  “That depends on whether or not she’d like to come back,” he told his son. “But as far as I’m concerned, yes, she’s invited. How about you, Tex Jr.? You want to tell us how you feel about having Erin come back for another visit?”

  “I want her to come back for another visit right away!” Jason said in his best high-pitched voice as he pretended to be Tex Jr.

  Steve let go of the breath he’d been holding. Her experiment in bringing the stuffed dinosaur into the boy’s life to separate Jason from his gaming console had been a huge success in his book. His son was even imitating the way Erin had told him to act as the toy’s voice.

  Turning toward Erin, he said, “Looks like it’s three against one.”

  “Three against one?” she repeated, looking from Steve to his son to the dinosaur. “Who said I didn’t want to come back?” Erin asked. “Especially when you clean your plates like that.”

  “I can clean it even better with my tongue,” Jason volunteered excitedly. Taking his plate in both hands, he was about to raise it to his mouth to give her a demonstration when Steve intervened, confiscating the plate.

  “I think we’ll just let the dishwasher take care of that,” he said.

  “Sounds like a very good idea,” Erin said, backing him up.

  “Oh. Okay,” Jason agreed, then gave Erin a great big smile.

  “The next time I come, I’ll bring my own groceries,” she promised Jason. “We’ll make frittata with chicken.” Leaning into the boy, she lowered her voice and pretended to confide, “Tex’ll probably like it better.”

  He slanted a glance toward the dinosaur seated beside him. “Tex likes chicken?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “T. rexes were carnivores,” she told him. “That means that they liked to eat meat.”

  “They did?” Jason asked, fascinated as he absorbed every word she was saying to him.

  Erin nodded her head, looking at him very solemnly. “Absolutely.”

  “Did you see them doing it?” he asked in a hushed voice. “Was it gross?”

  “It was probably very gross,” Erin said. To her credit, she kept a straight face. “But I didn’t see them do it. However, lots of paleontologists did a great deal of research about our dinosaur friends and they’ve put together a lot of books describing what the dinosaurs were like.”

  Jason looked as if he was struggling not to be completely confused by the information.

  “What’s a pale—a pale—one of those people you just said?” he finally asked.

  “Paleontologists are people who study things that happened a very long time ago,” she explained.

  Pausing for a moment, she crossed to where she’d dropped off her purse and fished out the book she’d brought with her. When Steve had discovered her on the doorstep before she could successfully make her getaway, struggling to retrieve her shoe, she’d forgotten all about the book she had brought with her. The book, which she’d originally written, was packaged with every junior T. rex that was sent out of the factory.

  “Here, you can read all about what the T. rex was like when he roamed the Earth and was the undisputed king of all that he saw.”

  Jason, in Steve’s opinion, looked as if he were back in wonderland again, hanging on every word that came out of this woman’s mouth. If he were being completely honest, St
eve thought, he was beginning to find her pretty fascinating himself.

  “That’s for me?” Jason asked, surprised even as he held the colorful book in both hands.

  “I brought it just for you,” Erin said, fully enjoying his reaction. She’d channeled the little girl she had been when she was writing this book and she knew for a fact that children enjoyed reading it, but once in a while, it was nice to be able to witness that joy firsthand. “Reading about things is still the best way to learn and remember,” she told the little boy.

  Shifting the book to just one hand, he picked up the T. rex with his other hand and tucked the stuffed dinosaur against him. “C’mon, Tex Jr., let’s find out all about you.”

  “Okay,” the stuffed animal answered in Jason’s high-pitched voice.

  If he weren’t afraid that it might freak Erin out, he would have hugged her, Steve thought. His exuberance had risen to that level.

  “You really are a magician,” Steve said. “No ifs, ands or buts about it. Jason and that infernal video game have now been separated for—” he glanced at his watch to verify his findings “—close to an hour. That’s a new world record for him.”

  Erin didn’t think she deserved all that much credit. “Very few boys his age can resist dinosaurs. All I did was bring the two together.”

  Steve shook his head. “There’s that undue modesty again.”

  Seeing that the man seemed really determined to give her credit for his son’s about-face, she decided she was fighting a losing battle.

  “I didn’t do anything that special, but have it your way,” she said, surrendering.

  Steve grinned at her. “Like I said, you are a rare woman.”

  If she wasn’t careful, all this flattery was going to go to her head. Thank God she had a crew to keep her grounded, although it was kind of nice to bask in adulation for a couple of minutes.

  However, she wasn’t sure just what Steve was referring to by declaring her to be unique amid her gender.

  “How’s that again?” she asked him.