she was running a little behind.
* * *
NATE POURED HIMSELF a second cup of coffee and settled at the breakfast bar with his laptop. Behind him, Gemmy was sprawled on the family room floor, and Molly and Martha lay between her front legs and her back legs, using her ample girth as a pillow while they watched a daddy-approved program on television.
While he kept an eye on the clock, anticipating the ring of the doorbell, he opened the file containing the first draft of a research paper he was coauthoring with a colleague.
Kristi had said she would be here at nine, and it was now two minutes past. Actually, she said around nine, and it’s not like it matters. He would be here all day.
The doorbell startled him, even though he’d been expecting it. “I’ll be right back,” he said to the girls.
He hotfooted it to the front door and opened it to find his mother-in-law standing there.
“Alice. This is a…surprise.” And yet another affirmation of why he needed to move.
As always her dark clothing reminded him of a military uniform, and the pinched lines around her mouth made him think she needed to smile once in a while.
“These are the pageant applications. I wasn’t sure if you would get around to looking at the website before the deadline.” She handed a large envelope to him. “I know how busy you are.” Her tone implied otherwise.
He didn’t want to get into it with her now, with the girls practically in the next room and Kristi due to arrive any minute. Now he really hoped she got held up somewhere and wouldn’t arrive until Alice was gone. “You didn’t have to go out of your way. I would have—”
“The girls’ photographs are in there with the application forms,” Alice said, cutting him off, saving him having to lie to her. “We had them taken the last time Molly and Martha spent the weekend. The applications have to include full-length poses and head shots. We know how busy you are, so we took care of it.”
Head shots? He resisted the urge to tear open the envelope.
“I can’t stay,” she said. “I’m on my way to have my hair done.”
Her dark silver coif was as smooth as a helmet, not a hair out of place.
He waved the envelope at her. “I’ll take a look at this.” No, you won’t, and you shouldn’t be letting her think you will. He needed to put an end to this insanely inappropriate plan to enter his daughters in a beauty pageant.
“Heather would have been okay with this.” And without waiting for him to reply, she strode down the sidewalk in her no-nonsense shoes, got into her gray sedan and drove away without a backward glance.
He didn’t give a damn what Alice said. Heather would not have been okay with this. What he didn’t understand was why this was suddenly so important to Heather’s mother.
“Who was that, Daddy?” Molly asked when he returned to the family room.
He slipped the envelope underneath his laptop, glad the girls hadn’t heard their grandmother at the door, and even more grateful she hadn’t asked to see them.
“Just a courier, sweetie. Dropping off some papers for me to look at.”
He sat on a stool and scrolled back to the top of the document and read the introduction for the third time. So much for his plan to get some work done before Kristi arrived.
Who was he kidding? Between Alice’s unexpected visit and Kristi’s impending arrival, he couldn’t concentrate anyway. Last night, after the girls were in bed, he’d spent an hour and a half taking down streamers, cleaning bathrooms and trying to catch up on laundry. Then he’d spent another hour looking at online real estate listings for smaller homes that were still close to the university and the girls’ day care, yet a safe distance from his in-laws. His findings weren’t impressive. For the first time since deciding to sell this place, he’d had some truly genuine misgivings, but Alice’s unexpected visit this morning strengthened his resolve.
The doorbell pealed…this time it had to be Kristi…and on his way to answer it, he reminded himself to play it cool.
“Good morning,” she said. In cropped black pants and a pink T-shirt and sneakers, she could be dressed for yoga class. She looked completely different from the woman who had breezed in here yesterday, taken up residence in pretty much every waking thought and occupied at least one of his dreams last night.
Wow. “Good morning.” He stood there, realized he was staring at her and hoped he hadn’t said “wow” out loud.
“I would have been here sooner, but I waited until my daughter left for school, and then I couldn’t find my keys....” She hitched the purple cupcake bag higher on her shoulder. “Sorry. I should have called.”
“That’s okay. I’m used to students who show up late for class.” Moron. How was that playing it cool? Had he forgotten how to have a normal conversation with a woman?
She seemed to find him amusing. “Well, I hope I don’t lose marks.”
She said it with just enough sass to put him in his place, but not so much that he minded.
“Come in,” he said, stepping aside for her. This home staging thing was a complete mystery to him but he was more than willing to learn. It would be like being a student again, and he had a pretty good idea he was going to like his teacher.
* * *
KRISTI WALKED WITH Nate through the house, noting that the living room doors were open, the streamers were gone and he had even attempted to tame the kitchen clutter. Molly and Martha were sprawled with the dog in the middle of the family room floor, watching a children’s show she didn’t recognize. Something new in the years since Jenna was little.
“Good morning, girls. What are you watching?”
Molly angled her head and looked up at her. “The Cat in the Hat.”
Martha tugged her thumb out of her mouth. “Knows a Lot About That.” Back went the thumb.
Kristi looked to Nate for an explanation.
“The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! It’s a kids’ science show.”
Of course it was. This family was all about science. Nate’s T-shirt this morning read Evolution of a Botanist and had a series of silhouettes, starting with a chimpanzee, progressing through various human forms, and arriving at a man with a plant pot under one arm. She wondered how many botany T-shirts were among the items of clothing she’d seen lying around his bedroom. She hadn’t dared look too closely, but her money was on lots.
The kitchen countertops were still home to more items than potential buyers needed to see, but he’d made a valiant attempt to clear them. She was impressed.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“No, thanks. I’ve already had tea.”
She pulled a file folder and her laptop out of her bag, and carefully set the bag on the floor out of the way. She was not risking a repeat of yesterday’s
