“Hey, Kevin.”

“Good to see you, Lisa.”

She might not want to see him, but she had to admit he was fun to look at, with his tall frame, well muscled from the years he’d spent doing construction work, and the chiseled features of his face, saved from being harsh by an almost incongruous dimple that appeared when he smiled.

“Good to see you, too,” she replied, settling on yet another half-truth.

He gave her a smile that didn’t quite match the awareness of her evasion she sensed in his gray eyes. Or maybe she was just projecting her own uneasiness on him. He had this way of making her feel emotionally naked.

Naked…

She was just close enough to catch the clean scent of his skin and imagine that she could feel the warmth emanating from him. Heaven knew she missed being close to a man, but in her experience, the cost for that comfort was more than she was willing to pay.

MILLS & BOON

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Dear Reader,

A few years ago I ventured to Davenport, Iowa, for the first time. A very special man in my life was moving there to start a new job. I wasn’t exactly inclined to love the place, since it was so far from my home in Michigan, but love the place I did! I visit Davenport—and that special man—whenever I can.

Davenport’s lovely neighborhoods nestled along the Mississippi River, combined with its rich history, make it an ideal setting for a Harlequin American Romance novel. It’s also perfect for the story of a couple with a lot of history between them. I hope you enjoy the warmth of the village of East Davenport and the growing attraction between harried single mom and bakery owner Lisa Kincaid and maybe-friend, maybe-something-more Kevin Decker. Sometimes love is right in sight; it’s just a matter of opening one’s eyes!

When your visit with Lisa and Kevin has ended, I invite you to stop by my place at www.dorienkelly. com, or say hello to me on Facebook, where I can be found at www.facebook.dorienkelly.com.

Wishing you all the best!

Dorien Kelly

The Littlest Matchmaker
Dorien Kelly

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dorien Kelly is a former attorney who is much happier as an author. In addition to her years practicing business law, at one point or another she has also been a waitress, a bank teller and a professional chauffeur to her three children. Her current (and very romantic) day job is executive director of a lighthouse keepers association.

When Dorien isn’t writing or keeping lighthouses lit, she loves to garden, travel and be with her friends and family. A RITA® Award nominee, she is also the winner of a Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award, a Booksellers’ Best Award, a Maggie Award and a Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence. She lives in a small village in Michigan with one or more of her children and three crazed dogs.

To Kathleen Scheibling. Thanks for the

warm welcome to Harlequin American Romance!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

Lisa Kincaid specialized in three things: shortbread, scones and sleep deprivation. She preferred the first two over the third, but as a bakery/coffeehouse owner and single mom of a four-year-old, lack of sleep came with the territory.

“Are you ready?” she called to her son, Jamie, who sat at one of Shortbread Cottage’s café tables polishing off his last bits of breakfast. “Miss Courtney’s going to think we slept in.”

“Ready,” he said.

Lisa came around the display counter and checked out his half-finished cup of orange juice. “Almost ready.”

He grinned, picked up the cup, and then chugged its contents in championship style. When he was done, instead of using the napkin that still rested neatly folded to his left, he wiped his mouth with his hand.

Lisa ruefully shook her head. “Manners, mister.”

He pushed away from the table. “Gotta go see Miss Courtney. It’s build-a-castle day.”

She pointed toward the entry to the bakery’s kitchen. “You know where the dishes go.”

From her spot at the coffee bar, down at the far end of the counter, Suzanne Jacobs, Lisa’s sole employee and all-around lifesaver, said, “I’ll take care of it.”

Generally, Lisa considered it her duty to womankind to raise a son who could find and use a dishwasher. Today, though, she was willing to cave. It was nearly time for Kevin Decker to arrive for his morning scone and coffee.

Kevin was one of her best customers. Smart man. Great sense of humor. Hardworking. Kind to children and stray dogs…all that good stuff. There were countless reasons why a woman might want to be in his company, but lately he’d begun to make her feel edgy. Of course it wasn’t his fault; Kevin was the same as ever. This was her weird issue. All the same, she needed a fortifying dose of Iowa autumn sunshine before seeing him.

She took Jamie’s hand. “Thanks, Suz. I’ll be right back.”

“No hurry,” Suzanne called over the slow, waking hiss of the espresso maker.

Lisa might have agreed, but Jamie had other plans. As they exited the rambling old clapboard house that served both as bakery and their home, he tugged on her hand.

“C’mon, Mommy.”

She smiled as she looked down at her son, who so resembled James, her late husband. Jamie had been not quite a year old when his father had died in an accident. James never had the chance to see that when his son left infancy, he’d grow to look all Scot, like Aberdeen-born James. Jamie had wild, sandy-brown hair and pale skin prone to freckles. Already, his build was beginning to echo his father’s—sturdy and athletic. But her son also possessed her push-on-though determination, as he was displaying right now, practically dragging her down Shortbread Cottage’s winding brick pathway in his rush to get to Miss Courtney’s Day Care, where he spent weekday mornings.

Three afternoons a week he attended preschool at the rather posh Hillside Academy, courtesy of her parents. It had been a gift Lisa couldn’t refuse, much as it had nicked at her pride and independence. But part of being a mom was basing her decisions on Jamie’s wellbeing, not her ego. She could do it, despite the occasional twinge.

When Lisa had become pregnant with Jamie at the age of twenty-one, she’d been shocked and totally unprepared, yet now she couldn’t imagine life without him. No longer could she imagine a life away from Davenport’s east village, either. Lisa loved the business she’d built for herself in this little wedge of Iowa history overlooking the Mississippi River. Funny, because when she’d been in high school, all she’d wanted was to get the heck out of here. Now she understood that quaint did not necessarily equal boring.

Jamie let go of her hand and began skipping down the sidewalk in front of her. It was the sort of day that made Lisa want to skip, too. Though it was late September, the air still held the humid perfume of summer and the low, lazy song of a tugboat horn as the vessel pushed its barges fat with newly harvested grain. If she had the luxury of a day off, she’d sit in the park overlooking the river and do absolutely nothing but catch the sun. Okay, not really. Actually, she’d catch up on their endless laundry pile, but a woman should be entitled to her dreams.

“Wait up,” she called to Jamie, who was ready to round the corner into the neighborhood that sat behind her home/business.

Jamie danced with impatience, but did as requested.

“So it’s build-a-castle day?” she asked once she’d taken his hand again.

Jamie nodded. “Mr. Kevin’s bringing over big boxes and we’re gonna make a castle.”

Lisa slowed. In addition to all the other good stuff about Kevin Decker, he was also her best friend Courtney’s oldest brother. Co-owner of a construction company, Kevin had overseen the renovations to the almost crazy-big Victorian that Courtney had inherited from their great-grandmother, making the main floor into the perfect day care center.

“Sounds great,” she enthused for her son’s sake. For her own sake, she hoped that the build-a-castle plans were slated for later in the day and that she had a few more Kevin-free moments.

No such luck. As they rounded the block, Lisa saw a shiny red pickup parked in Courtney’s drive. She didn’t need to look any closer to know that Decker Construction was emblazoned on the truck’s doors. It was as familiar to her as the white gingerbread trim that Kevin had designed, hand-cut and added to Shortbread Cottage’s slate-blue facade last summer.

Kevin’s truck bed was already empty of the boxes so there was a good chance he was out back in the play area. Maybe she could escape without seeing him. She felt like a rat for even having these avoidance thoughts.

Jamie chugged up the broad steps to Miss Courtney’s covered front porch and then slipped inside without a backward glance at his mother. Lisa followed. As always, Courtney was in the entry hall to greet the children and then send them on to the playroom, where her assistant waited.

Courtney gave Jamie his morning welcome. Lisa was impressed he managed to toss a distracted “Bye, Mommy” in her direction before heading back to the playroom.

“So, what’s up?” Courtney asked Lisa. “You two are usually the last in the door.”

“I thought I’d shake up my schedule. You know…add a little excitement to my life,” she replied while pulling the antique oak front door partway closed behind her.

Laughing, Courtney shook her head, sending her corkscrew blond curls bouncing. “What scares me is that there’s a good possibility you’re serious. You really are in a rut, you know.”

“Rut’s too negative. I prefer to think of it as my beloved routine.” Lisa was well aware that she never took time for herself, but she was okay with that. She had to be. Jamie and her business came first.

“Call it what you want, but it’s time to give yourself a break. I have an idea…”

Lisa wasn’t crazy about the way her friend’s voice had taken on the same sort of singsong quality her mother’s did when yet another futile dating fix-up was in the offing.

“Ideas are good,” she replied in a neutral tone.

Just then another mom and child came in, and Lisa turned to slip out before Courtney pressured her into something she didn’t want to do.

“Stay,” Courtney commanded.

“I’d rather fetch,” Lisa replied, earning a giggle from the little girl Courtney had just greeted.

Courtney gave Lisa a pointed look. “Let’s work on stay.”

Resigned to her fate, she waited while Courtney chatted with the mom for a second.

After the mom departed, a speculative light returned to Courtney’s blue eyes. “Tonight, Kevin, Scott and I—”

Lisa held out her hand like a backup singer. “Stop there. Anything involving three Deckers isn’t good…it’s dangerous.”

“Come on, we’re not dangerous.”

Lisa thought but knew better than to say One of you is…to me, at least, aloud.

“Okay, maybe not dangerous, but definitely a little crazy,” she replied instead.

Courtney shrugged. “Guilty as charged, but the least you can do is hear me out.”

“If it were another night, I would, for sure,” Lisa fibbed. “But Wednesday is Inquisition Night, remember? I have dinner with Mom and Dad.”

“That’s one heck of a family tradition,” a deep voice said from behind her. “What’s Thursday, Guilt and Self-recrimination Day?”

Lisa swallowed the panicky feeling that Kevin Decker seemed to bring to the surface in her, then turned to greet him.

He ambled through the front door at the same easy pace he always took, even when at Shortbread Cottage juggling a business meeting over coffee, an incessantly ringing cell phone, and Jamie edging closer to hang out with his favorite customer. While she often had to fake being calm and collected, Kevin appeared to be the real deal.

“Hey, Kevin.”

“Good to see you, Lisa.”

She might not want to see him, but she had to admit he was fun to look at, with his tall frame, well muscled from the years he’d spent doing construction work, and the chiseled features of his face, saved from being harsh by an almost incongruous dimple that appeared when he smiled.

“Good to see you, too,” she replied, settling on yet another half truth.

He gave her a smile that didn’t quite match up with the awareness of her evasion she sensed in his gray eyes. Or maybe she was just projecting her own uneasiness on him. He had this way of making her feel emotionally naked.

Naked…

Hot color painted its way across her face as that word invited all sorts of other long-repressed thoughts about literal nakedness to come out and play. And since once freed, they didn’t seem to want to leave, she would. Lisa feigned a glance at her watch.

“Well, it’s time for me to get back to work,” she said.

“I could use my morning coffee. Hang on a second, and I’ll walk with you,” Kevin offered.

Her gaze was drawn to his long, blue jeans-clad legs and his worn, tan work boots. Feet. She could safely focus on feet, right? Except she’d feel like an idiot, conversing with the man’s boots.

“Thanks, but no,” she replied. “I really have to run.” Which was no lie, even if the motivation for running was messier and more personal than just getting back to Shortbread Cottage.

“Okay, so maybe we can all do something on Friday?” Courtney asked as Lisa was attempting to slip past Kevin and out the door.

She stopped in what was a bad spot—just close enough to catch the clean scent of Kevin’s skin and imagine that she could feel the warmth emanating from him. Heaven knew she missed being close to a man, but in her experience, the cost for that comfort was more than she was willing to pay.

“Really, Court, I’m too busy,” she said to her friend. “Just have some extra fun for me, okay?”

And then she left before she might recall in any more detail exactly what fun was.

“NOT A WORD ABOUT LISA,” Kevin warned his sister after the woman in question had bolted.

Courtney had on her best innocent face, one that he’d stopped buying back when she was sixteen and had “borrowed” his car to take a pack of her girlfriends to a concert in Chicago. Of course, he should have known better than to provide her with a set of keys for emergencies, but that was part of the duties he felt were his as the eldest Decker offspring.

“Why should I say anything?” she asked. “Just because you like her?”

This wasn’t a conversation he ever planned to have with Courtney. “Sure, I like Lisa. Who in this town doesn’t?”

“No, I mean like…like. As in ‘Kevin and Lisa sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.’”

He laughed in spite of himself. “You’ve been hanging around the preschool set too much.”

His baby sister stuck her tongue out at him. “Says who?”

“Funny, but here’s what I’m saying…Don’t push things, okay? I’m capable of taking care of my own life.”

“You should be,” she said. “Except you’re too busy acting like you need to take care of me and Scott and even Mike, who’s what…all of two years younger than you? If you were taking care of your own life, you’d have at least asked Lisa out for dinner by now, after all the time you’ve spent worshipping at her coffee counter.”

“Worshipping? It’s breakfast.”

Courtney took a peek into the doorway to the playroom, probably doing a head count of her charges already there for the day.

“Sure, breakfast at the exact same place every day you’re in town,” she said as she returned to her spot at the front door.

“She’s a friend. That’s it. And when it comes to women, I haven’t exactly been suffering,” he pointed out.

And that was the truth. He dated whenever he wanted to. So what if he’d called a first-date moratorium a few months back? Or was it more like six months ago? Not that it mattered, and not that it was any of his little sister’s business.

“You’d be better off looking after your own social life, don’t you think, kid?” he suggested.

As soon as he’d said the words, he wished he could yank them back. It had only been six months since she’d broken it off with her fiancé for cheating on her, and rejected the Decker brothers’ collective offer to ship him in a storage container to the desolate wasteland of her choice.

Courtney didn’t say anything, but he could see the shadows of hurt in her eyes.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” he said, before wrapping her in a hug. “I spoke before thinking.”

Courtney sighed. “The Decker Curse. That, and wanting the unattainable.”

He stepped back and settled his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t know about the second part. From what I’ve seen, we Deckers are pretty good at getting what we want, once we put our minds to it. Don’t you think, Miss Courtney?” he asked, stressing the Miss, since his little sister had fought like a tiger when their parents had balked at the idea of Great-gram’s house being turned into Miss Courtney’s Day Care, and their only daughter taking on others’ children to watch when they wanted grandchildren of their own.

The sadness faded from her eyes. “Yeah, we can be just as tough as we need to be.”

The front door opened, and another of Courtney’s charges came in.

“You’ve got me beat, taking on this wild crew,” he said to his sister, softening the words with a wink.

She laughed, as he’d hoped she would. “Go on out back and wrestle with your boxes. And, Kevin…thanks.”

He knew that she meant for far more than the boxes. Her appreciation of his one or two good traits took some of the edge off not knowing how to deal with Lisa Kincaid’s lack of the same.

“Any time, kid,” he said, then went to finish his day’s work for his sister.

Kevin retrieved his tool pouch and cell phone from his truck’s cab. He buckled the well-used pouch around his hips and stuck the phone in its holster. He knew he’d be lucky to go five minutes without a call, and he really could have used some kickoff caffeine.

By now, he’d usually be at Shortbread Cottage having one coffee, black, the scone of the day, and sharing some laughter with Lisa. Courtney was dead-on with that observation; this had been his morning ritual for years, now. But after Lisa’s most recent hurried escape, he would skip the scone. He didn’t have the stomach for it.

As he walked to the backyard, he checked his phone for missed calls. Four of the six listed were from Scott, his youngest brother and partner. Scott was spending the day at a job site up the river, in Clinton, that was giving them fits. They seemed to be running through a streak of bad luck with subcontractors who couldn’t keep on schedule, so Scott was babysitting the drywallers today.

That was the big debate in the construction business—how much work to have performed by direct employees and how much to contract out. After three years with a pared-down crew, Kevin was nearly ready to bulk up on direct employees and deal less with subcontractors, but with the slower winter months coming that would be a bad financial move. Better to wait for the spring. And for a few dark memories to fade a little more.

Kevin opened the safety latch to the backyard’s gate, then closed it behind himself. The yard, with its professionally designed playscape, was empty, since the kids didn’t come out until just before lunch. At first he’d thought Courtney was officially losing her mind when she’d asked him to stockpile boxes, since the kids already had that marvel of modern architecture to climb through. Then he’d recalled how the empty boxes from his dad’s construction jobs had always been the Decker kids’ favorite toys. Even though his only steady exposure to kids was a few minutes of Jamie Kincaid’s company each weekday morning, he was sure that this part of childhood hadn’t changed.

Kevin dragged the appliance boxes, one by one, over to the edge of the playscape area, where the ground was thickly padded with shredded, recycled tires. He pulled the utility knife from his tool pouch, locked the blade into place, and began creating doorways and windows in the corrugated cardboard. He half wished that his life were once again so simple that a pile of boxes could become a castle. But in his world, boxes were boxes and castles were castles. He wasn’t sure when the magic had faded. Probably about the time Pop had broken both legs in a fall on a job site. Kevin had been eight and he’d wanted to drop out of school to cover for his dad. Needless to say, Pop had told him to hang on a while longer. He’d ended up waiting until the day after high school graduation.

Sometimes he couldn’t believe that sixteen years had passed so quickly. His dad had cut back to part-time hours in the office about eight years ago, then retired altogether three years subsequent to that. Scott had joined the company after college. It wasn’t arrogance to say that they were kicking butt.

But everything in life was about balance, Kevin guessed. On the other side of the scale from that business success remained the truth that his social life wasn’t so great, and that he had to bear the burden of the mistakes—financial and otherwise—he’d made since taking over Pop’s company. Some mistakes were easier to get past than others.

Kevin paused to survey the boxes he’d altered.

“Almost good enough,” he said to himself.

While he was making sure that all rough edges and loose staples had been removed, he glanced toward the playroom. Jamie Kincaid was gazing wistfully out the window. He gave the kid a wave and smiled at the subtle “so teacher can’t see me” wave he got in return. He liked the boy as much as the boy’s mother had apparently grown to dislike him.

Kevin could name with depressing precision the day Lisa had started looking at him as though he were Public Enemy Number One. That day wasn’t three years ago, when, by all rights, she should have started viewing him as a life-wrecker. No, she’d forgiven him the nearly unforgivable long before he’d been able to forgive himself. Instead, she’d started treating him like the village felon a few weeks ago, when he’d made the critical mistake of asking her whether she was feeling okay. Go figure.

He couldn’t believe that he was the only person in East Davenport who’d noticed that beneath her smiles and quick humor, Lisa had begun to change. He was perfectly willing to admit he wasn’t all that perceptive when it came to the nuances of emotion, so he just didn’t get why Courtney and the others couldn’t catch the difference. Maybe, though, there was some unwritten rule of platonic semifriendship he’d missed. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to acknowledge the lost expression he caught Lisa wearing every now and then. Or maybe he was supposed to buy into that public image she worked so hard to keep in place.

The problem was, he had no intention of following those rules anymore. Something had changed in him, too. Time was that he could look at Lisa and see only the business owner and friend—if she’d ever really been a friend. Their relationship had always been a tough one to categorize.

Now he saw the woman. He saw the sleek, red-brown hair that she kept tied up and wondered what it would feel like to free it. He saw her body’s slender curves and wondered how they’d fit against him. And most of all, he wondered if her skin would taste sugary sweet from all her time spent baking. Not that these thoughts were wrong…. He was just flat-out crazy to think anything might come of it.

Kevin took one last look at the boxes and deemed his job done. He considered just a quick stop at Shortbread Cottage for a coffee for the road, but rejected it. Friday, maybe. He’d try out that old proverb and see if absence would make her heart grow fonder, or at least more tolerant. Assuming she noted his absence. Pushing aside thoughts of Lisa, he jammed his utility knife back into its slot in his apron, then winced at the poke he felt through the thick leather.

“Smart move,” he said to himself.

He’d forgotten to sheathe the blade. A quick check after locking it down confirmed that the apron had done its job, and he hadn’t managed to stab himself.

Kevin shook his head at his own idiocy. If he didn’t get his act together and focus on work, Lisa Kincaid just might be the death of him. And damned if that irony didn’t cut more deeply than his utility knife ever could.

Chapter Two

“You’re going to need your party manners,” Lisa said to Jamie as they pulled up to her parents’ house that evening. “Grammie and Grampy have company.”

Two strange cars were parked out front on the street. The first was an aged vehicle plastered with the standard assortment of indie rock band stickers and high school cheerleading and volleyball decals—a definite babysitter ride. The other was a sleek sports car, no doubt owned by someone Lisa’s parents had duped into being the date candidate du jour.

She pulled past the sports car, which Jamie was excitedly viewing from the elevated perch of his safety seat.

“Pretty,” he decreed in a reverent tone.

“Don’t get too attached,” she said under her breath as she parked her six-year-old and not so very pretty—but paid for—vehicle in the driveway.

Lisa got out of the car and went to the back passenger door to help Jamie out of the constraints of his seat. She glanced up at the house and saw her mother flit by one of the library windows, where she must have been waiting for their arrival. This was definitely a setup; her mother had been wearing a dress. Lisa surveyed her own garb of faded jeans and white short-sleeved top. There would be some severe style clash going down at this meal.

She and Jamie had barely reached the front door when it swung open. Next to her mom stood a perky-looking teenager.

“You’re a little late, dear,” Lisa’s mother said to her before focusing on Jamie. “Jamie, this is Amber. You two are going to have a pizza party in the jungle room.”

Mom had this all figured out, down to letting Jamie eat in the glass-walled conservatory, his favorite room out of the many in her parents’ home. She could scratch using Jamie as an excuse to bolt.

“Whose sports car?” she asked her mom after Jamie and Amber had left for their pizza safari.

“We’re in the living room,” her mother replied.

“And?”

Her mother smoothed her hands down her already unnaturally wrinkle-free pale blue linen dress. “And what? Come to the living room and meet the car’s owner.”

Lisa still balked. “Mom, after last time, you promised you’d never do this again.”

“I don’t believe I did, and you know I’m very careful with my words.”

Which was an understatement. A thirty-year career as a corporate attorney, from which she’d recently retired, had made her mother a tactical genius. In fact, Amanda Peters, aka Mom, stood among Lisa’s pantheon of heroes. She’d managed to work full-time, deal with the fact that Lisa’s dad, a physician, worked just as many hours, keep her house so that it looked as though it had sprung fully-formed from a glossy magazine, and still be there for all of Lisa’s activities as she’d been growing up. But none of this meant that Lisa had to go willingly onto the merger block.

“Do I have the pizza in the conservatory option, too?” she asked.

Her mother gave an impatient shake of her head. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. It won’t kill you to socialize a little.”

“What do you think I do at work all day?”

“That’s not the same thing at all. Now come along.”

Because she loved her mom, if not her mom’s meddling, Lisa pinned on her smile and steeled herself for yet another awkward dinner.

Her dad and the latest victim were standing at the back windows overlooking her mother’s gardens. Lisa held in a laugh as she heard her dad telling the victim that he’d like to put in a putting green. That would happen only if her mom could make it of low-growing thyme, with a lavender border.

“Hey, Dad,” she said as she joined them, and then gave her father a hug.

“Lisa, this is Jeff McAdams,” her dad said. “He just joined the practice’s Bettendorf office.”

Which would make it very, very hard for Dr. Jeff to turn down dinner with his new boss. She felt sorry for the guy, especially since between his looks and his career, he was far from the sort to need a setup for a first date. They shook hands and she felt no zing at all, which came as a relief after her encounter with Kevin Decker this morning. She far preferred the feel-nothing mode.

“Iced tea?” Lisa’s mom asked her.

“That would be nice.” Long Island style—chock-full of liquor—would have been even more helpful.

“So, Lisa, Jeff has just moved here from Ann Arbor,” her mother said as she poured tea into a tall, ice-filled glass, then settled a lemon wedge on its rim. “Jeff, Lisa attended the University of Michigan.”

They had only reached the credentials stage of Mom’s merger negotiations, but it was time to shut down this show.

“I dropped out,” Lisa neatly inserted. “No degree and no desire for one. I run a bakery and coffeehouse down in the village. And I have a son, Jamie. He’s four. Want to come meet him? He’s having pizza down the hallway.”

Because Dr. Jeff was the polite sort, even if a little confused by her out-of-the-blue offer, he agreed. Lisa took her tea from her mom and met her exasperated expression with an “outmaneuvered you this time” grin.

“We’ll be right back,” she said to both parents.

She led Dr. Jeff down the hallway and just outside the conservatory’s doors, then stopped.

“I didn’t really bring you out here to meet Jamie.”

“I had figured as much,” he replied.

She laughed. “I don’t suppose you could have gotten through medical school without having a clue, could you? But I know this has to be as uncomfortable for you as it is for me. I’m betting that my father didn’t even tell you I’d be here.”

“Actually, no, he didn’t, but you’re not a bad sort of surprise.”

While she appreciated the sentiment, it was wasted on her.

“Here’s the thing,” Lisa said. “You look like a nice guy…in fact, just the sort of guy my girlfriends would tell me that I’m crazy to be giving a quick escape route. But my life is wrapped around keeping my business cranking and being the best possible mom I can be to Jamie. I don’t want to date, which is making my mom nuts. I’m sorry you got dragged into this, and I figure we can handle it one of two ways. First, you could stay for a dinner that’s going to turn out to be more like a joint interview than a real meal, or you could let me go back into the living room and tell my parents that your pager went off and you had to leave.”

He gave her a slow smile. “Do you always talk so quickly?”

“I do when I know my mother’s hot on my heels and about to reel you back in. So what’s it going to be? Door Number One or Door Number Two?”

He laughed. “Door Number Two.”

“Deal,” she said, and then just as quickly as she’d separated the good doctor from her mother’s plans, she saw him out. Mere moments later, the purr of an expensive sports car departing the area heralded Lisa’s return to the living room.

“Dr. Jeff got paged about a patient,” she said to her parents.

“Of course he did,” was her mother’s dry reply. “Now may we have dinner?”

“Absolutely. I’ve suddenly rediscovered my appetite.”

Her father’s poorly disguised chuckle didn’t sit well with Lisa’s mom.

“Don’t encourage her, Bob,” she said, giving her husband a light nudge before linking her arm through his.

“Then maybe you should stop ambushing the girl.”

Lisa followed her parents to the dining room and smiled at their loving banter. Forget the degrees and careers and contributions to the community. For all of her parents’ accomplishments, the one that awed her most was that they really, truly loved each other after all these years. If she could pull off that, and only that, she’d feel accomplished, indeed.

Except for the empty place setting in memory of Dr. Jeff, which her mother had declined to let Lisa remove from the table, and for Jamie continuing his safari in the conservatory, their meal followed the course of every other Wednesday. Mom tried to overfeed her, as though there were even a remote chance that while living in a bakery, Lisa couldn’t find enough to sustain herself. As usual, Dad talked River Bandits baseball. During the season, she and her dad took Jamie to see as many of the local minor league team’s games as they could. The park was a kid-friendly place, complete with a playground, and Lisa loved building these traditions with her son.

With the stuffed chicken breast and spinach salad consumed, Lisa stood to begin clearing the table, but her mother stopped her.

“Let’s sit and chat a little as long as Jamie is still having fun with Amber, shall we?”

“Okay.” Lisa sat and scrutinized her parents’ faces. Mom’s was pretty much neutral, but there was something off in her father’s expression. Her overstuffed stomach lurched a bit. “What’s going on? You’re not about to spring something else crazy on me, like a divorce or that I was adopted or something, are you?”

Her mother put one hand to her chest. “Heavens, no!”

Lisa relaxed. “Good. There are some things in life that I need to know won’t change.”

She watched as her mother gave her father a raised-brow prompt to speak. He didn’t appear all that willing.

“Lisa, your mother…well, your mother and I…we wish you’d consider moving back home. We’re not saying you should close the business, we just wish you’d give yourself some distance from it. Jamie loves this house, and it’s your home, too. You belong here.”

“And we could get someone to watch Jamie while you’re at work,” her mother added. “And of course we’d get him to Hillside for school.”

Lisa took a sip of her iced tea to cover her surprise at the course the conversation had taken. Not once, not even after James had died, had her parents suggested she move home. She wanted to ask why the big push now, when she really was back on her feet. But encouraging conversation would leave an opening for her mother, who was a lot more deft and subtle than tonight’s attempt at a date fix-up would indicate. If Lisa wasn’t careful, she might find herself back in her childhood room, still historically intact with its pink gingham canopy bed and My Little Pony dolls.

“Thanks, but it’s covered. Jamie has somebody to watch him, and Courtney does a wonderful job,” she said. “She also has a van and driver to get all the preschoolers where they need to be.”

“We know, but there’s so much we could be doing for you, and for Jamie,” her father said.

She knew that, but she didn’t want any more of their money. Hillside Academy’s tuition she had to swallow for Jamie’s sake. She knew what a benefit a fun and early start to education could be. But that was where she drew a big, fat line. She had paid back their start-up loan for Shortbread Cottage as soon as she’d been able to find other financing. Neither did she want them even unintentionally chipping away at her self-confidence. She was feeling strange enough these days as it was.

“I love you both so much and I know that you worry about me, but you don’t need to. Really. Jamie and I are fine at Shortbread Cottage. It’s our home and we love it.”

“But you’re all alone,” her mother said.

And she’d been achingly alone back when she’d been married, too, but the inner workings of her relationship with James weren’t something she chose to share with anyone. He was dead, and his memory deserved to be honored.

“I’m almost twenty-six, Mom, and totally okay with being alone, if you can call it that. To me, it feels like I never have a moment to myself. But my business is doing well, and Jamie is doing all the things he should at his age. You have to know that I’d come home if I felt that his interests were being endangered in any way, but they’re not.”

“Think about it, at least,” her father suggested.

“Okay,” she said, but was fairly sure that her parents knew she didn’t mean it. And with that, Lisa called an end to Inquisition Night. She wondered, though, if Kevin had been correct. Would she be able to stave off Guilt and Self-recrimination Thursday?

KEVIN, COURTNEY AND SCOTT sat at their usual table in the front window of East Davenport’s favorite gathering place, Malloy’s Pub. Conal Malloy, a man of many talents, drew the best pint of stout for miles, had a great ear for music and eye for darts, and was one of Kevin’s good friends, besides.

Many of Kevin’s best nights had been spent in this comfortable place, with its dark wood paneling, glowing old schoolhouse pendant lights, and the sense that one had been sent back in time once inside its door. Tonight wasn’t among them. Scott was in a wretched mood after a day of prodding the drywallers to finish up at the Clinton project. Courtney kept looking at her watch, and Kevin was bone tired, too.

He’d ended the day at the three small homes in slowly revitalizing Bucktown, just outside of Davenport’s downtown, that the family was rehabbing with the houses’ future owners as part of a community project. Working with amateurs was difficult. He needed to be everywhere at once, making sure that not only was the work being done right, but that everyone was safe.

Kevin looked out the window, thinking it was time to walk home and put this particular day behind him. Just then he saw a little forest-green sedan go by. There were plenty in the area just like it. He knew, though, that this one was Lisa’s. The sun had nearly set, but he could still see her features in the dim light. She looked as tired as he felt, and that was saying a lot. He picked up his pint and drained the last of it, then reached for his wallet.

“I need to get some sleep,” he said to his brother and sister while pulling out enough cash to more than cover their tab.

“Hang around and listen to the next set with me,” Courtney said to Scott when it looked as though he was planning to leave, too.

Scott pushed back his bentwood chair, anyway. “Nah, I really—”

“You really want to hear the music,” Courtney insisted, using the same emphasis that their mom did when she wished to make it clear that her suggestion was actually a command.

The ploy worked, and Scott sat.

Kevin stood.

“See you at home,” he said to his brother. He waved goodbye to Conal, who returned the farewell, and then he ruffled his kid sister’s hair just to toy with her a little.

Once outside, he decided to take a moment and enjoy his surroundings. The streets were quiet, as it was both a weekday and after the full push of tourist season, when the Channel Cat ferried visitors across the Mississippi from the Illinois side to fill the village’s shops and restaurants. Kevin relished the evening’s peace.

He knew what perceptive Court had done, buying him a little time alone before Scott came home. They were currently housemates in a restoration project. Like many of the houses that sat on the hillsides above the village, it was large. However, unlike the rest, they were currently down to two bedrooms, the kitchen, and one bathroom in the way of habitable space. Neither of them was accustomed to such tight quarters. Tonight they’d be like bears circling in the same cramped cave.

Kevin walked uphill, past the old firehouse, and then into Lindsay Park, just the other side of it. Full darkness was beginning to overtake twilight. He sat on one of the park benches overlooking the river. Legs stretched out in front of him, he willed himself to empty his mind of the day’s stress and let night come.

He wasn’t clear on how long he sat there, as he didn’t want to keep time. All he knew was it had been long enough that the lights on the opposite shore now twinkled brightly, and that the village behind him was growing quiet. Kevin rose and began to make his way home.

While there were any number of routes that could have taken him back into the part of the neighborhood where he lived, the most direct was past Shortbread Cottage. Lisa’s place sat back on its lot, and she’d made it inviting to customers by putting in a small garden with a couple of café tables beyond the picket fence that James and he had installed just after James had gone to work for him.

Kevin’s gaze was drawn to the cottage, but that was no big deal. It was only natural to glance at a place that had been a part of his life for so long. What was a big deal was to see Lisa sitting alone at one of the tables. The lights on either side of the front door and the small solar lights in the garden gave just enough illumination to be sure it was her, but he couldn’t gauge her mood.

Kevin figured he could always pretend he hadn’t seen her, but that fell far outside of what he considered to be good character in a person. Instead, without slowing too much, he said hello. But he didn’t get a hello back.

“Do I strike you as a weak person?” she asked.

That stopped him.

“No,” he replied.

“As someone who doesn’t have the drive to make it on her own?”

“No.”

Even though she hadn’t exactly invited him to join her, Kevin did, pulling out the opposite chair. It felt intimate yet also oddly anonymous, sitting in the dark like this. But if dim light was what it would take to get her to talk to him again, he’d sit there until the sun rose.

“So I take it Inquisition Night was a little rough?” he asked.

“More so than normal. First they ambushed me with a man, and then they asked me to move home. My dad cast the move as being for Jamie’s sake, but it felt more personal than that.”

Kevin put aside questions about the man ambush, the thought of which bugged him…as did any thought of Lisa dating someone other than him. Instead, he focused on her.

“Jamie seems like one content little guy to me, and I give you huge credit for that. I give you credit for making this place the gathering spot that it is, too. I guess what I’m saying is, Lisa, you’re one of the strongest people I know.”

She ducked her head, and her hair, which for once was down loose, shadowed her features even more.

“Thank you,” she said as her face came back into the sparse light. “Maybe I’m just a little tired. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to just brush off their comments.”

“Could be,” he said noncommittally. He knew if he told her what he really thought—that to him, she seemed more fragile by the day—she’d be in the house in a heartbeat. “Maybe you need to spoil yourself a little.”

Her laugh didn’t carry its usual light ring. “I don’t think I even know how to spoil myself anymore.”

“So, suppose you had a day off, with only yourself to think about, what would you do?”

“Go to the grocery store,” she replied without any hesitation.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Hardly. You have no idea what a luxury it would be to shop without a four-year-old in tow.”

“So, not a day at the spa or the movies or a bookstore?”

“Afraid not. I’m pretty low maintenance.”

He pulled out his cell phone. “It’s time for an intervention.”

“A what?”

Instead of explaining, he did what he did best, and took action. He pushed Courtney’s speed-dial number and waited for her to answer. When she did, he said, “Hey, Court, I’ve got a favor to ask.”

“I’d say I’d do anything for you, but I’m afraid you’d ask me to have Scott move in with me. He’s a slob.”

“Interesting suggestion, which I might take you up on sometime, but no. I was wondering if you would watch Jamie Kincaid tomorrow night? You know, just keep him after hours and give him dinner? I’ll pay, of course.”

“If you’re taking Lisa out, I’ll do it for free.”

He looked at the woman in question. “I don’t know if we’re going to have dinner or not. All I know is that I want the opportunity for that to happen.”

“So it’s not a done deal? Do you even have Lisa’s permission for me to watch Jamie?”

“If I don’t right now, I will by tomorrow night.”

“That’s a novel approach, I’ll give you that much,” Courtney said. “Sure, I’ll watch him.”

“Great. Love you,” he said, then hung up.

He didn’t need light to catch Lisa’s glare.

“What, exactly, was that about?” she asked.

“It was about getting you to take a breath. I like you, and I don’t like what I’ve been seeing over the past few months. I can’t put my finger on it, but you haven’t been quite you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He knew that she fully understood what he meant, but also saw no point in cornering her. It sounded as though she’d had enough man ambushes for one night. “Then humor me. You close up shop at five, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then tomorrow night at six, meet me in Malloy’s Pub for dinner. Nothing fancy, not a date…just some talk between two people who could both stand to get out more.”

“No!”

“Not so fast, okay?”

“I don’t like being railroaded.”

He held both hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not railroading you, and mostly because I don’t think that’s possible.”

The stiff set of her shoulders relaxed a little, which gave him hope she wasn’t going to walk off and leave him alone in the darkness.

“All I’ve done is build a window of opportunity, okay?” he said. “Jamie will be happy with Courtney, and you can do whatever you want. Hell, if you want to go to the supermarket and leave me waiting for you at Malloy’s, that’s an option, too. I won’t like it, but I can deal with it.”

“Why are you doing this?”

He could still catch an undercurrent of edginess in her voice. “Maybe because you need it. And don’t go looking for strings because there are none attached.” He stood. “I’ll be in Malloy’s at six. I really think you should be, too.”

He was well past the picket fence when he heard her say good-night. Those words were far from a yes, but at least she was still speaking to him. Kevin felt better than he had in weeks. Now if he could just do the same for Lisa.

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