by Lee McKenzie
“Very funny, Mom.” But Nate was laughing, too. “Did Kristi mention that I showed her my greenhouse?” He pulled her even closer as he said it and she went willingly, taking a nervous sip of her drink as she did.
Helen wagged a finger at him. “You be careful, young man. I wasn’t born yesterday and I know a smart aleck when I see one.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Kristi said she sewed this dress herself,” Helen said. “You told me she was beautiful but you didn’t mention she was so talented, as well.”
“What was I thinking?”
Kristi couldn’t bring herself to look at him, and she was pretty sure he would avoid eye contact anyway.
Britt rejoined them. “So, how did the two of you meet?” she asked. “I don’t think you mentioned that, either.”
He smiled down at her then with an I-told-you-so sparkle in his eyes. “Remember I told you I hired a real estate company to help me sell the house?”
“Yes, although I’m still surprised you want to sell,” Britt said. “I’ve always thought that was a perfect house for you and…you and the girls.”
“Kristi is one of the owners of that company,” Nate responded without missing a beat.
“Are you now?” Helen studied her with even more interest. “So you’re a real estate agent?”
“No, I’m an interior decorator. One of my business partners is a Realtor, though, and the other is a carpenter. Our company is called Ready Set Sold. We help our clients renovate and stage their homes before they go on the market.”
“I’m impressed. And since you’re helping Nate get the house ready to sell, I take it you’ve already met my two darling granddaughters and that behemoth of a dog of theirs.”
“I have. The girls are adorable.” They were, and in just a few short days she had grown far more attached to them than common sense dictated. “And Gemmy is…” She had no idea what a behemoth was, but she guessed it was large. “Gemmy is the biggest dog I’ve ever met, especially compared to mine, who happens to be one of the smallest you’ll ever see.”
“So you love dogs and you’re good with children. You’re artistic and entrepreneurial. No wonder Nate is so taken with you.”
He looked down at her, and during those few brief seconds while their gazes locked, all of this…Nate’s affection, Britt’s admiration, Helen’s approval…it didn’t just feel real. She wanted it to be real.
“Britt, why don’t you and Nate go out to the backyard and see if you can find your father? And make sure Ned Grainger from next door didn’t give him one of those horrible cigars. Kristi, you come with me. There are some people I’d like you to meet. And I’ll tell you about the time Nate nearly blew up the basement. He decided he wanted to be an inventor.”
“I was nine,” Nate said as his sister dragged him away.
“Well done, brother,” Kristi heard her say.
She tucked her clutch firmly under her arm, tightened her grip on the stem of her wineglass and let Nate’s mother lead her into the fray. This was going much better than she ever could have expected, and she realized she could easily get used to this. Don’t, she reminded herself. A lot of real relationships didn’t last. Fake ones didn’t stand a chance.
* * *
THREE HOURS LATER, Kristi was in the kitchen, washing stemware by hand. The 1940s charm of the McTavish home had been maintained everywhere but the kitchen, which was a model of modern efficiency and a joy to work in.
Helen cleared counters, stowed leftover hors d’oeuvres and unopened bottles of sparkling water in the refrigerator and loaded the dishwasher while Nate and his father went through the house, gathering glasses, plates and crumpled napkins.
The evening had flown by, and in a way Kristi wished the party wasn’t over. Helen had introduced her to numerous people as “my son’s girlfriend, the owner of Ready Set Sold.” She had handed out a surprising number of business cards—even Claire would have been impressed—and she had made contact with a woman who did upholstery and draperies. Kristi would be calling her on Monday to get more information about her rates and availability. The evening had been overwhelming and invigorating. She had not expected Nate’s family to welcome her into their home and their lives with such genuine warmth, and she felt guilty as hell.
At one point during the evening, Nate’s mother had shown her through the house, including a tour of the back garden. Everything Nate had told her about his mother’s green thumb was true. The back garden was a private oasis, filled with flowering shrubs and fruit trees, bird feeders and an old cast-iron birdbath. In the back corner a tire swing hung from the branch of a big old chestnut tree. Nate’s father had put it there when Nate and his sister were kids, and Molly and Martha loved to play on it now. On Sunday she would get to see that firsthand because she and Nate were bringing the twins and Jenna here for Britt’s birthday brunch.
“I think this is it,” Nate said, setting an overloaded tray on the counter next to the sink.
“Where’s your father?” Helen asked.
“He’s having a nightcap out on the terrace.”
“No cigars, I hope.”
“No cigars,” Nate said.
“Why don’t you go join him?” Helen dumped soap in the dishwasher, closed the door and turned it on. “Kristi and I can finish up in here.”
“No nightcaps for me. I have to drive home.”
Kristi felt his hand slide beneath her hair, the light stroke of his thumb across the nape of her neck. This is for his mother’s benefit, she reminded herself. Not yours. But that didn’t lessen the sensations that shimmered along her spine.
“I think we’re ready to call it a night,” he said.
More shivers.
“Nate told me that your daughter is looking after Molly and Martha.”
Kristi eased away from his touch and dried her hands on a kitchen towel. “She is. And we should really get home…back to Nate’s, I mean…and see how they’re doing.”
Helen smiled. “Thank you for your help in here. I’ll see you both on Sunday. It’ll be good to see the girls, and I’m looking forward to meeting your daughter, too.”
Kristi hadn’t mentioned the brunch to Jenna yet. She had told her daughter that she and Nate were just friends, and that this evening was strictly casual. She wasn’t sure she believed it herself, and she knew for sure Jenna wouldn’t believe they were just friends if Nate was as attentive on Sunday as he had been tonight. So much for not being complicated.
Chapter Six
The evening had gone well, Nate thought as he took the on-ramp to the I-5, geared down and merged into the northbound lane. Kristi had been quiet since they’d left his parents’ place, though, and he wondered what she was thinking. Her silence made him a little uneasy, although he couldn’t exactly say why.
Best way to find out what she’s thinking is probably to ask. Even though he might not like the answer. “I hope you had an okay time tonight.”
“I had fun,” she said. “Your family’s great. Your mother introduced me to lots of people, and I even made some business contacts.”
Okay. She’d enjoyed herself, hit it off with his mother. All good. So why did he detect a “but”?
“But I’m not sure this was such a good idea.”
And there it was. “Really? Why is that?”
He’d had reservations about tonight, but being with her had felt natural. So natural, he’d found himself wishing this was real. And
since his mother and sister seemed genuinely taken with her, he was confident they would stop trying to fix him up with every single woman they encountered. “You really had that bad a time?”
“Oh, no. I enjoyed myself. It’s been ages since I’ve gone out for something that wasn’t related to my job or my daughter’s school. I’m just worried that we’ve given your family the wrong idea.”
“I hope we did.” That had been the whole point.
“Your mother invited me to have lunch with her next week. Did she tell you?”
“No, she didn’t.” And he had not anticipated anything like that. “What did you say?”
“That I have a busy week lined up and I would have to check my calendar.”
He relaxed a little. “Okay. So you’ll tell her you’re busy. That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Will your mother settle for that and not keep asking?”
If his mother truly wanted to have lunch with Kristi, there wasn’t an ice cube’s hope in hell that she would let this drop. “We’ll figure something out,” he said. “Maybe I’ll talk to her.”
“Then you’d better talk to your sister, too, because she invited me to go shopping with her. She wants to redecorate the master suite in her condo, and now that you and I are together…her words, not mine…she’s going to take advantage of having a ‘decorator in the family.’” To drive the point home, Kristi added air quotes to the end of her sentence.
Well, hell. What could be a sticky situation with his mother just got more complicated. Helen McTavish might be deterred, hell’s snowball aside, but Britt? Not a chance. She never took no for an answer.
“Britt can be persuasive but she had no right to ask you for free advice. I hope you didn’t agree.”
“She did say that if I ever need legal counsel—”
“Seriously?” He and Britt would definitely be having words over this. “Did she tell you she’s a criminal defence lawyer?”
Kristi laughed at that. “Yes, but she said her firm handles other things—contracts, wills, real estate—and she’d be happy to set me up with another lawyer.”
He gripped the steering wheel and stared at the taillights ahead of him. He had not seen any of this coming, although knowing his family as he did, he should have anticipated it. Now the solution to one problem had snowballed into a bigger one.
“Did I mention that Jenna has also been invited for brunch on Sunday?”
“No. My mother didn’t say anything. What did you tell her?”
“I couldn’t think of an excuse why she couldn’t be there so I said I’d bring her. I’m afraid the invitation caught me off guard.”
He signaled for the next exit. “Do you think Jenna will mind?”
“I don’t think so. I’m worried about giving her the wrong impression, though. She already thinks tonight was a date, and your family is convinced this is the real thing.”
He appreciated why she didn’t want to deceive her daughter. Molly and Martha were too young to understand the concept of dating, but Jenna knew the score. Kristi couldn’t very well tell her this was an elaborate ruse to make their families stop setting them up with blind dates.
“If you would rather not go on Sunday, just say the word. I can tell my mother that you had a family thing come up and you couldn’t get out of it.” His mother and Britt would be disappointed. So would he.
Being with Kristi tonight had been a lot more enjoyable than he’d expected, and convincing everyone that they were really dating had been a lot easier. Putting his arm around her, touching her hair from time to time—it all felt perfectly natural.
“I don’t think lying to them is a good idea,” she said. “No more than we already are.”
“You’re sure?”
“I am. And since I didn’t think to get anything for your sister, I’ll tell her the shopping trip is her birthday present.”
“Thanks. I owe you.”
She laughed. “You might regret that. You haven’t met my family yet.”
He glanced sideways and caught her smile, but he couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.
“Do you mind if I ask you something?” Kristi said.
“Ask away.”
“You told me your wife died. She must have been pretty young. What happened?”
To his surprise, he didn’t mind talking about it. He did want some context, though. “Let me guess. My sister said it’s been two years and about time I finally dived back into the dating pool. And my mother said that after two years, it would be good for Molly and Martha to have a female role model in their lives.”
“You took the words right out of their mouths,” Kristi said.
“Heather was diabetic, had been since childhood, and she’d had a kidney removed before we met. Her doctor warned that a pregnancy would be hard on her health. We should have been more careful. I mean, we were careful, but nothing’s ever one hundred percent.”
“Tell me about it. The last thing I expected to be at eighteen was a mother. We thought we were being careful—at least I thought we were being careful.”
He gave her a quick side glance, recalling her earlier reference to Jenna’s father’s car. “Do you have any regrets?”
“Not now. There was a time when I wished my daughter didn’t have a deadbeat for a dad. I know there are times she feels as though she’s missing out, like when her friends’ fathers are driving the car pool or running kids to the mall, but most of the time she’s fine with not having him around.”
Deadbeat. He’d heard her use that term once before, to describe him. Let it slide, he decided.
“But you were telling me about your wife,” Kristi reminded him.
“Right. The pregnancy was a lot harder on her than anyone expected. By the time we found out we were having twins, it was too late…not that she would have done anything anyway. She really wanted children and thought it would be better to have them while she was young and still reasonably healthy.
“When it became obvious just how big a toll the pregnancy was taking, she was put on bed rest, and then the girls were delivered eight weeks early.”
“Oh, Nate. That must have been hard.”
“The girls were pretty tiny so they spent a couple of months in the neonatal unit. They were healthy and they were being well cared for, so we focused on getting Heather better. Only that didn’t happen.”
Kristi didn’t respond, so he kept talking as he negotiated the familiar streets of his neighborhood.
“She only had the one kidney and it was failing. She started dialysis, and the doctors put her on a wait list for a transplant.”
“That’s awful. So many people don’t understand how important it is to be an organ donor.”
“Everyone in my family learned that pretty quickly. We all volunteered to be tested, but her mother was the only match. The girls were just a year old when Heather had the surgery. Everything looked good for the first few months, then her body rejected the new kidney. The doctors did everything they could but they couldn’t save her.”
He pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine.
Kristi put a hand on his arm. “Thank you for telling me. I had no idea. Your poor daughters…”
He covered her hand with his, not wanting to lose the connection. For the first time since those dark days, he thought about opening up, telling Kristi how devastated Heather’s mother had been, how she considered her loss to be paramount to everyone else’s, and that she n
ow seemed to believe her sacrifice granted her some degree of ownership of his family. Could he say those things to Kristi? Should he? Or was he simply reacting to a pleasant evening in the company of a beautiful woman?
“Most of the time Heather was too sick to be with Molly and Martha, and they were too young to remember her.” He stopped himself from saying more. Spilling his guts was not the way to keep this thing with Kristi casual and uncomplicated.
“I guess that would make it easier,” she said. “But it’s also sad they never knew their mother, that they never had a chance to make memories with her.”
He’d never thought of it that way, and honestly, he didn’t want to dwell on it now. And aside from a desire to change the subject, there was something he wanted to know, too. “Now do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Not at all.”
“I heard you talking on the phone the other day. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but you were in my office, and when I went to tell you we were on for tonight, you were telling someone you’d agreed to this date because there are no strings attached, and that you weren’t taking a chance on another deadbeat.”
She covered her face with her hands. “You heard that? Oh, Nate. I’m so sorry.”
“So you do think I’m a—”
“No!” She dropped her hands and met his gaze head-on. “I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about men in general. My dad was a deadbeat, and then I did the same thing my mother did and married one. I have this lousy track record and I want something else for my daughter.”
He felt bad for putting her on the spot. She was obviously embarrassed, but he was glad he asked. “Good to know,” he said. “That I’m not a deadbeat, I mean. Not that the other men in your life are. Were.” You can stop talking anytime now.
She touched his hand again and he liked it even better the second time around. “I’m so sorry you thought I was talking about you. No one could think that. You’re raising two little kids on your own…you have an amazing career.”
