Single Dad. Jennifer Greene

around one. He was also a practical, grounded, blue-collar kind of guy. He knew damn well when a lady was way, way out of his realm.

      She poured them both more coffee, and carried her cup back to the couch, tucking her legs under her. “Killer never told me what you did for a living....”

      “I’m an electrical contractor.” He almost chuckled. She cocked her head, expressing interest, but he couldn’t fathom a woman who was into crystal balls wanting to hear anything about wiring and electric circuits. It was past time he acted like a grown man who could handle a conversation without stuttering. “Have you owned your shop long?”

      “Treasures? About four years now.” She grinned. “I think you met my partner the other day...the six-foot-tall black woman with the bifocals and the gorgeous mocha skin? Her real name is Dorothy, but her nickname’s always been Dot.”

      He remembered the Amazon. When he walked in the shop, she’d treated him like handling lost-soul construction workers was the most fun she’d had all day. “She has quite a sense of humor.”

      “She’s wonderful. We met at an antique jewelry auction a million years ago, and clicked right away. I used to work with silver, designing pieces, but I was never good enough to make a living at it. But I know jewelry, and she knows about the business end of running a shop. When the building came up for sale about four years ago, we decided to give it a go together.”

      “You do okay?”

      “Better than most gift stores, I suspect. The location’s great, and we’ve kept the payroll down to just the two of us and a part-time guy. Unique jewelry is our main thing. Even in recession times, most women can’t resist a new bangle or pair of earrings. Me, either. In fact, that’s what I try and stock—what I can’t resist,” she admitted humorously. “Anyway, we’re hardly banking millions, but we’re keeping afloat.”

      “You seem to like kids....” Jeez. Talking with her wasn’t coming half as hard as he’d expected, but there were clearly some subjects that made her light up like a Christmas tree. She darn near bounced with enthusiasm, her smile turned up a thousand wattage.

      “I’m crazy about kids. Wish I had a dozen of my own, but I make do, borrowing nieces and nephews and any relatives’ kids I can beg, borrow or kidnap whenever I have the chance.”

      “Come from a big family?”

      “If I told you how big, you probably wouldn’t believe it. My mother’s been divorced four times—at last count—and my dad’s on his third wife. My background hasn’t given me much faith in the institution of marriage, but I’ve collected whole clans of relatives along the way. In fact, I developed this theory, growing up.”

      “Yeah?” He hadn’t a clue where she was leading, but if it was going to make her eyes sparkle and dance like that, he was willing to hear anything.

      “Yeah. As a kid, I couldn’t see a reason on earth why I had to lose all my relatives because of divorce. I mean they were getting divorces. I wasn’t. So I decided to keep the relatives I was fond of. My aunt Betty, for instance, was a blood relative, but she was always a pistol. When she divorced my uncle Henry, I kept him. And my mom’s second husband’s parents—I’ve kept them as honorary grandparents. And then there are people like Jeanne—she’s a writer—she was my dad’s first wife’s niece...your eyes are crossing, Josh, are you getting a little confused?”

      Damned if she wasn’t teasing him. “I’m just trying to picture who you have over for dinner on the holidays,” he said dryly. “The idea that you can keep or throw out the relatives you want is a little...unusual.”

      “Families don’t seem to exist like they used to. If that’s the way it’s going to be, I figure we’ll have to create our nuclear-age families out of a new mold. And you’re divorced, so you already know how complicated it can get for the kids around birthdays and holidays—which ex-aunts and uncles get invited for which occasions—”

      “Yeah, it gets complicated.” But his mind, for the first time in a millennium, wasn’t on his children. It was on her.

      Vaguely he recalled that his sole reason for coming here had been to talk about Killer. Vaguely he recalled the madhouse of chores and noise and kids that he needed to go home to—soon. Yet he’d stretched out his legs. He couldn’t remember when. Her place, the warmth of lamplight and quiet and soft blues, gave him the strange feeling of being in a spellbound cocoon. When was the last time he’d shared a basic conversation with a woman? When was the last time a woman had curled up across from him, and focused her attention on his face as if nothing else mattered in the world except the conversation between the two of them?

      “It’s hard to believe you mean that—about being antimarriage. Maybe the odds of a couple staying together aren’t too hot today. And just having been through a divorce, I get a case of hives even thinking about wedding rings again. But you must have been tempted to get married sometime. And if you want kids...”

      “I want kids. But I’d never get married just for that reason. There’s no stigma against being a single mom these days. Obviously the situation is better for a child with both a mom and dad, but a ring doesn’t guarantee that.”

      He argued with her. A damn silly argument, considering that nobody knew better than him how little a ring guaranteed. But it was fun, bickering the pros and cons of marriage back and forth with her. Eventually they moved off marriage and tried out an argument about politics—no way they could agree on anything there; she was a flaming do-gooder liberal, which he could have guessed. But they weren’t really fighting. She kept laughing, and making him laugh. She had a hatful of free-spirited wild ideas about life and love and everything else. Josh couldn’t begin to guess if she was serious, nor did it matter. For the first time in forever, he wasn’t thinking about work or bills or kids or when he was going to find time to change the oil on his Bronco.

      But damn. When his gaze accidentally flickered to the dials on his watch, he almost had a stroke. How could he possibly have been there two hours?

      He lurched to his feet faster than a bee-stung bear. “Damn. I didn’t realize how late it was. And I never meant to take up your whole evening.”

      “I didn’t mind. I enjoyed talking with you.”

      “Yeah...I enjoyed it, too.” Belatedly he realized how true that was, how much fun he’d had over the past two hours...and it worried him.

      Ariel trailed him into the blue-and-white kitchen. “I’ll get your jacket. Hopefully it’ll be dry by now.” She glanced out the black windows. “It’s still drizzling, but I haven’t heard a boomer in a while. Looks like the worst of the storm finally passed.”

      She fetched his denim jacket from the minuscule entryway and held it up with a smile.

      “Thanks,” he said. It only took a second to put on his boots and yank on the jacket. Then he meant to reach for the doorknob and go. There was no reason his leaving her had to be complicated.

      But somehow he found himself still standing there. Close to her. Awkwardly close. In her bare feet, she reached his nose in height. With the sink light behind her, her delicate features were less shadowed than simply softened, blurred. Feminine scents seemed to surround her. Not one, but a blend—mango from her shampoo, and peach from the hand cream he’d seen her reach for, and yeah, he could catch an exotic spice from the perfume where her skin was warm. Her skin looked real, real warm.

      When he’d first walked in, his tongue had been tangled somewhere near the roof of his mouth. Studying her over the evening, he’d seen she was pale. Too pale. And she had a plain old ordinary chin. Discovering those imperfections had been a relief. No way a guy could have a normal conversation with his personal Christie Brinkley fantasy. But she wasn’t that now. The legs, the body, the sultry green eyes—it was all still there, all just as distracting. But somehow over the evening she’d become...real.

      And she looked at him, impossibly, as if she found him real, too. “You’re not really going to ground Killer for