Mummy in the Making. Victoria Pade

stood side by side facing in her direction, watching Chase’s grilling skills, and while she might not have remarked on the fact that the twins were near mirror images, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t noticed it. Now she couldn’t help comparing the two.

      They were almost identical. Only a few minor details made it possible to tell them apart.

      Ian’s eyes were a pale blue rather than the deeper, richer sky-blue that Hutch shared with Chase.

      Both men’s hair was the same length—short on the sides and back, slightly longer on top. But Ian’s hair was just a shade lighter than Hutch’s sandy-colored locks, and looked as if he put more effort into taming it, while Hutch wore the style with just a touch of bad-boy dishevelment.

      And there was a difference in dress and comportment, too. There was something more formal and businesslike about Ian, about coming to a barbecue in slacks and a dress shirt.

      But Hutch? He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with the sleeves pushed to his elbows—definitely in keeping with the laid-back, casual air that invited everyone around him to loosen up, too.

      No, there was nothing businesslike about Hutch as he talked and joked and made the other men laugh, and Issa knew almost instantly that if she were choosing between the two men—which, of course, she wasn’t—Hutch would be who she chose.

      Relaxed, personable, smooth, fun-loving—that was her impression of him. A guy who was easy to be around. Who other people were drawn to, too. The type of man who was sort of the yin to her yang.

      Ah, but that was exactly why she had to be cautious when it came to her landlord, she told herself.

      What she lacked in outgoingness, men like Hutch made up for. And in the past that had had its own appeal. Being with a man like that had provided her with a sort of camouflage to hide behind, a gap filler. But not only didn’t that help her to improve upon her own shortcomings, but it also had actually led her to men with shortcomings themselves. Less obvious but far worse shortcomings than being a wallflower.

      And she didn’t want to risk the fallout that came from that ever happening again. So no yin and yang. No picking up the slack on anybody’s part. No he-was-strong-where-she-was-weak/she-was-strong-where-he-was-weak stuff. Not for her. Not when the hidden weaknesses of the men she chose proved to be so disastrous.

      It was a newly adopted conviction, but a conviction nonetheless, and she was holding tight to it.

      Just then Ash got sand in his eyes and began to cry. Issa watched as Hutch crossed to his son with long, powerful strides, scooped up the little boy and commiserated with him while he rubbed his back.

      “I know that hurts, big guy, go ahead and cry,” he encouraged.

      Issa’s first thought was that commiseration and rubbing the toddler’s back weren’t going to get the sand out of his eyes.

      Then she realized that it was the encouragement for the little boy to cry that was the solution—the tears were washing the sand away. And sure enough, within a few minutes the two-and-a-half-year-old was fine again.

       Huh…

      If she hadn’t seen it herself, Issa didn’t think that route would have occurred to her. Looking on, she’d thought Hutch should rush Ash into the bathroom and flush his eyes out with water. But the tears had been an easier solution and she filed that knowledge away for future use when she was dealing with her own child.

      Then it struck her that in that way Hutch Kincaid could be a double whammy.

      Not only did he seem to have the kind of personality that had historically been the yin to her yang, but he also had the abilities as a parent that she lacked. Abilities that could potentially compensate for her weaknesses on that count, too.

      But being with an outgoing man had never made her more outgoing; it had merely masked the fact that she wasn’t. And when it came to parenting, she thought that she had to guard against thinking that being with someone who was already a good parent would automatically make her a good parent, too. Or worst of all, mask the fact that she wasn’t.

      No, when it came to parenting, she had to do everything possible to become a good parent herself.

      So yes, there were two reasons for her not to be memorizing every sexy little line that formed at the corners of his beautiful eyes when he laughed.

      And if two reasons weren’t enough, she could add one great big huge third reason, she reminded herself.

      She was pregnant.

      Admittedly, that tended to slip her mind because it didn’t seem real yet. But it was real. And what man would want a woman pregnant by someone else?

      No man she knew.

      And why was she even thinking anything like that?

      Hutch Kincaid was her landlord, he’d fixed her door, he’d offered to carpool with her. There was nothing in any of that to require reminders of why she shouldn’t or wouldn’t or couldn’t get involved with him and she wasn’t quite sure how her thoughts had gotten there.

      Except that he laughed again just then and that face of his lit up, and for a moment she couldn’t help staring at him.

      He was simply too good-looking.

      But that wasn’t important.

      Hutch Kincaid was just a guy who happened to own her apartment, live downstairs and know some of the same people she knew. An incredibly attractive guy, but just a guy.

      And she was nothing more than his unwed pregnant tenant—pregnant being the most significant part of that because if there was any man-repellent stronger than that, she didn’t know what it was, especially because it had even repelled the man who had caused it.

      So whether or not Hutch Kincaid showed signs of being the sort of man she had vowed to avoid, it didn’t matter. She was protected even from herself.

      Which was for the best.

      She had enough on her plate as it was.

      And yet…

      There was something that made her a little sad to think that she’d been put on the shelf.

      Particularly when it came to Hutch Kincaid.

      “Thanks for covering for me at the start of tonight, with the wine,” Issa said to Hutch almost the minute they were back in his SUV when the barbecue was over.

      “Hey, it got me chauffeured,” he answered with a laugh.

      He was sitting in the passenger seat, angled toward the center console with an arm stretched across the back of her seat. Because Ash was in the car seat in the back, Issa thought that Hutch was sitting that way to keep an eye on his son. But so far his attention seemed more focused on her as Ash almost instantly fell asleep.

      “I didn’t even think about the drinking issue giving me away,” Issa explained. “When it seemed like it might, I just froze. You really saved me.”

      “Anytime,” he said. “You were pretty quiet all night, though. Did it throw you that much off your game?”

      “Oh, no, that’s just me,” Issa lamented.

      “The shyness.” he said as if just recalling that about her. “How does that work for a teacher who has to stand in front of a room full of kids and talk every day?”

      “It took some work and a lot of shaky-voiced lectures during my student teaching to get me there, believe me. And lecturing still isn’t one of my strengths. That’s why I like to use as many demonstration experiments as I can and beef them up so the spotlight is more on the science than on me.”

      “Beefing up the experiments is what led to Gob-o-Goo.”

      “Right.”

      “But this tonight, it was just family and old friends,” Hutch pointed