Single Mum Seeking...

“The year and a half since I last saw you.”

Her gaze met his and skittered away again. She knew he was thinking about exactly what she was thinking about—that last time had been the day Brad left her. Neither one of them wanted to remember that day, much less talk about it. She grimaced and played with her spoon. The waitress brought their order so it was a moment or two before they spoke again.

“So you said your business is doing okay?” he noted as he spread his napkin on his lap.

“Yes.” She stared down at the small dish of ice cream she’d ordered and realized she wasn’t going to be able to eat any of it. Her throat felt raw and tight. Too bad. It looked creamy and delicious.

He nodded, reaching for a fork. It was pretty clear he wasn’t going to have any problem at all. “What business?”

She blinked at him. “Didn’t you know? Didn’t Brad tell you?”

He shook his head and avoided saying anything about Brad.

She waited a moment, then sighed. “Okay. When Brad left, he took the electronics business we had developed together. And told me I might as well go out and get a job once the babies were born.”

He cringed. That was enough to set your teeth on edge, no matter who you were.

She met his gaze with a touch of defiance in her own. “But I gave birth to two little boys and looked at them and knew there was no way I was handing them over to someone else to raise for me. So I racked my brain, trying to find something I could do at home and still take care of them.”

He nodded. That seemed the resourceful thing to do. Good for her. “So what did you decide on?”

She shrugged. “The only thing I was ever really good at. I started a Bundt Cake Bakery.”

He nodded, waiting. There had to be more. Who could make a living baking Bundt cakes? “And?”

“And that’s what I’m doing.”

“Oh.” He frowned, puzzled. “Great.”

“It is great,” she said defensively. She could hear the skepticism in his voice. “It was touch and go for a long time, but now I think I’m finally hitting my stride.”

He nodded again, wishing he could rustle up some enthusiasm, but failing on all fronts. “Okay.”

The product Jill and Brad had developed together had been a bit different from baked goods and he was having a hard time understanding the connection. Jill had done the bookkeeping and the marketing for the business. Brad had been the electronic genius. And Connor had done some work with them, too. They’d been successful from the first.

With that kind of background, he couldn’t imagine how the profits from cakes could compare to what they’d made on the GPS device for hikers to be used as a map App. It had been new and fresh and sold very well. He wasn’t sure what he could say.

He looked up across the restaurant, caught sight of someone coming in the door and he sighed. “You know how legend has it that everyone stops in at Rickey’s on a Saturday night?”

Her eyes widened warily. “Sure.”

“I guess it’s true.” He made a gesture with his head. “Look who just walked in. Mr. Mambo himself.”

She gasped and whirled in her seat. Sure enough, there was Karl starting in their direction. He was coming through the restaurant as though he thought he owned the place, giving all the girls the eye. He caught sight of her and his eyes lit up.

Her heart fell. “Oh, no!”

CHAPTER TWO

AND THEN, KARL’S jaunty gaze fell on Connor and he stopped dead, visibly paling. Shaking his head, he raised his hands and he seemed to be muttering, “no, no,” over and over again, as though to tell Connor he really didn’t mean it. Turning on his heel, he left so quickly, Jill could almost believe she’d been imagining things.

“Wow.” She turned back slowly and looked at Connor accusingly. “I guess he believed your cockeyed story.” She put a hand to her forehead as though tragedy had struck. “Once he spreads the word, my dating days are done.”

“Good,” Connor said, beginning to attack his huge piece of cherry pie à la mode. “No point wasting your time on losers like that.”

She made a face and leaned toward him sadly. “Are they all like that? Is it really hopeless?”

“Yes.” He smiled at her. “Erase all thoughts of other men. I’m here. You don’t need anybody else.”

“Right.” She rolled her eyes, knowing he was teasing. “You’d think I would have learned my lesson with Brad, wouldn’t you?”

There was a catch in her voice as she said it. He looked up quickly and she knew he was afraid she might cry. But she didn’t cry about that anymore. She was all cried out long ago on that subject.

Did he remember what a fool she’d been? How even with all the evidence piling up in her daily life, she’d never seen it coming. At the time she was almost eight months pregnant with the twins and having a hard time even walking, much less with thinking straight. And Connor had come to tell her that Brad was leaving her.

Brad had sent him, of course. The jerk couldn’t even manage to face her and tell her himself.

That made her think twice. Here was Connor, back again. What was Brad afraid to tell her now?

She watched him, frowning, studying his blue eyes. Did she really want to know? All those months, all the heartbreak. Still, if it was something she needed to deal with, better get it over with. She took a deep breath and tried to sound strong and cool.

“So what does he want this time?”

Connor’s head jerked back as though what she was asking was out of line. He waved his fork at her. “Do you think we could first go through some of the niceties our society has set up for situations like this?” he asked her.

She searched his face to see if he was mocking her, but he really wasn’t. He was just uncomfortable.

“How about, ‘How have you been?’ or ‘What have you been up to lately?’ Why not give me some of the details of your life these days. Do we have to jump right into contentious things so quickly?”

So it wasn’t good. She should have known. “You’re the messenger, not me.”

His handsome face winced. It almost seemed as though this pained him more than it was going to pain her. Fat chance.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” he asked her.

Were they? She used to think so. “Sure. We always have been.”

“So...”

He looked relieved, as though that made it all okay. But it wasn’t okay. Whatever it was, it was going to hurt. She knew that instinctively. She leaned forward and glared at him.

“But you’re on his side. Don’t deny it.”

He shook his head, denying it anyway. “What makes you say that?”

She shrugged. “That day, the one that ended life as I knew it, you came over to deliver the fatal blow. You set me straight as to how things really were.” Her voice hardened. “You were the one who explained Brad to me at the time. You broke my heart and then you left me lying there in the dirt and you never came back.”

“You were not lying in the dirt.” He seemed outraged at the concept.

She closed her eyes and then opened them again. “It’s a metaphor, silly.”

“I don’t care what it is. I did not leave you lying in the dirt or even in the sand, or on the couch, or anything. You were standing straight and tall and making jokes, just like always.”

Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to relax a bit. “You seemed calm and collected and fine with it. Like you’d known it was coming. Like you were prepared. Sad, but okay.” He shook his head, willing her to believe what he was saying. “Or else I never would have left you alone.”

She shrugged carelessly. How could he have gotten it all so wrong? “And you think you know me.”

He pushed away the pie, searching her eyes, looking truly distressed. “Sara was with you. Your sister. I thought...”

He looked away, frowning fiercely. He remembered what he’d thought. He’d seen the pain in her face and it had taken everything in him not to reach out and gather her in his arms and kiss her until she realized...until she knew... No, he’d had to get out of there before he did something stupid. And that was why he left her. He had his own private hell to tend to.

“You thought I was okay? Wow.” She struck a pose and put on an accent. “The corpse was bleeding profusely, but I assumed it would stop on its own. She seemed to be coping quite well with her murder.”

He grimaced, shaking his head.

“I hated you for a while,” she admitted. “It was easier than hating Brad. What Brad had done to me was just too confusing. What you did was common, everyday cowardice.”

He stared at her, aghast. “Oh, thanks.”

“And to make it worse, you never did come back. Did you?”

He shook his head as though he really couldn’t understand why she was angry. He hadn’t done anything to make her that way. He’d just lived his life like he always did, following the latest impulse that moved him. Didn’t she know that?

“I was gone. I left the country. I...I had a friend starting up a business in Singapore, so I went to help him out.”

She looked skeptical and deep, deep down, she looked hurt. “All this time?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, feeling a bit defensive. “I’ve been out of the country all this time.”

Funny, but that made her feel a lot better. At least he hadn’t been coming up here to Seattle and never contacting her.

“So you haven’t been to see Brad?”

He hesitated. He couldn’t lie to her. “I stopped in to see Brad in Portland last week,” he admitted.

She threw up her hands. “See? You’re on his side.”

He wanted to growl at her. “I’m not on anybody’s side. I’ve been friends with both of you since that first week of college, when we all three camped out in Brad’s car together.”

The corners of Jill’s mouth quirked into a reluctant smile as she remembered. “What a night that was,” she said lightly. “They’d lost my housing forms and you hadn’t been admitted yet. We had no place to sleep.”

“So Brad offered his car.”

“And stayed out with us.”

“We talked and laughed the whole night.”

She nodded, remembering. “And that cemented it. We were best buds from that night on.”

Connor smiled, but looked away. He remembered meeting Jill in the administration office while they both tried to fight the bureaucracy. He’d thought she was the cutest coed on campus, right from the start. And then Brad showed up and swept her off her feet.

“We fought the law and the law won,” he noted cynically.

“Right.” She laughed softly, still remembering. “You with that crazy book of rules you were always studying on how to make professors fall in love with you so they’d give you good grades.”

He sighed. “That never worked. And it should have, darn it all.”

Her eyes narrowed as she looked back into the past a little deeper. “And all those insane jobs you took, trying to pay off your fees. I never understood when you had time to study.”

“I slept with a tape recorder going,” he said with a casual shrug. “Subliminal learning. Without it, I would have flunked out early on.”

She stared at him, willing him to smile and admit he’d made that up, but he stuck to his guns.

“No, really. I learned French that way.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “Parlez-vous francais?”

“Uh...whatever.” He looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t say I retained any of it beyond test day.”

“Right.” She laughed at him and he grinned back.

But she knew they were ignoring the elephant in the room. Brad. Brad who had been with them both all through college. Brad who had decided she was his from the start. And what Brad wanted, Brad usually got. She’d been flattered by his attention, then thrilled with it. And soon, she’d fallen hard. She was so in love with him, she knew he was her destiny. She let him take over her life. She didn’t realize he would toss it aside when he got tired of it.

“So what are you doing here?” she asked again. “Surely you didn’t come to see me.”

“Jill, I always want to see you.”

“No kidding. That’s why you’ve been gone for a year and a half. You’ve never even met the twins.”

He looked at her with a half smile. Funny. She’d been pregnant the last time he’d seen her, but that wasn’t the way he’d thought of her all these months. And to tell the truth, Brad had never mentioned those babies. “That’s right. I forgot. You’ve got a couple of cookie crunchers now, don’t you?”

“I do. The little lights of my life, so to speak.”

“Boys.”

“Boys.” She nodded.

He wanted to ask how they got along with Brad, but he wasn’t brave enough to do it. Besides, it was getting late. She had a pair of baby boys at home. She looked at her watch, then looked at him.

“I’ve got to get home. If you can just drop me at the dock, the last ferry goes at midnight and...”

He waved away her suggestion. “You will not walk home from the ferry landing. It’s too late and too far.”

She made a face. “I’ll be fine. I’ve done it a thousand times.”

“I’ll drive you.”

She gave him a mock glare. “Well, then we’d better get going or you won’t make the last ferry back.”

“You let me worry about that.”

Let him worry—let him manage—leave it to him. Something inside her yearned to be able to do that. It had been so long since she’d had anyone else to rely on. But life had taught her a hard lesson. If you relied on others, they could really hurt you. Best to rely on nobody but yourself.

* * *

The ferry ride across the bay to the island was always fun. He pulled the car into the proper space on the ferry and they both got out to enjoy the trip. Standing side by side as the ferry started off, they watched the inky-black water part to let them through.

Jill pulled her arms in close, fending off the ocean coolness, and he reached out and put an arm around her, keeping her warm. She rested her head on his shoulder. He had to resist the urge to draw her closer.

“Hey, I’m looking forward to meeting those two little boys of yours,” he said.

“Hopefully you won’t meet them tonight,” she said, laughing. “I’ve got a nice older lady looking after them. They should be sound asleep right now.”

“It’s amazing to think of you with children,” he said.

She nodded. “I know. You’re not the only one stunned by the transformation.” She smiled, thinking of how they really had changed her life. If only Brad... No, she wasn’t going to start going back over those old saws again. That way lay madness.

“It’s also amazing to think of how long we’ve known each other,” she added brightly instead.

“We all three got close in our freshman year,” he agreed, “and that lasted all through college.”

She nodded. “It seemed, those first couple of years, we did everything together.”

“I remember it well.” He sighed and glanced down at her. All he could see was that mop of crazy, curly blond hair. It always made him smile. “You were sighing over Brad,” he added to the memory trail. “And I was wishing you would look my way instead.”

She looked up and made a face at him. “Be serious. You had no time for stodgy, conventional girls like I was. You were always after the high flyers.”

He stared at her, offended despite the fact that there was some truth in what she said. “I was not,” he protested anyway.

“Sure you were.” She was teasing him now. “You liked bad girls. Edgy girls. The ones who ran off with the band.”

His faint smile admitted the truth. “Only when I was in the band.”

“And that was most of the time.” She pulled back and looked at him. “Did you ever actually get a degree?”

“Of course I got a degree.”

She giggled. “In what? Multicultural dating?”

He bit back the sharp retort that surfaced in his throat. She really didn’t know. But why should she? He had to admit he’d spent years working hard at seeming to be a slacker.

“Something like that,” he muttered, thinking with a touch of annoyance about his engineering degree with a magna cum laude attached. No one had been closer friends to him than Brad and Jill. And they didn’t even realize he was smarter than he seemed.

It was his own fault of course. He’d worked on that easygoing image. Still, it stung a bit.

And it made him do a bit of “what if?” thinking. What if he’d been more aggressive making his own case? What if he’d challenged Brad’s place in Jill’s heart at the time? What if he’d competed instead of accepting their romance as an established fact? Would things have been different?

The spray from the water splashed across his face, jerking him awake from his dream. Turning toward the island, he could see her house up the drive a block from the landing. He’d been there a hundred times before, but not for quite a while. Not since the twins were born and Brad decided he wasn’t fatherhood material. Connor had listened to what Brad had to say and it had caused a major conflict for him. He thought Brad’s reasons were hateful and he deplored them, but at the same time, he’d seen them together for too long to have any illusions. They didn’t belong together. Getting a divorce was probably the best thing Brad could do for Jill. So he’d gone with his message, he’d done his part and hated it and then he’d headed for Singapore.

He turned to look at her, to watch the way the wind blew her hair over her eyes, and that old familiar pull began somewhere in the middle of his chest. It started slow and then began to build, as though it was slowly finding its way through his bloodstream. He wanted her, wanted to hold her and kiss her and tell her.... He gritted his teeth and turned away. He had to fight that feeling. Funny. He never got it with any other girl. It only happened with her. Damn.

A flash of panic shivered through him. What the hell was he doing here, anyway? He’d thought he was prepared for this. Hardened. Toughened and ready to avoid the tender trap that was always Jill. But his defenses were fading fast. He had to get out of here.

He needed a plan. Obviously playing this by ear wasn’t going to work. The first thing he had to do was to get her home, safe and sound. That should be easy. Then he had to avoid getting out of the car. Under no circumstances should he go into the house, especially not to take a peek at the babies. That would tie him up in a web of sentiment and leave him raw and vulnerable to his feelings. He couldn’t afford to do that. At all costs, he had to stay strong and leave right away.

He could come back and talk to her in the morning. If he hung around, disaster was inevitable. He couldn’t let that happen.

“You know what?” he said, trying to sound light and casual. “I think you really had the right idea about this. I need to get back to the hotel. I think I’ll take the ferry right on back and let you walk up the hill on your own. It’s super safe here, isn’t it? I mean...”

He felt bad about it, but it had to be done. He couldn’t go home with her. Wouldn’t be prudent, as someone once had famously said.

But he realized she wasn’t listening to him. She was staring, mouth open, over his shoulder at the island they were fast approaching.

“What in the world is going on? My house is lit up like a Christmas tree.”

He turned. She was right. Every window was ablaze with light. It was almost midnight. Somehow, this didn’t seem right.

And then a strange thing happened. As they watched, something came flying out of the upstairs window, sailed through the air and landed on the roof next door.

Jill gasped, rigid with shock. “Was that the cat?” she cried. “Oh, my God!”

She tried to pull away from him as though she was about to jump into the water and swim for shore, but he yanked her back. “Come on,” he said urgently, pulling her toward the Camaro. “We’ll get there faster in the car.”

CHAPTER THREE

JILL’S HEART WAS racing. She couldn’t think. She could hardly breathe. Adrenaline surged and she almost blacked out with it.

“Oh, please,” she muttered over and over as they raced toward the house. “Oh, please, oh, please!”

He swung the car into the driveway and she jumped out before he even came to a stop, running for the door.

“Timmy?” she called out. “Tanner?”

Connor was right behind her as she threw open the front door and raced inside.

“Mrs. Mulberry?” she called out as she ran. “Mrs. Mulberry!”

A slight, gray-haired woman appeared on the stairway from the second floor with a look close to terror on her face. “Oh, thank God you’re finally here! I tried to call you but my hands were shaking so hard, I couldn’t use the cell phone.”

“What is it?” Jill grabbed her by the shoulders, staring down into her face. “What’s happened? Where are the boys?”

“I tried, I really tried, but...but...”

“Mrs. Mulberry! What?”

Her face crumpled and she wailed, “They locked me out. I couldn’t get to them. I didn’t know what to do....”

“What do you mean they’ve locked you out? Where? When?”

“They got out of their cribs and locked the door. I couldn’t...”

Jill started up the stairs, but Connor took them two at a time and beat her to the landing and then the door. He yanked at the handle but it didn’t budge.

“Timmy? Tanner? Are you okay?” Jill’s voice quavered as she pressed her ear to the door. There was no response.

“There’s a key,” she said, turning wildly, trying to remember where she’d put it. “I know there’s a key.”

Connor pushed her aside. “No time,” he said, giving the door a wicked kick right next to where the lever sat. There was a crunch of wood breaking and the door flew open.

A scene of chaos and destruction was revealed. A lamp was upside down on the floor, along with pillows and books and a tumbled table and chair set. Toys were everywhere, most of them covered with baby powder that someone had been squirting out of the container. And on the other side of the room were two little blond boys, crowding into a window they could barely reach. They saw the adults coming for them, looked at each other and shrieked—and then they very quickly shoved one fat fluffy pillow and then one large plastic game of Hungry Hungry Hippos over the sill. The hippos could be heard hitting the bricks of the patio below.

“What are you doing?” Jill cried, dashing in as one child reached for a small music toy. She grabbed him, swung him up in her arms and held him close.

“You are such a bad boy!” she said, but she was laughing with relief at the same time. They seemed to be okay. No broken bones. No blood. No dead cat.

Connor pulled up the other boy with one arm while he slammed the window shut with the other. He looked at Jill and shook his head. “Wow,” was all he could say. Then he thought of something else. “Oh. Sorry about the door. I thought...”

“You thought right,” she said, flashing him a look of pure relief and happiness. Her babies were safe and right now that was all that mattered to her. “I would have had a heart attack if I’d had to wait any longer.”

Mrs. Mulberry was blubbering behind them and they both turned, each carrying a child, to stare at her.

“I’m so sorry,” she was saying tearfully. “But when they locked me out...”

“Okay, start at the beginning,” Jill told her, trying to keep her temper in check and hush her baby, who was saying, “Mamamama” over and over in her ear. “What exactly happened?”

The older woman sniffled and put a handkerchief to her nose. “I...I don’t really know. It all began so well. They were perfect angels.”

She smiled at them tearfully and they grinned back at her. Jill shook her head. It was as though they knew exactly what they’d done and were ready to do it again if they got the chance.

“They were so good,” Mrs. Mulberry was saying, “I’m afraid I let them stay up longer than I should have. Finally I put them to bed and went downstairs.” She shook her head as though she still couldn’t believe what happened next. “I was reading a magazine on the couch when something just went plummeting by the bay window. I thought it was my imagination at first. Then something else went shooting past and I got up and went outside to look at what was going on. And there were toys and bits of bedding just lying there in the grass. I looked up but I couldn’t see anything. It was very eerie. Almost scary. I couldn’t figure out what on earth was happening.”