The Perfect Match

by Kimberly Cates

  “A lot, if we humans are smart enough to learn from them,” she said, drawing a pattern on his chest, the rough mat of hair abrading her palm. “Dogs love every minute of every day. They don’t worry about what might happen tomorrow or regret what happened yesterday. They embrace the moment. Feel grateful just to be.”

  “Lucky bastards,” Cash muttered.

  “Why can’t you and I follow their example for at least a little while? Not ruin what happened last night by coming up with the jillion and one reasons we shouldn’t have done it, or all the ways it’s too hard or too difficult to make work.”

  “Ignoring the problems aren’t going to make them go away,” he warned.

  “There’s no doubt about that,” Rowena said, stopping to consider. “They’ll all still be right there when we have to face them. But today will already be gone. So let’s keep today simple. I made some coffee. We can stick it in travel mugs and head to your house to let Destroyer out. He’s probably worried sick about you by now.”

  “You think?” Cash asked, surprised that the possibility warmed him.

  “Oh yeah.” Rowena smiled. “Come on, Deputy, let’s get some caffeine in you. We’re both going to need it if we’re going to get the house back in order before the girls get home.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Sunday. My day off, remember? I want to spend it painting with you.”

  “Rowena, you don’t have to—”

  “I want to. For strictly selfish motives. That way, we’ll have more time to just…be…when tonight comes.”

  “Be? Hell!” Cash grimaced. “I know my own limits. If you’re anyplace near me tonight I won’t be able to keep my hands off you!”

  “I’m counting on it,” Rowena said, and kissed him just above his heart.

  THE PAINTING WAS DONE. Cash knew he should be setting the rest of the house in shipshape order, but damned if he could make himself do it. Not with Rowena looking so irresistible, paint-spattered and rosy-cheeked, her eyes sparkling.

  He’d ordered pizza when they’d been so famished they couldn’t hold a paint roller or brush. They’d shared the pie on the only horizontal surface in the house that wasn’t stacked neck-deep in stuff. When Rowena had dripped a bit of sauce on her chin, he hadn’t been able to resist licking it off. Her mouth tasted even better. They’d taken another trip to the shower and ended up back in bed. Too tired to move, Rowena had teased, but apparently not too tired to make love.

  Cash couldn’t help it, trying to squeeze in every moment he could with Rowena underneath him. She’d grown more relaxed every time they came together, and he’d grown more desperate. He could feel his real life breathing down his neck. Knew that once the girls came home everything would be different. Moments like these, with Rowena naked in his bed, in his arms, would be almost impossible.

  And yet, he tried to be in the moment. It’s not as if he didn’t have plenty of reminders about how dogs handled life. He now had not only Destroyer, but Lucy and her pups in his backyard, the arrangement only logical while Rowena and he worked.

  The puppies at least gave the Newfie some kind of baby to fret over after his lonely night. Cash had felt like a real jerk when the dog leapt all over him in a frenzy of relief the minute he’d unlatched the cage. Destroyer still looked pensive, and determinedly carried Charlie’s rollerblade around with him, but at least the dog wasn’t howling anymore.

  Rowena purred, rubbing herself sleepily against Cash, burrowing into him like a cat, and he felt himself start to harden, wanting her again. Tempted to drive her even higher than before, he kissed her throat, her breasts, blazing a path down her belly. He started inching lower, encouraged by her soft moan, when the pack of dogs fired off louder than a goddamn Fourth of July fireworks display.

  Cash glanced at the clock—almost ten. Then he sat up in bed, his cop instinct driving him to go to the window, look out into the backyard. All the pugs were plastered to the fence by the driveway, barking wildly. But the only glimpse Cash caught of Destroyer was a flash of giant fuzzy butt bailing over the top of the fence.

  Cash threw Rowena his robe, then jammed his legs into his jeans as he headed out to see what the devil was going on. But before he could reach the front door, it burst open in a blur of bounding, joyous dog and Charlie’s worried face.

  Charlie?

  Cash barely had time to process the fact it was her before Lisa swept in, pushing Mac in her wheelchair. He froze, sensing Rowena right behind him, knowing the instant Lisa realized they’d been in bed together. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they’d been up to. Cash could only pray Charlie was too young to sort it out.

  “You aren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow night,” Cash accused.

  “Daddy, I was getting all worried, and—and the house is all torn up.” Alarm spread across Charlie’s face. “Rowena’s here. Rowena, did you come ’cause there was a disaster?”

  Cash half-expected Rowena to jump in, but she only moved to stand beside him, letting him handle this his way. He’d sworn he’d never let this happen to his girls. Never let them stumble in on him with a woman.

  “I told Rowena she could come here in case of emergency,” Charlie explained. “Did you have a tornado, Daddy?”

  “No. I was just doing some painting. Rowena, uh, helped.”

  He could see what Lisa thought of the bright new colors by the arch of her elegant brow.

  “Rowena, this is Lisa,” Cash said, feeling awkward as hell. “Lisa, Rowena Brown.”

  “Were you trying to trick us by painting the house all new?” Mac frowned.

  “Trick you?” Cash echoed.

  “Like that bad woodsman daddy in Hansel and Gretel.” Mac scowled. “What if you lost us and we couldn’t find home ever again?”

  “No danger of that, kitten. Your mom knows where to find me.” He wished to hell she didn’t; he and the girls, off somewhere in witness protection. Except that he shouldn’t hide them from their mother. He only wanted to. “And even if your mom didn’t, I’d come and get you. I could never ever be without my girls.”

  Did Lisa’s expression change when he said that? Cash’s gut clenched like a fist.

  He turned toward his ex-wife. “So what are you doing here? Now? You could have telephoned.”

  “The line was busy. Probably because someone knocked it off the hook.” Lisa pointed to the phone dangling off its cradle.

  “My cell—”

  “I don’t know why you didn’t hear it. Unless it’s set on vibrate.”

  She didn’t add, Hard to feel that when you’re not wearing any pants. But Cash was thinking the very same thing.

  Damn. As if this whole “return of the prodigal mother” scene weren’t difficult enough. He’d had to indulge himself, not only have sex with Rowena, but have her sleep here in his house.

  His daughters’ home.

  And the way the girls were eyeing Rowena’s present state of undress, there was no doubt the two of them would come up with plenty of questions.

  “I came here early because what I have to say just couldn’t wait,” Lisa said, glancing with barely veiled hostility from Rowena to Cash. “We had a good time together, didn’t we, girls? Made some wonderful new friends.”

  “What kind of friends?” Cash asked, suspicious, knowing he didn’t have much room to criticize at the moment.

  “Good friends, yessiree,” Mac claimed. “I went to this doctor. Do you know they’ve got the best doctor in the world in Chicago, Daddy? He can make me walk in two snips of a lamb’s tail.”

  Cash’s glare snapped to Lisa’s face. She looked a little guilty, even under all that perfect makeup. Outrage pulsed through him. “You took my daughter to a doctor in Chicago without my consent?”

  “MacKenzie is my daughter, too. When I moved to Chicago I arranged for copies of all her medical records to be sent to me.”

  It had been part of the divorce settlement. Seemed harmless enough at the time. He’d never imagined she�
��d try to hijack control of Mac’s treatment.

  “I’ve been keeping track of her progress, Cash and…we need to get a few things settled.”

  Her attitude irritated the hell out of him.

  “Maybe your, ah, babysitter, could take the girls someplace so we can talk.”

  The look Lisa shot Rowena, so full of superiority, burned Cash, badly. Rowena knew him well enough to gauge his control was about to snap.

  “It’s okay,” Rowena soothed. “You want to see your rooms, girls? Your daddy painted them, too.”

  But Charlie hung back from Rowena, looking reluctant.

  “Maybe we could go out back and get Destroyer’s new friends,” Rowena tried to tempt her. “There are some pug puppies I’m working with.”

  “Oh, goodie!” Mac enthused, rolling her wheelchair into the kitchen. Cash knew she’d made it outside on her own when he heard the familiar bang of the screen door closing behind her.

  Cash’s sense of foreboding worsened when Charlie didn’t add her delight to her sister’s. Charlie leveled a probing stare on Rowena. “You can’t go outside without clothes on.”

  Cash winced inwardly as Rowena’s cheeks flooded with color. “I’ll go get some right now,” she said, turning and fleeing back to the bedroom. It didn’t take her ten seconds to come back out, her painting clothes on—one of his old Marine Corps T-shirts and those split-kneed jeans.

  But Charlie didn’t look relieved. Something was definitely wrong in the girls’ world and Cash’s oldest daughter was smart enough to know it. He could see the furrows in her brow, the dread in her eyes. She crossed over to him and leaned against his side as if she were silently asking him to protect her from whatever bad thing was making the grownups in the room seem like a pot about to boil over.

  Charlie’s fear made Cash resolve to hold his temper together for his children’s sake as Rowena tried to herd the children out of the line of fire. But Charlie dug in by his side.

  “Charlotte Rose, outside,” Cash ordered as gently as he could. “Now.”

  Charlie started at his command and in that moment Cash knew how Benedict Arnold must have felt. Charlie’s bottom lip quivered, but she did as she was bid. She skirted around Rowena as if she were afraid the woman was going to bite her, then she fled outside, Destroyer following right behind her.

  “I’ll just go watch them,” Rowena said. “Take as long as you need.”

  Cash listened until he heard the hollow clunk, Rowena shutting the door solidly behind them, leaving him and Lisa alone. Good thinking on her part, closing Mac and Charlie off from the discussion their parents were about to have.

  “Why don’t we just cut to the chase? What exactly is this sudden transformation into a concerned mother?”

  “I know I haven’t exactly been mother of the year since I moved to Chicago, Cash—”

  “That’s for goddamned sure.”

  Lisa only seemed to steady herself and plunged on. “I’m not proud of the way I’ve behaved. But I’ve never stopped loving my girls.”

  He snorted in disgust. “You’ve got a funny way of showing it. You know, this weekend the old boathouse down in Jubilee park caught fire and I rescued a cat who had more mothering skills than you.”

  Pain filled Lisa’s eyes. “We were always good at hurting each other, weren’t we, Cashel?”

  “And you were good at bailing any time there was any kind of conflict between us. Running away doesn’t solve anything.”

  “Neither does being cruel. How does that make things better for our children?”

  Cash stalked away from her, fisted one hand against the wall. He wanted to beat his knuckles against it until the plaster broke, his knuckles bled. Damned if Rowena hadn’t said almost the same thing. Hate—that most corrosive emotion. One that two innocent kids shouldn’t ever have to see do its ugly work, especially between their parents.

  Cash went into the kitchen, needing room to pace. He knew Lisa had followed him. He could smell her expensive perfume. He clenched his jaw, reaching deep for the truth. “You abandoned them. They needed you.”

  “I wasn’t any good to them. Not in the shape I was in.”

  Cash sucked in a breath, meaning to argue, but Lisa cut in.

  “You know it’s true. I was miserable even before the accident, Cash. And afterwards…I left because I was two steps away from taking a handful of those pain pills the doctors prescribed for me, wanting just…peace.”

  She’d contemplated suicide? Cash recoiled from the thought. He’d never loved Lisa the way he should have, but she’d been his wife for six years. The mother of his children. “Our life together was so terrible?” he asked.

  “Yes. It was. I hated it here. You knew that. I didn’t have anything for myself. A career. A purpose.”

  “You think I would have stood in your way? You could have done anything you wanted. I would have supported you.”

  “Yes. You would have. But there’s one thing I needed you couldn’t give. You couldn’t love me, Cash. You never did.”

  What could he say to that? It was true. He compared what he’d felt for Lisa with the way his heart raced every time Rowena came into a room. The way he’d had sex with Lisa, as if there was still a wall between them, and no matter what, they couldn’t seem to reach each other.

  With Rowena, every nerve in his body seemed attuned to her, every wall crashed down, every sensation sharper, sweeter.

  He didn’t want to feel sorry for Lisa, or regret the pieces of himself he’d withheld from her. In the end, she hadn’t loved him either. But in spite of all that, he couldn’t help regretting all those barren years.

  “We could spend all night talking about how we failed each other,” Cash said. “But in the end, this is ancient history. What matters is now.” More of Rowena’s wisdom.

  “That’s what I want to negotiate with you. The future.”

  Negotiate? That sounded bad. Real bad.

  “And so you appear out of the blue?” Cash challenged, the tension cinching tight again. “Take Mac to some doctor? Feed her some line about how he’d make her walk in no time?”

  “John says…”

  “John?” Cash sneered. “Well, if John says it.”

  “From the looks of things your social life is not exactly on hold either,” she snapped. “I might as well just blurt out the whole thing. You’re going to take it wrong any way I say it.”

  “Then get it over with.”

  “John is an orthopedic surgeon. I hired him to help me make sense of Mac’s medical reports.”

  “So you didn’t completely ignore Mac’s condition,” Cash said. “That doesn’t give you the right to make medical decisions without my consent.”

  “And just because John is my fiancé doesn’t change the fact that he’s one of the top men in his field.”

  “You’re getting married?” This interfering stranger—a goddamned doctor—was going to play stepfather to his girls? Panic jolted Cash, as if a steering wheel had just gotten yanked out of his hands and his life was careening out of control.

  “The wedding is in June. He’s worked on cutting edge treatments at the university hospital at Northwestern. He’s been studying MacKenzie’s case.”

  Resentment crushed Cash in his grip. “Dr. Malley is Mac’s doctor. He’s been with her through every surgery, every step of the way.”

  “Exactly which steps would those be, Cash? As far as I can see, MacKenzie hasn’t taken any steps at all.”

  Cash slammed his fist into the wall. “Damn it, Lisa, Mac’s starting to stand on her own now, and—”

  “Losing your temper isn’t going to change the truth. I know you’ve been doing the best you can, but this town is so far off the medical map that it might as well not exist.”

  “We’re hardly using leeches and witch doctors around here.”

  “John measured MacKenzie this weekend and he’s putting up handrails on every wall in our condo. So as soon as she’s on her feet she’ll be able to h
old onto them, make her way around without that horrible wheelchair.”

  Cash didn’t want to feel this sudden sense of inadequacy. Wanted to cling to hate, anger. “And who’s going to go through Mac’s exercises with her? Hold her hand while the doctors are pulling out stitches or poking where it hurts and she’s scared and crying? You couldn’t stomach it before. Why do you think you can do it now?”

  Lisa couldn’t meet his eyes. “John is going to hire someone to come to our home to help with the things that were too hard for me before.”

  “A stranger can do it better than her own father can?”