Dating a Single Dad (6 page)

She turned back, her face twisted in a mix of humor and chagrin. “I wear it for me. Because try as I might, I can’t stop rooting for them.”

A feeling he knew well. “A sucker for the underdog, huh?”

“It’s pathetic. If they’re playing lousy and I try to cheer for another team, I feel like a traitor, but if they actually do a good job, I can’t walk away because this might be the year they turn it around.”

“I’m sorry.”

She laughed and gave the colander a shake before swishing her hands at him, a motion he recognized as a request to step back. “Sometimes I think about forming a support group—Diehard Leafs Fans Anonymous—but then I wonder if anyone would be willing to admit to it.”

“Well, winters can get pretty long around here. Time it right and it could be the biggest excitement to hit town in years.”

She laughed again, dumped the drained pasta back into the pot and added a heaping ladle of the sauce. The smell of all that beef and garlic was getting to him. It was the only way to account for the slight light-headedness that was taking him over. It had to be the food. Maybe the beer on a mostly empty stomach.

God help him if it was the woman.

CHAPTER FOUR

B
RYNN
HAD
ALWAYS
felt that Sunday afternoons in winter were meant for curling up with a good book and a bottomless cup of peppermint tea, but she could count on one hand the number of times that life had decided she’d earned that reward. Which was undoubtedly why she was spending this particular Sunday talking about work and men—not necessarily in that order—with Taylor.

“I stopped at the park on my way over,” she said as Taylor frowned at the pile of Ian’s clothes spread across her bed. “Something about it doesn’t feel right to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know it’s the center of town and everything, but I don’t think it’s right for the festival. This is all about the dairy. It should be held someplace with a Northstar connection.”

Taylor shrugged and plucked a sweater from the stack. “Well, we could hold it in the parking lot beside the offices, but I think the park has nicer ambiance.”

“There has to be something.” Brynn frowned at the collection of clothes and grabbed an old sweatshirt emblazoned with a Northstar Dairy crest. “Here. Wear this.”

“Not that. It won’t make me think of Ian.”

“Why not? It’s his, it’s got his smell on it—”

“And it’s for the dairy, which is where I work with Carter.”

Oh. Good point.

“Anyway,” Brynn continued, “if you have any legitimate suggestions for another venue, I’m all ears.”

“I’ll think about it, but Brynn, we have the permits already and the flyers and ads are almost ready to print. Changing now would be a pain in the patoot.”

“So? I’m the queen of pain.” She grabbed a navy fleece that sported the word
Coach
in gold letters. “How about this one?”

Taylor glanced at it, appeared to think, then shook her head.

“Why not?”

“Ian used to coach peewee hockey. But his assistant was—”

“Don’t say it.” Those damned North brothers were freakin’ inseparable. Hank seemed to be the only one who didn’t share their pack mentality.

Brynn ran her finger over the lettering on the fleece and remembered, just for a second, that moment when she caught Hank checking her out. She wasn’t used to quiet men. In her experience, all males were a walking assortment of bad jokes, clumsy—if sweet—gestures and copious amounts of gas, so it had almost been a relief when she caught him staring at her boobs. Nice to know he was capable of the Neanderthalesque qualities she associated with most men. And, if she were being totally honest, it was nice to know that he had been trying to scope out what was beneath her loose jersey.

Not that she planned to act on his apparent interest. She had two jobs here, and neither would be made easier by indulging in
anything
with a member of the family that was involved in both those endeavors.

Still, she hadn’t quite been able to stop herself from brushing her arm against his shoulder when she passed him the salad, sending the loveliest vibrations running through her....

With a start, she realized that Taylor was talking.

“...Moxie dropping hints about weddings.”

“Oh. Wow.” Hoping to hell she’d given an appropriate response, she plucked blindly from the pile, emerging with a cranberry-colored sweater so soft it begged to be fondled. “How about this one?”

Taylor’s nose wrinkled and she backed away. “Crap! How did that get in there?”

“What?” Brynn rubbed the luxurious softness between her fingers. “Is it poison?”

“Bad memories. Turns out I’m allergic to cashmere.” She shuddered. “A very nice night ended up being a whole lot less pleasant.”

“Damn. The color would be great on you.”

“Yeah, but it would clash horribly with the hives.” Taylor ran a hand over the pile of clothes on the bed, patting them almost wistfully. “Brynn, I don’t know if this is going to work. It’s getting so I can hardly be in the same room as Carter without falling apart, and since I see him all day, you can imagine how well that’s going. I think he knows something is wrong.”

“Of course he does. Your fiancé is away and has been gone for months. That’s all he knows.”

“I don’t know.... Sometimes I get this feeling that he’s watching me. Not in a creepy way, but like...like the way I know I look at him when no one else is around.”

Brynn’s hands froze despite the fleece surrounding them. “You think he might— Oh, Taylor. No. Don’t say you think he feels it, too.”

“I hope to God I’m wrong. But it’s... I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading things into it that are totally wrong. You know, projecting my own secret wishes and all that Psych 101 crap.”

“Look. You have that social marketing conference coming up in spring, remember? He’s not going. That will give you days and days away from him, and when you come back, it will be just a few more weeks until Ian comes home. Once he’s here, you’ll remember how much you love him and everything will be wonderful again.”

Taylor shook her head. “I hope you’re right,” she said softly. Then she looked at the fleece in Brynn’s hands and smiled sadly. “Not that one, either.”

Brynn didn’t dare ask.

“Carter has the same one. Their mom gave them all matching fleeces for Christmas last year.” She ran her hand over the fabric. “It’s what he was wearing when I realized I wanted him instead of Ian.”

* * *

H
ANK
PULLED
INTO
his parking space at Northstar Dairy, killed the engine on his old pickup and let out a sigh that was equal parts frustration and anticipation.

“Stupid damned meetings.”

The frustration was easy to figure out. Hauling Millie out of bed, having to abandon the wiring job he’d been working on when he realized he was going to be late, driving through February snow... The morning had been a perfect storm of irritation, and it was only a little past ten.

But he would rather focus on his annoyance than on the little jolts running through him at the thought of watching Brynn marshal them through another session. Or, more accurately, the thought of watching her in her business clothes while remembering how she had looked with her jersey dipping and the spaghetti steam making her hair curl around her face. He’d been trying to push the picture from his memory since Friday night. Thus far it had insisted on staying there, which annoyed him all the more.

And now he had to sit through a meeting with his mother doing her best eagle imitation. Son of a—

A muffled bang to his right caught his attention. Carter was climbing out of his Saab. Huh. Carter was never late.

Hank grabbed his gloves and his files, opened his door and winced as a metallic
skreeeek
cut through the snowy silence. Oops. He had planned to take care of the door last night. And the night before, come to think of it.

Sure enough, the noise was enough to draw Carter’s attention.

“You ever gonna give up that bucket of bolts and drive something that can be seen in public?”

Hank shrugged. “Look who’s talking—a man who drives a compensation-mobile. At least my truck has character.”

Carter snorted. “Sure it does. A character that’s begging for a serial killer to come and put it out of its misery.”

Hank fell into step beside Carter, both of them bending slightly forward against the bitter wind swirling snowflakes around their heads.

“I can’t believe they had school today. Millie was pissed.”

“Can’t say I blame her.”

Saying that Millie had been reluctant to get on the bus that morning was like saying that snow was a little cold. It had been getting progressively more difficult to drag her out of bed each day. Her teacher assured him that all the kids were tired. His mother reminded him that when he was a kid, she had to wake him by firing stuffed animals from the other side of the room, because he woke up smacking at anything he could reach. All of which reassured him until the next time he saw the dread on Millie’s face as she mounted the steps of the big yellow bus, and his gut told him there was more at play here than simple fatigue or loneliness.

Especially today, when, at the last minute, she had yanked off her lab coat and tossed it on the floor. He should have counted it a victory. He’d been telling her to leave it at home for weeks now. But the vicious way she had tugged at it left him suspicious that his suggestions had nothing to do with her last-minute abandonment.

He would talk to her again tonight. Maybe this time, he’d find the magic words to get her to open up.

“Hello? Earth to Hank?”

He looked up in surprise. Carter’s fist hovered in front of his face, undoubtedly ready to do the old knock-knock on the forehead.

“Sorry. I was distracted.”

“No shit, Sherlock. I asked you the same question three times. You sure you’re awake?”

“Right. Because if this was a dream, of course I’d plop us in the middle of a blizzard.”

The doors to the office building were dead ahead, shining like the pearly gates. He couldn’t wait to slip inside their warmth. Just a few steps to go.

“So what were you asking?”

“Forget it.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’ve got a lot on my mind these days.”

By way of apology, he held the door for Carter.

“Age before beauty,” he quipped. A guy had to take his fun where he could find it.

“So.” Carter stamped snow from his feet. “How is it having Brynn in the cabin?”

“Fine.”

“Just fine? I thought I’d get more of a reaction than that.”

“Why?”

Carter shrugged. “Because, blind one, she’s a good-looking woman.”

Hank stopped midstomp. “Did Ma put you up to this?”

“To what?”

Pointing out Brynn’s assets and proximity. Pushing me to start dating. Reminding me that I’m turning into a grumpy old man and I’m not even thirty.

“Nothing.”

“God, aren’t you all sunshine and flowers this morning.”

Hank waved to the receptionist and hustled down the hall toward the conference room. “You earned it fair and square when you burned the last Pop-Tart.”

“What the— That was twenty years ago, Hankie.”

“Yeah, but you did it on purpose because we were out of your blueberry ones, so you didn’t want me to have any, either. And they were strawberry-frosted, man. With sprinkles. Best Pop-Tarts ever.”

“You know, most people let go of the past at some point.”

“Lucky I don’t have that problem.”

Carter snorted and shook his head. “You keep telling yourself that, bro.”

Hank pulled open the door to the conference room and deliberately walked in ahead of Carter this time. He subjected everyone to the kind of look he would give Millie when she pushed him beyond his limits and dropped into his seat without once making eye contact with Brynn.

All he could say was that it was a damned good thing he loved his family.

* * *

B
RYNN
WATCHED
THE
assorted Norths carefully as they straggled into the room, trying to gauge the emotional climate of the group before she started. She could and had handled hostile, indifferent and present-in-body-only groups in the past, but each situation required a different approach. Last week the Norths had been mostly curious. This week would be the real test of how they felt about working with her.

As expected, Moxie arrived first. She nodded at Brynn, took her seat at the head of the table and launched into a loud recap of that week’s
Dancing with the Stars.
Janice and Cash entered next, deep in a discussion of schedules. They barely glanced at her, but a wave and a quick smile let her know that they were on board. Mr. North—“Call me Robert”—trailed behind with his typical bemused look, as if he had been dragged from his research and had yet to reenter the real world, but he was the first to actually talk to her, asking how she was doing and if she needed anything. She had a feeling his genes were the ones that had asserted themselves when it came time to mold Hank’s personality.

Taylor scuttled in on the dot of ten. The worry lines on her forehead gave Brynn pause, but her cousin tugged on the collar of the shirt peeking out from beneath her argyle sweater and winked. Brynn recognized both items as ones that belonged to Ian and her happy meter zipped up a couple of notches.

Carter and Hank walked in together, five minutes late. Correction: Carter walked in, paused to survey the room and slipped into the empty chair beside Moxie. Brynn breathed a small sigh of relief. She had feared he would take the seat next to Taylor.

Hank stalked into the room with a chip on his shoulder so huge, she could almost see an indentation mark.

Oh, hell. He was not going to be happy by the time this meeting was over.

“Sorry,” Carter said. “Someone went into the ditch right in front of me. I had to give him a push.”

Moxie waved a hand, which Brynn interpreted as something along the lines of a papal dispensation. Taylor shot him a quick smile that made Brynn’s stomach clench, then reached up and rubbed her collar. Whew.

All eyes turned to Hank. He met them without blinking.

“I was late. So fire me.”

Moxie sighed. Janice gave him the kind of stern, one-fingered point that Brynn recognized as a universal gesture of motherly reprimanding. Cash rolled his eyes.

“Shall we begin with a rousing chorus of ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It’?” The words were out of Brynn’s mouth before she realized it, the rote reply born of years jollying her brothers through marauding catastrophes. Just in time, she stopped herself from wincing over the blunder. Better to have everyone think she’d said it on purpose.

Fake it ’til you make it.

Hank stared at her like he couldn’t believe what she had said. The disbelief slowly faded into something resembling respect mixed with humor, laced with chagrin. Underlying it all was a hint of something else, something that brought a flush to her cheeks.

He quickly resumed the bland-indifference act, but now she saw it for what it was.

Hank was trying to fake out someone, and it wasn’t her. She probably shouldn’t be curious. And he definitely wasn’t going to like what she was about to propose.