Heart Stealers

by Patricia McLinn

  He scowled at the dangling laces on his left foot. “Tie it, Mommy.”

  She put down her camera and closed in. “You know, it’s really hard for me to tie when you’re up there. I’m going to have to get you down so I can tie it.”

  “I can get down,” he said, extending his arms to her. She lifted him, planted a quick kiss in the warm hollow of his neck, and swung him to the ground. The instant she finished double-knotting his lace, he trotted off down the sidewalk.

  “Could you keep an eye on him for a minute?” she asked Brett as she retrieved her camera. The sun hit the rock, washing over its nooks and etching its textured surface with light. She took several photos quickly, before a cottony wad of clouds could drift across the sun and alter the light. Concentrating on her shots, she lost track of everything around her—the crows poking through the grass in search of a stray seed, the dog barking adamantly at a threatening squirrel, the elderly couple enjoying a brisk power walk.

  Once she had her shots, she capped the lens and searched the park for Max and Brett. They stood facing each other on one of the walkways, hands on hips, squaring off like gunslingers poised to shoot each other.

  Laughing, she jogged over. “I’m all done,” she announced. “Do you guys want to hang out here a little longer, or can we move on?”

  Max broke free and dove into her arms. He looked concerned and a bit disgruntled, not quite on the verge of tears but getting there.

  “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

  “Let’s go now,” he said, shooting Brett a dubious look.

  Sharon glanced at Brett, trying to figure out what had occurred between them that would have rattled her son. His expression told her nothing. It was almost eerily noncommittal, his jaw set, his eyes squinting slightly from the sun’s glare. “Is everything all right?” she asked him.

  “Everything’s fine,” he said tersely, falling into step beside her and lifting her tote from her hand so she could carry Max in both arms.

  Everything wasn’t fine. Something had happened between Brett and Max, not traumatic enough to reduce Max to tears but unsettling enough to make them both very wary of each other.

  So much for any magical bonding between her son and her—her friend? Her escort? Her potential lover? The only man in her life at the moment.

  Whatever Brett was to her, he and Max obviously hadn’t discovered love at first sight.

  * * *

  They stopped at the Dairy Queen for ice cream. Seated across from the Bartells at a picnic table under the awning outside the snack stand, Brett watched Sharon wipe a dribble of ice cream from Max’s chin with a napkin from the inch-thick pile she’d pulled out of the dispenser. Before hitting this oasis, they’d stopped to take photos at the pond near the library, and at the library itself, and at the athletic fields behind the high school, where two American Legion teams were battling for dominance on one of the well-groomed diamonds. At the library, Max had gorged on cheese and crackers, but two hours later he’d complained that he was starving again.

  Brett and Sharon joined him in this snack. Brett had purchased a cup of chocolate soft-serve for her and a vanilla-chocolate double twist in a cone for himself.

  “The big question,” she said as Max spooned another messy blob of ice cream into his mouth, smearing a significant portion onto his lips and chin, “is whether he’ll fall asleep before he finishes his ice-cream.”

  “I’m not tired,” Max insisted, his mouth so full of ice cream the words came out garbled.

  Sharon ate her ice cream daintily. Brett observed her as she slid the plastic spoon between her lips, as her tongue dart out to capture a tiny drip of chocolate at the corner of her mouth, and thought he’d never felt so ambivalent in his life. Witnessing Sharon eating ice cream was a sublimely sensuous experience. Witnessing her son eating ice cream was a complete turn-off—not because he was such a slob but because he was a child.

  Licking his ice cream cooled Brett, making the afternoon heat more tolerable. Once the kid fell asleep, what would happen? Could Sharon tuck him into his little car seat in back, and then they could neck in the front seat? Brett would like that.

  He’d like even more returning to her house, dumping the kid in his crib and necking with Sharon on her bed.

  For every moment the brat had irritated him, he could account for a moment when Sharon had captivated him. Watching her take pictures was like watching a dancer, an artisan and a visionary all rolled into one. Sometimes he’d want to applaud her performance. More often he’d want to haul her into his arms and kiss her silly. The awareness he’d felt with her last Saturday hadn’t been an aberration. Sharon Bartell got to him in a big way.

  But just as he’d sink deep into a mental image of what Sharon looked like under that thin cotton shirt, or how she would sigh when he kissed her throat, when he glided his hands over her skin, when he found her body with his, the kid would pipe up, making a obvious and totally unnecessary observation about a dandelion, an insect or a vehicle—bicycles and pick-up trucks seemed to play a prominent role in his world. Or he’d announce some essential fact about his physical state: that he was hungry, that he was wet, that he was running—as if everyone in the world couldn’t see him pumping his little feet and swinging his fisted hands as he sped down the sidewalk. And Brett would think, Am I supposed to care that you peed in your diaper? Am I supposed to do something about it?

  Of course he wasn’t. Sharon was the parent on duty; she was the one who had to march into the library with her kid, where they made use of the bathroom for a diaper change. By the time they emerged, Brett was hard pressed to imagine Sharon naked and sighing. She was just a mother then, not a woman. A mother with a demanding child.

  He took some more ice cream into his mouth and let it let it slide down his throat, cold and sweet. He was in trouble. He wanted Sharon, but he couldn’t have what he wanted with her, not as long as Max was in the picture.

  “I’m not tired,” Max declared, lowering his spoon into the soupy ice cream in his cup. “No, no. Not tired.” At least he wasn’t broadcasting the condition of his diaper this time. “I’m not tired, Mommy,” he insisted, though he seemed to lack the energy to lift his spoon.

  Sharon wiped off his mouth and one sticky hand. “Why don’t you just lie down for a minute?” she suggested.

  “Not tired! No!” But he lay down, resting his head in her lap. From his side of the table, Brett could no longer see the kid. He liked that. But he didn’t like thinking of Max’s head in her lap—a place where Brett would like to rest his own head. He could tell from the motion of Sharon’s arm that she was stroking her boy’s hair, and he found himself wishing she would run her fingers through his hair.

  “Five minutes and he’ll be dead to the world,” Sharon predicted in a whisper.

  Brett nodded. He supposed he ought to pretend he was interested, but he wasn’t. The only good news about Max’s becoming dead to the world was that until he came back to life, he wouldn’t be interrupting and imposing himself.

  Brett ate his ice cream and tried not to look at Sharon. Her face troubled him. She looked so peaceful, so blissful, so attuned to her son’s state. The kid was tranquil and so was she.

  She was a mother, and Brett had made a huge mistake.

  “What?” she asked, evidently reading his mood.

  He forced a smile. “What?”

  “I know this hasn’t been the easiest day in the world for you,” she said, keeping one hand on Max’s head in her lap while she resumed eating her ice cream. “Max can wear you out if you’re not used to him.”

  “I noticed.” His cheeks were beginning to cramp. He devoured a large dollop of ice cream so he wouldn’t have to smile anymore.

  “What’s perfectly acceptable to a parent might not be quite so darling to someone who isn’t related to the child,” she continued, as if she were offering him an alibi.

  It was a good one, but it wasn’t quite accurate. If he was impatient with Max, it wasn’t bec
ause he didn’t share blood with Max. It was because Max was a child, period.

  He should tell her. If he was fantasizing about making love to her, the least he could do was tell her the truth. “I...” He couldn’t come right out and say he hated children. It sounded so... hateful. “I don’t like kids much,” he admitted.

  “Oh?” Her eyebrows arched in curiosity. Not revulsion, not condemnation, but what appeared to be fascination laced with mild disappointment. “I guess not everyone is crazy about them.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your son. He hasn’t done anything in particular. He’s fine, as far as kids go. It’s me. I don’t like kids.”

  Apparently she could think of nothing to say to that. She lowered her spoon and swirled it through the melting ice cream in her cup.

  He reached across the table and touched her hand. Her spoon fell into the cup and he closed his fingers around her, recalling how smooth and soft her hand had felt when he’d danced with her, when he’d held her. “It’s a problem, Sharon,” he said. “I like you. A lot. But you’ve got a kid.”

  “Yes, I do.” A statement of fact, nothing more.

  “So maybe we could just... you know, keep Max out of it?”

  “Out of what?”

  “Anything that happens between us?”

  She smiled pensively but didn’t pull her hand from his. Her fingers moved against his palm, igniting a totally unwelcome surge of heat in his groin. “Max is a part of me, Brett. How am I going to keep him out of anything important in my life?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I thought—I mean, I’ve been having a great time today. I assumed you were, too.”

  “There have been some very nice moments.” Like now, he pondered. With the kid unconscious and Sharon’s hand in his own, and her eyes so luminous in the shade of the awning.

  Without letting go of her, he slid down to the end of his bench, stood, and circled the table to her side. “Come here,” he murmured, easing Max’s head off her lap and slowly, gently down onto the smooth wood slats. Then he pulled Sharon to her feet.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Max, as if afraid Brett was going to drag her away from her child. He was, but not the way she thought. She could remain standing beside the picnic table if she wanted, just a few feet from the kid. Dragging her away had nothing to do with distance.

  It had to do with thought and imagination, with focus and need. It had to do with figuring out which pull was stronger: his attraction to her or his aversion to her son.

  It had to do with his wanting to kiss her, having to kiss her, so he could figure out what the hell he was going to do about her.

  Chapter Six

  Last week, she’d expected him to kiss her. Today, in the early afternoon, in a public place, with cars cruising past the Dairy Queen and her son sleeping not five feet away, she didn’t expect it—which made its impact all the more profound.

  She tasted sweetness on his lips, hints of vanilla and chocolate. She tasted heat and passion, even though his kiss was restrained, a brush against her mouth, a moment of pressure, a soft graze. Her entire body resonated with it, ripples of pleasure and panic pulsing through her. She’d been missing this, a man, a smart, handsome, sexy man. God, she’d missed this.

  She felt like Cinderella again—not dressed for the ball and escaping her everyday responsibilities for a night, but simply a woman swept into another reality for a few magical minutes, transported by the kiss of Prince Charming. She wanted to open her mouth to him, to open herself, to take him in.

  But he didn’t like children.

  What kind of man didn’t like children?

  His mouth covered hers for one final, lingering moment, and then he drew back. The magic dissipated, depositing her back into reality. The afternoon warmth settled around her, teenage laughter from a picnic table on the other side of the building reached her, and a truck rumbled down the street, its engine groaning. She smelled auto exhausts and the greasy scent of French fries and broiling hotdogs.

  On the bench her son slept, an angel in repose. He was truly a beautiful child. Sometimes Sharon was shocked by his exquisite features, his long lashes, his delicate little mouth. After Steve’s death, Max had been her reason for living. He’d kept her going, kept her on track, motivated her, refused to let her give up or slack off. For nearly three long years, he’d been everything to her.

  But now she’d found something more, something Max could never give her. For the first time in those nearly three years, she’d kissed a man.

  A man who didn’t like children.

  Brett trailed his fingers through her hair, sending another ripple of desire through her. She ducked her head, wishing she didn’t respond to him, wishing she could change just one thing about him. Wishing, foolishly, that he hadn’t told her the truth about himself and had simply let her believe he was crazy about children.

  But when she lifted her gaze to him, she saw the truth in his eyes. He wanted her—but he didn’t want a woman who happened to have a child.

  “I should probably get Max home,” she murmured, as if mentioning Max’s name would force her to accept what was going on here. “It’s been a long day for him.”

  Brett seemed to understand her message: he couldn’t kiss her without acknowledging Max. Max was a part of her. Her attraction to Brett didn’t change that.

  “Do you want me to carry him to the car?” he offered, eyeing her slumbering son with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.

  Sharon didn’t want him touching her son. If he didn’t like children, he ought to keep his distance from the boy she considered the most magnificent child in the world. But Max asleep was a heavy load, almost too much for her. She shouldn’t stand on principle at the risk of buckling under her son’s weight. “Okay,” she said, her voice a little rusty. “Thank you.”

  Instead of moving toward the bench where Max dozed, Brett remained where he was, studying her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just...” He drifted off, apparently unsure.

  “No need to apologize.”

  “I’m not apologizing. I’m just sorry things are the way they are.” He ran his fingers through her hair again, slowly, tenderly. She could imagine what he’d be like as a lover, slow and tender. The thought filled her with regret, and then a pang of guilt for still wanting him. Max was her life. If Brett couldn’t accept that, he wasn’t someone she should want.

  She avoided eye contact with him as she gathered up their cups, spoons and napkins and carried the trash to the garbage pail near the window where they’d ordered their treats. By the time she’d returned, Brett had hoisted her unconscious son onto his shoulder. For someone who didn’t like children, he seemed to have mastered the technique of carrying a limp, sleeping child.

  She lifted her tote and led the way across the outdoor eating area to her car, tucked between a minivan and an SUV in the gravel parking lot. She unlocked the doors, and Brett lowered Max into his seat with such caution and care she was hard pressed to believe he didn’t like at least this one precious child.

  But if he liked Max, he would have said so. He was obviously as attracted to Sharon as she was to him. If he could have tolerated Max, he wouldn’t have said he was sorry.

  Whatever could have been would not be. If she was ever going to fall in love again, it would have to be with someone who adored Max. No matter how carefully he laid her child into his car seat, Brett wasn’t that someone.

  * * *

  Poker was at Levi Holt’s house that week. The Tuesday night game always used to be at Evan’s house before Evan, who had two children, got married. But now Evan had a wife and Levi had a child, so the rest of the players did what they could to accommodate the fathers in their group.

  The five men, who’d been meeting every Tuesday night for years, sat around Levi’s kitchen table, each of them armed with a cold bottle of beer. Levi’s baby was almost asleep; Levi had planted a microphone near the kid’s crib and a receiver on the kitchen counter, provid
ing the game with a soundtrack of muted infant babbling. Brett had no idea what the kid was saying—it all sounded like gibberish to him—but he felt chastened by the sound, as if Levi’s baby was saying, “Normal men like children. You’re not normal.”

  “I’m in,” Tom announced, tossing a white chip into the center of the table.

  Brett studied his hand. A pair of queens, nothing to write home about, but worth staying in for the round. “I’m in, too,” he said, adding a white chip to the pile.

  To his left, Murphy studied his hand for a long, intense minute, then folded. “So, how’d you make out last week?” he asked Brett.

  “Make out?” He hadn’t made out at all. He’d committed the grave error of kissing Sharon and realized something powerful existed between them. He’d thought that one kiss would decide things for him, and it had—it had proven to him that if he could get over his aversion to kids, he and Sharon could be incredible together. But it had also informed him that if he couldn’t get over his aversion, he’d better forget her, because the kid was part of the deal.

  “With that leukemia dinner,” Murphy clarified. “Did you pull in as much as last year?”

  “We made fifteen percent more,” Brett told him. The other men at the table cheered him in assorted ways, Levi raising his bottle in a toast, Evan beating a drum roll on the table with his fingertips, Tom socking him in the arm. “Yeah, it went well,” Brett added with a modest smile.

  “That lady with you—what was her name? Sharon?”

  Brett’s smile faded. “What about her?”

  “Someone new?” Evan asked, his eyebrows twitching Groucho-style.

  “She was terrific,” Murphy reported to the others. “Smart, pretty—much higher quality than Brett deserves.”

  The other men laughed. Playing along, Brett forced a chuckle. Murphy’s words stung, though. Sharon was better than he deserved.