Kisses And Kids (Congratulations Series #1) Read online

  “So, butthead,” Angie hissed at him from the side of her mouth. “You know how to drive, don’t ya?”

  “Now, Angie,” Trisha murmured. “Be nice.”

  “I’m telling ya, Miss Stewart. Ya can’t never trust no pretty boy. They’ll break your heart every time.”

  Chapter Two

  Trisha stepped into the office of the Committee for Industrial Development and looked around. She ought to feel at home in the place—its plain utilitarian furniture was similar to the club’s decor—but she didn’t. It was too quiet; the air was too cool. And instead of crayon drawings covering every inch of wall space, there were modernistic prints hung at wide intervals. It all increased the sense that she didn’t belong.

  Maybe she should just leave well enough alone and go back to the club. After all, she had transportation for the weekend. She should just concentrate on that and not worry that Mr. Stuart had been roped into it against his will. It wasn’t the first time she’d made use of an offer that had come from somewhere other than the goodness of someone’s heart.

  “May I help you?” The woman behind the receptionist’s desk looked efficiently brisk, but then suddenly her face split with a smile. “Oh, I know you. You were on TV.”

  Trisha stared. “I was?”

  “The noontime news on channel sixteen,” the woman said. “You’re Trisha Stewart, aren’t you? The woman who runs the West Side Boys and Girls Club.”

  “Yes.” The word came out soft, almost hesitant, and that made Trisha mad. She’d negotiated peace treaties between street gangs, broken up fights in alleys and shaken the money men in this town until they gave big. There was no need for her to act like some confused little freshman who’d been sent to the principal’s office.

  “Yes, I am.” The words came out stronger, more satisfying. “I was hoping to see Mr. Stuart. Is he in?”

  “No,” the woman replied. “His afternoon appointment got canceled, so he’s working at home this afternoon.”

  “Oh.” Trisha hesitated. She felt stupidly disappointed and it brought disorientation with it. She shook herself mentally. This wasn’t like her; she was immune to good-looking tough guys. She forced a measure of briskness into her voice. “I’d like to leave a message for him, please.”

  “Why don’t you just go over and see him?”

  “No, that’s okay.” The idea was tempting, but only for a moment. “It’s not urgent.”

  “He won’t mind,” the woman said pleasantly. “He’s very much into the community. And he grew up on the west side. I’m sure the Boys and Girls Club is at the top of his list.”

  Trisha felt her mind go blank for a moment. Pat Stuart, the Patrick Stuart, grew up on the west side? She couldn’t believe that. With his custom-made suit and distant manner, he seemed like a yuppie who was spending a few years in Indiana before he moved on to greener pastures.

  “No, no. I don’t want to bother him at home,” Trisha said slowly. “Besides, I don’t have much time.”

  She had to digest this new information. Not that she doubted what the woman said, but he certainly hadn’t shown any fondness for his old stomping ground this morning. The real question, though, was why did any of this matter to Trisha? He was going to drive her and the kids to camp, nothing else.

  “He lives just a few blocks from here,” the secretary said. “He has a home of his own in the Washington Street historical district.”

  Trisha swallowed hard. She loved the Washington Street historical district. And she’d always thought that the finest people lived in that area. People who loved the city and all its citizens. People who were sensitive, with a feeling for history.

  “He lives in the block just past the Studebaker mansion,” the woman said. “At 823 West Washington.”

  Trisha lifted her chin slightly. No stereotypes were universally true, good ones as well as bad ones. Just because he lived in the historical district didn’t mean he cared about the city.

  “Thank you for your time,” Trisha said, forcing a smile to her lips. “But there’s really no need to bother him.”

  “Pat’s a bachelor. You won’t bother him.” The woman paused and smiled, one of those know-it-all smiles that mothers with grown daughters tended to wear. “At least, not in a bad way. Unless you’re married.”

  Trisha felt her face glow, her cheeks radiating warmth like a pair of hot coals. She hardly thought her single status mattered to Patrick Stuart, any more than his single status mattered to her. Why was it people always reduced things to such an elemental man/woman level? She was a professional first, woman second.

  “You said 823 West Washington?” Trisha asked, pausing only long enough for the woman to nod, before turning to the door. “Thank you.”

  She hurried back into the August heat, anxious to return to the club. She still had so much to do before the camping trip Friday; she had no time to waste trying to check out a grown man’s motivations.

  So why then, when she got in her car, was she making her way over to Washington Street?

  This was crazy, Trisha told herself. He knew what time they were leaving and he certainly knew where the Boys and Girls Club was located. All she had to do was show up at the club, load the kids into the van and let him drive them all up to Camp Weekie-Wookie.

  For some unknown reason, though, she didn’t want Pat to do something because he had to. She wanted him to do it because he wanted to. Because he would enjoy doing it.

  Trisha pulled into Pat’s driveway and turned off the ignition. Then she got out, refusing to admire the clean lines of the old frame house or the way the wide wooden porch seemed to reach out and embrace guests with welcome. She just stomped up to the door and rang the bell.

  There was no answer, so she tried again. After a third ring, she turned to leave. Either he wasn’t home or didn’t want company. It was just as well. She didn’t know why she was there anyway.

  “What do you want?”

  Caught before stepping off the porch, Trisha slowly turned around. Her heart just about stopped at the sight of Pat framed in the screen door, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans.

  His hair was disheveled, his eyes were red rimmed and his face bore the gosh-awfulest frown she’d ever seen on a person, but she was shaken with the strongest wave of desire she’d ever experienced. She wanted to take him in her arms and kiss that frown away. She wanted to feel his bare chest pressed against hers and let her hands roam over the cords of his back muscles.

  “Let me phrase this another way,” he said. “What the hell do you want?”

  His tone was enough to light a spark of irritation in Trisha. She was not intrigued by his bare, well-muscled chest. She was just surprised at finding him dressed in nothing but his jeans at two in the afternoon.

  “Your office told me you were working.”

  “So sue me.”

  They exchanged glares. When she first met him, Trisha had thought he was a stuffed shirt. Now she was glad to see there was more to him than that—he was also a jerk.

  “The Committee for Industrial Development isn’t supported by any public funds,” he said. “So you can’t go running off to the media with some irate taxpayer act.”

  “I had no intention of doing that.”

  “How noble of you.”

  Trisha paused to put some order in the gaggle of words that were spinning about in her mind. She was not in any way attracted to him. Not in the slightest. All she wanted was to put him in his place. She pushed away a sudden vision of him sitting on her sofa, his eyes alight with invitation.

  No, first of all, she’d tell him what she thought of him and his rude attitude. Then she’d tell him she didn’t need him to drive—

  This was just too suspicious. She had no more than stepped on his porch and he was insulting her, obviously trying to goad her into anger. She might be a bit naive at times, but she wasn’t stupid. He was trying to get out of the trip.

  “I just dropped by to go over our weekend trip,” she said l
ightly.

  “Weekend trip?”

  Trisha held his stare. She’d gone eyeball-to-eyeball with some really bad people in her career and she wasn’t going to back down now. Not from someone who was a gold-watch, silk-shirt type, in spite of what his secretary said he had once been.

  “You mean the one where I have to transport you and a bunch of wet-nosed brats to camp up in Michigan?”

  “Uh-huh.” She could feel her smile grow even wider. “That’s the one.”

  He opened the door and held it for her. With the door open, Trisha could see that the jeans were indeed the only thing he had on. His feet were bare and the jeans were tight enough to pretty much confirm the absence of underwear. Looked as if Pat slept in the nude. Trisha took a deep breath and marched resolutely into the house. A grump was a grump, no matter how handsome he was. And she was a complete professional. Her kids were all that mattered.

  “Go straight back to the kitchen,” he said, waving her down the hall. “I’m still a little sparse on furniture in these front rooms.”

  Although there was no air-conditioning on, the old house was comfortably cool. Trisha glanced into the first room. There was no furniture in it beyond an old sofa pushed up against the windows, but the pale blue on the walls was so clean and the wood trim around the windows gleamed with such newness that it was obvious a lot of work had recently been done in the room. The next room she passed, with its litter of paint cans and drop cloths, confirmed her suspicions. Another surprising side of Patrick Stuart revealed.

  “These old homes are a lot of work,” she said as she walked into the kitchen. “But they’re so beautiful once you’ve redone them.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Trisha turned to look at Pat. He was rubbing his eyes and didn’t look lively at all.

  “You certainly sound enthusiastic,” she said.

  “That’s me. Pat the Enthusiastic. Twin brother to Pat the Generous.”

  He looked so suddenly vulnerable that her heart wanted to give way. She looked away from him and found it easier to be strong.

  “The kitchen is very nice,” she said, truly admiring the pine cabinets, plank floor and Parsons table. It was so much more homey than her apartment’s tiny kitchen. That had all the charm of a can of sardines. “It’s modern, yet retains a definite flavor of the past. Did you do it?”

  “Mostly.” He paused a moment to pinch his eyes across the bridge of his nose. “But I don’t hire out.”

  As if she wanted him working in her kitchen. “If you don’t like refurbishing the house, why did you buy it?”

  “I didn’t buy it. I inherited it.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “It was my grandmother’s. I lived here during my senior year of high school, so she thought I’d want it.”

  “Don’t you?”

  He shrugged. “Want something to drink?”

  It was her turn to shrug. “What do you have?”

  Pat made a face and looked around the room for a long moment. “Water?”

  What a charming host. She tried to be annoyed at him, but found it hard to maintain. She kept slipping off the path and sinking up to her knees in his vulnerability.

  “That’s okay,” she finally said. “I won’t be staying long.”

  He walked over and slumped into a seat at the kitchen table. He was close, too close, and she found her eyes wanting to watch that little pulse point at the base of his neck. She took some more time to admire the refurbished kitchen.

  A glass-door hutch stood at the far end. The china on its shelves looked old and sturdy, like something that could weather the storms of time and still be strong. What would it be like to live in a house that held so many family memories, that was such a part of who you were? Her childhood house was a Dutch colonial in the suburbs of Chicago, filled with such bitter memories that she had no desire to even drive down its street. And she had lived there only until she was eleven, and had no idea who had lived there before or since.

  “What is it you wanted to tell me?”

  Trisha turned back to him, staring for a long moment. What had she want to tell him? Her original intention had been to tell him he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to. But she didn’t really want to do that anymore. It was because of his attitude, she told herself. And because she really needed help this weekend. But her eyes kept straying to that pulse point.

  “You came here,” he reminded her. “I didn’t call you.”

  “I was just wondering if you had any questions.”

  He looked at her, and his expression was not pleasant. Trisha quickly turned her attention to the kitchen table. The scratches and worn spots bespoke of a lifetime of service, of dependability.

  “I’m going to meet you and the kids at the club Friday afternoon,” he said. “I drive you guys to some camp for which I presume you have directions and/or a map.” He paused and she nodded. “Then I drive all of you back Sunday afternoon. What’s there to question?”

  “I was just checking,” she replied, running her finger along a deep scratch in the table’s surface.

  He didn’t say anything in reply, and when Trisha stole a glance at him, he had his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands and his eyes closed. It took all of her self-discipline to keep from walking over and pulling his head to her chest to plant tiny kisses along his forehead.

  “Do you share all this space with anybody?” she asked.

  He opened his eyes slowly. For the moment, his eyes showed only weariness, not annoyance. “Just some assorted mice and spiders.”

  “No pets?” she asked. “No cat or dog?”

  He shook his head.

  “Gerbil? Fish?”

  He managed to glare at her, but it was a halfhearted attempt at best. She felt sorry for picking on him when he was so tired.

  “Are you running some kind of survey?”

  Poor guy. He probably worked long, exhausting hours. Or was this all a trick to make her weaken and let him off the hook?

  “You better get some sleep,” she said. “You’re going to have an action-packed weekend.”

  “Whoopee.”

  “Come on now. It isn’t going to be so bad.”

  “Right.” He stood up. There wasn’t a trace of a smile on his face.

  He might not think so now, but Trisha was sure he’d enjoy the weekend. It might even be good for him. Fresh air. Outdoor activities. And the kids were always a joy. Well, almost always.

  “I’ll see you Friday,” she said, moving into the hall and toward the front door.

  “I can hardly wait,” he replied, following her.

  “Are you doing this, too?” she asked, indicating the half-finished rooms.

  “Mostly.”

  “You must enjoy working with your hands.”

  “Not especially.”

  Trisha couldn’t help smiling. “So why all this work, then? Is it a form of self-punishment?”

  He yawned and looked tiredly around him. “There’s supposed to be some hidden treasure in the house,” he replied. “If there is, I don’t want anyone else to find it.”

  “What?” It was the last thing she expected pragmatic, practical Pat Stuart to say. “A treasure?”

  “Not really,” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just some silly story my grandmother made up. Supposedly her mother said there was a treasure to be found in the house, but I don’t believe it.”

  Trisha looked at him and felt her heart turning into mush. A man who believed in hidden treasure, even though he denied it, was someone who still had the wonder of a child within him. “But it must be fun looking for it, all the same,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah, great fun,” he said. “Mouse droppings a hundred years old. Cobwebs thick enough to make drapes out of. And plaster dust everywhere. Besides, even if there had been some treasure at one time, I had hundreds of down-on-their-luck ancestors who would have dug it up long ago.”

  “But just imagine if you found some hidden riches.
What would you do with it?”

  “Hire someone else to drive you this weekend.”

  His face had hardened, and his voice was impatient, but Trisha knew it was all just for show. She’d seen enough little boys to know they didn’t like anybody to know about the soft spots in their heart.

  She just laughed at him. “See you Friday at three,” she said.

  “Right,” Pat replied.

  She was out on the porch quicker than she would have liked, but her heart was a lot lighter than when she’d arrived. They were going to have a great time this weekend. Pat would be a good role model for the boys and everything was going to work out fine. She just knew it.

  * * *

  Pat slammed his refrigerator door shut and leaned against the kitchen countertop. He should be feeling great about now—rested and ready for action. Except that he hadn’t gotten back to sleep after Trisha had come over. He kept seeing those laughing eyes, hearing her teasing voice. He opened the door to the freezer compartment again.

  The same stuff was still there. A couple of packages of those healthy frozen dinners, an unopened gallon of ice cream and three bagels of indeterminate age. Wow. All the makings of a great birthday dinner.

  He slammed the door shut, a little harder this time, before walking over to the table and sitting down. Hell, he’d never cared about his birthday any other year. Why was this year different? He leaned forward on his elbows, stared out at the yard and let a little irritability nibble at his feelings.

  Any fool could see that he didn’t need any pets; his yard was filled with critters. There was a ground squirrel on his windowsill. Two blue jays at the birdbath. And a hummingbird flitting about in the flowers in the south end of the yard.

  It must be a woman thing, this need to bring creatures into your house and nurture them. Well, he was a man. He didn’t need anything in his house. He could relate to all of nature.

  He leaned back in his chair and glared around the kitchen. How could a woman who was so small and didn’t wear perfume leave so much of herself behind?