Kitchen Matches

by Marianne Arkins

  “Well, yeah.” He shrugged and looked at his brother who also shrugged.

  “Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” she muttered. Idiots.

  Steve, her ridiculously jealous, enormously huge, indescribable creep of an ex-boyfriend—who just happened to be close friends with each and every one of her brothers, except Eric who seemed to have a good head on his shoulders—would pound Micah into the ground if he so much as looked at Cori sideways.

  “Then I won’t go.” That would stop this foolishness.

  “Good. If you’re not there with your weak stomach, we won’t have to worry about blood.” Nick elbowed Zach and grinned.

  She stomped her foot in frustration. “Oooh.”

  “See you there, sis.” Zach yawned and rubbed his ribcage. “I’m hitting the hay.”

  “Wimp.” Nick jabbed his brother in the gut. “I’m hitting the bar.”

  They walked away in separate directions. She closed her eyes in dread at the thought of tomorrow. What had Micah been thinking, accepting their invitation. Did he think they were being friendly? He seemed like a smart guy. How could he be so stupid? Hadn’t she warned him that her brothers were overprotective? Did the guy have a death wish?

  Despite her attempts to hold back the dawn by not sleeping all night, the sun eventually rose and signaled the beginning of what might end up being the worst day of her life. It was ironic. She’d thought the day she’d broken up with Steve for whaling on a customer who flirted with her ranked as her worst day. Or maybe the time he hadn’t wanted to take “no” for an answer. But today? Today might just take the prize.

  Maybe Steve would be sick or hung over and stay home. Yeah, and maybe the sun was rising in the west.

  Cori stumbled downstairs and followed her nose to the coffee pot and fresh baked cinnamon rolls. “Man, Mom, if I was a guy, I’d marry you.” She picked up a roll. It was still so hot she had to juggle the tasty treat before taking a bite. “Oh yeah, no day that starts like this can end up being rotten. Can it?”

  “Don’t bet on it.” This from her brother, Eric, the logical one and the only family member who didn’t work at the garage. Today, dressed in torn sweat pants and an old tee shirt, he didn’t look like a stock broker. “The bottom can always fall out of a bull market no matter how strongly trading begins. Sadly, I know this from personal experience.”

  “Thanks for that cheery thought. What are you doing here? Shannon kick you out?” She finished up the roll and grabbed another, along with a fresh cup of coffee.

  “There was no way I was missing the game today. I hear it should be a doozy.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Zach said you have a new boyfriend, and we’re breaking him in.”

  Looked like the grapevine was buzzing with news. That meant Cal and Dave would be there, too. Hopefully, they’d bring their wives so Cori would have some backup. “I’m going to shower and get dressed.”

  “Gonna wear makeup for the pretty boy?” Josh, older than Nick by ten months, snickered and fluttered his eyelashes. “Or maybe he’d like me better. I hear he’s a cooking teacher.”

  “Yeah, you are prettier than I am, Joshie. Maybe you should doll up a bit.”

  “Corinne Anne,” her mother said, in that soft but stern voice mothers have perfected. “I expect rude behavior from your brothers, but you should know better, young lady.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said with a snort. “Young lady.”

  Their mother smacked Nick smartly on the knuckles with her wooden spoon when he reached for another roll. “No more for you, smart mouth. Go take out the garbage.”

  “Oh, Mom,” he protested, but despite the fact he was twenty-three and six inches taller than she, he just bowed his head and did as he was told.

  One by one, her brothers were getting married and leaving home. Three down and three to go. And then there was her, without a prospect in sight. Micah didn’t count, since he wasn’t her type. And six older brothers scared off a lot of guys. Since the fiasco with Edward, Steve had been the only one who’d stuck it out more than a couple of dates. And, gee, wasn’t he a winner?

  Her mind drifted to Micah. He was the opposite of everything she’d dreamed of, yet she still yearned for him. Besides the heat he generated in her and how she felt incredibly feminine when he was around, he also made her feel incompetent and out of place. Not on purpose, he was far too polite for that. But he was so capable where she wasn’t. Never mind that he didn’t know an alternator from a carburetor. Lots of people didn’t. But most everyone could boil water without messing it up.

  Well, for sure after today he wouldn’t be giving her a second glance anyway. Not after her brothers pounded him into the ground. She insisted it was relief she felt, not sadness, but knew she was lying the moment she thought the words.

  Calling herself a hundred kinds of fool, she stripped out of her flannel pajamas and climbed into the shower.

  She purposely didn’t even wear lip gloss and opted to put on her rattiest pair of shorts. Sure, they showed a bit more leg than the rest, and she’d been told her legs were her best feature. That was incidental. The shorts were three years out of style and grass-stained beyond belief.

  Micah was waiting when they arrived at the park, his orange van screaming for attention. He wore clean, very possibly brand-new clothes and sparkling white sneakers. She wasn’t sure, but thought she saw creases ironed down the front of his shorts. Dear heavens.

  Cori and three of her brothers piled out of the family truck just as Eric pulled into the parking lot with Josh. Micah stood up to greet them. Considering the sheer mass of testosterone on its way to check him out, she gave the guy serious points for bravery.

  Or maybe it was stupidity.

  Either way, he smiled and stuck out his hand when Zach got to him first. And then he grimaced when the bones in his hand were crushed together. Zach was by far the biggest jerk of the bunch. Must come from being oldest and having the most practice in tormenting others. She’d sure been on his radar growing up.

  “Micah.” Cori stepped forward and bumped her brothers out of the way. “What kind of idiot are you, coming here?”

  “It’s great to see you again, too.” He smiled, but she saw hurt in his eyes.

  She was sorry to have put the pain there. But if he thought her words were painful, wait until he was tackled the first time. “Walk with me.” She knew the words sounded like an order. They were meant to.

  “I don’t think so.” He shrugged. “I’m here to play some ball with your brothers. Not take a walk.” With that, he turned his back and jogged to the field. Her brothers followed, with Josh giving a goofy wave of his fingers while he jogged backward.

  Micah was in so much trouble, the idiot. She was only trying to help, didn’t he see that?

  Thick arms grabbed her from behind and lifted, squeezing her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. When lips nuzzled her ear, she flung her head back and slightly to the side, smiling when he cried out in pain and loosened his grip. She fell to the ground and rolled away.

  “Dammit, Cori,” Steve whined, one hand on his now bloody nose. “Why’d you have to do that?”

  She got to her feet and made sure she stayed out of arms reach of her ex-boyfriend. “You don’t have permission to touch me anymore. Remember?”

  “When are you going to get over being mad and come back, baby?” He stripped off his tee shirt and used the clean yellow cotton to wipe blood off his face.

  It was only natural that she admired his nice, tight body. Right up until she remembered the night, a few days after they’d broken up, when that body had pinned hers up against a wall. Her brothers still didn’t know about that little incident, because if they’d found out, Steve wouldn’t be breathing. Of course, her brothers would also be behind bars, which is why she’d taken care of the problem herself—her and a knee to his crotch.

  She’d never been so grateful for her bony knees in all her life.

  “I’m never going out with you again. Ever.” She moved bac
k when he stepped forward. “I know you have a hard head, but you need to find a way to get that simple fact through it.” She turned and sprinted for the field, knowing Steve wouldn’t try anything around Zach and the rest of the gang.

  They split into even teams, brains versus brawn, she decided with a smirk. She played on the team with Micah, Eric, and Dave. Zach, Steve, Nick and Josh thought they had the game won, just by sheer size. They were wrong.

  They played hard and they played dirty. After only thirty minutes, Steve wasn’t the only one with blood on his clothes. The game was tied, and Cori was exhausted and sweaty. Even though the weather was fairly cool for late September in Sacramento, the sun was still shining and beat down mercilessly on their bodies.

  “We have one more play.” Eric swiped his forehead with the hem of his shirt and looked each of his teammates in the eye. “I say we pass to Cori and let her run the ball in for a score. They won’t expect that move, and she’s the fastest runner.”

  “Fake a pass to me,” Micah put in. “I’m next fastest, and they’d expect that. I’ll draw them away from her. Give her a better chance to make it into the end zone.”

  “You’re asking to be creamed,” Eric warned.

  Micah shrugged. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep them away from Cori.”

  “I don’t need your protection,” Cori muttered, despite being strangely flattered that he wanted to keep her safe.

  “You’re going to get it, whether you need it or not.” Micah’s jaw flexed and released, flexed and released.

  “Whatever.” She rolled her eyes and nodded to her brother. “It’s a good plan. Let’s do it.”

  They all put one hand in the middle and yelled, “Break!”

  The plan worked like a charm. Everyone moved toward Micah when Eric pumped the ball in his direction, and Cori grinned as she caught the pass and took off running.

  Unfortunately, Steve seemed to have a sixth sense about where she was and noticed the move first. Despite his size, he was fast, and the last thing she wanted was to be tackled by him. He’d undoubtedly use the excuse to give her a hearty pelvic grind while she was beneath him.

  She dodged and swerved and had the end zone in her sights, but Steve was breathing down her neck.

  And then, suddenly, he wasn’t.

  She stepped across the goal line and looked over her shoulder. Micah lay, unmoving, in the turf. Steve pushed up out of the grass beside Micah and prodded his shoulder with the toe of one stained sneaker. Cori’s brothers approached, and Eric knelt down beside Micah’s supine body.

  Cori ran to the group of guys. “What did you do?” she screamed at Steve, giving him a hard shove.

  He stumbled back a step and laughed. “I didn’t do anything except fall on him a little,” Steve sneered. “It’s not my fault he’s so skinny.”

  “You jerk.” She knelt down beside Micah just as he groaned and lifted his head.

  “Why are there two of you? One’s more than enough.” He mumbled the words through dried, cracked lips.

  “Boy, he has you figured,” Zach said.

  Cori snorted and smacked Micah’s shoulder with the back of her hand. “Guess you’re feeling okay, then. You jerk.”

  He sat up, wobbled a little and then steadied. “Did you score?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then we won.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Great. That’s worth every bruise.”

  Cori couldn’t believe he was so calm about being knocked out. He’d scared the dickens out of her and he had the nerve to be jovial about losing consciousness? “You’re going to have a black eye.”

  “Really?” He sounded pleased and touched fingers to his face where it was already beginning to bruise.

  She huffed and stood up. “I give up. Men are imbeciles.”

  “I’m going to have my first black eye.” His voice was loud and happy.

  “Your first?” Zach said. “Really? That’s cause for celebration. Join us for a beer? Cori can drive Eric’s car home.”

  Cori caught the keys Eric tossed her way. With a groan, she marched in the direction of the car. Her steps faltered at Micah’s affirmative answer to Zach. She should do something. Her brothers would drink Micah under the table. Then she remembered that men were idiots and decided to let him learn that for himself. She’d see him the next week at cooking class—if he survived.

  Chapter Three

  With a yawn and a long stretch that cracked half the bones in her body, Cori stumbled out of bed the next morning. Man, was she stiff from the game yesterday. Only twenty-one and already old and out of shape. Only one thing to do. Fake it, or her brothers would never let her live her aches and pains down, especially since she was the baby.

  She needed some liquid fortification and she could smell the coffee—go juice, nectar of the gods—from inside her room. Bacon, too. Mom was up early, a blessing since Cori was due to work first thing that morning.

  Without bothering to so much as tug a robe over her knee-length nightshirt, she meandered down the hall and into the kitchen.

  “Morning, Mom! Breakfast smells awesome!” she called the moment she stepped through the doorway, and then stopped dead in her tracks. “What…what…”

  “Good morning.” Micah threw her a grin over one shoulder, then turned back to the stove and messed with whatever he was cooking in the pan on the front burner.

  His lopsided smile did things to her insides, and she pressed a hand to her stomach to settle its tumbling. “Why are you here?” Cori resisted the urge to run fingers through her surely messy hair and instead curled them into fists at her sides. After all, a fist would come in handy for slugging whichever brother had invited Micah home.

  “I was the designated driver, but didn’t have my own car.” He shrugged, his back still turned to her. “Nick told me to crash on the couch and that you’d take me to the van on your way into work.”

  “Oh, Nick did, did he?” Now she knew who to use the fist on. “Where’s my mom?”

  Micah tipped his head toward the door, hands moving in a sure rhythm in front of him. “Getting the morning paper.”

  As if on cue, the front door opened and closed quietly and slippered footsteps padded in the direction of the kitchen. Cori turned as her mom approached with a disapproving look on her face.

  “Corinne Anne. What are you doing here, in the kitchen, in your nightclothes?” She swatted Cori with the paper.

  “I always come to the kitchen in the morning in my pajamas, Mom.” Though she had to admit that normally there wasn’t a great-looking, unrelated guy cooking breakfast. She refused to let her mom see how mortified she was by the situation.

  “Not when we have company.” Her mom looked at Micah and then back at her “Go get dressed, young lady.”

  Cori sighed. “I didn’t know we had company, Mom. Can I at least get a cup of coffee first? Please?”

  “No.” The word was delivered with another swat. “Now, get. And don’t come back until you’re decent.”

  Cori snarled and stormed back down the hallway. Maybe finding her own apartment wasn’t such a bad idea after all, despite the cost. No brothers. No rules. No newspaper beatings. Privacy.

  No mom to clean house and cook. No carpooling.

  So, okay, there was good and bad. She’d give the move some thought, weigh the pros and cons. First, though, clothes. She was dying for coffee and a taste of whatever Micah was cooking for breakfast. It smelled amazing.

  By the time she showered, changed and brushed on a bit of lip gloss—despite the fact her brothers would tease her mercilessly about that move—nearly half an hour had gone by. She hurried to the kitchen and hoped the food was still at least warm.

  Her brothers filled the room. In fact, even a couple of the married ones were there with their wives. They all held plates and conversation was at a minimum. Everyone was too busy stuffing food in their mouths.

  “Did you leave any for me?” she demanded and pushed her way through all the
bodies. Nothing in the pan on the stove. Shoot.

  “I did.” Micah whispered, his mouth only inches from her ear.

  The puff of breath from his words sent shivers down her spine, and when he wrapped an arm around her to hand her a plate of food she had to fight against the desperate urge to lean into him. If there hadn’t been an audience, she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to resist the temptation. For a change, she was grateful for her brothers’ presence as a deterrent to her foolishness.

  “Thanks.” She accepted the offering but didn’t turn to look at him. Why wouldn’t he move away?

  “You look good.” He leaned a little closer, something Cori hadn’t thought possible, and sniffed at her hair. “Smell good, too.”

  Unable to stop the shiver of arousal his nearness caused, she took a deep breath to calm herself. If he didn’t stop, she was going to attack him despite the audience.

  “Hey!” Zach shouted and shoved Micah to the side. “Back away from my little sister.”

  Micah tightened his arm around Cori’s waist and dragged her a few inches to the left. “Not unless she tells me to.”

  “Stupid,” she murmured. “Taking on a room full of big brothers.”

  “Bet you’re worth the risk.” His mouth moved against her hair. “Want to run away with me?”

  Cori’s heart gave a little leap, but she tamped the unwanted excitement down. He was surely joking, so she responded in kind. “Not until I eat first. This food looks way better than you do.”

  “Ooh…” Nick leaned over and wiggled his eyebrows. “Ouch. Score one for my little sister. Hey, Zach! She doesn’t need our help.”

  Although Cori jabbed at Nick with her elbow, she didn’t say a thing because her mouth was full of the absolute best omelet she’d ever eaten in her life. How was it possible the guy could take the same exact ingredients as she did and make a masterpiece, while hers was just barely edible? It wasn’t fair.

  She gradually pried herself away from his embrace and made her way across the room, as far as humanly possible from Micah. The distance between them allowed her nerves to settle down to a low jangle. She felt this crazy around him and she had to drive him back to his van? Alone? The tow truck cab, typically plenty large, would never be big enough for her comfort if Micah was along.