Six Hot Single Dads. Lynne Marshall

bins, set them side by side and took another look around the room. “I need helpers who are good at sorting things.”

      Martha took off the hat and tossed it in the air. “I can do that. Daddy got us a card game that’s all about sorting.” The hat landed on one of the beds.

      “That sounds like fun.” An image of Nate and his daughters playing a card game had Kristi thinking how the world could use more dads like him.

      “What are we going to sort?” Molly asked, attempting another twirl, this time successful.

      “Let’s start with all the clothes on the floor. Do you think you can put your everyday clothes into a red bin and dress-up clothes into the blue one?”

      “Yup.” Martha pulled the messenger bag over her head and tossed it in the blue bin. “See?”

      “Good job.”

      “I can sort, too.” Molly slithered out of the black dress and added it to the blue bin.

      “What’s going in the yellow bin?” Martha asked.

      “Well, let’s see…” Kristi pretended to give the question some thought. “I guess some of the stuffed animals could go in there for now. What do you think?”

      Molly scooped two teddy bears and a toy killer whale off her bed and dumped them into the yellow bin. Martha followed with a frog, a rabbit and another teddy bear.

      “Our grandmas gave us these,” Molly said.

      “Except for Winnie the Pooh and Curious George. Aunt Britt gived them to us on our birthday.”

      Kristi recalled the party streamers that Nate must’ve taken down last night. “Did you have a cake with candles to blow out?”

      Both girls shook their heads.

      “We had cupcakes!” Martha said.

      “Daddy bought them at the store.”

      “I yike cupcakes better than cake.”

      Their excitement made Kristi smile. “Me, too.”

      “Is that why you have them on your purse?”

      “It is.” She liked that they had noticed her bag. She had found the fabric on sale and had sewn the bag herself. As for birthdays, she made a mental note to suggest to Nate that he ask his family to consider clutter-free gifts, like admission to the Seattle Aquarium or the Children’s Museum. It hadn’t been easy, but even Kristi’s mom had gradually been retrained to give movie passes and iTunes gift cards instead of items Jenna didn’t need.

      Kristi picked up a purple T-shirt and a pair of jeans. “Who do these belong to?” she asked.

      “Me!” Martha reached for them.

      “Why are they on the floor?” Kristi asked.

      The child shrugged. “There’s no room in my dresser.”

      “Are you sure?” Kristi opened a drawer in one of the matching dressers. Sure enough, it was crammed full.

      “Those clothes don’t fit us,” Molly said.

      It took Kristi three tries to get the drawer closed again. No wonder the kids didn’t use it. “All right, then. You can put your clothes in the bins for now.” Later she would talk to Nate and figure out what to do with the things the girls had outgrown.

      Would Nate be open to getting rid of the dressers and building some cubbies for storing the girls’ clothes? A couple of months ago Sam had built a modular system for clients who had then taken them to their new home.

      “Can you girls keep sorting while I take a look at your dad’s office across the hall?”

      “Yup.”

      “We can.”

      “Good. Maybe there’ll even be a prize for the winner.” She’d learned long ago that bribery was never a parent’s best tactic, but in this case she wasn’t the mom. She was just a desperate decorator who wanted all this stuff picked up in the least amount of time.

      “What do we win?”

      “Well…it just so happens that I brought cupcakes with me. You can each have one at lunchtime, as long as it’s okay with your dad.”

      “Goodie!”

      “We yike cupcakes!”

      Kristi laughed. “It’s a deal, then. I’ll come back in a while and see how you’re doing.”

      With the twins engaged in a sorting game, she moved across the hall to the bedroom Nate used as an office. She paused in the doorway, thought of him working here, grading his students’ papers, researching the projects she’d read about last night while letting herself indulge in a little daydream about what it would be like to be with a guy like him. Smart, hot, sexy. And now she was about to find out. Not with him with him, but spending time with him. A flash of panic caused a flutter in her chest. Fake dating a man she was already attracted to could get complicated.

      “Only if you let it.” Which she wouldn’t. She didn’t dare. Besides, she could always change her mind, back out. She knew what that would mean, though. Her high school memory of fending off Bernie Halverson’s unwelcome advances flickered through her mind. She wasn’t risking a repeat of that. And Nate didn’t want a relationship any more than she did, which made this a perfect arrangement. The opposite of complicated.

      His office was another story. At one time it must have been a boy’s bedroom because two of the walls were papered with sports motifs, the other two were painted bright blue, and the ceiling fixture was a basketball pendant, and a decidedly hideous one at that. How could he work in here?

      His large oak desk wasn’t old enough to be an antique, but it had that vibe about it. It had been shoved into one corner, and the surface was covered with neat stacks of paper and books, with a clear space in the middle that was about the right size to accommodate the laptop she’d seen on the kitchen peninsula when she arrived a while ago. The floor-to-ceiling shelves that spanned one wall were every bit as crammed as the desk, but like the desk, the books and papers were arranged in neat rows and stacks.

      She quickly perused the books on one shelf. Botanical research, plant physiology, forest ecosystems. Molecular phylogenetics, whatever that was. Nate McTavish was one really smart guy, and she couldn’t even understand the titles of the books he read. It was a good thing their fake dates would be restricted to family events with plenty of other people around to keep the conversation moving. If they went on an actual date, just the two of them, they would never find anything to talk about.

      Here in his office she saw the same kind of organization she’d noticed in the greenhouse yesterday. He had a ton of stuff but she was willing to bet he had a system, that he knew exactly where to look if he needed something. If she had to describe her idea of what a scientist’s brain looked like, this would be it. Lots and lots of neat compartments overflowing with information but at the same time never quite full.

      She knew better than to try to organize this room, although it would be nice if Nate would agree to reduce some of the sheer volume of it, maybe store the things he didn’t need in boxes. Until the house was sold, she would like to create a better sense of space here. Would Nate be as eager to tackle his office as the two little girls chattering in their room across the hall? Maybe he liked cupcakes, too. That made her smile.

      She would also swing the desk around and away from the wall to give it the importance it deserved, and so he didn’t sit with his back to the door. She wouldn’t tell him its present position was bad feng shui—he’d probably think that was totally unscientific—but when she was finished in here, she knew he’d find it a more productive place to work.

      She pulled her notebook out of her bag. At the top of a clean page she jotted “Nate’s Office” and started a list. She was still making notes when her BlackBerry buzzed a few minutes later. The Ready Set Sold office number appeared on the screen.