John pulled into the detached one-car garage off the alley and headed for the back door. The kids would be long since asleep, he hoped. Hell, even his mother rarely stayed up past ten. Natalie, he didn’t know about. Wondering heightened his senses slightly as he inserted the key in the lock. He didn’t hear voices, real or canned from the TV, and from the street he’d seen no light on in the living room.
He tried to be home for meals and to tuck his children into bed at night. Their mother’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis was tough enough for them, since it meant losing her as a part of their daily lives, having to visit her in a place where illness couldn’t be forgotten and they were reduced to awkward kisses on her cheek and polite responses to her questions about school and friends. They needed to be able to count on Daddy.
But his job wasn’t nine-to-five, not in the first throes of an investigation. Some of the lowlifes he’d needed to talk to didn’t come out from under their rocks until after dark. He was lucky to be home this early.
His mother’s sporty Chevrolet was parked to one side of the driveway. Even as irritated as he’d been at her this morning, John was grateful that his kids had her and their uncles, that he wasn’t their only close family. But he was damned if he’d let her use chilly judgments and icy disapproval to hammer his son into the avenging angel she’d wanted her own sons to be. Hell, wasn’t that what they were, cleansing the streets of the devil’s spawn?
The house was quiet when he stepped in, one light left on in the kitchen, a note taped to the microwave. He crossed quietly. Even Natalie must be asleep.
Tidy block print read, “Leftover casserole in the refrigerator. Heat for five minutes. I don’t want to find it uneaten in the morning.”
He gave a rusty laugh. That was his mother all over. Caring but stern.
He should be hungry and wasn’t, but he obediently took out the plastic container, noted that it was one his mother made with cashews and Chinese noodles that he liked, and stuck it in the microwave. Five minutes.
Listening to the hum, he thought how idiotic it was at his age to have fleeting, wistful memories of the mother she’d been Before Dad Died. He always thought of it that way, in capital letters. She had changed in one horrific day, bewildering and terrifying her three boys. Instead of progressing through all the stages of grief, emerging at the end as the mother they knew, she’d seemed to get stuck part way, consumed by anger she still carried. More of an optimist then, he’d actually hoped, back when Debbie was pregnant, that in starting over with grandchildren his mother too could begin again. Better than Hugh and Connor, he remembered her as a woman who had patiently bandaged skinned knees and run breathlessly down the sidewalk holding up two-wheelers, and not cared if paint happily slapped onto butcher paper dripped off the edges onto the kitchen floor or table-top. Those memories of laughter and tenderness and easy hugs were fading these days.
But he was still lucky she was here for Maddie and Evan. They loved her, as much as she would allow.
Trouble was, he could foresee her getting harder and harder on Evan. Opening the refrigerator again to look for something to drink, John scowled. He’d been old enough when his father died to have some inner defenses. His brothers, especially Hugh, hadn’t been. His mother had messed with Hugh’s psyche but good, and he couldn’t let her do the same to Evan. He didn’t want to hurt her by cutting her off from the kids, but the day was coming when he’d have to find alternative baby-sitting—and either a tactful explanation of why he had made the change, or the guts to be blunt.
“Is something spoiling in there?”
He jerked and dropped the milk carton. Milk sloshed at his feet. Swearing, he bent to pick it up.
Natalie stayed in the doorway, eyes huge, dark curly hair tousled over her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No, no.” He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and poured the milk before it could all leak out the bottom.
“Do you have a pitcher you could put that in?” She came shyly into the kitchen.
“Uh, yeah. Somewhere.” He left the milk carton in the sink and banged cupboard doors until he found a plastic pitcher. He salvaged a pint or so, enough for breakfast cereal, anyway.
Natalie had taken paper towels and was mopping up the mess on the floor.
“I can do that,” he said, frowning again as he looked down at the top of her head and realized she wore a robe. She had probably been in bed when she heard him come in.
“It was my fault.” She didn’t even glance up.
“Besides, the microwave beeped. I think your dinner must be ready.”
John hesitated for a moment, then opted for the casserole. What was he going to do, hand-wrestle Natalie for a soggy paper towel?
“Come sit with me?” he asked.
Now she did look up, that same unexpected shyness in her dark eyes. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be alone?”
“Positive.” He hooked a stool at the tiled breakfast bar with one foot and pulled it out. “Are you hungry?”
“Heavens, no! Your mother made me eat every bite at dinner.”
He gave the same rueful chuckle. “That’s my mom.”
Natalie wiped the floor again with a damp, soapy towel and then tossed it into the garbage under the sink. Straightening, she hesitated, pulled her robe more snugly around herself and then came to the bar.
John pushed a second stool out. “Join me.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” She scooted her rump onto the stool, keeping both hands on her robe so that it didn’t gape above or below the belt.
Of course, nothing was so calculated to make him wonder what she wore under it. He hastily turned his attention to his dinner. Damn it, he did not want to have sexual fantasies, however fleeting, about Natalie Reed.
“Did you nap this afternoon?” Maybe not a smart question, as it made him picture that curly hair spread on her pillow, her cheeks flushed like Maddie’s on the rare occasions when she would still lie down during the daytime.
Natalie shook her head. “I never do, you see. Going so against habit would have just made me think.”
He chewed and swallowed, washing the bite down with a slug of milk. “What did you do, then?”
“Rode.” The hand possessively clutching the robe at her bosom began to relax, as if she forgot she had to. “Then, believe it or not, I went shopping at the mall. A woman’s refuge.”
“Ah.” Debbie had shopped, too, whether the credit cards were maxed out or not.
“I wasn’t sure you could let me into my house. I bought some clothes for the next day or so.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said roughly. “I could have gotten what you needed.”
“No, that’s okay.” She bent her head and fingered the shawl collar of the robe, which he realized belatedly was his mother’s. “I hardly ever take the time to shop, and I can use some new jeans and…things.”
Panties?
