Mummy in the Making

“Sure,” she said for the third time. “He can take the whole—”

“Shh,” Hutch cut her short, holding a long index finger to his lips to stop her before she went on.

“I wan chock-it,” Ash announced by way of conceding to the deal.

“Chocolate it is,” Issa said, going to the dish on the bookshelf and choosing the chocolate sandwich cookie with the white cream center.

As she gave it to Ash, his father said, “What do you say?”

“S’ank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Issa responded.

“Okay, why don’t you go downstairs and put your cookie in the kitchen, and I’ll be right there. Remember how much you like to dunk it, so if you eat it before you get your milk, you’ll miss that,” Hutch said then, opening the door to let his son out.

“‘Bye, Itta,” Ash said without prompting.

“‘Bye, Ash,” Issa answered, wondering why Hutch Kincaid was hanging back.

His son had just begun the slow descent down the stairs when Hutch turned his attention to Issa again to say, “The dinner tomorrow night at Meg and Logan’s? I talked to Shannon late this afternoon and she said you’re going, too. She pointed out that we might as well go together? That it’s silly to take two cars?”

Issa hadn’t really thought about Hutch Kincaid going to dinner at her half brother’s house Monday night, but now that he said it, it made sense that he was. It was a barbecue at the Mackey and McKendrick compound that would include Hutch’s brother Chase, nephew, Cody, and Chase’s wife, Hadley, who was Issa’s half sister. Hutch’s twin, Ian, and Ian’s fiancée, Jenna, would also be there. Plus Hutch’s sister Shannon and Issa’s brother Dag were also going.

Hutch’s invitation to share a ride, though, was worded a little oddly—it was Shannon’s idea and Hutch had delivered it as if he wasn’t completely sold on it.

Maybe he didn’t want them to go together.

“It doesn’t matter. If you hadn’t planned to go from here, if you were going straight from your store or something, I can get there on my own.”

“No, I actually planned to bring Ash home for a late nap so he’ll be rested before we go—he’s more likely to behave that way—so I’ll be leaving from here. But it’s up to you. I don’t want you to feel like you have to go anywhere with me because we live here the way we do. But it does make sense to carpool….”

Still not an enthusiastic sales pitch.

“Are you sure you want me?” Oh, that hadn’t come out right. “To ride along,” she added as if that would make it better.

But it was already too late because there was a hint of a smile on Hutch Kincaid’s lips. Then, as if he’d decided to confess something, he said, “Dag told me you were kind of shy, that you aren’t comfortable around most people until you really get to know them. I just don’t want to push you and have you do something you don’t want to do.”

Damn Dag. He was still her little brother giving away things about her that she didn’t want out in the open—like when he’d announced her shoe size at church one Sunday.

“It’s okay,” Issa felt as if she had to say. “We’ve kind of gotten to know each other today—I know you’re an ex-football player turned sporting goods store owner, you know I’m a ninth-grade chemistry teacher and accidental inventor….”

Hutch Kincaid’s slight smile went full-on. “We’re practically old friends,” he said facetiously. “Does that mean we can drive over together?”

At that moment Issa didn’t know what they would talk about again and that made her nervous. But so far he hadn’t been difficult to be with because he was good at making conversation himself. And riding to the dinner with him tomorrow night would give her the opportunity to remind him not to spill the beans about her pregnancy….

“I think we could probably drive over together,” she decreed. “But you don’t have to drive. I mean, I can drive. We can take my car if you want.” She was nervous and cut herself off before it went too far.

“I don’t suppose you’ve had any experience with the car seat issue yet,” he said like an old sage. “It’s easiest to take whatever vehicle it’s already strapped into.”

“Does that leave room for me?”

“Plenty. I have a fairly big SUV and car seats have to be in the back. You can have my passenger seat all to yourself.”

“Okay, then. I guess if it’s all right with you, it’s all right with me.”

“We’ll be doing our small part to save the environment,” he concluded. “Tomorrow night, shortly before six?”

“Sure.” Couldn’t she say anything else? That was four times! She hoped he wasn’t counting. “I can meet you downstairs.”

“I’ll see you there and then.”

“There and then,” Issa echoed, wishing after the fact that she hadn’t.

That was when Hutch Kincaid should have left, but he didn’t. He stayed where he was, standing in her doorway, staring at her, studying her.

“Okay, then,” he muttered after a moment, as if his mind was somewhere else. “And if the lock gives you any trouble, you know where to find me.”

Somehow that had sounded a bit awkward on his part, although Issa couldn’t imagine why Hutch Kincaid would feel at all ill at ease saying goodbye to her.

“I do know where to find you,” she confirmed.

“Anything else you need, too.”

“Thanks.”

He really was having trouble leaving. She didn’t know why, but it made her want to smile.

Then he seemed to jolt out of his reverie. “Okay, see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.”

But another split second still went by before Hutch Kincaid followed his son out her door and, without another glance in Issa’s direction, went down the stairs.

And yet just the fact that he seemed to have been even a touch gawky at the end made her feel so much better.

It even made it easier for her to think about riding over to her half brother’s place with him the next night.

Which she suddenly found herself looking forward to.

Chapter Three

“Oh. Wine.”

“Not just any wine, Issa, this is from that little vineyard in Napa that you like so much,” Logan said when Issa hesitated to accept his offer of a glass of wine. She, Hutch and Ash had just arrived at the Mackey and McKendrick compound for Monday evening’s barbecue.

It hadn’t occurred to her that not being able to drink because of her pregnancy would raise questions. Ordinarily she would have gratefully accepted the glass of wine and enjoyed it and the relaxing benefits that would have helped her be more comfortable socializing. That was something that her half and whole siblings Logan, Hadley and Dag knew well. Which was likely why Logan had gone out of his way to get her favorite wine. And why it looked all the more suspicious that she was holding back.

But she couldn’t drink. And she also couldn’t think fast enough to come up with a plausible excuse.

Maybe she should say yes to the wine, have one tiny sip for show, then pour the rest of it out by small increments when no one seemed to be looking, and hope she didn’t get caught.

“Oops, she promised to be my designated driver tonight, so I started early and had a beer before we left,” Hutch jumped in suddenly, saving the day.

“I saw your SUV out front, Hutch. You came in that instead of Issa’s car even though she’s driving?” Hadley asked.

Luckily no one had seen them actually pull up or they would have known that Hutch had driven.

“Car seat!” Issa said, her brain finally functioning so she could help things along. “It was more trouble to switch it to my car, so I just said I’d drive Hutch’s. But now that I’m committed, no wine for me. I appreciate that you went to the trouble, though.”

“We’ll open it another time,” Meg interjected, moving things along. “How about iced tea or lemonade? And Hutch, you’re drinking beer?”

“Tall and cold!” Hutch said with vigor, making everyone laugh and drawing the focus off Issa.

To Issa’s relief.

“I can pour my own lemonade,” Issa said, grabbing the pitcher from the kitchen table.

“Then, because we’re all here, we can take everything out back,” Meg suggested.

In the backyard Chase was manning a big barbecue grill. Standing nearby overseeing things were the rest of the guests—Shannon, Dag, Jenna Bowen—whom Issa knew because they’d both grown up in the small town, and another man who had to be Hutch Kincaid’s twin because they looked so much alike that Issa could have picked him out of a crowd.

The barbecue contingent greeted Issa and Hutch as they came out onto the back porch carrying whatever they could manage of beverages and condiments—the last of what was needed to get down to the business of dinner. Logan, Meg and Hadley followed with even more plates of goodies.

“Issa,” Logan said then, “you haven’t met Ian yet, have you? Issa, Ian. Ian, my sister Issa.”

Issa and Ian exchanged nice-to-meet-yous, but Issa refrained from commenting on the twins’ resemblance to each other because she thought they probably heard that too often.

Then to round out the introductions, Jenna said, “And the other one you don’t know is over there—Abby. She’s the baby my sister, J.J., had in high school. My niece—”

“And now her adopted daughter,” Ian contributed.

“And soon to be Ian’s adopted daughter, too, as soon as the paperwork is finished,” Jenna said, smiling a beaming smile at Hutch’s brother.

“I was sorry to hear about J.J., and about your parents,” Issa said. Through her family she’d heard about all the losses that Jenna had suffered during the past year. Even though Issa had visited Northbridge periodically during that time, her visits hadn’t coincided with any of the funerals and she also hadn’t seen Jenna when she was in town, so this was the first opportunity to give condolences. In fact, neither Jenna nor Issa had lived in Northbridge until very recently, and Issa hadn’t seen Jenna since they’d graduated from high school.

Jenna thanked her for her sympathy and Issa cast another, more concentrated glance in the direction of the sandbox. She felt obligated to show an interest in the child Jenna had made a point of telling her about.

Earlier when Issa, Hutch and Ash had arrived, Meg had informed the toddler that the other kids were out back. Ash hadn’t wasted any time running through the place to join them. Now Issa spotted him playing in the sandbox with Issa’s three-year-old niece, Tia; with Shannon, Chase and Hutch’s twenty-month-old nephew, Cody, who Issa had met her first day back in Northbridge; and with a beautiful, curly haired baby girl who had to be Jenna’s niece-turned-adopted daughter.

“How old is Abby?” Issa asked, too unfamiliar with children to have any clue.

“She’s seventeen months,” Ian answered in a proud voice.

“She’s cute…” Issa said, unsure if she should be more gushy, if she should say or do anything else, and how long she should go on looking at the child before she could move on to other things. She was just no good at this stuff.

When Jenna thanked her for the compliment, Issa took that as her sign that admiring the child had gone on long enough and switched her focus back to the adults.

It was about then that the men moved nearer to the barbecue and the women migrated toward the picnic tables not far from there.

At the urging of Hadley, Issa sat beside her half sister on the bench. But as the other women began to chat about Jenna and Ian’s upcoming wedding, Issa’s mind and eyes wandered, and she ended up studying Hutch and Ian.

They stood side by side facing in her direction, watching Chase’s grilling skills, and while she might not have remarked on the fact that the twins were near mirror images, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t noticed it. Now she couldn’t help comparing the two.

They were almost identical. Only a few minor details made it possible to tell them apart.

Ian’s eyes were a pale blue rather than the deeper, richer sky-blue that Hutch shared with Chase.

Both men’s hair was the same length—short on the sides and back, slightly longer on top. But Ian’s hair was just a shade lighter than Hutch’s sandy-colored locks, and looked as if he put more effort into taming it, while Hutch wore the style with just a touch of bad-boy dishevelment.

And there was a difference in dress and comportment, too. There was something more formal and businesslike about Ian, about coming to a barbecue in slacks and a dress shirt.

But Hutch? He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with the sleeves pushed to his elbows—definitely in keeping with the laid-back, casual air that invited everyone around him to loosen up, too.

No, there was nothing businesslike about Hutch as he talked and joked and made the other men laugh, and Issa knew almost instantly that if she were choosing between the two men—which, of course, she wasn’t—Hutch would be who she chose.

Relaxed, personable, smooth, fun-loving—that was her impression of him. A guy who was easy to be around. Who other people were drawn to, too. The type of man who was sort of the yin to her yang.

Ah, but that was exactly why she had to be cautious when it came to her landlord, she told herself.

What she lacked in outgoingness, men like Hutch made up for. And in the past that had had its own appeal. Being with a man like that had provided her with a sort of camouflage to hide behind, a gap filler. But not only didn’t that help her to improve upon her own shortcomings, but it also had actually led her to men with shortcomings themselves. Less obvious but far worse shortcomings than being a wallflower.

And she didn’t want to risk the fallout that came from that ever happening again. So no yin and yang. No picking up the slack on anybody’s part. No he-was-strong-where-she-was-weak/she-was-strong-where-he-was-weak stuff. Not for her. Not when the hidden weaknesses of the men she chose proved to be so disastrous.

It was a newly adopted conviction, but a conviction nonetheless, and she was holding tight to it.

Just then Ash got sand in his eyes and began to cry. Issa watched as Hutch crossed to his son with long, powerful strides, scooped up the little boy and commiserated with him while he rubbed his back.

“I know that hurts, big guy, go ahead and cry,” he encouraged.

Issa’s first thought was that commiseration and rubbing the toddler’s back weren’t going to get the sand out of his eyes.

Then she realized that it was the encouragement for the little boy to cry that was the solution—the tears were washing the sand away. And sure enough, within a few minutes the two-and-a-half-year-old was fine again.

Huh…

If she hadn’t seen it herself, Issa didn’t think that route would have occurred to her. Looking on, she’d thought Hutch should rush Ash into the bathroom and flush his eyes out with water. But the tears had been an easier solution and she filed that knowledge away for future use when she was dealing with her own child.

Then it struck her that in that way Hutch Kincaid could be a double whammy.

Not only did he seem to have the kind of personality that had historically been the yin to her yang, but he also had the abilities as a parent that she lacked. Abilities that could potentially compensate for her weaknesses on that count, too.

But being with an outgoing man had never made her more outgoing; it had merely masked the fact that she wasn’t. And when it came to parenting, she thought that she had to guard against thinking that being with someone who was already a good parent would automatically make her a good parent, too. Or worst of all, mask the fact that she wasn’t.

No, when it came to parenting, she had to do everything possible to become a good parent herself.

So yes, there were two reasons for her not to be memorizing every sexy little line that formed at the corners of his beautiful eyes when he laughed.

And if two reasons weren’t enough, she could add one great big huge third reason, she reminded herself.

She was pregnant.

Admittedly, that tended to slip her mind because it didn’t seem real yet. But it was real. And what man would want a woman pregnant by someone else?

No man she knew.

And why was she even thinking anything like that?

Hutch Kincaid was her landlord, he’d fixed her door, he’d offered to carpool with her. There was nothing in any of that to require reminders of why she shouldn’t or wouldn’t or couldn’t get involved with him and she wasn’t quite sure how her thoughts had gotten there.

Except that he laughed again just then and that face of his lit up, and for a moment she couldn’t help staring at him.

He was simply too good-looking.

But that wasn’t important.

Hutch Kincaid was just a guy who happened to own her apartment, live downstairs and know some of the same people she knew. An incredibly attractive guy, but just a guy.

And she was nothing more than his unwed pregnant tenant—pregnant being the most significant part of that because if there was any man-repellent stronger than that, she didn’t know what it was, especially because it had even repelled the man who had caused it.

So whether or not Hutch Kincaid showed signs of being the sort of man she had vowed to avoid, it didn’t matter. She was protected even from herself.

Which was for the best.

She had enough on her plate as it was.

And yet…

There was something that made her a little sad to think that she’d been put on the shelf.

Particularly when it came to Hutch Kincaid.

“Thanks for covering for me at the start of tonight, with the wine,” Issa said to Hutch almost the minute they were back in his SUV when the barbecue was over.

“Hey, it got me chauffeured,” he answered with a laugh.

He was sitting in the passenger seat, angled toward the center console with an arm stretched across the back of her seat. Because Ash was in the car seat in the back, Issa thought that Hutch was sitting that way to keep an eye on his son. But so far his attention seemed more focused on her as Ash almost instantly fell asleep.

“I didn’t even think about the drinking issue giving me away,” Issa explained. “When it seemed like it might, I just froze. You really saved me.”

“Anytime,” he said. “You were pretty quiet all night, though. Did it throw you that much off your game?”

“Oh, no, that’s just me,” Issa lamented.

“The shyness.” he said as if just recalling that about her. “How does that work for a teacher who has to stand in front of a room full of kids and talk every day?”

“It took some work and a lot of shaky-voiced lectures during my student teaching to get me there, believe me. And lecturing still isn’t one of my strengths. That’s why I like to use as many demonstration experiments as I can and beef them up so the spotlight is more on the science than on me.”

“Beefing up the experiments is what led to Gob-o-Goo.”

“Right.”

“But this tonight, it was just family and old friends,” Hutch pointed out, still sounding somewhat puzzled by the evening.

“I’m not the boisterous McKendrick. I think the shyness actually came from home, from hating it when my mother would put us on display like we were her doll collection. So being with family doesn’t make it much better. I got into the habit of shrinking into the background at an early age and relying on my brothers and sisters to be center stage, so that’s still what I fall into when I’m with them.”

“I know all about being put on display,” Hutch muttered more to himself than to her. Then to her, he said, “Or was it worse tonight because of Ian and me?”

It had definitely been worse because of Hutch and all that had been going through her mind about him, but she wasn’t going to say that.

Instead she hedged, “It might have been a little worse because of a lot of things. Like there were also kids, kids, kids everywhere…”

“And that was bad because?”

“Because it was glaring evidence that I don’t know the first thing about them, or about taking care of them, or about what they need or when, or what makes them tick.”

Hutch chuckled kindly. “That sounded a little panicky.”

“Because I feel a lot panicky I must be doing pretty well hiding it, then,” Issa joked even though it was the truth.

“You’re panicked at the thought of parenthood?”

“Oh, sooo panicked! I’ve just never been a kid person. My mother made Hadley take care of the rest of us, so I never had to look after my younger brothers or Zeli. When I was a teenager, I didn’t babysit like my friends did. I just don’t know the first thing about kids.”

“But you’re a schoolteacher,” he pointed out a second time, as if she were giving him conflicting messages.

“In a high school—they aren’t kid-kids. They’re teenagers. Three-quarters of the way to being adults. And I’m only responsible for teaching them chemistry. But a baby…” Issa nodded over her shoulder in the direction of the slumbering Ash. “A toddler? A kid? Feeding it, changing diapers, keeping it clean and healthy and thriving? Walking, talking, brushing teeth, potty training—I don’t even know where to start.”

“Didn’t you want kids?”

“Not particularly. I mean I didn’t plan to have them. I just sort of thought that if that biological clock thing ever kicked in, I’d know it and things might change. But that didn’t happen and this…” She hated referring to the pregnancy too literally. “This was a birth control malfunction. It’s taken a lot of soul searching for me to decide what to do and I’ve decided to go through with it, but I’m just hoping it’s the right choice. And tonight, being around all those kids, made me wonder.”

Like she was wondering at that moment why, for someone who didn’t ordinarily talk much, talking too much was the problem with this guy. And telling him things she had no reason to tell him. Birth control malfunction—had she really said that?

She sighed audibly. “I don’t know, I just kept watching what all of you did with your kids and thinking that I don’t know any of it.”

“You have some time to learn, to get ready,” he said on a positive note.

“I’m not sure time will help.”

Hutch did glance into the rear of the SUV then, at Ash, pausing the conversation for longer than seemed necessary.

Then he looked at Issa again and said, “How about a crash course? Would that help?”

She had the impression that he’d weighed those words before he’d said them, that that had been the purpose of that pause.

“A crash course?” Issa repeated because she wasn’t sure what he was offering. If he was offering anything.

“In kids. In parenting, although I’m in no way an expert. But I know from my own experience that it isn’t easy to step into those shoes, so I’d be willing to give you a couple of lessons. And the loan of some child-rearing books I still go to whenever I have a question. And there’s also Ash. You could do some practicing on him so you can start to get used to kids, to being around the little ones and dealing with them.”

She didn’t know if Hutch had any idea how generous she considered his offer to be at that moment.

Taking her eyes off the road to look at him, she said, “Really?”

He shrugged as if it were nothing. “I’ll make you a deal. The Realtor gave me a list of properties for sale in town so I could drive by them and decide if I want to see inside any of them before she sets anything up—”

“Marsha Pinkell? She gave me a list, too. Probably the same one because Northbridge is a small town and there aren’t that many things available.”

“All the better. I was going to say that you could help me find the places, but now it’ll give you the chance to check them out, too. And while we’re at it, I was also going to say that we could trade services—I’ll do the crash course in parenting for you if you give me the guided tour of Northbridge and introduce me around, help me to start becoming part of the community.”