Dean, however, invited Connor and Max to join him and Finn.
“I’d like to,” Connor said, “but he might get fussy and ruin your nice, quiet dinner.”
“Nah,” Dean denied, moving farther into the booth and patting the table beside him. “Finn, here, has raised a whole passel of kids, and I’ve never had my own, but love to admire everybody else’s. Besides, I’ve got this crick in my neck I want to talk to you about.”
Though Shelly was busy, she noticed that they seemed to get on well and that Max entertained himself with a spoon while the men talked and ate. He didn’t turn rowdy until they’d finished eating and he discovered he could bang the spoon on the table or the crockery for a cacophonous effect.
She saw Connor put on his jacket and slide out of the booth with Max on his hip.
“Pleasure to meet you, Doc.” Dean’s booming voice carried across the restaurant to the counter where Shelly was serving up coconut cream pie. “Hope to get to visit with you again.”
“Likewise, Mr. Kenning,” Connor replied, “Mr. Hollis.”
He came toward the counter, his attention snagged by the pie to which she was adding a decorative dollop of whipped cream.
“Yum,” he said. “Can you bring some of that home?”
She cut another piece and placed it in a take-out box. “It’ll be another few hours before I get there. Can you carry this and Max, too?”
“No problem,” he said with an appreciative grin. “Thank you. And your chicken strips are superior. No wonder your customers like them. If you get me Max’s snowsuit, I’ll take him home with me.”
“It’s in the back. Hold on a minute and I’ll get it for you.”
She delivered the first slice of pie then ran into the kitchen where Dan was working like a particularly brilliant machine, the grill covered with burgers, steaks, cottage fries.
“Everything okay?” she asked as she ran to her small office, retrieved the suit and ran back toward the front.
“Everything’s always okay,” he replied without turning to her. That was always his answer.
She passed the suit over the counter to Connor, then spotted Dean, holding up his coffee cup. She grabbed the pot and headed for his booth.
When she returned, Connor had Max’s legs in the suit and was working on his flailing arms. She replaced the pot, then hurried to help him, bumping noses with the baby to distract him while Connor got his arms in the suit. Then Connor stood him up on a stool and held his hands out as Shelly drew up the zipper. She pulled his hood up and tied it in place while the baby laughed.
“I’ll be home around ten,” she said, walking them to the door.
“Call me when you leave and I’ll put the coffee on,” he said, then arched an eyebrow in question. “Or is that even appealing when you serve it all day?”
She leaned toward him conspiratorially. “I use basic good stuff here, but I have really good stuff at home. Do put the coffee on.”
“All right. See you then.”
And then as naturally as though they’d been dressing babies and parting at the door of the restaurant for years, he leaned down to kiss her and she stretched up to meet his mouth.
The instant their lips touched, she remembered that it wasn’t natural for them at all, but her mouth didn’t seem to care. It was a tender kiss, a simple meeting of uncomplicated feelings of affection and connection.
But it still hit her like a hammer.
She closed the coffee-shop door behind her, her lips tickling, her senses reeling.
It was after ten before she prepared the deposit, put it in the safe, then remembered to call Connor and tell him she was on her way. She locked up the shop and headed along the street.
Connor was standing on the porch when she reached the house.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked as she climbed the steps.
“Watching you,” he replied, pushing the front door open for her. “That’s a long, dark block.”
“Thank you,” she said, “but Jester’s safe.”
“Jester’s now full of people who don’t usually live here,” he reminded her. “Max is asleep. Time for the Midnight Marauders to frolic.”
She went to the carrier where Max slept and felt a rush of emotion at his look of complete contentment. His tiny fingers were splayed in response to some happy dream where he smiled, then snuggled even deeper into the blankets.
She caught the carrier in one hand and took it with her as they walked into the kitchen. “Midnight Marauders?” she asked, placing the carrier on a seldom-used corner of the counter.
“Us.” He laughed. “One of my patients in L.A. was part of a family with four children under seven, and that’s what the father and mother called themselves. When there’s a baby or children around, your day is so focused on them you’re hardly aware of your own needs. When they’re asleep you finally come alive and feel as though you want to take over the landscape because the world is now yours again.”
She pulled her coat off and went to the cupboard for plates as he poured coffee. She gave the cupboard her customary yank and almost flew across the room when it gave immediately.
“Careful.” Connor came to steady her. “I fixed that,” he explained. “And watch the drawer, too. The runners needed a little soap.”
“They were dirty?” she asked in surprise.
He studied her a moment, apparently wondering if she was serious. Then seeing that she was, he laughed lightly, caught her arm and pushed her into a chair. “No, the soap was to help it slide. I also tightened the wobbly towel rack in the bathroom down here, and the light switch now works on the back porch. Sit there and I’ll wait on you.”
“That was unnecessary, but very appreciated.” She watched him work at the counter and admired his broad back and long legs in the snug jeans with a sort of wistful budding of lust she knew she couldn’t indulge. “You found my father’s tools.”
“Yeah. Mine are still in storage. He had a great shop. I’d kill for his ShopMan.”
“Is that the big table saw thing?”
“I’ve wanted one for ages, but haven’t had enough time or space to put one to good use. Maybe I’ll be able to find it in Jester.”
He brought two steaming mugs of coffee to the table, then the pie she’d sent home with him divided onto two plates.
“You’re pretty good at this,” she observed, the weariness she’d felt when she closed the restaurant suddenly replaced by a sharp awareness of her surroundings. “We could use you at the Cup on weekends.”
He looked up from dipping his fork into the pie. “Do I get to keep my tips?”
She was sure those smiling good looks would earn them. “We put them in a pot and the waitress splits her take with Dan.”
“Sounds fair. But I think if I had to carry more than two plates, there’d be some serious loss of dinnerware and product. Besides…” He took a bite of pie, rolled his eyes, then chewed and swallowed. “Your customers would miss your personal service. Dean and Henry talked at great length about what a great girl you are.” He smiled apologetically. “Girl being their term, not mine. And how you’ve made a seamless transition from the restaurant your parents ran to the Cup as it is now.”
She sighed with satisfaction. It had been a good day. And it was nice to hear that her efforts in the coffee shop kept her regulars happy.
“Jester is full of great people. Did Dean say what he’s going to do with his money?”
“He has an investment plan that’s worthy of Wall Street, and he said something about taking a cruise if he can get Delilah Burke to go with him. Who’s Delilah Burke?”
“Well, that’s promising!” she exclaimed. “I think he’s been sweet on her since they were in high school together. But she married someone else, moved to Helena, and come home to Pine Run after he died. Dean never married. But it’s been clear since she got back that he’d like to…you know…rekindle the romance.”
“It gives you faith in love,” he said, “when even peo
ple in their late sixties are doing it.”
She sipped at her coffee. “Had you lost faith in it?”
“It wasn’t lost but seriously dented.” He grinned at her. “But you’ve been a sort of emotional rubber mallet.”
“Um…” She narrowed one eye, trying to imagine if such a comparison was good or bad.
“Okay, pitiful metaphor. I mean the dent is gone. I feel as though my feelings about love have been reshaped, reformed.”
She was flattered. Even…touched. But she was determined to resist his charms. He was too unsettling, and she was a woman with roots that ran deep.
She pushed her plate away and leaned toward him on her forearms. “We’re here together for Max. You keep forgetting that.”
He shook his head, apparently unaffected by her attempt to thwart him. “I’m not forgetting anything. You’re just denying what’s right in front of your face.”
“What’s in front of my face is a legacy that I’m required to uphold and maintain. And, finally, opportunities to…be free.”
He frowned at that. “Now that doesn’t make sense. Are you determined to keep the Cup going as a tribute to your parents, or are you straining at the bit to take advantage of your winnings and be free? And whichever it is, why did you want so desperately to keep Max if your life is either about the pressure of work, or the possibilities of freedom? In either case, he doesn’t fit. Nothing fits.”
“He was abandoned! He needed me!”
“He needed someone. Mrs. Pearson probably had a perfectly suitable home for him to go to. I think you need Max. When he dropped into your life, you finally realized that you want children, though apparently you’ve been telling yourself since you inherited the restaurant that you don’t have time for them. You want a family. You want the day-to-day demands of loving and being loved just like everyone else. Why do you pretend you don’t?”
“I want…” she began firmly, then had difficulty finishing the sentence. What did she want? At the moment she hadn’t a clue, except she’d thought that this was nice—having someone to come home to on weekend nights when everyone else was gathering at the Heartbreaker, or with their families. Someone who stood on the porch and watched protectively as she walked home.
That is—it was nice until he began interrogating her.
“I want,” she started again more quietly, “for you to stop telling me what I want. I’m here because it was what the Duprees did and I’ve adjusted. I’ve more than adjusted—I’ve settled in. So don’t…rock the boat.”
He went to the counter for the pot and topped up their cups. “Don’t make you think about it, you mean?” he asked when he came back to the table.
She ignored him and forked her last bite of pie.
“What did you want to do,” he asked gently, “that you didn’t get to do because of The Brimming Cup?”
She sighed and sat back. “Almost everything,” she admitted for the first time, even to herself. “I wanted to play with the other kids instead of doing dishes and setting tables. I wanted to go to the movies with my friends instead of waitressing Friday and Saturday nights because the young woman who waited tables for us had a boyfriend and didn’t want to work weekend nights. Then as a young woman I wanted to explore the possibilities of a liberal arts education, but it was clear that my mother’s health was weakening and my father was going to need me even more. I got to go to culinary school, but came right back to help out.”
He pushed his cup aside and put a hand on hers across the small table. “Why do you feel guilty about wanting something else? You’re entitled to the life you want. Particularly now that you have the opportunity to get it for yourself.”
She frowned at him. “There you go again. Do you want me here, or not?”
He met her eyes and held them. “I guess that depends on whether you want to be here or not.”
“Because your life’s already been…dented by someone who didn’t want the same thing you wanted and you don’t want that to happen again?”
Was that the root of his concern? he wondered as he looked into her troubled eyes. Not that she might miss life’s possibilities, but that he had to know which direction she was heading so he could decide whether or not to become further involved? Was he thinking that if she was going to live for the restaurant, or take off in search of herself, the crush was off?
He wasn’t sure. The moment was too tumultuous to tell. His visions of his own life—wife, children, big dog, barbecues, trips to the zoo—were all entangled in Shelly’s guilt-ridden but legitimate sadness over a lost childhood. She had a right to life the way she wanted it now that she could finally do something about it.
“Maybe,” he admitted on a sigh.
She stared back at him one surprised moment then seemed to lose her head of steam. “Well, go ahead and ruin the argument for me by being honest,” she chided with a very small smile.
Max chose that moment to wake up and scream for attention.
Connor pushed his chair back, intending to go get him.
Shelly stopped him with a raised hand. “I’ll take him up with me.”
“You just came home from work,” he objected.
“I know,” she said reasonably, “but if you weren’t here, I’d have to deal with him.”
“But that’s why I’m here.”
“No, you’re not. You’re here to help me when he’s sick, not just when he’s crying. Every single mother in the world has to cope with a baby who needs her whether or not she’s rested. And it’s just temporary. Next week, when he goes back to Pine Run, I’ll get all the rest I need.”
She put Max to her shoulder in what was now a very graceful and comfortable movement, took a bottle out of the refrigerator one-handed, heated it, then went toward the stairs. “Good night,” she called over her shoulder as Max, recognizing the bottle, made happy noises and reached toward it, little fingers outspread.
Connor put the dishes in the dishwasher, locked up, turned out the lights, then climbed into his lonely bed. Only it wasn’t lonely for long. Sean Connery, apparently fed up with the noise and disturbance from his mistress’s new pet, leaped onto the bed and curled up in the hollow between Connor’s chin and shoulder. He was purring so loudly, Connor didn’t think he’d be able to sleep.
He was right. But it wasn’t just the cat that kept him awake. He could hear everything going on upstairs. Max was up every hour or so. Connor heard his unhappy cries, their gradual abatement as Shelly walked the floor or spoke to him in a gentle tone. There would be quiet for some time, then it would all erupt again and he would hear her pacing the floor. She’d been down once for the teething stick in the freezer, but it wasn’t effective tonight.
The scenario had repeated itself for a fourth time when he glanced at the clock, having to pat down the fluffy cat’s coat to be able to read it. Three twenty-seven.
He threw the covers off and swung his feet to the floor. Sean Connery meowed peevishly but didn’t move.
He ran up the stairs to find Shelly with the crying baby in one arm, reaching to the foot of the bed for her robe with the other. She looked like a zombie replacement for the real Shelly. She was pale, her eyes red rimmed and bloodshot, her hair rumpled.
He took the baby from her, holding off her interfering hands with his free one.
“I’m doing this!” she shouted at him, tossing the robe down angrily. She was exhausted and grumpy.
Max screamed at her raised voice.
“You’re upsetting the baby,” Connor said, certain that would guilt her into letting him help.
“If you weren’t here…” She began the argument she’d used earlier.
“I am here,” he interrupted firmly. “And let’s not analyze why right now, okay? Let’s just get through tonight.”
He sat on the side of the bed that showed the least disturbance, and held Max against him. The bedclothes, he noticed, smelled of lilacs. Almost instantly, the baby’s cries changed from angry screams to simple complai
nt.
“I hate that you can do that with him,” she said, folding her arms. He did his best to ignore the small protrusion of nipples through her nightshirt.
“When a baby needs comfort, a mother’s soft, gentle arms are just the right thing,” he said, patting the mattress beside him. “But when he hurts and doesn’t know why and everything in his confusing little world seems to be attacking him, he needs to feel muscle, power, protection.”
“But you can’t protect him from sore gums any more than I can.”
“It’s an illusion.” He smiled, patting the mattress again. “Come back to bed. He knows he has a champion, so he’ll feel more secure and get over it himself. Lie down,” he prompted again. “It can work for you, too.”
She didn’t move, studying him suspiciously.
He rolled his eyes. “I haven’t gotten any more sleep than you have. I don’t have the energy to seduce you. And frankly,” he smiled apologetically, “you’re not at your seductive best at the moment.”
She looked from the bed to him, apparently unable to choose between her annoyance with him and the inviting aspect of climbing into the covers again.
The baby stopped crying. She opened her mouth to speak, but Connor put a finger to his lips, a suggestion that they do nothing to disturb Max’s tenuous hold on sleep.
Marching to the doorway with a tantalizing sway of her hips, she flipped off the light then stomped back to her side of the bed and climbed in. It was only a double bed, and she stayed well on her side.
Connor closed his eyes, finding her even more exhausting than the baby.
Chapter Seven
Shelly dreamed of warmth and blissful quiet. She was cocooned in soft blankets that were slightly scratchy but wonderfully comfortable. She was aware of her mind and body drifting up to wakefulness and fought it by clutching the blankets to her and trying to hold on to the quiet.
She moved a foot, rubbing against her mattress in an attempt to widen her stance and resist the encroaching light of day. In a move that startled her out of sleep despite her efforts to hold on to it, the mattress on which she lay rubbed her in return.
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