“How far along are you?”
She munched and sipped. “Almost four months.”
“Who’s the lucky guy?”
Her blue eyes glinted with unexpected humor. “76549823-CBGT.”
Dan blinked. “You hooked up with a robot?”
Emily’s melodious laugh filled the kitchen. Her soft lips parted as she prepared to take another sip of her ginger ale.
“A sperm bank. All I know about my baby’s daddy is that he has an IQ over 140 and is Caucasian, blond, greeneyed and tall. And of course has no major inherited health problems I’d have to worry about.”
Dan had lots of questions. None of which would have been polite to ask.
“I’m thirty-five, my eggs aren’t getting any younger, and I wanted a family. The luck of the draw wasn’t working—I just never met anyone I wanted to settle down with.”
“Except Tex Ostrander.” Dan recalled the name of the guy who had caused her so much grief the night before.
Emily’s lips thinned. “Don’t remind me. I’m still mad at him.”
She didn’t appear to still have romantic feelings for her ex. Although why that should matter to him, Dan didn’t know. “Did you talk to him?” he asked casually, forcing himself to move on.
“No.” Looking to be bouncing back from her bout of morning sickness, Emily leaned her spine against the back of the stool. “Although, not surprisingly, he called me several times. But back to the job you offered me last night—I’ve been thinking about it and I can’t commit to a permanent family gig. It just wouldn’t work out for a lot of reasons,” she stated firmly. “But I could help you out on a temporary basis—until I have a chance to get some other chef gigs lined up.”
This, Dan hadn’t expected. He studied the new color in her cheeks and the professional competence in her eyes. “How temporary?”
“I was thinking through Thanksgiving. That would give me time to figure out what the problems are with mealtime around here—from a cooking perspective.”
Maybe there weren’t any, Dan thought. Maybe all they needed was a woman in the house again. “There wasn’t a problem last night,” he said.
Emily disregarded her success. “That was an anomaly. They were caught off guard. They were hungry. Someone set a table of hot food in front of them.”
“Hot delicious food,” Dan corrected.
Finding his mouth dry, he poured himself a glass of ginger ale, too.
“Whatever.” Emily waved off the distinction. She rested both her forearms on the breakfast bar and leaned in deliberately. “The point is, these complex family issues are not going to be resolved just because I’ve showed up.”
Trying not to be distracted by the fragrance of orange blossoms and the silk of her hair that fell seductively over her shoulder, he lounged against the opposite counter. “I think you’re selling yourself short.”
She mocked him with a waggle of her brows. “And I think you’re minimizing the problem,” she teased. “But we digress—”
Dan frowned in confusion. “Do we?”
Her gaze was completely serious now. “You haven’t said if you would be okay with the fact that I’m pregnant,” she pointed out softly.
Dan’s glance moved involuntarily to the slight swell of her tummy beneath the blue-and-lavender paisley tunic before returning to her face. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I’m unmarried.”
And incredibly sexy, and likely to be even sexier in a deeply maternal way as your pregnancy progresses…
“You have impressionable children,” she added.
And I’ve had thoughts about kissing you…
He shrugged. “You’re a responsible adult.”
Emily raked her teeth across her soft lower lip. “Not everyone approves of what I’m doing.”
Dan enjoyed the experience of being there with her, the pair of them talking with the familiar intimacy of two people who’ve known each other for years, instead of mere hours. He reassured her with a look. “Not everyone approves of divorce, either. Stuff happens.” Old dreams fade. New ones take their place. “As far as I’m concerned, congratulations are still in order.”
“Thank you.” Emily smiled. “Do you think my pregnancy will bother Walt?”
Dan sidestepped the question as best he could. “He’s crotchety.”
Her eyes glimmered. She knew there was more. “Meaning?” she prompted.
Candor was something he could not provide. Not yet, anyway. “You don’t work for him. You work for me,” Dan said, and left it at that.
Emily surveyed Dan warily. “Is there something else I should know?”
Besides the fact that Walt doesn’t trust anyone until a thorough background check proves that person is trust-worthy? Dan mused. “Not a thing.”
ONCE EMILY HAD fully recovered from her bout of morning sickness, they decided to get right down to business. “There’s a couple ways we could approach this problem,” she told the family gathered around the kitchen table.
“We’re not going to be able to solve it,” Tommy interrupted, evidencing the same lack of teamwork he had the night before.
Dan gave his son a stern look.
“No offense,” Tommy continued, hands raised, “but none of us like the same stuff.”
Emily knew sugarcoating the problems would not solve anything. They needed to examine their differences together before a remedy could be found.
“That’s true, although you all seemed to like last night’s dinner,” Emily said. “Anyway, according to your lists, Kayla prefers mainly breakfast foods like pancakes, French toast, eggs, cereal and so on. Ava’s into coffee, chocolate and salads. Tommy wants high protein and electrolytes. Dan wants anything everyone will eat. And Walt, given his choice, is a meat-and-potatoes man.”
“It doesn’t sound like we have anything in common.” Ava sighed.
“Sure we do,” Dan interrupted sternly. “We’re all Kingslands.”
“Uncle Walt isn’t—his last name is Smith,” Ava pointed out studiously.
Eager to join in, Kayla put her crayon down and piped up with, “Emily isn’t one, either!”
“That’s right.” Emily struggled to contain control of the family meeting. “I’m not. My last name is Stayton. It was good of you to notice
