Читать книгу The Littlest Matchmaker - Dorien Kelly - Страница 10

“You’re going to need your party manners,” Lisa said to Jamie as they pulled up to her parents’ house that evening. “Grammie and Grampy have company.”

Two strange cars were parked out front on the street. The first was an aged vehicle plastered with the standard assortment of indie rock band stickers and high school cheerleading and volleyball decals—a definite babysitter ride. The other was a sleek sports car, no doubt owned by someone Lisa’s parents had duped into being the date candidate du jour.

She pulled past the sports car, which Jamie was excitedly viewing from the elevated perch of his safety seat.

“Pretty,” he decreed in a reverent tone.

“Don’t get too attached,” she said under her breath as she parked her six-year-old and not so very pretty—but paid for—vehicle in the driveway.

Lisa got out of the car and went to the back passenger door to help Jamie out of the constraints of his seat. She glanced up at the house and saw her mother flit by one of the library windows, where she must have been waiting for their arrival. This was definitely a setup; her mother had been wearing a dress. Lisa surveyed her own garb of faded jeans and white short-sleeved top. There would be some severe style clash going down at this meal.

She and Jamie had barely reached the front door when it swung open. Next to her mom stood a perky-looking teenager.

“You’re a little late, dear,” Lisa’s mother said to her before focusing on Jamie. “Jamie, this is Amber. You two are going to have a pizza party in the jungle room.”

Mom had this all figured out, down to letting Jamie eat in the glass-walled conservatory, his favorite room out of the many in her parents’ home. She could scratch using Jamie as an excuse to bolt.

“Whose sports car?” she asked her mom after Jamie and Amber had left for their pizza safari.

“We’re in the living room,” her mother replied.

“And?”

Her mother smoothed her hands down her already unnaturally wrinkle-free pale blue linen dress. “And what? Come to the living room and meet the car’s owner.”

Lisa still balked. “Mom, after last time, you promised you’d never do this again.”

“I don’t believe I did, and you know I’m very careful with my words.”

Which was an understatement. A thirty-year career as a corporate attorney, from which she’d recently retired, had made her mother a tactical genius. In fact, Amanda Peters, aka Mom, stood among Lisa’s pantheon of heroes. She’d managed to work full-time, deal with the fact that Lisa’s dad, a physician, worked just as many hours, keep her house so that it looked as though it had sprung fully-formed from a glossy magazine, and still be there for all of Lisa’s activities as she’d been growing up. But none of this meant that Lisa had to go willingly onto the merger block.

“Do I have the pizza in the conservatory option, too?” she asked.

Her mother gave an impatient shake of her head. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. It won’t kill you to socialize a little.”

“What do you think I do at work all day?”

“That’s not the same thing at all. Now come along.”

Because she loved her mom, if not her mom’s meddling, Lisa pinned on her smile and steeled herself for yet another awkward dinner.

Her dad and the latest victim were standing at the back windows overlooking her mother’s gardens. Lisa held in a laugh as she heard her dad telling the victim that he’d like to put in a putting green. That would happen only if her mom could make it of low-growing thyme, with a lavender border.

“Hey, Dad,” she said as she joined them, and then gave her father a hug.

“Lisa, this is Jeff McAdams,” her dad said. “He just joined the practice’s Bettendorf office.”

Which would make it very, very hard for Dr. Jeff to turn down dinner with his new boss. She felt sorry for the guy, especially since between his looks and his career, he was far from the sort to need a setup for a first date. They shook hands and she felt no zing at all, which came as a relief after her encounter with Kevin Decker this morning. She far preferred the feel-nothing mode.

“Iced tea?” Lisa’s mom asked her.

“That would be nice.” Long Island style—chock-full of liquor—would have been even more helpful.

“So, Lisa, Jeff has just moved here from Ann Arbor,” her mother said as she poured tea into a tall, ice-filled glass, then settled a lemon wedge on its rim. “Jeff, Lisa attended the University of Michigan.”

They had only reached the credentials stage of Mom’s merger negotiations, but it was time to shut down this show.

“I dropped out,” Lisa neatly inserted. “No degree and no desire for one. I run a bakery and coffeehouse down in the village. And I have a son, Jamie. He’s four. Want to come meet him? He’s having pizza down the hallway.”

Because Dr. Jeff was the polite sort, even if a little confused by her out-of-the-blue offer, he agreed. Lisa took her tea from her mom and met her exasperated expression with an “outmaneuvered you this time” grin.

“We’ll be right back,” she said to both parents.

She led Dr. Jeff down the hallway and just outside the conservatory’s doors, then stopped.

“I didn’t really bring you out here to meet Jamie.”

“I had figured as much,” he replied.

She laughed. “I don’t suppose you could have gotten through medical school without having a clue, could you? But I know this has to be as uncomfortable for you as it is for me. I’m betting that my father didn’t even tell you I’d be here.”

“Actually, no, he didn’t, but you’re not a bad sort of surprise.”

While she appreciated the sentiment, it was wasted on her.

“Here’s the thing,” Lisa said. “You look like a nice guy…in fact, just the sort of guy my girlfriends would tell me that I’m crazy to be giving a quick escape route. But my life is wrapped around keeping my business cranking and being the best possible mom I can be to Jamie. I don’t want to date, which is making my mom nuts. I’m sorry you got dragged into this, and I figure we can handle it one of two ways. First, you could stay for a dinner that’s going to turn out to be more like a joint interview than a real meal, or you could let me go back into the living room and tell my parents that your pager went off and you had to leave.”

He gave her a slow smile. “Do you always talk so quickly?”

“I do when I know my mother’s hot on my heels and about to reel you back in. So what’s it going to be? Door Number One or Door Number Two?”

He laughed. “Door Number Two.”

“Deal,” she said, and then just as quickly as she’d separated the good doctor from her mother’s plans, she saw him out. Mere moments later, the purr of an expensive sports car departing the area heralded Lisa’s return to the living room.

“Dr. Jeff got paged about a patient,” she said to her parents.

“Of course he did,” was her mother’s dry reply. “Now may we have dinner?”

“Absolutely. I’ve suddenly rediscovered my appetite.”

Her father’s poorly disguised chuckle didn’t sit well with Lisa’s mom.

“Don’t encourage her, Bob,” she said, giving her husband a light nudge before linking her arm through his.

“Then maybe you should stop ambushing the girl.”

Lisa followed her parents to the dining room and smiled at their loving banter. Forget the degrees and careers and contributions to the community. For all of her parents’ accomplishments, the one that awed her most was that they really, truly loved each other after all these years. If she could pull off that, and only that, she’d feel accomplished, indeed.

Except for the empty place setting in memory of Dr. Jeff, which her mother had declined to let Lisa remove from the table, and for Jamie continuing his safari in the conservatory, their meal followed the course of every other Wednesday. Mom tried to overfeed her, as though there were even a remote chance that while living in a bakery, Lisa couldn’t find enough to sustain herself. As usual, Dad talked River Bandits baseball. During the season, she and her dad took Jamie to see as many of the local minor league team’s games as they could. The park was a kid-friendly place, complete with a playground, and Lisa loved building these traditions with her son.

With the stuffed chicken breast and spinach salad consumed, Lisa stood to begin clearing the table, but her mother stopped her.

“Let’s sit and chat a little as long as Jamie is still having fun with Amber, shall we?”

“Okay.” Lisa sat and scrutinized her parents’ faces. Mom’s was pretty much neutral, but there was something off in her father’s expression. Her overstuffed stomach lurched a bit. “What’s going on? You’re not about to spring something else crazy on me, like a divorce or that I was adopted or something, are you?”

Her mother put one hand to her chest. “Heavens, no!”

Lisa relaxed. “Good. There are some things in life that I need to know won’t change.”

She watched as her mother gave her father a raised-brow prompt to speak. He didn’t appear all that willing.

“Lisa, your mother…well, your mother and I…we wish you’d consider moving back home. We’re not saying you should close the business, we just wish you’d give yourself some distance from it. Jamie loves this house, and it’s your home, too. You belong here.”

“And we could get someone to watch Jamie while you’re at work,” her mother added. “And of course we’d get him to Hillside for school.”

Lisa took a sip of her iced tea to cover her surprise at the course the conversation had taken. Not once, not even after James had died, had her parents suggested she move home. She wanted to ask why the big push now, when she really was back on her feet. But encouraging conversation would leave an opening for her mother, who was a lot more deft and subtle than tonight’s attempt at a date fix-up would indicate. If Lisa wasn’t careful, she might find herself back in her childhood room, still historically intact with its pink gingham canopy bed and My Little Pony dolls.

“Thanks, but it’s covered. Jamie has somebody to watch him, and Courtney does a wonderful job,” she said. “She also has a van and driver to get all the preschoolers where they need to be.”

“We know, but there’s so much we could be doing for you, and for Jamie,” her father said.

She knew that, but she didn’t want any more of their money. Hillside Academy’s tuition she had to swallow for Jamie’s sake. She knew what a benefit a fun and early start to education could be. But that was where she drew a big, fat line. She had paid back their start-up loan for Shortbread Cottage as soon as she’d been able to find other financing. Neither did she want them even unintentionally chipping away at her self-confidence. She was feeling strange enough these days as it was.

“I love you both so much and I know that you worry about me, but you don’t need to. Really. Jamie and I are fine at Shortbread Cottage. It’s our home and we love it.”

“But you’re all alone,” her mother said.

And she’d been achingly alone back when she’d been married, too, but the inner workings of her relationship with James weren’t something she chose to share with anyone. He was dead, and his memory deserved to be honored.

“I’m almost twenty-six, Mom, and totally okay with being alone, if you can call it that. To me, it feels like I never have a moment to myself. But my business is doing well, and Jamie is doing all the things he should at his age. You have to know that I’d come home if I felt that his interests were being endangered in any way, but they’re not.”

“Think about it, at least,” her father suggested.

“Okay,” she said, but was fairly sure that her parents knew she didn’t mean it. And with that, Lisa called an end to Inquisition Night. She wondered, though, if Kevin had been correct. Would she be able to stave off Guilt and Self-recrimination Thursday?

KEVIN, COURTNEY AND SCOTT sat at their usual table in the front window of East Davenport’s favorite gathering place, Malloy’s Pub. Conal Malloy, a man of many talents, drew the best pint of stout for miles, had a great ear for music and eye for darts, and was one of Kevin’s good friends, besides.

Many of Kevin’s best nights had been spent in this comfortable place, with its dark wood paneling, glowing old schoolhouse pendant lights, and the sense that one had been sent back in time once inside its door. Tonight wasn’t among them. Scott was in a wretched mood after a day of prodding the drywallers to finish up at the Clinton project. Courtney kept looking at her watch, and Kevin was bone tired, too.

He’d ended the day at the three small homes in slowly revitalizing Bucktown, just outside of Davenport’s downtown, that the family was rehabbing with the houses’ future owners as part of a community project. Working with amateurs was difficult. He needed to be everywhere at once, making sure that not only was the work being done right, but that everyone was safe.

Kevin looked out the window, thinking it was time to walk home and put this particular day behind him. Just then he saw a little forest-green sedan go by. There were plenty in the area just like it. He knew, though, that this one was Lisa’s. The sun had nearly set, but he could still see her features in the dim light. She looked as tired as he felt, and that was saying a lot. He picked up his pint and drained the last of it, then reached for his wallet.

“I need to get some sleep,” he said to his brother and sister while pulling out enough cash to more than cover their tab.

“Hang around and listen to the next set with me,” Courtney said to Scott when it looked as though he was planning to leave, too.

Scott pushed back his bentwood chair, anyway. “Nah, I really—”

“You really want to hear the music,” Courtney insisted, using the same emphasis that their mom did when she wished to make it clear that her suggestion was actually a command.

The ploy worked, and Scott sat.

Kevin stood.

“See you at home,” he said to his brother. He waved goodbye to Conal, who returned the farewell, and then he ruffled his kid sister’s hair just to toy with her a little.

Once outside, he decided to take a moment and enjoy his surroundings. The streets were quiet, as it was both a weekday and after the full push of tourist season, when the Channel Cat ferried visitors across the Mississippi from the Illinois side to fill the village’s shops and restaurants. Kevin relished the evening’s peace.

He knew what perceptive Court had done, buying him a little time alone before Scott came home. They were currently housemates in a restoration project. Like many of the houses that sat on the hillsides above the village, it was large. However, unlike the rest, they were currently down to two bedrooms, the kitchen, and one bathroom in the way of habitable space. Neither of them was accustomed to such tight quarters. Tonight they’d be like bears circling in the same cramped cave.

Kevin walked uphill, past the old firehouse, and then into Lindsay Park, just the other side of it. Full darkness was beginning to overtake twilight. He sat on one of the park benches overlooking the river. Legs stretched out in front of him, he willed himself to empty his mind of the day’s stress and let night come.

He wasn’t clear on how long he sat there, as he didn’t want to keep time. All he knew was it had been long enough that the lights on the opposite shore now twinkled brightly, and that the village behind him was growing quiet. Kevin rose and began to make his way home.

While there were any number of routes that could have taken him back into the part of the neighborhood where he lived, the most direct was past Shortbread Cottage. Lisa’s place sat back on its lot, and she’d made it inviting to customers by putting in a small garden with a couple of café tables beyond the picket fence that James and he had installed just after James had gone to work for him.

Kevin’s gaze was drawn to the cottage, but that was no big deal. It was only natural to glance at a place that had been a part of his life for so long. What was a big deal was to see Lisa sitting alone at one of the tables. The lights on either side of the front door and the small solar lights in the garden gave just enough illumination to be sure it was her, but he couldn’t gauge her mood.

Kevin figured he could always pretend he hadn’t seen her, but that fell far outside of what he considered to be good character in a person. Instead, without slowing too much, he said hello. But he didn’t get a hello back.

“Do I strike you as a weak person?” she asked.

That stopped him.

“No,” he replied.

“As someone who doesn’t have the drive to make it on her own?”

“No.”

Even though she hadn’t exactly invited him to join her, Kevin did, pulling out the opposite chair. It felt intimate yet also oddly anonymous, sitting in the dark like this. But if dim light was what it would take to get her to talk to him again, he’d sit there until the sun rose.

“So I take it Inquisition Night was a little rough?” he asked.

“More so than normal. First they ambushed me with a man, and then they asked me to move home. My dad cast the move as being for Jamie’s sake, but it felt more personal than that.”

Kevin put aside questions about the man ambush, the thought of which bugged him…as did any thought of Lisa dating someone other than him. Instead, he focused on her.

“Jamie seems like one content little guy to me, and I give you huge credit for that. I give you credit for making this place the gathering spot that it is, too. I guess what I’m saying is, Lisa, you’re one of the strongest people I know.”

She ducked her head, and her hair, which for once was down loose, shadowed her features even more.

“Thank you,” she said as her face came back into the sparse light. “Maybe I’m just a little tired. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to just brush off their comments.”

“Could be,” he said noncommittally. He knew if he told her what he really thought—that to him, she seemed more fragile by the day—she’d be in the house in a heartbeat. “Maybe you need to spoil yourself a little.”

Her laugh didn’t carry its usual light ring. “I don’t think I even know how to spoil myself anymore.”

“So, suppose you had a day off, with only yourself to think about, what would you do?”

“Go to the grocery store,” she replied without any hesitation.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Hardly. You have no idea what a luxury it would be to shop without a four-year-old in tow.”

“So, not a day at the spa or the movies or a bookstore?”

“Afraid not. I’m pretty low maintenance.”

He pulled out his cell phone. “It’s time for an intervention.”

“A what?”

Instead of explaining, he did what he did best, and took action. He pushed Courtney’s speed-dial number and waited for her to answer. When she did, he said, “Hey, Court, I’ve got a favor to ask.”

“I’d say I’d do anything for you, but I’m afraid you’d ask me to have Scott move in with me. He’s a slob.”

“Interesting suggestion, which I might take you up on sometime, but no. I was wondering if you would watch Jamie Kincaid tomorrow night? You know, just keep him after hours and give him dinner? I’ll pay, of course.”

“If you’re taking Lisa out, I’ll do it for free.”

He looked at the woman in question. “I don’t know if we’re going to have dinner or not. All I know is that I want the opportunity for that to happen.”

“So it’s not a done deal? Do you even have Lisa’s permission for me to watch Jamie?”

“If I don’t right now, I will by tomorrow night.”

“That’s a novel approach, I’ll give you that much,” Courtney said. “Sure, I’ll watch him.”

“Great. Love you,” he said, then hung up.

He didn’t need light to catch Lisa’s glare.

“What, exactly, was that about?” she asked.

“It was about getting you to take a breath. I like you, and I don’t like what I’ve been seeing over the past few months. I can’t put my finger on it, but you haven’t been quite you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He knew that she fully understood what he meant, but also saw no point in cornering her. It sounded as though she’d had enough man ambushes for one night. “Then humor me. You close up shop at five, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then tomorrow night at six, meet me in Malloy’s Pub for dinner. Nothing fancy, not a date…just some talk between two people who could both stand to get out more.”

“No!”

“Not so fast, okay?”

“I don’t like being railroaded.”

He held both hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not railroading you, and mostly because I don’t think that’s possible.”

The stiff set of her shoulders relaxed a little, which gave him hope she wasn’t going to walk off and leave him alone in the darkness.

“All I’ve done is build a window of opportunity, okay?” he said. “Jamie will be happy with Courtney, and you can do whatever you want. Hell, if you want to go to the supermarket and leave me waiting for you at Malloy’s, that’s an option, too. I won’t like it, but I can deal with it.”

“Why are you doing this?”

He could still catch an undercurrent of edginess in her voice. “Maybe because you need it. And don’t go looking for strings because there are none attached.” He stood. “I’ll be in Malloy’s at six. I really think you should be, too.”

He was well past the picket fence when he heard her say good-night. Those words were far from a yes, but at least she was still speaking to him. Kevin felt better than he had in weeks. Now if he could just do the same for Lisa.