The Notorious Groom. Caroline Cross

set off her stammer or make her eyes widen or turn her cheeks pink.

      Eli raked a hand through his hair. Okay, so he’d behaved badly Hell, what else was new? It was a natural talent, one he’d had thirty-four years to practice. He was good at it. It wasn’t his fault there was something about Norah that had always gotten to him.

      In any event, it was his first real transgression in a three-week stretch that could best be described as hellacious. Things had started to go downhill the night he’d awakened to the smell of smoke and found his house and adjoining auto repair shop on fire. Although he and Chelsea had gotten out unscathed, the house and most of their belongings had been destroyed. So was the business he’d spent three long years building up. And thanks to an insurance company that was dragging its feet about paying out, his savings were quickly diminishing. Despite what he’d told Norah, he was going to be flat broke by the end of the month at the rate things were going.

      So that makes it all right to give her a bad time? What are you going to do for an encore? Steal candy from babies? Roll little old ladies for their Social Security money?

      Well, hell. It wasn’t as if he’d meant any harm. He’d just been having a little fun. He was only human, after all. And though women of all ages, shapes and sizes had been tossing propositions his way for most of his life, none of their offers had a thing to do with marriage. He was entitled to be a tad off balance when someone he hadn’t seen in sixteen years proposed to him. Particularly when that someone was Bunny-Boo Brown, voted by their high school classmates as the girl most likely to enter a convent—even though she wasn’t Catholic.

      His mouth quirked. He still found it hard to believe she’d actually found the courage to ask him to marry her. He supposed it was rather flattering...in a weird sort of way. Not that he was actually considering the scheme. Like he’d said, he didn’t take charity. He’d been on his own for most of his life and he’d done all right. One way or another, he’d get through this, too.

      More to the point, he had a daughter to consider. Unlike Norah, who’d grown up in a big house with her wealthy, ultrarespectable, ultraresponsible grandfather, Chelsea had been through a lot in her short span of years. While he couldn’t do a thing to change the past, he sure as hell intended to provide his daughter with a steady, secure, stable future. As far as he could see, that ruled out a temporary marriage—no matter how sorry he might be that Bunny-Boo was probably going to lose the family mansion.

      So why had he waffled there at the end?

      He pondered the question as he walked back into the kitchen, surveyed the dirty dishes in the sink, then swung into action. First, he poured out what was left of his beer, unable to suppress a brief smile as he recalled Norah’s horrified expression. Then he put the stopper in place, squirted in some soap, turned on the faucet, picked up a dishrag and dug in.

      Maybe his behavior had been a temporary aberration due to sleep deprivation. God knew, he was tired enough to qualify. thanks to his new habit of lying awake nights worrying.

      Then again, maybe it had simply been a knee-jerk reaction to his general frustration. Lately, all he seemed to do was collect job rejections, fight with the insurance adjustor and play Susie Homemaker. As hard as it was to believe—and, God knew, he was as shocked as anybody—he actually missed having a business to run and a job to go to every day.

      Which just went to show how bizarre the world had become. First Bunny-Boo Brown proposed, then the next thing he knew, he was hankering for his lost responsibilities. Shaking his head at the irony, he placed the last spoon in the drainer and dried his hands. He’d just finished folding the towel when he heard the familiar slap of rubber sneakers on the cement stoop. He turned and a second later the door flew open and the small bundle of pure energy that was Chelsea launched herself into the room.

      “Hey, Eli, guess what?” The nine-year-old tossed a battered backpack on the floor, tucked an unruly golden curl behind one shell-like ear and snatched a cookie out of a package on the counter, talking the entire time. “Sarah’s cat, Ma Barker, had babies! She had ‘em in Sarah’s closet and there’s six in all and Sarah got to watch and she said it was gross ’cuz they came out all slimy, but then Ma licked it off and she wanted to barf—Sarah, not Ma.” She waved one delicate hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter, though, ’cuz now the kittens are all clean and fluffy and soft, only, did you know they can’t see anything? But Sarah’s mom said that pretty soon they’ll be able to, and when they’re old enough I can have one if it’s okay with you, so can I? Please? I really, really want one.” She took a long-overdue breath, wolfed a large bite of the cookie and regarded him hopefully with her big blue eyes.

      Eli noted the imploring expression on her face, which was a smaller, feminized version of his own, and knew he was sunk. Since she so rarely asked for anything, there was no way he could turn her down. Still, he didn’t want to spoil her. At least, not too much. He wanted to be the sort of steady, responsible parent that he’d never had. “You’d have to take care of it. Feed it. Brush it. Probably change a litter box—”

      “Oh, I will! I will. I promise!” She flung herself at him, gave him a quick hug, then sprinted to the phone. “Wait till I tell Sarah!”

      “Chelse, hold on.”

      “But I’ve got to tell Sarah it’s okay right away, so they don’t give the one I want to somebody else. He’s orange with stripes and he’s got a kink in his tail. I’m gonna call him Oliver Twist!”

      “You can call Sarah in a little while.”

      “But Eli—”

      “Trust me. There isn’t going to be a crowd lining up to claim those kittens,” he said dryly. “And right now, I want to discuss something else.”

      She reluctantly set down the receiver. “Like what?”

      “Like you telling people we’re having a hard time.”

      Her expression went from puzzled to indignant in the blink of an eye. “I didn’t!”

      “Not even to Miss Brown at the library?”

      She flushed. “Oh, that.”

      “Yeah. That.”

      “But it doesn’t count,” she protested. “Not really.”

      “How do you figure?”

      She rolled her eyes. “‘Cuz Miss Brown’s different. She’s really nice. And she really listens when you tell her stuff, but she never gossips. And she likes me for me—not so she can be friends with you. Besides, the only reason I said anything—at least at first—was ’cuz I needed to know how to spell something. You can’t look it up if you don’t know how to spell it,” she finished earnestly.

      “I suppose that’s true,” he said, more than a little taken aback by her obvious regard for Norah. “Just out of curiosity, what was the word?”

      For the first time, she looked uneasy. “Bankruptcy,” she mumbled, avoiding his gaze.

      “Bankruptcy? Where the hell did you hear about that?”

      “Oooh. You swore.” She stuck out her hand. “Pay up.”

      “Chelsea,” he warned.

      She pouted. “Pay up or I’m not saying another word.”

      Silently cursing the weak moment when he’d agreed to her scheme to cure him of using profanity by charging him twenty-five cents for every expletive, he stalked across the room, snatched up the jeans he’d worn the night before and tossed her two quarters. “Okay. Now answer the damn question.”

      She sent him a reproachful look but complied. “I heard it from you. You were on the phone talking to Uncle Joe. Usually I don’t pay attention ’cuz it’s just about cars and engines and sports and stuff, but this time you sounded so worried...” Her voice trailed off. “I never heard you sound like that.”

      And here he’d thought he was doing such a good job shielding her from the