Single Mum Seeking...

“I know we can.” He grinned at her, then swooped in and kissed her hard on her pretty mouth. “We can do anything. We already have.”

He took her breath away, but she stayed calm. At least outwardly. She stared at him for a few seconds, still feeling that kiss. Why was he doing things guaranteed to send her into a tailspin if she didn’t hold herself together?

But she went back to work and she kept control and the job got finished. And at the end, they stared at each other.

“We did it.”

“We did, didn’t we?”

“But the delivery...”

“Quick. We’re five minutes late.”

He piled the desserts in boxes and headed for the door. Just before he disappeared, he called back, “Better check on the twins.”

She was already on her way. There wasn’t a sound as she climbed the stairs. When she opened the door, nothing moved. But somehow everything looked a little wrong. In the dark, she couldn’t quite figure out what it was and she hated to turn on the light, but she had to. And what she saw left her speechless.

“What?”

One crib stood empty. The other had been turned upside down. The mattress was on the ground, but the rest of the crib was above it like a cage. And on the mattress, her two little boys were sound asleep.

Her first impulse was to wake them up and rescue them, but then she realized they were probably better off where they were. After all, how was she going to get them to stay in their cribs without the bars?

She went back down, not sure what to do. She started cleaning up the kitchen, but then she heard Connor driving up and she went to meet him at the door.

He came in smiling. “They loved it,” he announced. “People were asking for our card and I was handing them out like crazy.”

She put her head to the side and raised her eyebrows as she listened to him. “Our” card? When had that happened? But she could deal with that later. Right now she had something else on her mind.

“Now do you want to explain what happened to the crib?”

“Oh.” His face changed and suddenly he looked like a boy with a frog in his pocket. “Sure. I, uh, I had to turn it upside down.”

“So I see.”

He gave her a guilty smile. “Are they okay?”

She nodded. “Sound asleep.”

“Good.” He looked relieved. “That was the goal.”

“But Connor...”

“They wouldn’t stay in the cribs,” he told her earnestly. “They kept climbing out. And that was just so dangerous. This was the only thing I could think of on the fly. And luckily, they loved it when I put them into their own special cage. I told them to be monkeys and they played happily until they went to sleep. Didn’t they?”

“I guess so, but...”

“If I hadn’t done it, they would still be climbing out and running for the hills. And we wouldn’t have finished in time.”

“Okay.” She held up a hand and her gaze was steely. “Enough. I understand your logic. What I don’t understand is how you could do such a crazy thing without consulting me first.”

That stopped him in his tracks. He watched her and realized she was right. He thought he was doing what was best for her, but without her consent, it was really just what was best for him. He had no right to decide for her. They were her kids.

He’d goofed again and it pained him. Why was he always putting his foot in it where she was concerned? He had to apologize. He swallowed hard. That wasn’t an easy thing to do. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to do what had to be done.

“Jill, you’re absolutely right,” he said sincerely. “And I’m really sorry. I was wrong to take your agreement for granted. I won’t do that again.”

Now she had a lump in her throat. Few had ever said that sort of thing to her before, especially not a man. Could she even imagine Brad saying such a thing? Hardly. She felt a small sense of triumph in her chest. She’d asked for an apology and she got one. Wow.

“I guess the first order of business is to figure out how to make a crib they can’t climb out of,” she noted, looking at him expectantly.

He feigned astonishment. “Who? Me? You want me to build a crib they can’t climb out of?”

“Either that, or come up with a plan,” she said, teasing him flirtatiously. “Aren’t you here to help?”

His grin was endearingly crooked and he pulled her to him, looking down like a man who was about to kiss a very hot woman. She looked up at him, breath quickening, and she realized she really wanted that kiss. But a look of regret and warning flashed in his eyes. He quickly released her and turned away.

“You ready for that glass of wine now?” he asked, walking toward the wet bar at the end of the room.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes before she answered. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

He poured out two crystal glasses of pinot noir and they sat in the living room on a small couch. There was a gentle rain falling and they could see it through the huge glass windows that covered one side of the room.

“What a day,” he said, gazing at her as he leaned back in his corner of the couch. The dim light left the wine in their glasses looking like liquid rubies. “It feels like it must have lasted at least a day and a half.”

“Or maybe three and a half,” she agreed. “And a few shocks to the system.” She sighed. “But you came through like a trooper. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I’m glad I was here to help.”

She met his gaze and then looked away too quickly. She felt her cheeks reddening and groaned inside. There was nothing to be embarrassed about. Why had she avoided his eyes like that? She coughed to cover up her feelings.

“So tell me the story of this cooking talent you seem to have discovered in the mysterious East,” she said quickly.

He grinned. “So you can see the evidence of my expertise in my work even here,” he said grandly.

The corners of her mouth quirked. “No, but you told me you were good, so I believe it.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Well, it’s all the fault of a young chef named Sharon Wong. We dated each other for most of the last year in Singapore. She taught me everything I know.” He made a comical face. “Of course, that was only a small fraction of what she knows, but it was a start.”

A woman was behind it all. She should have known. But it gave her a jolt. Connor had never seemed to have a special woman in his life. Lots of women, but no one special. Had that changed?

“A chef. Great. I’m partial to chefs. What kind of cuisine?”

“She specializes in Mandarin Chinese but she mostly taught me French basics. She claims every chef needs French cooking as a standard, a baseline to launch from. Sort of like learning Calculus for science classes.”

She nodded. “That’s why it’s so important for Trini to go to the school she just left to attend. She’ll get a great grounding in the basics.”

He watched her for a moment, then asked, “Why didn’t you ever go there?”

She shrugged and stretched back against the pillows, beginning to feel her body relax at last. “I took classes locally, but nothing on that level.” Her smile was wistful. “Funny. I applied a few years ago. I got accepted on my first try. A scholarship and everything. But I didn’t get to go.”

“Why not?”

She gave him a bemused smile. “I married Brad instead.”

“Wow, that was a bad decision.” He looked pained at the thought. “You gave up going to the school of your dreams to marry Brad?”

“Yes.” She threw him a reproving look. He was getting a little adamant about her life choices. “And I do regret it. So that’s why I won’t let her give it up for anything. She’s got to go. She’ll learn so much.”

He was quiet and she wondered what he was thinking about. Something in the look on his face told her it still bothered him to think of her giving up her dream that way and she wasn’t sure why he cared.

Everybody had to make choices. Everybody had to give something up now and then. It was part of life.

“I was just thinking about that time we went to San Francisco,” she said a few minutes later. “Remember?”

He looked up and his smile completely changed his face. “Sure I remember. You had set up a weekend to celebrate Brad’s birthday with a surprise trip to San Francisco and then you ended up taking me instead.”

She nodded, still captivated by that smile.

“It was senior year, wasn’t it?” he went on. “You got a hotel just off Union Square and tickets to the ballet—or so you said.”

She nodded again. “That was my big mistake. Once I told Brad that, he suddenly had somewhere else he had to be that weekend.”

She could hardly believe it. What a fool she’d been in those days. “I was so mad, I told him I was going to take you instead. And he said, sure, go ahead.”

Connor smiled, recalling that sunny day. He thought he’d died and gone to heaven. He was walking on air when she asked him to go with her.

A whole weekend with Jill and no Brad. He hadn’t even cared if it was the ballet. But the beauty of it was, she was just setting up a surprise, because the tickets that she had were for the Giants in Candlestick Park. The ballet thing was just a ruse to tease Brad and the baseball game was supposed to be his big surprise. Instead it was Connor’s.

She gazed at him speculatively. “Sometimes when I look back I wonder why I didn’t notice.”

His heart gave a lurch. What was she reading into his responses? “Notice what?”

She shrugged. “How little Brad actually cared for me.”

Oh, that. It had always been obvious to most of those around her. Brad wanted her when he wanted her, but he didn’t confine his activities too close to home. Still, looking at her now, he couldn’t stand the haunted expression in her eyes. The last thing in the world she should do was beat herself up over the past.

“He cared plenty,” he said gruffly. “He wanted you for himself right from the first. Don’t you remember?”

She shook her head and gave him a sad smile. “I think you know what I mean. Anyway, we had a great time in San Francisco, didn’t we?”

“Yes, we did.” He let his head fall back as he thought of it. That trip had planted dreams in his head. You could say he might have been better off without them, but he didn’t think so. His feelings for Jill were a part of that time, even if she never knew it.

“Remember that night? We talked until almost dawn, and then we slept until noon.”

“Yeah.” They had two rooms, but he never went to his own. There were two beds in hers, one for each of them, and he just stayed with her. He never touched her, but he sure wanted to.

And best of all, it was on that night that he knew he was ready to try to have a real relationship. He’d spent the first few years in college wary of making any sort of commitment to any girl. His background had argued strenuously against it.

But Jill was different. He made up his mind that night that he was going to tell her how he felt about her once they got back to the university. And he was resolved—he was going to take her away from Brad. Somehow, someway, he would do it. He spent hours going over what he wanted to say, how he wanted to make her understand his feelings.

And then they got back to school, and there was Brad on crutches. He’d gone waterskiing and broken his leg. Suddenly he needed Jill. Connor felt himself fading into the background, like some sort of invisible man, and wondering why his timing was always so bad.

It was shortly afterward that he signed up to go to Europe for a semester. When he got back, he learned that Jill and Brad had broken up just after he left. From what he could see, Brad was busy dating every pretty girl on campus while Jill was busy trying to pretend she didn’t care.

He took her to his favorite little Italian restaurant and they ate pasta and talked for hours. He ended up with his arm around her while she cried on his shoulder about how awful Brad was being to her. He restrained himself. He was going to do it right. He was going to take it one step at a time.

But once again, the timing wasn’t in his favor. By the next afternoon, Brad was back in her life and all was forgiven.

That was when he’d hardened his heart. It had happened to him one too many times. He wasn’t going to let it happen again—ever. Even today he was wary. What seemed like the opportunity to strike so often ended up as the chance to fall on his face instead. It wasn’t worth it.

“I think of that trip to San Francisco as an island of happiness in an ocean of stress,” she said softly. She looked at him with gentle speculation and a touch of pure affection. “Everything is always so easy with you. And it was always so hard with Brad.”

Really? Really?

He stared at her, wondering how she could say such a thing. If that was so, why had she married the hard guy? He was tempted to come right out and ask her that question. That just might clarify a lot of things between them. But before he could think of a way to put it, she spoke again.

“So, was it serious?” she asked him.

He was startled. “Was what serious?”

“You and Sharon Wong?”

“Oh.” He laughed, then considered for a moment. “Who knows? It might get to be. If I go back to Singapore.”

She turned away. Why did she have such a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach? Was she jealous? Ridiculous. He deserved to fall in love. He deserved some happiness. Hadn’t she just been counseling him to find someone to marry? And now she was going to go all green-eyed over a woman he obviously had some affection for? What a fool she was acting.

Connor was probably the best man she knew. He’d always been there for her—except when he took off for places like Singapore. Still, he’d always been a playboy in so many ways. She couldn’t imagine him in love.

“I never knew any of your girlfriends in college,” she noted. “Why was that? You never showed up with a girl on your arm. I knew they existed, because I heard about them. How come you never brought them around?”

He gazed at her and didn’t know what to say. He’d dated plenty of girls in college. But why would he take any of them to meet the one girl he cared about above all others? They would have seen through his casual act in no time.

Funny that she never did.

He stared at her for a long, pulsing moment. “You could have had me anytime you wanted me,” he said in a low, rough voice.

There. He’d said it. Finally a little hunk of truth thrown out into this sea of making everyone feel good about themselves. What was she going to do about it?

“Connor!”

She didn’t seem to want to take it as truth. More like teasing. Did she really think he was making a joke?

“Be serious,” she said, waving that away. “You know that’s not true. You didn’t want anyone to be your steady girl. You wanted fun and excitement and games and flirting. You didn’t want a real relationship. You admitted it at the time.” She made a face at him. “You have to realize that back then, what you wanted didn’t seem to have anything to do with what I wanted.”

He shook his head sadly. “I don’t know how you could have read me so wrong.”

“I didn’t.” She made a face at him. “You just don’t remember things the way they really were. I was looking for the tie that binds, just like a lot of women at that age. It’s a natural instinct. Nesting. I felt a deep need for a strong male, someone to build the foundation of a family with.”

He almost rolled his eyes at her. Was she really so self-delusional? “So you chose a guy who didn’t want kids.”

Her shoulders sagged. He got her on that one. What had she been thinking? He was right. She’d known from the first that he didn’t want children. Somehow she had buried that fact under everything, pretending to herself that it didn’t matter. Maybe she wouldn’t want children, either. Or, more likely, he would change his mind. After all, once it was a clear possibility, surely he would think twice and begin to waver. After all, he loved her. Didn’t he?

“I didn’t say I chose wisely.” She hated to face it, but he had hit the nail on the head. Her mistakes had been easy to avoid, if she’d only been paying more attention. Sighing, she rose. “I want to check on the kids. And I think I’ll change out of this uniform. Will you still be up or should I not come back and let you get some sleep?”

He looked at her and realized he wanted her back above all else. He wanted her in his bed, in his arms, in his life. But for now he would have to do with the minimum.

“Sure, come on back,” he said, holding up his wineglass. “I’ve still got a long way to go.”

She was glad he’d said that. As she stopped in to look at her sleeping children, she sighed. The upturned crib was not a long-term solution. Something would have to give. She only hoped it wasn’t her peace of mind.

She stopped by the guest room where she slept and changed into something more comfortable, then hurried back down, wondering if he would be asleep before she got back. But he was still staring at the light through his wine and he smiled to welcome her as she entered the room.

She flopped down on the little couch, sitting much closer this time. She was drawn to his warmth, drawn to his masculinity. Might as well face it. She loved looking at him, loved the thought of touching him. Would he kiss her good-night? That would be worth a little loss of sleep.

“Connor, how come I don’t really know anything about your childhood? How come you never talk about it?”

He took a long sip of wine and looked at her through narrowed eyes. Then he put on his Sam Spade tough-guy voice. “It’s not a pretty story, sweetheart. Full of ugliness and despair. You don’t want to worry your pretty little head over it.”

“Be serious for a moment,” she asked. “Really. I want to know you better.”

“Why? What more can there be? We’ve known each other for more than ten years and suddenly you don’t know me?”

“Exactly. You’ve used our friendship as cover all this time. And now I want to know the truth. What were your parents really like? Not the cartoon version you dredge up for jokes. The real people.”

He appeared uncomfortable for a moment, then thought for a second or two, and began.

“Let’s just put it this way. As they say in the head-shrinking crowd, I’ve had lifelong relationship commitment problems, which can probably be traced back to my childhood environment.”

“And that means?”

He stared at her. Did she really want him to go there? Okay.

“I learned early and firsthand just what kind of power women have,” he said softly. “I watched my mother purposefully drive my father crazy. Payback, I think, for never making as much money as she felt she needed.”

“Ouch.” She frowned.

“Yes.” He glanced at his ruby-red wine and thought back. “My father was a sweet guy in many ways. He tried hard to please her. But he just didn’t have what it took to bring in a high salary, and she rubbed his nose in it every day.”

“Oh, Connor,” she said softly.

“I watched him go through all sorts of contortions to find some little way to bring a smile to her face, but that was virtually impossible. She nitpicked everything. Nothing was ever good enough for her.” He threw her a lopsided grin. “Especially me.”

“So she nitpicked you, too?”

“Oh, yeah. I think finding something to make me stammer out ‘gee, I’m sorry, Mom,’ was what made her day for her.” He looked at her. “So I avoided going home. I hung around school in the afternoon, joined every sports team, every debating society, every club that would give me a place to hang out.” His gaze darkened. “Meanwhile my father drank himself to death.”

“Oh, Connor. I’m so sorry.”

He nodded. “It was a waste, really. He was a smart guy. He should have had a better life.”

“Yes.”

He gazed at her levelly, wondering if he really wanted to get into the next level of this discussion. Did he want to cut a vein and just let it bleed all over the night? Not really. But he might as well explain a little more about why he’d been the way he was when they were younger.

“You know, for years I really was leery of having a relationship with a woman that lasted more than twenty minutes. It just didn’t seem worth the risk from what I’d seen.”

She wrinkled her nose at him, as if she thought he was being silly. Still, he plowed on.

“But I have a new perspective on it now. I spent the last eighteen months or so in Singapore working with a great guy name George who is married to a wonderful woman named Peggy. I lived in their house and saw their entire interaction, and it helped me understand that decent, loving relationships are possible. I had to look harder at myself and wonder if I had what it takes to have that. I mean, it may be possible, but is it possible for me?”

Jill stared at him. She’d had no idea he had such deep misgivings about lifetime relationships. It made her want to reach out to him, to hold his hand and reassure him. There were plenty of women in the world who didn’t treat men the way his mother had. Didn’t he know that?

“And what did you decide?” she asked tentatively.

He flashed her a quick grin. “The verdict isn’t in yet.”

She started to argue about that, but she stopped herself. How could she wrestle him out of opinions that had developed from real life experiences? She didn’t have as many bad ones as he did. Maybe it got harder as they piled up.

“Where’s your mother now?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I think she moved to Florida to live with her sister, but we don’t keep in touch.”

She thought that was a mistake, but she held her tongue. Maybe later she would try to talk to him about how much could be lost when you lost your parents. Instead of going into it directly, she decided to tell him about her background.

“Here’s what happened to me,” she said. “And Sara. When my mother was alive, we were a happy family. At least, that’s the way I remember it. But my father’s second marriage was a horror show right from the beginning. That’s why Sara and I never warmed to our stepmother, Lorraine.” She shook her head.

“She was such a terrible choice for him. And it probably didn’t help the marriage that we couldn’t like her. He was a good guy, gentle, warm. And she was a shrew.”

“Wow,” he said, somewhat taken aback. He wasn’t used to such strong disapproval from Jill. “That’s a pretty negative judgment on the woman.”

She shrugged. “Of course, I saw the whole thing through the perspective of a child who had lost her mother and found her father bringing home a new, updated version that didn’t please her at all. We were very resentful and probably didn’t give her much of a chance, especially after she had a baby. Little Kelly was cute, but it didn’t make up for Lorraine. And she didn’t like us any better than we liked her and she made it pretty obvious.”

“Little Kelly is the one who died last week in a car crash?”

She nodded. “The one I wish we’d been kinder to.” She shrugged, but her eyes were sad and haunted. “Too late now.” She looked at him again. “And that’s what I want you to think about. Don’t wait until it’s too late to contact your mother again.”

He gave her a quizzical look. “Okay. Point taken.”

She nodded, then yawned. He smiled.

“You look like a sleepy princess.”

She’d traded in her uniform for a short fuzzy robe over the long lacy white nightgown and she looked adorable to him.

“What?” she said, laughing.

“In that gown thing. Even with the little robe over it. You look like you should be in a castle.”

She was blushing. Connor had a way of letting her know how pretty he thought she was and she was so hungry for that, it almost brought tears to her eyes.

She smiled back. “I guess we’d better go to bed.”

“You’re right. We need sleep. I’m only glad we survived the day.”

He rose and turned to pull her up beside him and he didn’t let go of her hands once they were standing face-to-face, looking at each other.

“I’m glad you came back,” she told him, her breath catching in her throat as her pulse began to race. Was he going to kiss her? Or was she going to have to do it herself?