Laurie Paige - Second-Time Lucky

Her lips. Soft-looking. Unintentionally kissable.

The fullness of her breasts that the stern business attire hadn’t been able to hide.

He hadn’t had time to notice a woman in months, maybe years. After a long bout with pain and physical therapy and adjusting to the prosthetic foot, he’d retired from the army with his twenty years in. The pension, plus the disability pay, had helped finance the start of his business.

Next, the three youngsters had moved in with him for six months before the younger two had been taken away. Four months later, all three had disappeared.

The caseworker had given him a lot of grief over that, as if he’d been the one who’d put them in that miserable excuse of a foster home.

That brought his thoughts back to Caileen Peters. At least she didn’t seem to be an ogre like the other woman had been. She’d seemed genuine in her concern for the children.

An unexpected stirring in his blood startled him. Man, he must be getting desperate if he was hung up on a damn social worker!

Krista came to him, interrupting the ridiculous ideas running through his head. She kissed him on the cheek in her sweet, shy manner. “Thank you for the present, Uncle Jeff.”

“Wow, I must be a prince,” he said, clutching his chest. “I just got kissed by a princess.”

“Sorry, Uncle,” Jeremy wisecracked. “Go look in the mirror. You’re still a frog.”

Krista scowled. “He is not a frog! He’s the most wonderful person in all the world!”

“The princess has spoken,” Jeff told his smart-mouth nephew, “and you, Sir Lout, may clean up the dishes.”

“The Knights of the Round Table didn’t do dishes,” Jeremy grumbled, then chuckled as he gathered the used plates. The other two helped.

Jeff crossed his prosthetic foot over his right leg and rubbed his left knee. He was tired from the unusually hard day of unpacking and storing his tools and salvaged treasures, but it was a good kind of tired.

A sense of well-being poured over him like a gentle rain. It didn’t get any better than this.

Caileen thought the day couldn’t get any worse than it already was. She’d started out on a sour note, arguing with her daughter about a weekend trip with her boyfriend. Then she’d had a flat tire on the way to the office. The judge in juvenile court had spoken sharply to her for not having all the facts on a case she’d just been given two days ago.

Happy April Fool’s Day.

She should have stayed in bed and called the office and told them she was sick. That’s what she’d felt like doing every day of late. However, she’d never allowed herself to wallow in self-indulgence, so her attendance record had been perfect over the past five years. Where was her gold star?

Ah, well, one day at a time and don’t take anything too seriously. That was her philosophy. Too bad she couldn’t live up to its simplicity.

Turning onto the lane leading to the Aquilon place, she frowned at the pleasant homestead, unreasonably irritated by the flowers, the artfully placed benches and copper sculptures dotted around the landscape.

After parking in the shadow of a cedar tree, she sat there for a minute, aware that the appearance of the place was that of an ideal home. She’d once thought with enough hard work on her part she could make life fit a perfect pattern. Events had taught her it couldn’t be done.

In spite of her stoic acceptance of reality, she felt a twinge of longing for things to somehow be different and one of sadness because they weren’t.

The front door opened and Jeff Aquilon appeared on the rose-bordered deck that served as a porch and defined the entrance to the house. It was warm today and he was dressed in lightweight cargo pants. A tool belt clung to his narrow waist, a hammer dangling from a hoop on it.

Today he looked younger and more relaxed than yesterday. His manner was rather more welcoming. Had she not known he had a prosthetic foot, she probably couldn’t have detected it in the way he moved.

A quizzical glance from him prodded her into remembering why she was here. She picked up the three books, exited the car and went to the porch. “Hello. I remembered the books.” She held them out to him, stopping at the limestone slab that served as a step onto the deck.

His hand brushed hers as he accepted the books. Tingles reverberated along her fingers and up her arm. She drew back in shock while alarm bells went off in her mind.

“Lunch is ready,” he announced, holding the door open.

She stood there as if rooted to the spot. “I, uh, didn’t expect anything. You don’t have to feed me.”

“You’re using your lunch hour to bring the books out. That’s a twenty-minute drive each way. The least I can do is offer you a meal. If that’s allowed?”

“Well, yes. I mean, of course it is. There’s no rule against eating…”

Listening to her flustered statements, she gave a mental groan at how inane she sounded.

“That’s a relief to know,” he murmured sardonically.

That brought her back to an even keel. She stepped into the house, her senses filling with the spicy scent of his aftershave as she passed him, then with the mouth-watering aroma of a hot meal. The table, she saw, was already set with large bowls on striped placemats. A ceramic casserole was in the center on a polished marble lazy Susan.

“It’s beef stew,” he said, laying the books on a sideboard and placing the tool belt beside them.

Not at all sure this was wise, she took a seat. “The books are stories of children who have all the cards stacked against them, but they make it anyway,” she said, keeping the reason for her visit strictly official.

“Kids like to see how others manage in bad situations, I suppose.” He served her from the casserole first and placed a basket of hot fry bread, wrapped in a tea towel, close at hand. A bowl of mixed fruit was at each place.

“This looks wonderful. A well-balanced meal,” she told him in approval. “Lots of fruit and vegetables.”

His slight smile caused her throat to tighten. “I’ve read all the articles on nutrition in the paper, so I’m trying to do a good job for the kids. This was to impress you with my skills.”

Surprised at the admission, she laughed. “I am impressed, I assure you.”

“Good.”

He settled in his chair and they ate in silence for a few minutes. Every time she glanced up, her eyes met his. She wondered what he was thinking…if he approved of her soft pink spring outfit…what he expected from a woman in a personal relationship…why no woman had snagged him long ago….

“Everything is delicious. Did you make the fry bread from scratch?” she asked, desperate to divert her thoughts from this strange pattern.

He shook his head. “My mother used to cook it for my brothers and me. She used boxed biscuit mix. She said that was cheating, but she wouldn’t tell if we wouldn’t. It was our family secret.”

“That’s a good bonding device.”

The dark eyebrows rose in question.

“Having a fun secret to share as a family,” she explained. “Your mother had good parenting instincts.”

She knew his mother had died several years ago from a rare form of cancer and his father of liver malfunction associated with alcohol when the three boys had been teenagers.

Her own parents, she mused, were alive and well, both now retired and living in Arizona. Her father had been an accountant. They’d never been very close as a family.

She thought of all the times she could have used their help while raising Zia and finishing the work for her counseling degree. But she’d been too proud to ask and they’d been too rigid to volunteer.

Her host’s manner seemed introspective as he gazed out the window for a moment. “She loved us. I think she would have given her life to protect us boys.”