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Nell laughed and turned to Bertis. “Lucy’s precocious. Don’t pay any attention to her. Mat and I aren’t married. I’m just his nanny.”
Bertis’s look said she didn’t believe a word of it but, at the same time, had seen too much of life to judge. She regarded Lucy’s many earrings. “I hope you don’t have your tongue pierced, young lady. Our oldest granddaughter Megan had her tongue pierced, and she swallowed her earring. The doctor made her do her business in a bucket for a week and go through it with rubber gloves looking for the missing object.”
Mat was happy to see that Lucy looked appalled, and his respect for Bertis rose.
“You folks come on over and have dinner with us as soon as you get settled. I brought along a Honey Baked Ham and my Ore-Ida potato casserole, and wait till you taste my Dole fruit cocktail cake. Everybody at church makes me bring it for potluck. Come on, Lucy, you can help Charlie move those picnic tables together. And you, little darlin’, we’ll find something special for you to eat.”
Mat glanced at Nell, hoping she’d come up with a good excuse, but she seemed entranced by the Waynes.
“Thanks for the invitation,” he said, “but—”
“We’d love to!” Nell exclaimed. “Just give us a few minutes to get settled.”
The next thing he knew, Nell had shot back inside, Lucy was walking off with the Waynes, and he was left standing there with the Demon, who reached inside the open collar of his shirt and pulled his chest hair.
“Ow!”
Pleased with herself, the Demon clapped.
He followed Nell into the motor home and set the baby down to roam. “Damn it, Nell, why did you have to say we’d eat dinner with them?”
“Because I want to. But what are we going to take? We have to take something with us, don’t we?”
“How the hell would I know?”
She started bustling around the motor home, her eyes shining with excitement. He forgot his annoyance long enough to enjoy the way her body formed a long, slender curve as she stood on her toes to look into a top cupboard.
He had a bad feeling about tonight. From the time they’d met, he’d noticed how much she appreciated the ordinary things in life: fast food, a pretty view, even pumping gas. This afternoon, she’d had a long wait in line at a convenience store because the girl behind the register was too busy talking on the phone to tend to the customers. Instead of getting annoyed, Nell acted as if being ignored were a privilege. Dinner with the Waynes was going to be right up her alley.
She turned to him, a small frown creasing that smooth, upper-crust forehead. “Do you know how to make biscuits?”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Or cornbread? She said she was having ham. Cornbread would be nice.”
“We’ve got an unopened package of tortilla chips, a couple of cans of pop, and some baby formula. I don’t think cornbread’s an option.”
“We have more things than that.”
“Yeah, but they all have Gerber on the label.”
“Gah!” Button shoved a cheese curl she’d scavenged from the floor into her mouth. Luckily, Nell didn’t see it.
“Cheerios!” She withdrew the box from the bottom cupboard as if she’d found buried treasure. “I knew we had something else. They’re such nice people.”
“Yeah, you could mix the Cheerios with that baby formula and throw some tortilla chips on top.”
“You might be more helpful.”
“I’m getting ready to eat dinner with the two worst dressers in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I guess it’s affected my attitude.”
She smiled at him, and for a moment he couldn’t do anything but look at her. At first she held his gaze, but then his scrutiny seemed to make her nervous and she began studying his right ear. Some perversely male part of him was glad she was nervous. It showed that she understood everything was about to change between them.
Time to stake his claim.
As Nealy felt Mat’s hand on her shoulder, her heart began to race. One moment everything had been easy and fun between them, but in the space of an instant something had shifted.
She felt his breath falling soft against her cheek, and the brush of his fingertips on her chin was feather light. He spread his big hand across her back, and as he drew her close, she realized he was aroused. This, she remembered, was the way a man was supposed to feel against a woman.
