Karen Templeton - A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father - A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father

“It’s only been a year—”

“You don’ really expect me to believe that, do you?”

Tess bounced up out of her chair again and returned to the sink, her hand knotting atop the cold porcelain as she watched the kids through the window. It was true, she rarely talked about her feelings, to her aunt or anybody. But after last night…“Having a man around…it’s just too confusing, trying to figure out who I’m supposed to be. And anyway, then they leave, or change their mind—or change, period—and then what?”

Flo came up to pull Tess close, as always the mother Tess’s own mother had never really been. “You know, baby doll, you don’ have to be strong all the time.”

“What choice do I have?” she said, gesturing lamely toward the window, her babies. “It’s not like their dad’s exactly picking up the slack.”

“What about Eli?”

Tess frowned into her aunt’s concerned eyes. “What about him?”

“Does he like kids?”

“Oh, geez,” Tess said on an airless laugh. “Eli as…as…omigod, I can’t even find the words. No, no, no…” Her hands lifted, she walked back to the coffeemaker and poured herself another cup. “ That was an aberration, pure and simple. A meltdown. And no how no way will it happen again.”

“Why not?”

“You’re not serious? Flo, you’ve heard the stories, same as I have—”

“So maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

The mug almost to her mouth, Tess lowered it, nonplussed. This from the Gossip Queen of Tierra Rosa. “Yeah, well,” Tess said, “not only do I have firsthand experience—”

“Sixteen doesn’t count.”

“—but corroborative evidence abounds,” she continued, ignoring her aunt, “to back up my theory.” Never mind his parting words—that he had changed—gonging in her head. “Eli and me…ain’t gonna happen. End of discussion.”

After a moment, her aunt returned to the table to retrieve her own mug. “So. You going into work?”

“No,” Tess sighed out. “Not sure I’m ready yet. Besides, it is Saturday.”

“So?” Flo said, clicking back to the sink to rinse it out. “Give your brain something to do besides chew the past to bits. Find an outlet for all that excess energy. Not unless you wanna have another one of those meltdowns. ”

“I won’t—”

“I’m off until Monday, I’ll watch the kids since I know Carmen doesn’t sit for you on the weekends—”

“I’m not going into work today! It was a mistake, okay?”

“Tell that to the boots and skirt,” her aunt said, nodding at Tess’s outfit, and Tess thought, Rotten subconscious.

“I know you needed some downtime after…after you signed the papers,” Flo said gently. “But you gotta be goin’ nuts by now, not working. So go into the office for a couple hours. Jus’ to take your mind off…everything.”

She could fight her, she supposed. Say, No, don’t wanna, not ready yet. Except…Flo was right, damn her meddling little heart. A couple hours focused on the miserable real estate market would definitely take her mind off Eli, yep.

“You sure Winnie and Aidan don’t need you?”

“I’m the housekeeper, not their slave. An’ he’s busy workin’ on one of those big paintings for that show in New York, anyway. He won’t even miss me. So go. ”

So Tess hugged her aunt, grabbed a leather jacket from the coat closet and her purse from the counter, kissed her children—who’d tumbled back into the house, panting and looking for juice—bye-bye and told them she’d see them in a little while, to be good for Auntie Flo. Julia just waved and resumed her juice quest—little twerp—but Miguel gave her a look of such longing it nearly ripped her heart out.

“I’ll be back soon,” she said, leaning over to cup his cheek. “We’ll make cookies, okay?”

“’Kay,” he said, smiling a little.

And that, Tess mused as she eased herself behind the wheel of her slightly dented and dinged white SUV, just cried out for a serious caffeine and sugar injection, one Flo’s wussy coffee and a pack of stale Little Debbies couldn’t even begin to address.

Fortunately, Tess knew just where to get her fix.

She jerked the SUV into Ortega’s tiny parking lot, realizing it’d been months since she and her girlfriends—Thea, her stepdaughter Rachel and relative newcomer Winnie Black, married to Flo’s landscape-artist employer—had gotten together for their Wednesday afternoon gabfests, scarfing down churros and nachos or whatever Evangelista had left over after the lunch rush. After Tess’s divorce, they’d tried to hold it together, but a bumper crop of new babies put paid to that idea. Not until Tess set foot inside the chile-, grease-and coffee-scented restaurant, though, did she realize how much her sanity had depended on those get-togethers. Maybe if they’d kept them going, last night wouldn’t’ve happened—

“What can I get for ya?”

Tess smiled for the pimply, painfully young waitress who’d taken over for Thea, who’d realized a night-owl newborn and waitressing were not a good mix.

“Coffee. To go.”

“Large or small?”

“Huge. Cream, no sugar. You’re new?”

Pouring coffee into a foam soup container, the girl flashed a smile. “Just started last week. Name’s Christine.” She popped a plastic top on the cup, then wiped her hands on her jeans. “That’ll be a buck-fifty.”

“Actually, why don’t you toss in one of those cinnamon rolls, too?”

“You know, those’ve been sittin’ out since this morning. We’ve got a fresh batch just about to come out of the oven if you don’t mind waiting.”

“You, honey, are an angel,” Tess said, right about the same time she heard, “How’s the leg?” right behind her. Yeah, just who she wanted to run into. Especially as, awake and sober, the tingling stuff from the night before?

Ten times worse.

“Leg’s fine,” she said, turning back to the counter, thinking if she concentrated real hard Eli wouldn’t be there when she looked around again.

“Workin’ today?”

So much for that. “Maybe.”

Sliding up on the stool right next to her, Eli chuckled, all low and deep and rumbly. That, too, was ten times worse, awake and sober. You would think messing around six ways to Sunday would have gotten it out of her system.

But no.

“Us, too,” Eli said. “Dad’s got a big job installing next week, so couldn’t take the day off.”

“Oh. That’s good, then,” she said, facing him. Acting like she had spontaneous, combustible sex with the random ex-boyfriends all the time. “That you’re so busy.”

“Yeah. It is,” he said, facing away. “Hey, Chrissy,” he called out to the waitress, his voice just as warm and sunshiny as it could be. “Gimme a half dozen breakfast burritos, okay?”

“Got it!”

“That cold all gone?”

The girl beamed. “Sure is. I did just like you said and drank a ton of hot tea, and it hardly even bothered me at all.”

“Told you. What?” he said to Tess, who swung her head back around.

“Nothing,” she muttered, and Eli swiveled his stool, plunked his elbows on the counter and resumed his conversation with Christine, now serving a couple at one of the tables.

“How’s your grandmother getting on?”

“Oh, she’s fine now. She’d just forgotten to eat breakfast and fainted, was all. That reminds me—she said to thank you for cleaning out her gutters last week.”

“No problem,” he said with a bright, completely nonflir-tatious smile, then swung back around, pinning Tess with his gaze. “What?”