Page 45 of His Brown-Eyed Girl

“We smelled something good,” Chris said, rushing toward the stove. Michael hung back but grabbed a stack of paper plates sitting beside the fridge. Then he eyed the two dishes sitting on the stove hungrily.

Addy pushed some school papers to the side and set the bread on the counter. “I’ll leave this here.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Aunt Flora said, brushing her hands together. “We need to slice it. It will be perfect with that salad Ms. Tara made. The kids can choose whichever they want to eat, and we’ll put up the rest. I’m going back to my kitchen and grabbing some of those plastic disposable storage containers.”

For an older lady, Flora moved fast. She was out before Chris had dropped his first spoonful of spaghetti on the floor. Luckily Kermit had come in with the kids and went right to work on clean up.

“Where’s Charlotte?” Lucas asked Michael.

The older boy shrugged. “Where you left her?”

Lucas made a move toward the door, but Addy beat him to it. “I’ll get Charlotte. You have a guest.”

The way she said “guest” almost made him cringe. It definitely made him feel guilty though he didn’t know why. He and Addy weren’t anything to each other. It was silly to feel guilty for being caught with a woman he didn’t want by a woman he did want… but couldn’t have.

Kermit reared up on the stove.

Tara shrieked.

“Get down,” Lucas said, pulling Kermit by his collar. “Stupid dog.”

“He’s not stupid,” Michael said, grabbing the bread and pulling a hunk from the loaf. “You forgot to feed him.”

“That’s Chris’s job,” Lucas said, toeing the dog away from the stove and eyeballing the kid who had already wolfed down half his plate.

“Mff?” the boy said, looking up with a greasy look of innocence.

“When you finish eating, you need to feed your dog and cat. Where is the wicked cat of the west?” Lucas asked, wiping up a spill on the stove.

“Curled up in your cowboy hat,” Michael said, with a touch of glee in his voice.

Great. Cat hair on his Stetson.

Tara grabbed a serrated knife and started slicing the bread, piling the slices onto a paper plate. The door swung open and Addy entered, holding a sleeping Charlotte. “She’s down for the count. You want me to put her to bed?”

Lucas shook his head. “I’ll take her. I know where everything is, and I need to put out fresh water for Pickles and Fancy Nancy.”

“Who?” Addy whispered.

“The hamsters.” Lucas reached for Charlotte, sliding his hand between the child and the woman who haunted his thoughts. Addy had changed after work into a pair of jeans and a soft Beatles T-shirt and his hand brushed beneath her breasts. Inhaling her scent, he plucked the child from her grasp, wishing he could find a reason to touch her again. Her gaze flicked up to meet his, and in that brief glance he tried to convey how much he wanted her.

She looked away, and he resettled the lightly snoring child against his shoulder, glanced around the near surreal scene unfolding in his brother’s kitchen and pushed out the swinging door.

Five minutes later after tucking Charlotte into bed in her clothes, feeding the noisy hamsters, and ignoring the toothbrush Courtney had demanded he use every night, he made his way back into the kitchen where Addy sat chatting with Chris, Tara washed dishes, and Flora lifted pieces of pie from the depths of a tin pie plate.

“One down, two to go,” Lucas said.

“Poor little tuckered out angel,” Flora said, grabbing a fork from a drawer and taking Michael and Chris a slice of lemon meringue pie. “She’s about as cute as they come.”

The domestic scene should have been comforting to Lucas—three women taking care of the Finlay children, coming to the aid of a helpless man, but it didn’t feel comforting. In fact, the glances Addy and Tara kept trading made him decidedly jumpy, so he grabbed a plate and heaped a spoonful of jambalaya and chicken spaghetti on the plate. Ignoring the salad, he grabbed some bread and settled in at the kitchen island, where Flora served the pie. The older woman looked up at him, a smile hovering at her lips as if she understood he was a coward.

“Guess I better scoot,” Tara said without enthusiasm, after drying her hands on a clean dish towel. “Sheldon’s at my mother’s, and she goes to the casino on Monday nights with her gentleman friend. Walk me out, Lucas?”

He paused, fork halfway to his mouth. “Uh, sure.”

Proud that he resisted glancing at Addy, he slid from the stool and waited on Tara to pass. The woman tossed a small wave over her shoulder. “Bye, everyone. Nice to meet you.”

The women murmured a polite response while the boys, mouths full, waved.

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