Dating The Mrs. Smiths

“You and the kids should live with me, Charlie.”

“The offer’s appreciated, Rose, truly. I’m just not sure. The kids and I are finally starting to…” I hesitated to explain how we were only recently adjusting to the family of three we’d become, because I didn’t want to make her sound excluded.

She played her trump card. “I don’t think you and I were ever as close as Tom would have liked. I believe this decision would help him rest easier, don’t you?”

Yes, it would have made him very happy.

“We’ll be like Stella and Louise,” Rose said, sounding eager.

“Who?”

“Some movie.” She frowned. “Weren’t there two women who, I don’t know, bonded?”

“Thelma. You meant Thelma and Louise. And that movie ended in joint suicide.”

“Oh. You’re sure?”

“They drove into the Grand Canyon.” Whistling, I made a diving motion with my hand.

“What a silly way to end a film. Okay, then. Not like them! Some other pair that would make a good roommate analogy.”

Felix and Oscar came to mind. Hard to believe Rose and I would be any odder a couple.

Tanya Michaels

enjoys writing about love, whether it’s the romantic kind or the occasionally exasperated affection we feel for family members. Tanya made her debut with a 2003 romantic comedy, and her books have been nominated for awards such as Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice, Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award, the National Readers’ Choice and the Maggie Award of Excellence. She’s lucky enough to have a hero of a husband, as well as family and friends who love her despite numerous quirks. Visit www.tanyamichaels.com to learn more about Tanya and her upcoming books.

Dating the Mrs. Smiths

Tanya Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Dear Reader,

You know the expression that you can choose your friends, but not your family? Well, it’s also true that you can choose your husband, but you can’t choose his family, which are generally part of the package deal. But what if that husband was gone, and his family—specifically his disapproving mother—was all you had left?

These were the thoughts that led to the idea for Dating the Mrs. Smiths, a story in which widow Charlotte “Charlie” Smith and her two young children end up relocating to Boston and moving in with her mother-in-law, Rose, a woman with a good heart buried underneath all her strong opinions. Deep, deep underneath.

I’m very excited about my first book for NEXT, and hope you enjoy it! If you do, please drop me a note at [e-mail]. You can also visit my Web site at www.tanyamichaels.com for giveaways, book excerpts and all my latest news.

Wishing you happy reading and wonderful in-laws.

Tanya

Thank you, Jen and Pam,

for helping me figure out my NEXT step.

And special thanks to my parents-in-law,

Harvey and Sandra, for your support and

encouragement of my writing. I’m very thankful

that you raised such a wonderful son and that

my kids have such loving grandparents.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 1

“This isn’t a time to panic,” Martin assured me from behind his desk. “Only a time of change.”

Considering some of the changes I’d experienced in my thirty-nine years, I didn’t find the qualification particularly comforting.

“Think of it as two roads diverging,” my boss continued with a paternal smile, “creating new paths for you, Charlotte.”

Yeah. Well, I wanted to take the road most likely to pay my mortgage. After the months I’d struggled to recreate some sense of security for myself and my two children, Martin Kimble’s informing me that the warehouse and office were being closed felt like a mortal blow. And he wanted me to dismiss it as just a flesh wound?

Despite his soothing tone, I noticed hypocritical traces of subdued panic behind Martin’s wire-rimmed glasses. I didn’t think he was worried about his mortgage, though. I think he feared having a hysterical woman on his hands. Or an angry woman who might staple his striped tie to his desk blotter.

Instead, what he had was a mostly numb woman. I would have thought I was no longer naive enough to expect life to be fair, but I couldn’t help my instinctive reaction, the denial welling up inside me, the inner protest that this really was unfair. Almost laughably so, if you had a sick sense of humor.

The kids and I were just starting to regain our footing, thanks in large part to Kazka Medical Supply taking me back. I’d worked here part-time for over a year before leaving to have Ben, never guessing I’d soon return, begging for a full forty hours a week. Forty hours that were about to be yanked out from under me.

“You have some choices,” Martin added, nervously repeating the same phrase he’d used to open this Ides of March conversation. Okay, technically this was autumn—and I wasn’t a Roman emperor about to be assassinated—but the sense of doom and betrayal seemed appropriate. Plus there’s no great Shakespearean reference for the Ides of September.

Nodding to reassure my district manager I hadn’t gone catatonic, I mulled over the options. All two of them.

Stay in Miami and hope like crazy that I found another job before the southeastern distribution center closed in October, or put in for a transfer and hope like crazy it was approved. Martin had said he was more than willing to recommend me for the latter and that he thought my chances were “quite good.” Of course, a transfer would mean uprooting Ben and Sara, and praying Kazka’s northern locations continued to do well and weren’t shut down soon after I moved. Thirteen-month-old Ben would probably adjust all right. If he felt anxious in a new place, I could just put him in his playpen, where the world view was four navy mesh walls no matter what zip code we called home. But Sara…

A first grader whose biggest worries should have been subtraction and whether or not she’d like the sandwich in her sack lunch, she’d already been through so much in the last two years. After four years of being home with an attentive mommy all day, Sara had started pre-K, followed by kindergarten—the year Sara had learned she would no longer be an only child. At first we’d thought her frequent but vague complaints about not feeling well were cries for attention, but she had indeed been experiencing periodic viral throat infections throughout my pregnancy. Then, less than eight weeks after the baby and I had been discharged from the hospital, Tom had checked in. Sara and Ben’s father, my late husband, had been scheduled for a “routine” and “low-risk” surgery.

Doctors had assured us that serious complications from angioplasty were quite rare. If we were going to experience a freak overturn of the odds, why couldn’t it have been winning the Florida Lotto?

Sara was finally coping with her dad’s death, and a month into the new school year, she’d yet to be out sick—her life was improving. What would a child psychologist say about my now removing her from a class she enjoyed and taking her away from the only state she’d ever lived in, destroying her barely recovered sense of stability? I had a quick, flash-forward image of my daughter as a black-clad, green-haired teenager with her pierced lip curled back in a sneer as she explained to a sympathetic talk-show host, “I never had a chance. My mother completely screwed me up when I was young.”

Oh dear.

“I saved the good news for last,” Martin said coaxingly.

I glanced up from the hands I’d been unconsciously wringing in the lap of my outdated broomstick skirt. “There’s good news?”

“You haven’t asked where we would transfer you.” He beamed at me as if the relocation, hardly a done deal even if I wanted it, would take me to paradise on earth.

Hershey, Pennsylvania? I hear the streets there are paved with chocolate. Or at least named for it.

“Chicago is the first option,” he said. “But the more likely location for someone with your sales and marketing experience is…Boston.”

“The one in Massachusetts?” No, genius, the one in Nevada. My question was really just a rhetorical reflex—I’d forgotten we even had a location there. In my defense, I’d had a few other things on my mind.

Martin was nodding. “Home of the Red Sox, famous clam chowder and, if I’m not mistaken, some family members of yours?”

“My mother-in-law.” Rose Fiorello Smith.

Technically several of Tom’s relatives lived around Boston, but it was Rose who loomed large in my mind. Her visits to Florida had been rare during our marriage, but as last fall became winter, she’d made an unprecedented three trips here: to meet Ben, to bury her son, and to “celebrate” Christmas with us, that awful first holiday season without Tom. A closer mother- and daughter-in-law duo probably would have been a comfort to each other. But love for Tom was one of the few things Rose and I had in common; with him gone, the awkward strain between us was more pronounced.

“Rose is the children’s only living grandparent,” I told Martin, reminding myself of why it was important to try to make more time to call or visit her. Even if it was a subconscious relief to let months go by without talking.

“And she’s in the Boston area? Wonderful!” Martin’s shoulders sagged in visible relief. Obviously the possibility of my being near family made him feel less guilty about this afternoon’s bad news. “You see? Where one door closes…”

Thank goodness he trailed off. If he’d added “another opens,” or some quaint remark about windows, I probably would have stapled his tie to his desk blotter.

It wasn’t that I necessarily disagreed with the unspoken sentiment, but I’d heard my share of well-meaning platitudes since Tom’s surgery had gone wrong, leaving me a widow with two young children. People desperately wanted to say something to make the situation more bearable. Time heals all wounds; everything happens for a reason; loved ones live on in our hearts. You’re not alone had been the worst. I knew intentions were good, but when I woke up at four in the morning, reaching for a man who’d shared my bed for twenty years and was now in the ground, it sure as hell felt like I was alone.

Inhaling deeply, I forced myself back to the present. “Do I have to give you an answer today?” I hoped not. My thoughts were too jumbled to form a rational decision, and I was suddenly so tired that just asking the question took effort. Truthfully, I was a little alarmed by the oppressive, fog-like fatigue rolling in—a disturbingly familiar sensation.

Last year, the combined lack of sleep, postpartum mood swings and overwhelming grief had banished me to a hazy depression I hadn’t fully escaped until spring. I thanked the Lord every day for my friend Dianne Linney. Sara adored “Aunt Di,” and Dianne, a single young woman with no children of her own, had helped with my daughter during those long, bleak months I’d felt trapped in a dark hole. Dianne had also fielded more than a couple pediatrician’s visits on days when I absolutely couldn’t miss work.

“I wouldn’t dream of pushing you for a decision,” Martin said. “I’ll break the news to the salespeople tomorrow, when I have them all in the office for our meeting—I’d appreciate your discretion in the meantime—and the official company-wide memo won’t go out until next Monday. So take a few days to give the matter some thought, no reason to rush.”

No reason except the office being closed in a matter of weeks and my inordinate fondness for being able to buy groceries. But sarcasm was never the answer. If it were, I could make a killing on Jeopardy.

I stood, smiling to show there were no hard feelings, and returned to the office that had been mine since my return and advancement to full-time status. Inside the building, we could only pick up one radio station with consistent clarity, so I listened to a lot of Spanish rock music at my desk. Its sassy beat sounded muffled now, distorted, and the rest of my day passed like a recording playing at the wrong speed.

By the time I pulled into the driveway of my one-story stucco house that evening, I had managed to shrug off the tentacles of encroaching depression—mostly by making internal, inappropriate jokes. But I still hadn’t adjusted to the fact that my current job situation, our financial lifeline, was disappearing.

I exited the car, trying to ignore the warm humidity that plastered my clothes to my skin, and waved to our retired neighbor, Mrs. Winslow, who was out mulching her flower beds. Mrs. Winslow watched the kids for me on Fridays, but one day a week with young children was enough for her. I was fortunate that Dianne, aforementioned gift from heaven, could stay with Ben and pick up Sara from school on Monday through Thursdays, allowing them to play with their own toys and be in the security of a familiar environment. There were several good day cares in the area, but God knows how I would have afforded one of them.

And Tom, who had been raised by a doting and devoted mother, had always maintained that day cares were too impersonal for his children. If I was no longer the stay-at-home mom we’d planned for me to be, at least the children were with someone who loved them unconditionally. I insisted on paying Dianne a nominal fee, which she added to what she made as a performer in a ritzy Vegas-style Miami hotel on the weekends, but we both knew she was saving me a bundle. Sometimes it seemed comical that my best friend was a gorgeous twenty-four-year-old who shook her booty for a living, when I myself was a newly widowed almost-forty-year-old from the burbs, but I’d hit it off instantly with the younger woman when a co-worker of Tom’s had brought her to the company picnic. She’d become the sister I’d never had.

If not for Dianne’s generosity and the last few dollars of the life insurance settlement, I might have had to sell my body on street corners to make ends meet—not that I expected a high profit margin on the bod of a woman who’s nursed two babies. Unless there was a trendy stretch-mark fetish I didn’t know about.

The wind chimes hanging in the alcove at my front door greeted me with tinkling metallic cheer. Even nicer were the voices I heard as I turned the knob.

“Mommy’s home!” A pink-socked Sara barreled in from the carpeted living room onto the slick square of tile just inside the door.

I caught her as she skated into me, nearly knocking both of us back out into the front yard. “Missed you today, Sara-bear.”

Behind her, Ben wobbled into view, grinning and drooling. He didn’t have much of a vocabulary yet—I couldn’t count ma-ma since he generally said it to the oscillating fan in the kitchen—but his high-pitched squeals made it clear he was happy to see me. From the screened sunroom at the back of the house, Gretchen added her woofs of joy that I’d returned. Gretchen is a German shepherd mix who joined us after Tom insisted that it was good for kids to grow up with a dog and that he’d feel better knowing a trained canine was helping to look after the family. Thus resulting in my ownership of a sixty-five-pound nervous condition with chronic shedding.

Since Gretchen was terrified of the geckos that frequently got in the house, I didn’t consider her my go-to line of defense in an emergency.

I hugged both of my children tight, closing my eyes and breathing in the faint scents of baby shampoo and Play-Doh. Being away from the kids all day was a difficult adjustment. I’d loved being home with Sara for her first three years, doing things like Mommy and Me activity groups, trips to the zoo and playdates at the park. Somewhere along the line, getting outside the neighborhood had become a must. I don’t remember the median age in our subdivision being sixty-seven when Tom and I had bought the house, but more and more I was feeling like the only one at the monthly potluck who still had all her own teeth.

“Hey.” Dianne met us as we rounded the corner from the living room into the kitchen. I wore a skirt, blouse and pumps, yet my statuesque friend looked far more glamorous in her faded jeans and yellow Life’s a Beach T-shirt. For all our superficial difference, she “gets” me and we share the same loyal streak.

She jerked her thumb toward the ivy-print kettle steaming on the stove. “I was just brewing some tea. How was your day?”

So many possible answers, so few of them appropriate in front of children.

I hadn’t called Dianne because I’d worried that if I tried to talk about today’s news before fully absorbing it, lurking despair might snatch me into its jaws. But I was home now and armed with my secret weapon against despair—kiddo-hugs and a mouse-shaped cookie jar stuffed to the rim with reduced-fat Oreos. I predicted significant cookie depletion by morning.

Dianne raised one red eyebrow when I didn’t answer. She’s boasted more than once that among the redheads in her act, she’s the only natural one. “That bad, huh? Want me to stay and help with dinner?”

I glanced at the jar pushed back on the mauve counter-top, theoretically out of Sara’s reach. Which was silly, since my daughter was plenty enterprising enough to drag one of the table chairs toward her goal. At least the scraping of wood on linoleum gave me an opportunity to foil her plans. “I was kind of thinking six-course Oreos.”

“Oh. So really that bad.”

“Or maybe I should come up with something more representative of the four food groups?” I averted my gaze guiltily, remembering the gourmet meals made from scratch I’d proudly had on the table when Tom got home after a hard day’s work. The carefully prepared casseroles I’d frozen toward the end of my pregnancy with Ben, so that nutritious dinners could be tossed in the oven with no thought or trouble once the baby came.

“P-i-z-z-a offers bread, dairy, meats and veggies,” Dianne suggested with a wink at my daughter, knowing perfectly well that Sara could spell pizza and enough other words to make her one of the best readers in her first-grade class.

Sara began jumping up and down. “Pizza! Can we have pizza, Mommy? Please!”

Caught up in her exuberance, Ben began waving his sippy cup of apple juice, ostensibly in demand of a ham-and-pineapple deep dish.

“Okay.” I reached for the kitchen drawer where I kept coupons for the local delivery place. “Pizza sounds like decent comfort food.”

“You want to talk about why you need comforting?” Dianne asked.

“Maybe this isn’t the best time.” I jerked my head toward the kids, who were bouncing around the kitchen in time to Sara’s whoops of excitement. Ben wouldn’t understand the technicalities of Kazka’s downsizing, but even he could pick up on that Bad News vibe children are sensitive to, no matter how casual adults try to keep conversation. And Sara was bound to take the threat of more change badly.

“After they go to bed, then,” Dianne said.

“You sure you want to stick around that late?” I floundered between wanting to talk to another grown-up and not wanting to take advantage of my friend’s constant kindness. It was Wednesday, which meant she worked tomorrow night on top of watching my kids during the day.

“I can make us rumrunners,” she cajoled. Dianne mixed better drinks than Tom Cruise’s character in that old 1980s bartending movie.

Which is why several hours later, I hovered between a pleasant buzz and that weepy feeling alcohol can induce when you’re blue. Feet tucked under me, I sat at one end of the couch, wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt of Tom’s—I’d donated most of his clothes to charity, but had been unable to part with all of them. From the other end of the sofa, Dianne was regarding me with unconcealed worry.

“I’m just a little down now because the news is still fresh. I’ll be fine once I have a few days to take it in,” I insisted. Wanting to reassure us both, I managed a smile and conjured one of those clichés I knew by heart. “You know, that which doesn’t kill us—”

“Sucks swamp water, nonetheless?” Dianne supplied, her eyes twinkling.

“Exactly.”

Perhaps saying I would be “fine” in a few days had been unrealistic. After all, it had been a long time since I’d truly felt fine. But I was coping. The weekend rolled around, and I eyed the classifieds in Friday’s paper as I browned hamburger meat for dinner.

As the person who coordinated all of Kazka’s sales appointments for the Southeast, I had contacts within the pharmaceutical distribution and medical equipment industry. Several people had agreed to look at my updated résumé. I suspected, though, that most of these offers stemmed more from professional courtesy than an overwhelming need to fill openings, which didn’t bode well for me.

I knew I could find a job, but one that would allow me to support the family? Not for the first time, I regretted that I’d never gone back to college to complete my bachelor’s degree. My college career had been cut short by Dad’s unexpected death and my marrying young, but I’d finished enough credits to earn my associate’s. The degree didn’t carry as much weight in the current job market, though, and it wasn’t my only handicap. I’d quickly proven myself at Kazka before leaving to have my second baby and had been told a full-time position was mine if I ever wanted it. But as far as impressing prospective new employers went, the stay-at-home-mommy years I’d missed in the workforce could put me behind the competition.

I stirred the beef around, making a mental note to get chicken or fish sticks into the kids tomorrow since we’d had cheeseburger kids’ meals last night. Once I’d set down the plastic spatula, I reached for the newspaper, which crinkled as I folded it back. Pickings were slim, unless I wanted an exciting job in the field of selling condo time-shares to tourists. Would applying for the transfer to Boston really be such a bad choice?

For the last few days, my knee-jerk reaction had been that I didn’t want to uproot the kids. This was home, the place Tom and I had made our life together, a place full of memories.

He and I had met while attending the University of Florida, where he’d been offered a football scholarship. I’d been a freshman away from my Georgia home for the first time, enchanted with the good-looking Gator receiver. We were both only children, both raised by single parents. And now I was the single parent.

If the kids were going to be stuck with just me, maybe I should move somewhere where they had more family. They loved Dianne, but she dreamed of one day moving to Las Vegas or New York to perform. In Boston, Sara and Ben would be closer to their adoring grandmother. Unfortunately, so would I.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like my mother-in-law. We got along, particularly when we were in different states. But Rose had been raised in a patriarchal family where the men were revered and waited on—when she’d lost her husband, she’d transferred her devotion to her teenage son. Her pride and joy. The focus of her entire being. The first time he’d brought me home, during a semester break in college, I’d had the distinct impression that she’d wanted better for him. Maybe it wasn’t personal; maybe no mere mortal woman could have lived up to what Rose envisioned for him.