Well Matched (Well Met #3)(7)

“I never said he was.” Now it was my turn to be defensive.

Emily narrowed her eyes. “I think ‘himbo’ implied that.”

I clucked my tongue. “Well, look at the guy. His main hobbies are happy hour and hooking up. Pretty sure he encourages people to see him that way.”

“Maybe so.” She considered that. “But he also helps Simon wrangle those kids every year with the Faire, and performs a complicated fight scene with him. Not to mention teaching full-time and coaching on top of that. I’m just saying there’s more to him than his muscles.” She took a thoughtful sip of coffee. “They’re nice muscles, though.”

I tsked at her. “You’re married.”

“Yeah, but I’m not blind.”

I ignored that. “Okay, but the kilt is just a Ren Faire thing, right? That’s not till July. This whole fake girlfriend thing will be over long before then.”

“Ah. So you are going to do it.” Emily looked smug as she sipped her latte.

I sighed a long sigh. “Probably.”

She shook her head at me. “You’re too nice.”

That brought me up short. “Me?” That had to be the first time anyone had ever accused me of being nice at all, much less being too nice. I liked myself just fine, and I liked a small circle of people. But that was pretty much it.

Emily smiled. “Yeah, you. You know, when I moved here, you hardly talked to anyone. Now you’re in two book clubs—”

“Only because the neighborhood one always chooses depressing books,” I interjected. “The one here at the store is more fun.” Reading two books a month didn’t make me nice. Did it?

But Emily kept going like I hadn’t spoken. “—and now you’re going out of your way to help a friend out. Next thing you know you’ll be volunteering for the Renaissance Faire.”

I snorted. “I highly doubt that. I don’t have the tits for a corset.”

“And I do?” She raised her eyebrows, and she had me there. I cast around for another reason. A more obvious one.

“I’m not a joiner, Em. You know that.”

Emily nodded sagely. “Two book clubs.”

I narrowed my eyes at her as I finished my latte. “Shut up.”



* * *



? ? ?

To my surprise, Caitlin was home when I got there, sitting at the dining room table, textbooks and laptop open in front of her.

“I thought you were at the mall.”

Caitlin barely glanced up from her work. “Yeah, well. Syd couldn’t decide on anything, and then her boyfriend showed up, and it wasn’t a girls’ day anymore, you know? I was the third wheel.”

I made a sympathetic noise. “And you’d rather come home and do homework? That’s definitely bad.”

“Exactly.” Her mouth was set in a firm line and she turned a page in her book a little too emphatically. I’d seen that look before, but usually on myself. I didn’t like my kid sounding this cynical at not quite eighteen.

That reminded me. I pulled the blue envelope out of my purse. “Here’s this back.” I slid the card across the table to Caitlin. “You want to hang on to it, right?”

“I . . . guess?” Caitlin took the card in its envelope like it was plutonium and she didn’t have a hazmat suit.

Her tone of voice gave me pause. “Hey. What are you thinking, kiddo?”

“I . . .” She looked at the card in her hand again, then up at me, before closing her laptop and pushing it away. “I mean. Isn’t it weird that he’s writing to me now? He’s never done that before.”

“Yeah,” I said, keeping my voice as neutral as possible. “It is kind of weird.”

“Like . . . does he want something? Am I supposed to see him? Is this going to be a thing now? Does he want to be my dad all of a sudden?”

I blew out a breath at all these questions and sat down at the table next to her. I hated the sad, uncertain look on Caitlin’s face, and I wanted to hunt Robert down and kill him for putting it there. How dare he. How dare that bastard do this to our . . . to my kid. “Well,” I said carefully, “it’s up to you. He sent you that card, and you can respond if you want. If you don’t want to, that’s fine too. Beyond that, whether he wants to be your dad now, I don’t know.” I doubted it. But I wasn’t going to tell her that. Because there was this sliver of a chance that he meant it. Maybe he had truly looked back on the past eighteen years and wished he’d been a better man. A better father.

Yeah, there was that sliver of a chance. But my cynical heart didn’t believe it.

“I . . .” Cait tapped the edge of the card on the table, thinking hard. “I think I’d like to meet him? Maybe get to know him. Would that be okay?”

“Of course—” I started to respond, but Caitlin wasn’t done.

“But I don’t want to hurt your feelings. You know? I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate you, or . . .”

“Oh, honey.” I reached over and plucked the card out of her hand, setting it aside before patting her arm. “No. My feelings don’t have anything to do with this. You need to understand that, okay? Contact him, don’t contact him, you do what feels right to you. Not me.”