Dating for Two (Matchmaking Mamas) (10 page)

But right now the focus of his attention was the petite woman next to him. “I’d like to thank you for going out of your way like that for Jason. I really appreciate your effort.”

She could feel color preparing to creep up her neck. Direct compliments, even simple ones honestly rendered, embarrassed her to no end. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, where to look. What to do with her face. Was she supposed to look gratified, humbled, or what exactly?

So she fell back on what she usually did under these circumstances. She shrugged the words off. “It was nothing.”

But Steve—or his words, she was beginning to realize—was not that easy to shrug off.

“No, it most definitely was something,” the lawyer insisted. “And I owe you. Big-time.” In keeping with what had become a magical evening, he offered, “One free wish of your choosing.”

Humor curved her mouth and then moved up into her eyes, making them sparkle.

“You belong to the genie union?” she asked.

“Hey, if you can bring my son a dinosaur in a cowboy hat and suddenly wind up tapped into his imagination—something that I was becoming convinced had deserted him—then I can make at least one wish come true for you,” he informed her.

“Wouldn’t that depend on the kind of wish I make?”

Steve nodded. “It would.”

He still didn’t see it, she thought. She could tell by the look in his eyes. So she tried to make it clearer for him. “So I’d better not wish for anything outlandish,” she surmised.

“One man’s outlandish is another man’s mundane.”

He was better at this than she’d thought, Erin realized, tickled. The man had potential. Not only that, but try as she might not to, she could see herself being drawn to him. If life weren’t as hectic as it was for her, she could see herself being drawn to him
a lot.

“Still, I’d better think on this wish before making it,” she teased.

“Take as long as you like,” he told her magnanimously. “There’s no expiration date on it.”

And if it kept her interacting with him—with them, Steve amended, throwing his son into the mix—until she decided on her wish, well, then it was all to the good, wasn’t it?

She nodded her head as if taking it all in. “Good to know.”

He smiled at her. Then his tone sobered ever so slightly as he said, “I had a really nice time tonight.”

Since he’d said that, she felt it safe to admit, “Me too.”

He didn’t exactly know why—since in reality he barely knew her—but he felt close to her, closer than he had to a lot of other women he’d known longer and better. “I can’t remember the last time I did, actually,” he said.

Since they were being so honest, she felt she could admit to that, as well. “Me, too.”

He grinned at her a little uncertainly. “Are you just being polite? Or—?”

“Or,” she chose. It was getting late and she was still standing here on the curb beside her car. If she didn’t get going, she was liable to spend the rest of the evening here, talking about nothing and enjoying it immensely. “Now I’d better go before my car turns into a pumpkin.”

“I thought it was a coach that turned into a pumpkin.”

“I was upgraded,” she answered with almost a straight face. “But the mice must be really worried by now,” she said, pressing the release button on her key chain to disarm her car alarm. Four locks rose and stood at attention.

“Can’t have worried mice,” he agreed. “It interferes with their productivity.” And then he laughed. He couldn’t remember
when
he’d enjoyed talking such nonsense before. “You certainly are unique.”

“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.” After she got into her car, she was about to close the door when she saw him stopping it at the last moment. “Something wrong?”

“Other than you leaving too soon? No.” Steve caught himself and regrouped. “I’d like to see you again,” he told her. “Would that be all right with you?”

All sorts of excuses rose to her lips, excuses about production schedules and meetings and having to do presentations for another toy-store chain. But what ultimately came out was, “That would be very all right with me.”

Then, embarrassed by the way she’d blurted that out, Erin pulled the door out of his hand with a quick yank, shutting it. The next second, she was pulling away from the curb.

But she did glance up into the rearview mirror a couple of times to see if Steve was still standing there at the curb.

He was.

Her heart managed to skip a beat each time she did look.

She kept glancing up into the mirror until she could no longer see him.

Chapter Nine

E
rin had just fished out the key to her house and was about to put it in the front door lock when she heard the phone inside ringing.

Her adrenaline automatically sped up as she quickly pushed the key into the lock.

She had an answering machine and knew how to retrieve missed messages with the best of them, and more likely than not, the person on the other end of the line was either a wrong number or someone trying to get her to donate to some foundation created to look after retired, one-legged, cross-eyed carrier pigeons.

But whenever she heard her phone ringing, Erin always felt she had to do her very best to pick up the receiver before the person on the other end of the line hung up, no matter what.

Now was no exception.

Hurrying, Erin managed to unlock her door and get to the phone just as the fourth ring was kicking in. At that point, the call was being routed to voice mail.

She grabbed the receiver anyway and rather than waiting out the message, she tried to talk above her own voice, which was leaving instructions that every individual over the age of three knew by heart.

Hearing the shrilled piercing beep go off after her recorded message ended, Erin tried talking to the caller again.

“Hello, are you still there?” When she didn’t hear anything, she tried one last time. “Hello?”

This time, she heard someone respond. “Is this too soon?”

Already agitated, her heart stopped in midbeat, then sped up to make up for it. She paused for a moment, thinking she had to be imagining things. Still, she knew she had to ask.

“Steve?”

“Yes, it’s me.” She could almost
hear
his smile. “Is this too soon?”

She had no idea what he was talking about. “Too soon for what?”

“Too soon to invite you back?”

All but hugging the receiver against her ear, Erin felt warm all over. And she knew if she grinned any wider, she was in danger of rupturing her cheeks. Obviously he’d been serious when he told her that he’d had a nice time.

Still, she downplayed the moment. “You really hate to cook that much, huh?”

“Oh, I wasn’t inviting you back to cook for us,” he told her. “Although that certainly is an idea to keep on the back burner. I was actually thinking of inviting you out to a movie.”

She hadn’t been exaggerating about having an extremely busy schedule. It was a given and had been for the past three years of her life, but suddenly, confronted with this impromptu invitation, for the life of her she couldn’t remember a single thing she had written down on that schedule.

The only thing that she
could
remember was that warm feeling she’d had sitting at the dining room table with Steve and his son, talking. Laughing. For just the briefest instant, she knew exactly what it was that her mother kept telling her she was missing out on. She was missing out on the feeling of making a connection, of having a family to talk to, a family to just sit in silence with.

Maybe someday...

“Do you have any particular movie in mind?” she asked him.

“That’s strictly up to you,” he said. “Anything you want to see is fine with me,” Steve assured her.

She didn’t even have to think. She knew. “How do you feel about going to see
The Magic Carpet?
”

There was a long pause on the other end, as if he was trying to find just the right words to bring up what could be a delicate subject. “You do know that’s a cartoon, right?”

“I know,” she told him. “I thought that Jason might enjoy seeing that one better than some of the other movies that are currently playing in the nearby theaters.”

“Jason?” Steve asked, puzzled.

“Yes. Jason. Your son,” she added for good measure, doing her best to hide her amusement. “Short guy, seven going on eight, nice smile—”

“I know who Jason is,” he said with a confused laugh. “But I’m just kind of surprised that you’d want to take him along with us to the movies.”

They’d gotten along very well at Steve’s house. She didn’t understand why he didn’t just automatically include the boy in this invitation he was extending.

“Why does that surprise you?” she asked him.

“Most women would look at bringing a seven-year-old along as a veiled attempt at babysitting,” Steve told her frankly.

“I’m not most women,” Erin pointed out.

Which was why he was breaking his own promise to himself about taking a break from this whole soul-wearying concept of dating and asking this woman out. Because she was so very different from the rest.

“No, you are not,” he agreed heartily. Still, he wanted to make sure this wasn’t something she felt as if she
had
to do. “Are you sure you want to see
The Magic Carpet?
”

“Oh, I’m sure, all right,” she said, then added whimsically, “Don’t forget, I’m the one who spends her time talking to stuffed dinosaurs.”

“I’m definitely not about to forget that part,” he told her. Because as far as he was concerned, he and Jason were damn lucky that she did. At least for now, it appeared that the video game with its threatening aliens had fallen by the wayside. “I’ll let you pick the date and time,” he told her.

She didn’t have to think about that, either. “Well, it would have to be on the weekend,” she reminded him, “since we both work and I’m sure that your job is probably even more demanding than mine,” she said, not wanting to sound as if she were giving herself airs as to her own importance, “so making plans to catch an evening show would be difficult, not to mention that it would most likely be past Jason’s bedtime.”

She’d managed to impress him again. Granted, what she’d just said took only a very simple calculation but it was also something that most single women wouldn’t even think of.

Hell, most single women wouldn’t be willing to sit through ninety-seven minutes’ worth of death-defying antics by a wise-cracking hero who happened to be in possession of a magic flying carpet that flew to his rescue every time.

“Saturday, then?” he assumed.

“Sunday would be better, if that’s all right with you,” she prefaced, then explained, “Sometimes we have to have emergency Saturday meetings.”

She’d managed to pique his curiosity again. “Out of sheer curiosity, what constitutes an emergency in the world of stuffed-dinosaur manufacturing?”

She supposed that had come across a bit melodramatic. “Well, for one thing, we’re starting to fall behind in meeting our orders.”

“That many people want your product?” he asked in surprise.

“Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” she cried with enthusiasm. “I never thought I’d feel like I couldn’t keep up production to meet the demand, but that day is starting to draw closer and closer—thank God.”

“Then I guess you need to hire more people, you know, expand,” Steve suggested. From where he stood, that seemed like a simple enough solution.

“We’ve thought about that,” she answered, “but to be honest, I’m afraid that if we go ahead and hire a couple more workers, it just might jinx us and suddenly, people will stop buying Tex and his friends and we’ll be stuck with a whole bunch of dinosaurs that nobody wants to buy anymore.”

He gleaned a piece of insight out of her answer. “You’re superstitious?” Steve asked.

“Just a tiny bit,” she admitted. “I mean, I have no problem with walking under ladders or stopping to pet black cats or ignoring spilled salt on a table—other than just to clean it up. But taking too much for granted and expanding the company kind of feels as if I’m just thumbing my nose at fate or whatever is behind all this success we’ve been having. It just seems to be too cocky for me to think this sort of demand can continue indefinitely.”

“Cocky?” he repeated with a laugh. “You? Somehow
cocky
isn’t the first word that comes to mind in describing you—or the tenth word, for that matter. I think it’s just common sense, not cocky. Think about it,” he advised. “Hiring more people might be something that you and your company need to look into in order to meet your commitments and deadlines. You really don’t want to get on the wrong end of that. Not being able to meet your commitments might hurt your reputation and at this point in the game, your reputation is everything.”

“How much do I owe you for that legal advice, counselor?” she teased.

“Consider it on the house,” he told her. Then, in case her sense of honor made her object to that, he reminded her, “After all, you didn’t let me pay for the dinosaur.”

“As long as Jason gives Tex Jr. a good home, we’ll call it even.”

“No worries there,” Steve assured her. “He’s already asked me if I’d buy Tex his own bed tomorrow.”

“I hope you told him that he has to double up for a while,” she said.

“I did and he seemed okay with that.” Even as he related the story, it still left him somewhat in awe. He had his old Jason back and the relief he felt was unbelievable. It wasn’t anything he
ever
planned to take for granted. “Really, Erin, I can’t thank you enough for bringing that toy into my son’s life. He’s like the little boy I knew again.”

That was more than reward enough for her. “Glad I could help.”

Even though he appreciated the gesture, Steve felt he should ask one more time—just to be certain. “And you’re sure about wanting to see that kid movie?”

“Absolutely,” she said with feeling. “I’m looking forward to seeing it and looking forward to seeing Jason—and you, too,” she added in case he had any doubts.

She wanted to go very slowly here, not just because there was a child involved but because the thought of dating left her more than a wee bit nervous. Having the boy along helped ease her tension. She was better with kids than she was with adults—unless she’d known them for years, the way she had the people she worked with.

“I’ve got the listing for Sunday right here,” he was telling her. “You want to pick a time so you can pencil it into your schedule?”

“I’m not planning on penciling it in,” Erin said to him.

Had she changed her mind already? he wondered. “Oh?”

“No. Pencil can be erased. I’ll be using my permanent marker for this,” she said, just in case he didn’t think she was being serious about looking forward to the outing.

Steve started reading off the showtimes. “First showing’s at ten-thirty. Is that too early for you?” he asked.

“You consider ten-thirty early?” she said incredulously. “By ten-thirty I usually have about five to six hours of work done.”

“On a Sunday?” he questioned, impressed by her dedication.

“
Especially
on a Sunday,” she emphasized, then explained, “No major interruptions.”

“I’ll have to remember that,” he said with a touch of amusement. “I’ll call you on Saturday night to confirm.”

Although she liked hearing the sound of his voice, there was no need for him to call, if he thought she was going to reconsider.

“Consider it already confirmed. I’m not about to pass up seeing a feel-good movie with two handsome men,” she told him.

“I’ll be sure to pass that along to Jason. If
he
starts to act cocky, that’s on you,” Steve told her. And then he went on to ask, “Out of curiosity, since you actually seem to
want
to see this movie, why haven’t you gone to see it already? It’s been out in the theaters a couple of weeks already.”

“I don’t mind shopping alone. I’ve gotten used to doing things like that. But there is something exceptionally lonely about going to the movies all by myself,” she said. “I just can’t bring myself to do it. Besides, a movie is too much of an indulgence, considering the kind of work schedule I have.”

“Okay, I’ll still call you on Saturday night, but it’ll be just to talk.”

If he was calling her on Saturday night just to talk, that meant that there really wasn’t anyone else around for him to spend time with. Erin caught herself smiling broadly.

“I’ll talk to you then,” she told him.

After hanging up the phone, she stood there for a moment just smiling at it.

Erin was grateful that there was no one around right now to observe her because she probably looked like some sort of an idiot, smiling like that at an inanimate object.

“Oh, like talking to stuffed dinosaurs is any more normal,” she mocked herself, using Tex’s voice to put her in her place.

But Tex—the
idea
of Tex, she silently insisted—had paved the way to what was on its way, for all intents, to become a very lucrative business someday. If anything, what she’d told Steve was downplaying the truth. Orders were coming in so fast and furious, Judith, Neal and Christian were barely keeping up the production end.

And what she’d told Steve
was
the truth. She really
was
afraid to hire more people, afraid that once she took those people on, for some unknown reason business would begin to fall off and then she would be forced to let those people she’d just hired go.

She wasn’t any good at firing people.

Actually, she doubted if there was anyone worse at it than she was. She’d done it only once before and it had been agony for her, even though Wade Baker more than deserved to be fired for so many reasons. It wasn’t just because he wasn’t a team player and kept telling everyone else what to do. His greatest offense was that he wanted to get familiar in ways that had nothing to do with the company and everything to do with her.

She’d fired him and he’d refused to leave. It had gotten to the point that she had to threaten him with a restraining order because he’d kept showing up at work and then even her home.

Each time, he grew more and more belligerent and nasty until it got to a very unbearable point.

But her life had been Wade-free for a couple of months now and she truly hoped it would remain that way for many years to come.

Maybe he’d found a new cause to espouse and a new person to annoy. Why he was gone didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that he was gone.

With a yawn, she went to the kitchen to prepare her usual cup of tea before bedtime. It was her way of unwinding, and tonight she felt like a giant metal coil that had to unwind for more than a couple of minutes. This just might turn into a major undertaking.