UP IN HIS BEDROOM HE shrugged out of the scratchy, puke-smelling suit and dashed into the bathroom for a quick shower before dressing in jeans and a navy polo shirt. He kept his eyes averted from the queen-size bed, still covered by the same yellow chintz comforter Claire had chosen the year before she’d died. Yellow is the color of hope, she’d said.
His eyes burned. He stabbed his feet viciously into sport socks and grabbed his sneakers.
Back in the kitchen he warmed the soup the Theisen woman had brought. God, she was amazing. Not only was there a Tupperware container of soup, but she’d included another square plastic container of corn bread.
Okay, he thought, as he settled down with the first home-cooked meal he’d eaten in a long time by someone who, unlike him, could actually cook, she’d gone the right way about advertising her services. Not only was the flavor fabulous, but the soup tasted wholesome. He somehow knew the herbs in there were from her garden and that no cans, packages or shortcuts of any kind had been used.
Wow.
Maybe if he’d tasted the soup first, he wouldn’t have turned her down so hastily. He buttered a square of corn bread and discovered it tasted as good as he’d imagined it would. But no. That woman had a mountain of problems and if he ended up having to foreclose on her home, he didn’t want to have his kids involved.
Turning her down had been the right thing to do.
But, as he rolled up his sleeves and washed up the brownie disaster, he kept seeing her, the way she’d efficiently figured out what was wrong with the twins, the natural way she’d tucked them in, as though she did it every night.
Well, maybe she wasn’t for him, but he bet whoever ended up using Melissa Theisen’s day care was going to be very happy.
Tomorrow, he’d take a day off, watch the kids, work from home and find some other arrangement. He wouldn’t use the same agency who’d found him the useless unemployed teacher. He rubbed a tired hand over his face, so hard that his wedding ring scratched his cheek. Maybe his sister would have some ideas. Janice was a grade-school teacher and a resourceful woman.
Dishes done, he wandered into the den and accessed his office e-mail from his computer. With luck, everything was running smoothly, he could leave Stella a voice mail that he wasn’t going to be in tomorrow and then head to bed.
“Damn it all to hell!” he raged aloud, when he saw the subject of several e-mails.
Couldn’t one single thing go right? Amid the crisis with the girls he’d forgotten that tomorrow was the directors’ meeting. If he missed that, he might as well kiss his job goodbye. He had to present the bank’s strategic plan for the next twelve months at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. He’d intended to spend the bulk of today preparing his presentation. First Mrs. Theisen, then the twins’ illness had knocked the whole thing out of his mind.
The plan was in place, including Mitzi’s crap ad campaign, but he still had to write his speech notes and polish up his presentation.
He started typing, then stopped. What was he going to do with the girls tomorrow? He’d been told to keep them home from school for a few days. He certainly wasn’t about to unfire the nanny for one day.
Frustration settled in his stomach and the gastric juices began churning his guts into the pit of hell.
He picked up the phone on his desk and called his big sister. “Hey, Janice,” he said when she answered, feeling better just hearing her voice. As she’d grown older, she reminded him more and more of their mom. “What’s up?”
“I’m considering petitioning Congress to outlaw cell phones to any child under twenty-one. I had a girl’s cell phone go off in the middle of a math test. I confiscated it and later her father called. Not to apologize, you understand, but to warn me never to touch his daughter’s personal property again.” She blew out a breath. “How was your day?”
“I win in the crap day department. Mine was worse.” He told her about the brownies and the hospital visit and Janice made all the right sounds of outrage and sympathy. Being able to tell her about it made him feel a little better. “So, now I’m stuck with no child care tomorrow and two sick kids.”
“Oh, Seth. I’m so sorry. Look, I can call in a sub and take a day off tomorrow. Believe me, after the cell phone incident, I need a mental health day.”
“I love you for offering, but no. I’ll find another way.”
There was a short pause. “You know Mom would fly home and help out.” Their parents had retired to Florida two years earlier. They’d owned the condo in St. Pete’s for a few years before that and he knew that they’d held off moving to support him and the twins through Claire’s illness and death and the first terrible year after she’d died.
“I know she would. But then Dad wouldn’t want to be left alone, so they’d both come and it’s not fair on them. They’re enjoying their lives. Besides, it would only be another temporary fix. No. I’ve got to find a better solution.” He scratched his head. “If only the twins weren’t so…”
“Troublesome?” his sister suggested with a wry note.
He made a face he was glad she couldn’t see. “I’ve spoiled them, haven’t I?”
“Well, you let them get away with murder, but you’ve also got two great kids who are getting through a difficult time as best they can. Anyhow, they come by their pranks honestly. Remember what we were like?”
And just like that, he laughed. “Mostly, it was you who thought up the stunts and me who got caught.”
“They’re going to be fine, Seth,” she said, answering the concern he hadn’t voiced. “They’ll grow up to be wonderful people. We did.”
“I know you’re right. Thanks. It’s tough having nobody to share the worry and the responsibility.”
“I know. I guess Claire’s parents wouldn’t—”
“No,” he said with finality. He’d met his wife at college back east. She was from Chicago and her family still lived there. Claire’s parents had never really got to know Laura and Jessie all that well, and after Claire died, the contact dwindled to gifts, and a phone call at birthdays and Christmas and a check each year toward their college fund. He couldn’t understand how her parents could dismiss all that was left of Claire, but he suspected they found too many painful memories of their dead daughter in the twins, who looked so much like her, and he tried to understand.
Claire’s brothers and sister all had their own families and seemed to take the lead from her parents.
“I do have one option,” he said, and he told Janice about Melissa Theisen.
“She sounds perfect,” his sister said after he’d described the way his bank client had helped him through the brownie fiasco and he’d outlined her qualifications. Seen through his sister’s eyes, of course, Mrs. Theisen was perfect. “Why are you so hesitant?”
He didn’t mention one of the reasons. That he was attracted to a woman who was as messed up emotionally as he was. “I don’t know. Maybe because she was talking about being a landscape designer earlier today and now she suddenly opens a day care. And if we have to foreclose, well…”
“Oh, honey. I wish I had an easy answer for you. Look, the offer stays on the table. If you want me to take a day off tomorrow, you know I will.”
“Thanks, Janice. You’re the best.” He rubbed a hand absently over his belly. “But I’ll figure this out.”
“SORRY, I’M LATER THAN I thought I’d be,” Melissa said when Pam opened the door. “I had to wait for them to get back from the hospital.”
Her neighbor glanced at her wrist. “Fifteen minutes late. I’ll have to punish you by feeding you coffee. Come on in, I just made some decaf.”
“You sure you don’t want me to take the children straight home?”
“They’re watching the new Disney video. Nothing could drag them away until it’s over and the princess bags her prince. Besides, Greg’s got a partners’ dinner tonight. I can use the company.”
Melissa snorted, following her neighbor into her warm, oak kitchen. “I’m thinking about launching a petition against all movies where princes and princesses end up happily ever after. Why poison their little minds with…what are you doing?” While she’d been speaking, Pam had dragged a chair across the floor. Now she climbed up on it to reach the cupboard above the fridge.
“I sense we need a little kick in our coffee,” Pam said, dragging out a bottle of Irish cream liqueur, which she handed to Melissa. With a grunt, Pam clambered down and bustled around collecting mugs and the coffeepot.
Melissa watched, amused, as her friend poured rich, dark streams of coffee into two mugs and then sloshed a healthy dose of liqueur into each mug. “Hell, we might as well go all out,” she announced and opened the fridge and pulled out a slim carton. “Real, one-thousand-calories-a-teaspoon whipping cream.”
Soon they were sitting at the kitchen table, frothy coffees in front of them. Melissa sipped, enjoying the tickle of cream against her upper lip, and the kick as the drink hit her stomach. For a moment life felt like it used to.
“Well?” Pam asked, reminding her abruptly that life was actually completely different than it used to be.
She shook her head. “He said no.”
“How could anyone say no to you? What’s the matter with the guy? Is he too cheap to pay for decent child care?”
“We never even discussed money. It wasn’t that.” Her eyebrows drew together in a frown. “I don’t have a clue why he turned me down. He said something about ethics, but I don’t think it was that.”
“Maybe he really wants the kids looked after in their own home,” Pam suggested. “And getting the child-care provider’s exclusive attention.”
“Maybe. And they could certainly use a housekeeper. That place is a mess.”
“Don’t be disappointed. We’ll put the word out. We’ll have you turning away customers in no time. I guarantee it.”
Impulsively, Melissa reached across and touched the other woman’s hand. It was freckled and warm. “You’ve already helped, taking the kids tonight. And coming up with such a great idea in the first place.”
“I’m pretty proud of myself for thinking of it. You’ll be terrific.”
“Do I need some kind of a license or something?”
Her friend shrugged expansively. “I don’t know. You can check it out tomorrow.”
Excited chatter erupted from the basement. The movie must be over, thought Melissa. Feet pounded up the stairs, and four bright faces burst through the doorway into the kitchen.
“Hi, Mom,” Matthew shouted, running forward and then sliding to a halt in his stocking feet when he realized his friend Josh was watching.
Alice had no inhibitions about hugging in public. She threw herself into her mother’s arms. “Mama.”
WHEN SHE’D FINISHED TUCKING the kids into bed, Melissa ran a bath—one of the few indulgences she still allowed herself.
She was a little punchy from lack of sleep and a day that had been pretty much all dramatic peaks with not enough valleys in it to catch her breath and regroup.
The knowledge that Stephen had abandoned them still stung cruelly, but there was a sneaking sense of determination that Melissa hadn’t been sure she possessed. She knew, as well as she knew anything, that she was going to be okay. With a lower mortgage payment, some day care clients and her landscaping business, she was going to survive. All on her own, thank you very much.
Her first attempt at recruiting day-care clients hadn’t gone so well, she reminded herself as she stepped out of her robe and sank into the warm, bubbly water.
Those girls were obviously a handful, but the mother in her responded to their plight. Sure, it was bad to have your father abandon you, but to have your mother die of cancer was so much worse. Although Seth O’Reilly was no doubt a top-rate bank manager, she got the strong feeling he was out of his depth in his domestic life.
Oh, well, if he didn’t want her, he didn’t want her. Bubbles tickled her neck and her breasts peeked through the white foam, pink and wet. And it hit her. He did want her. That poor, broken man, calling to his wife’s ghost on the front lawn, had wanted her in that elemental way a man sees a woman and responds. There’d been a time when that had happened so often she barely noticed, but in the last couple of years, she’d caught that look, that certain current of energy, so rarely she’d almost forgotten what it was like.
Was that why Seth O’Reilly had turned down her offer? Because he was attracted to her? She tipped her head back and inhaled the gardenia fragrance. Probably it was just as well. She didn’t have the time or the energy to let a man down lightly. Better they remain strangers.
He’d awakened feelings, though, feelings she’d almost forgotten she owned.
She’d noticed him eyeing her curiously. She so rarely bothered to dress up these days, or waste the time and energy on makeup that she hadn’t immediately interpreted his admiring gaze. She thought about him. Realized she’d found him appealing, too.
If anything, his painful love for his dead wife increased his attraction. Fidelity was an attribute she no longer took for granted.
While she was in the tub anyway, she decided to shave her legs. And she really needed to do something about her nails. Just because she was alone was no reason to let herself go.
In the middle of the second leg, the phone rang. It was a habit to bring the portable into the bathroom with her, so she was able to reach one bubble-dripping hand out of the tub to the small wicker table that held candles, some fancy soaps and a basket of polished rocks with inspirational words on them. She picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Theisen? It’s Seth O’Reilly.”
Now, there was a voice she hadn’t expected to hear. “Um, yes?”
“I hope I’m not calling at a bad time.”
“No. It’s fine.” What on earth did he want? She flashed back to the way he’d looked at her earlier. Oh, no, she almost moaned. Please don’t let him ask her out. She didn’t feel up to rejecting the man who’d so kindly helped her sort out her finances today.
Regardless of the fact that he didn’t want her looking after his children, she didn’t want to hurt him.
“I have a problem,” he said, sounding tired and serious.
“Join the club.”
He chuckled, but his exhaustion was clear. “I was planning to stay home tomorrow with the girls, but I’ve got a critical meeting in the morning.”
Okay, it seemed like he wasn’t asking her out. She let out her breath, relaxing so the water sloshed up over her shoulders. “Uh-huh.”
“Frankly, I’m reconsidering your child-care offer. Pardon me for asking, but are you reliable? I can’t keep changing sitters—it’s bad for the girls.”
“Pardon me, Mr. O’Reilly, but I am completely reliable, my home is spotless and my brownies haven’t killed anyone yet.”
“Okay. Can you start tomorrow?”
“Well, since it’s an emergency, I suppose so.”
“What’s your address?” he demanded. “I was in such a hurry earlier, I didn’t pay much attention.”
She gave it to him. “I live even closer to the school than you do.” She’d figured out that the twins had seemed vaguely familiar because she’d seen them at the school. Being twins, they stuck out in a crowd. She’d never seen Seth O’Reilly at the school as far as she knew. With a little shiver, she wondered if she’d ever seen his wife.
“I’ll be right over.”
“What?” she squeaked, sitting up so fast bubbles and water streaked over her torso. The half-shaved leg splashed as she dropped it back into the tub. “It’s ten o’clock at night.”
“I need somebody to look after the girls tomorrow. If you want my business, I’ll have to check out your home.”
“But—” She was about to tell him she was naked and wet, then thought better of that idea.
What on earth had she done? “I’ll be charging higher rates than most child-care providers because of my medical training,” she said, in a last ditch effort to head him off.
“I’ll be right over.”
She hung up and scrambled out of the tub, threw on some clothes, ran a brush through her damp hair and dabbed on lip gloss.
She ran downstairs to make sure everything was tidy, and realized the stupid broken drawer front still sat on her kitchen counter. She ran down to the basement, found her glue and ran back up.
Following the directions, she squeezed glue onto both the drawer front and the parts left behind and stood with her hip against the loose piece.
Was she a handy woman or what?
AFTER BEGGING HIS good-natured sister to watch the kids, Seth was at the Theisen house in less than five minutes. An elegant Tudor, it rose a foot or so higher than its neighbors as though even the houses in this neighborhood were playing Keep Up With The Joneses.
The outside lights illuminated a lush garden straight out of an upscale magazine. Annoyance sparked through him. The first thing that woman needed to do was get rid of her fancy gardener. She had to save her money to pay the mortgage and feed her family. He trod up a whimsical, winding flagstone pathway with dark leafy shapes shadowing either side, leading to two steps. Ignoring the doorbell, so as not to wake her kids, he banged the lion’s head door knocker. In the dim light, its brass glowed as though it was polished regularly. He couldn’t help but compare the outside of her house with his; she must employ an entire staff to keep the place up.
She must have been waiting for him, for the door opened almost immediately. His eyes widened when he saw her. This woman holding the door looked like she’d just stepped out of the shower, smelled like it, too, he noted as he entered the house. Her blond hair curled around her flushed face in steamy tendrils. She was pretty even without makeup, he decided, and she smelled like flowers.
He’d never seen such a kissable mouth. Full and bow-shaped, the lips parted under his stare. He felt a shaft of heat rush through him, as unfamiliar as it was exciting. It had been a very long time since he’d thought about kissing a woman.
And he wasn’t thinking about it now. He forced his gaze away from her lips and shut the front door behind him. Check out the house—that’s why he was here. Glancing around the front hall, he noticed how neat it was. Blue-and-white striped paper on the walls, unmarked by fingerprints, gray blue carpeting that still bore the ridges of a recent vacuum job.
“Would you care to come into the kitchen?” she asked in her soft hostess voice.
Nodding, he followed her lead. Peeking into the unlit living room, he got the impression that it was rarely used. It seemed lifeless somehow, and the formal dining room across the hall looked like it hadn’t seen a dinner party in a while.
He followed Mrs. Theisen’s back. She wore pale yellow jeans and a flowered T-shirt, and he approved of the way they looked from behind. He ran his eyes up and down the slim form, noting the elegant set of her shoulders, the straight spine and the bewitching sway of rounded hips. He definitely approved.
The kitchen was obviously the heart of the house. It was done in blues and yellows that looked vaguely French. They sat at a wrought iron table with a spotless glass top and regarded each other. Seth wasn’t sure how to begin, what he wanted to ask her. She seemed suddenly shy.
“Would you like something to drink, Mr. O’Reilly?” she asked. “Herbal tea?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” He smiled, trying to ease the atmosphere between them. “After the day we’ve spent together, I wish you’d call me Seth.”
She appeared to consider his words for a moment, as though looking for a trick but finding none. The corners of her mouth tilted upward. “And I’m Melissa.”
Her house was obviously clean and well organized. A quick inspection showed all the outlets had childproof covers. His own pair were more devious than any toddler. He wondered how she was planning to keep them out of trouble.
“Well, Melissa…” He tried to lounge back in his chair, but the wrought iron curlicues gouged into the muscles under his shoulder blades, jerking him upright in a hurry. “What do I get for my money?”
If she was taken aback by his bluntness, she didn’t show it. “Apart from emergency medical response on demand, I’ll also provide wholesome home-baked snacks after school, I’ll supervise the girls’ homework, encourage them to play outside in nice weather. You can drop them off in the morning on your way to work. I’ll walk them to school with my eight-year-old son.”
“What if I’m late picking them up at night? Do I get charged overtime?”
It was obvious she hadn’t thought of this possibility. He watched her struggle with herself, clearly wondering how far she could push him. “Of course,” she finally answered.
“I tell you what, let’s try it for a month and see if it works out. You’ll have to keep them home from school tomorrow.” He paused, then voiced his biggest concern, “The girls are a little…lively sometimes. Do you think you can handle it?”
The slightest smile of superiority teased her lips. “In my experience, Seth, the best way to keep active children out of mischief is to keep them busy. I’ll do my best.” She rose. “Would you care to see the backyard?”
He nodded. Anything to get out of the torture device she called a chair and quickly hauled himself to his feet.
She crossed the kitchen to a pair of French doors and flipped on a light switch. As he came up behind her he could see an immaculate fenced yard with a swing set and child’s playhouse. A round patio table and chairs were pushed to the side of the deck awaiting better weather.
The backyard looked fine. Too fine. “Who does your garden?” he asked. He’d try to slip in a subtle reminder that she needed to cut nonessentials like professional gardeners out of her budget.
“I did it myself,” she said, not without pride. “Gardens are my passion.”
What a fool he was. She’d told him this morning she designed gardens. “It’s beautiful,” he said. So was the line of Melissa Theisen’s jaw since she’d relaxed and stopped clenching it. Her neck was slender and the skin appeared silky soft. If he moved forward an inch, his chest could touch her back. He breathed in the aroma of gardenia and woman, and was torn between an urge to pull Mrs. Theisen round and kiss her senseless, and an urge to run raging into the night. For, standing here, surrounded by the scent of her, he couldn’t for the life of him remember what Claire had smelled like. He tried to recall the scent of her perfume or shampoo, but the flesh and blood woman in front of him overpowered his memory.
He caught the gleam of her eyes reflected in the glass door and realized she was staring at him, wide-eyed and frozen. Jerking backward, out of the spell of her woman’s magic, he drew in a ragged breath.
“I’ll drop the girls off at eight tomorrow morning.”
She turned slowly, and he noticed a flush on her cheeks. “That’s fine Mr….I mean Seth.” The use of first names seemed a strange intimacy suddenly. He wished he’d kept his big mouth shut. Nobody thought about kissing a woman they called Mrs.
He unhooked his jacket from the chair and shrugged into it. The sound of something falling and hitting the ground with a smack had him turning.
“Oh, I thought I fixed that,” his hostess said with an irritated tone. On the floor was a wooden drawer front. Everything in her kitchen was so pristine that the broken drawer made him feel more at home somehow.
He walked forward and picked up the wooden slab. It was solid maple he noted. No particleboard for the Theisen home. “How did you fix it?”
“A tube of glue. It’s about the only handyman thing I know how to do.”
He nodded, oddly pleased that he could do something better than she could. “It needs a vise. To hold the pieces together until they’re dry.”
“A vise. Oh.”
He stifled a grin. “Want me to take it home? I can bring the drawer back in the morning.”
Her eyes closed for a moment. Then she opened them and he saw she wasn’t annoyed, as he’d feared, but grateful. “That would be so wonderful. You know, I try to watch home fix-it shows, and I have a couple of books, but I don’t think I’m the handyman type.”
“Well, I can’t cook worth a damn.”
A silent laugh shook her. “Between the two of us, we make a great single parent.”
He was too busy pulling the drawer all the way out and placing the plastic thing holding the cutlery onto the counter to answer her.
“I’ll bring this back tomorrow with the girls.”
She followed him slowly to the door. “Do I need to worry about the twins sneaking home for any more illicit cooking sessions?”
“Not anymore. I confiscated their house key.”
“Good.”
“See you tomorrow.” He opened the front door and plunged into the darkness before she had even reached the door. He felt a sudden urge to run.