The Secret Ingredient (Love Around the Corner)

by Lynn Rae

  “Why?”

  Instead of answering, she closed her eyes and shook her head once like she was banishing a thought. “Just kiss me, please.”

  So he did, ignoring his inner voice clamoring for reassurances from her.

  Chapter 13

  There was a scatter of applause from the sparse crowd at the baseball diamond. Only a die-hard fan would show much interest in the plays the T-ball teams were making this late in the game. The score was tied at zero to zero, and nearly everyone’s attention was on the ticking clock signaling the upcoming end of the game. Kayla would be famished when she got off the field, so Nate was glad he’d packed her a snack of salami-and-cheese roll-ups and milk.

  He couldn’t see his niece anywhere in the dugout, but considering she was less than four feet tall, it wasn’t surprising. She’d been on the field earlier, skipping and swinging her ball glove while barely paying attention to the sporting activities around her. It seemed she didn’t have much of a competitive streak. Becky had stayed home with the twins since they were sharing a case of the sniffles. Volunteering to escort Kayla to the game was a good excuse for some solitude in the stands.

  A small kid from the opposing team managed to whack the ball off the tee, and everyone on the field leaped around in excitement. He wished he was that carefree. Despite his fantastic time with June the previous afternoon, she’d gently evaded his attempts to set up a time to see each other again.

  Someone shouting out his name pulled him from his thoughts, and he glanced around the bleachers to see Tiny waving at him as he lumbered up the creaking metal stands to take a seat.

  “Kayla out there?” The big man peered out on the field where small people in red-and-blue uniforms traded positions at the end of the inning.

  “No, she’s benched because she lost focus earlier. She was chewing on her glove laces and missed a play.”

  Tiny grinned and shook his head. “What’s up with you? I haven’t seen you since you skipped out on the party.”

  Nate shrugged and adjusted the angle of his ball cap. “Nothing much. Same old, same old.”

  “You are so obvious, man. When you get to Hollywood, don’t sign any contracts or someone will own you for the rest of your natural life.”

  Nate scoffed, wondering what his friend was talking about.

  “Something’s going on. Have you talked with Heather since the party?”

  Nate shook his head; hoping silence would deter Tiny from his CSI interrogation.

  “You should. Or maybe you shouldn’t. She’s completely pissed at you.”

  “Why?” It was an automatic question, although he had a good idea what was agitating her.

  “Hell, I don’t know. We were out last night, and she went off on some tangent. I started to tune her out after she started ranting about what a slut you are.”

  “A slut?” Now he tore his gaze away from the field and peered at Tiny. The big man shifted on the narrow metal seat and stared back.

  “It’s what she said. Claimed you were off banging that schoolteacher when you were supposed to be hanging out with her. On a date or something. Did you ditch Heather?”

  Tiny’s incredulous tone matched Nate’s mood perfectly. Heather had gone around the bend.

  “First off, we were never on a date, and we never will be. Second, who I’m banging is none of her business. And third, she’s not a schoolteacher; she’s administrative support.” Nate shook his head in disgust. “Banging.”

  “She was cussing when she said it, so I don’t think she was trying for classy.” Tiny leaned back and stretched his legs as far as he could, while propping his elbows on the seat behind them. A few people on the opposing side clapped wildly, and Nate wondered if there had been some sort of score. He should be paying better attention so he could report to Becky.

  “Heather’s always been quick to say what’s on her mind.” Nate waved at Kayla. She was peering at him from the narrow window at the top of the dugout. She grinned and disappeared, hopefully before her coach noticed and set some more sanctions on her.

  “She thinks her eggs are going bad, and she wants a garage.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Nate stared at Tiny, amazed at the strange trajectory of this conversation. Normally Tiny talked about food, television, and the latest scores on whatever video game he was wrapped up in.

  “She wants a house and babies, dumbass. Before it’s too late.”

  Nate swallowed. Was that what June wanted? She’d never made a hint of it, but they’d only just gotten to know each other. June was practical and would want a good provider for her children, someone reliable and supportive.

  “Heather’s not getting them with me, and she knows it.”

  Tiny raised his eyebrows. “’Kay. Got it.”

  A few silent moments passed as Nate quickly assessed what he had to offer anyone. Not June specifically, just an average woman who might want a future with him. His modest tally of skills included cooking, no outstanding credit-card debt, and the ability to open stuck jars. His friend spoke up again.

  “So if you aren’t banging Heather, who is it?”

  “I’m not banging anyone.”

  “You’re not tapping that secretary? You seemed pretty into her.” Tiny’s mouth curled at the pun, and Nate wanted to punch his best friend in some inexplicable heated rush. Tapping, banging, neither term was right for what had happened between him and June.

  “When did you notice this?”

  “At the party. Heather’s all over you and you’re watching the secretary like she had your soul in her back pocket.”

  “Give me a break; I was not.” Why the hell was Tiny even talking about souls?

  “Whatever, man.” Tiny made a tiny, disbelieving whistle and pretended to watch the ball game.

  He didn’t stare at women like a lovesick puppy. He liked June, he liked her a lot, but he wasn’t goofy over her. Sure, he wished she was sitting next to him right now, wished he knew when he was going to see her again, but that didn’t mean he was infatuated with her. Yes it did. Damn. An extended round of scattered clapping broke out, distracting Nate as a swarm of uniformed children burst from the dugouts to scatter into the stands, looking for their rides home. Kayla was upon him in a flash for a hug and a kiss. She settled herself comfortably between him and Tiny, and dug into the bag he handed over.

  “Hi, Tiny!” she squeaked, her mouth already stuffed with a huge bite of soft yeast roll filled with provolone and thinly sliced hard salami.

  “Hey, Kay.” Tiny picked up her ball glove and comically tried to fit it over his hand. The little girl obligingly giggled, coughed, and nodded when Nate handed over her carton of milk. Organic, of course.

  “So, you and the secretary?”

  “Up in the air.” He didn’t know where he stood with her. The text he’d sent her last night and the call he’d made that morning hadn’t been returned. She was probably busy with last-minute moves for her grandmother. He wished she’d have asked for his help.

  “And Heather?”

  “She’ll have to be mad at me as long as it takes for her to get over it. I can’t change how I feel.”

  Tiny shook his head slowly. Kayla tapped her box of milk against his arm until he reached for it, and then she returned to engulfing her sandwich.

  “Are you not into Heather because she doesn’t float your boat, or is it the secretary?”

  This was yet another personal question coming from Tiny, and Nate gave him an evaluating look. Mindful that Kayla was listening in even if she seemed to be solely focused on adding calories to her body, he weighed what to say. “Both. I never thought about Heather that way in the first place. And June, is…she’s…”

  “She’s nice, Uncle Nate. She told me if I ever got worried at school I could come talk to her and sit with her at her desk when she makes the ’nouncements.” Kayla slurped up the last of her milk and let out an enthusiastic burp. Tiny erupted into laughter, and Nate made an apologetic shrug when
an older couple in front of them turned with disapproving lines on their faces.

  Tiny’s phone buzzed with an incoming message, and he read it with a sigh.

  “What is it?”

  “She’s, ah, damn.” Tiny shifted his big feet against the metal bleachers with an annoying squeak. He looked down at the steps leading up, and Nate followed his friend’s gaze, trying not to grimace when he saw Heather standing there, hands on her hips. With tight lips and an aggrieved tilt to her chin, she stomped up to where they sat, ignoring the looks of irritation from the spectators she stormed past. He so didn’t need this confrontation now.

  “Nate,” Heather acknowledged him with a terse greeting and then turned her narrowed eyes on Tiny, who was doing his best to blend in with the gray-aluminum bleachers. “What have you been blabbing about, Tiny?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Right. He’s been gossiping about me, hasn’t he?” Heather eyed him, and Nate was grateful he had his sunglasses on, otherwise she might have scorched his retinas. She surely wouldn’t try to seduce him right here in front of a bunch of kids and their parents. “I’m sure he exaggerated. I was just tipsy and said a lot of stupid stuff.”

  “Okay.” Nate thought agreeing with her was the least volatile course.

  “And you can forget about ‘us.’ That’s never going to happen.” Heather cocked her head back with a scowl. “You don’t deserve me.”

  “Okay.”

  “There isn’t a man in this county good enough for me.” Her voice cracked a bit, and Nate knew her brave front was about to collapse. “You’re all immature, commitment-phobic players.”

  One of the women sitting nearby cast a wary glance at them.

  “Hey, I’m not commitment-phobic,” Tiny spoke up, giving Heather a stare as good as he got. Nate kept quiet, relieved Heather had decided he wasn’t worth the effort. For once, someone’s low expectations for him might turn out to be for the best. Kayla kept eating, not really interested in boring, grownup conversation.

  “Right. When was the last time you even went on a date?”

  Something sizzled in the air, and Nate watched them. What exactly had happened between Heather and Tiny?

  “I thought I was last night. I asked you to dinner, we shared a meal, and I took you home.” Tiny drew himself up and gave Heather a frown. Nate was boggled. His two best friends had gone out on a date?

  Heather spluttered. “You never said…I didn’t think.”

  “You’re right. You don’t think.” Tiny stood up and towered over them, displeasure radiating from him. “You don’t notice what’s right in front of you.”

  With that, he walked away, shaking the bleachers with every step he took. Heather blinked at Nate and then Kayla, her mouth opening and closing a couple of times like a hooked fish. Her eyes widened and after an audible gulp, she spun around and thundered down the steps in pursuit of Tiny. Nate watched as Heather ran toward the parking area, reaching his friend just as he opened the door to his truck. He stopped watching as soon as Tiny grabbed Heather and kissed her. Well, wasn’t that interesting?

  “Come on, little shortstop, time to get you home to mom.”

  * * * *

  June tried to take a deep breath and calm her expression, but she wasn’t sure she pulled either off well enough to reassure Mrs. Faber, the assistant manager at the Acres. At least Simon’s latest debacle had only rated the attentions of the facility’s second in command. She was sitting in the woman’s small office with Grandma Sinclair at her side and doing her best to reassure everyone around her that her brother wasn’t a menace.

  “I’m sure you understand, Ms. Sinclair, we can’t have visitors making scenes on our property. All our residents deserve a calm and safe environment,” Faber repeated the party line, and June nodded automatically as she set her mouth in a pensive line. She wished she had a calm and safe environment, too, but with Simon in the same county, it was an impossible dream.

  Her brother had come to their grandmother’s new apartment under the guise of picking up some empty boxes for his own move, but he’d lost his temper, created a scene, and the head orderly had called the police and his boss, in that order. Somehow, June had managed to get there in time to plead for leniency, and Simon had been allowed to walk away with the promise he wouldn’t come on the property again.

  Grandma had been mightily embarrassed in front of her new neighbors, most of whom seemed delighted to have so much drama enliven their day. June reached out and squeezed her fragile-seeming hand, and the older woman shot her a glance from the corner of her eye. June had to repress a near-hysterical giggle. Despite the seriousness of the situation, it did feel like she and her grandmother had been called to the principal’s office for a talking-to.

  “Well, the excitement’s done for now, and I’m sure we won’t have a repeat of it.” Faber rose from behind her laminate desk and gestured toward the door behind them as she straightened her navy cardigan set. Happy to stand up and escape, June helped her grandmother to the door, and they left with smiles and nods.

  Confused by the turns and twists of unfamiliar, aqua-painted corridors, she and Grandma took their time in finding the right door, decorated with balloons and a poster board welcoming a new neighbor. They entered the small apartment, and June took a quick look around to make sure everything was as it should be. All the old, familiar furnishings in a new location made her uneasy, and she hoped her grandmother would be able to sleep tonight. Not only was she in a new home with new sounds, but her grandson had added a huge amount of new stress to her life. Damn, Simon.

  “Go on, get home, sweetie. You’ve done enough for your old grannie today.”

  June shook her head and peered in the refrigerator. All the basics inside were fresh and unopened.

  “Have you heard from that nice Nate fellow?”

  June shrugged, staring at the due date on the milk rather than let her grandmother catch sight of her expression. He’d texted last night, and she hadn’t seen it until that morning. Before she could decide how to reply, she’d gotten a call from her grandmother for help and had spent the majority of the day making sure all the family drama wasn’t going to get Gran evicted before she’d even spent the night here.

  “Are you two going to see each other again, once this video is done?”

  “I don’t know.” June opened up a few kitchen cabinets to make sure the cereal, crackers, and cans of vegetables and soup were where she’d placed them the day before.

  “Go see him when you leave here.”

  June finally gave the other woman a glance and found her grandmother standing in the dining nook, small arms folded across her chest, and a frown on her features.

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s sweet on you, and he’s probably too shy to do anything about it.”

  “Shy? Sweet on me? Grandma, I hate to break it to you, but guys these days don’t get sweet on women. And he’s not shy about anything.” Hardly. If she allowed herself to consider how playfully insistent he’d been the afternoon before, she’d flush and shake. Nate wasn’t shy in bed, and she was hardly the first woman to discover this fact.

  “Oh, I know all about your generation and how hard you make things. All your social networking instead of talking to someone, and this ‘friends who hook up’ nonsense.” Grandma crooked her narrow fingers in the air to emphasize her point.

  “It’s not nonsense, Grandma. People these days don’t take walks and hold hands in the moonlight.” Nope, nowadays people tended to hop into bed and make babies before they even met each other’s family. Not that she wanted to make babies with Nate Garner. Or hop back into his bed. Yes, she did. Hmmm.

  “Maybe most think it’s a waste of time and they’d rather be staring at some tiny video screen, but I know you, June. You want to take those walks and hold hands with someone.” Her grandmother’s kind words were like a stab to the heart, and June took in a shaky breath, looking for her bag, and wondering where her planner was.
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  “No. I’m fine.”

  “June, you manage everything down to the last minute. You’ve been cooling Simon out since you were a little girl. Today was a little out of the ordinary, but I can tell something is distracting you.”

  “Just a lot to do before I get back to work.”

  Grandma shook her head and squeezed their hands together. “Fine. You’ll tell me when you’re ready. It wouldn’t do you any harm to go spend time with a nice-looking man and get your mind off things for the evening.”

  “I’m sure he’s working.”

  “So what if he is? He can’t be at work twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Nearly. He works at the diner in the morning and at his mom’s place at night.”

  “Oh, right, Poppa’s bar. I know that place.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I have ways,” the older woman intoned and laid a finger alongside her nose with a wink. “Go have a drink tonight. You deserve one after the day you’ve had.”

  “Then you deserve one, too. We can go together.” June made the offer in jest; her grandmother was a teetotaler of the Methodist persuasion.

  “Don’t be silly. I’m tired and I want time to fall asleep in my recliner while the news is on. Go on. Stop worrying about trying to make your family happy.”

  June exhaled a big breath and wished fervently it were possible for everyone she cared about to be content at the same moment in time. It seemed like such an occurrence was as likely as space aliens deciding Palmer, Ohio was the capitol of Earth and landing there to start negotiating.

  “He’d like it if you did. He doesn’t have a girlfriend, does he? Or do you even call it that anymore?”

  “Nope, no girlfriend.” He might have plenty of friends with benefits, or bed buddies, but she hadn’t noticed any booty calls or distractions when they’d been together. Then again, hadn’t she agreed to be the bed buddy of the week?

  Grandma clicked her tongue and towed her to the door. “Go on, get a drink. He’ll chat with you and one thing will lead to another.”