Falling for a Father of Four

“No!”

She threw out a slender hip and propped her hand on it. Yes, indeed, she was over eighteen. But she was still a baby. Especially compared to Gracie. He frowned. Now why had he done that, compared her to Grace? She folded her arms and asked baldly, “So how long has she been gone?”

He nearly hit his chin on the table. Little shocker. Well, if she wanted the dirty details, he’d give them to her. He got up and put his hands flat on the table, drilling her with his baby blues. “Two years and seven months.” He waited a beat and added, “A week and three days.”

She batted her lashes at him. “Candy Sue was just a baby.”

“An infant,” he admitted. “I had to put her on a bottle.” Let her digest that.

She was outraged. A nursing mother had abandoned her baby, not to mention three other children and a husband! Then she started looking for acceptable reasons. “She must’ve been young when you married.”

“Older than me,” he said flatly, “but that didn’t keep me from getting her pregnant. Four times.”

Miss Matilda Kincaid lifted her chin a notch. “You’re trying to embarrass me.”

“And succeeding,” he admitted, looking at the splotches of color spreading across her cheeks. “Maybe that’ll teach you not to go around asking nosy questions.”

“Is there a better way to find out what I want to know?” she retorted saucily.

He grinned. Damned if she didn’t have him there. “You ever hear that curiosity killed the cat?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s pretty obvious I’m not a cat, and it wouldn’t be very responsible of me to walk into a situation blind, would it?”

He scratched his chin at that. “Guess not. You’ve just got an awful frank way about you.”

“Yes, I do. Now, is the job mine or not?”

He shook his head, chuckling, and said the one thing guaranteed to get her dander up. “Well, I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to your dad first, clear it with him.”

The color in her face blossomed to full red as she struggled to tamp down her temper. It took several seconds, actually, of breathing through her mouth and working her jaw, but she finally got it in hand. That hip flew out again, and she was clearly fuming, but she managed a nearly polite, “Fine.”

He went to the phone, figuring it would be dangerous for him to laugh outright. “What’s his name?”

“Evans Kincaid.”

“I want you to know I’m doing this because you said earlier that he’s a police officer, which seems a good recommendation. Are you really nineteen?”

“Yes!”

“What’s the telephone number?”

She ground it out through bared teeth, and he punched it into the telephone. The conversation was fairly short. Kincaid was obviously pleased that he’d been consulted. It marked Orren, he said, as a conscientious father himself. Orren politely but honestly explained that he was divorced and fairly desperate as he hadn’t generated much interest in the position, the hours being tricky and some housekeeping being required. Actually he was hoping for more than some housekeeping, but he wouldn’t mention that. He couldn’t exactly demand it, considering the wages he was able to pay, and he knew he had no right to expect it. Since his days off as manager of the car repair shop were Sunday and Monday, he pointed out that he would expect Mattie to work Saturday. He didn’t say that he could easily keep her busy seven days a week by taking small jobs on the side, but he was hoping Mattie would welcome the extra money as much as he did. At any rate, Kincaid made it plain that he would not approve of Mattie working Sundays, and Orren made special note of it, figuring that Kincaid was a religious man who wouldn’t take kindly to having his little girl’s ears scorched more than they already had been.

Mattie, her father promised, was great with kids and a hard worker. She knew her way around a house, too, having pretty much taken over the domestic duties after her mother died. “She’s a great little organizer,” he said proudly, “and neat as a pin.”

Orren looked around at his hastily cleared combination kitchen and living room and wondered if Mattie would last a week here in this madhouse with her penchant for order and neatness. He could only hope.

“Between you and me,” Kincaid went on, “I think, she’s felt a little displaced since I remarried. She and Amy are fast friends, but I’ve noticed that Mattie is a little restless and uncertain when she’s home from school. This might be good for her.”

“I hope so,” Orren said warmly, but privately he had his doubts. He loved his kids, but sometimes he thought he’d go stark raving mad. It was always one crisis after another around this place, and there was never enough money, what with the cost of child care and all. Sometimes he wanted to just walk out, not forever, but maybe long enough to get blind drunk on occasion. Still, he couldn’t afford that much beer, and he sure couldn’t afford the hard liquor for it, not with someone constantly outgrowing shoes or coming up with ear infections and such. He hung up the phone and turned to take the new sitter’s measure one more time.

“You heard?”

She nodded. “When do I start?”

He was surprised, really, that she still wanted to. Maybe she didn’t understand everything involved. “I work ten to seven, five and sometimes six days a week. I’ll try to get breakfast for the kids before I go, but lunch and dinner are part of your job.”

“All right.”

“I can fend for myself,” he went on, “but the kids have got to eat regular meals.”

“I understand. I don’t see any reason for you to do without, though, considering I’m going to be cooking anyway.”

That was good news. “Well, dinner, maybe,” he conceded gratefully. “I usually skip lunch, though sometimes someone will take me out.”

She shrugged. “What about the grocery shopping?”

He hedged that. “I try to do it on Mondays, but sometimes it’s Tuesday evening before I can get to it.” Or Wednesday, he thought. Or Thursday. If at all.

“I’d rather do it myself, if you’ll give me a budget,” she said. “I prefer to make out weekly menus and shop with a list. It cuts down on impulse buying and makes use of things that might otherwise go to waste. I do the shopping on Mondays, floors on Tuesday, bathrooms on Wednesday, dusting on Thursday, and laundry on Friday, though I suppose my Monday will be Tuesday, so we can push everything back a day, if you want.”

He couldn’t believe it, not coming from this small, delicate girl. He put his hands together and said in a dramatic voice, “Oh, Lord, if this is Your idea of a practical joke, I’m going to become an atheist, I swear.”

Mattie frowned. “That’s not very funny. I’m trying to tell you what you can expect from me, and if that’s not what you have in mind, well, then, the whole thing’s off.”

Orren shook his head and clapped a hand over his heart. “Miss Mattie, my love, you’ve already exceeded my expectations by far. I’d be happy as a hog in slop if you just fed my kids and kept Red from stringing up her sisters. But since you have a system you want to use, you just go right ahead. I’m tickled pink. And if it doesn’t work out quite like you have planned, well, then, we’ll just make do. That’s mostly what we do anyway. Now, I hope you’ll go before those four hellions troop back in here and scare the daylights out of you. They can, and they probably will, but I’m hoping you’ll at least get the grocery shopping done before you quit. See you in the morning at nine-thirty.” He grabbed her backpack from the back of the chair and shoved it and her toward the door.

Mattie dragged her feet, but he got her through the door before she could tell him to take his job and shove it. He didn’t get it closed, though, because she beat him to the doorknob. She glared up at him from the doorstep and said, “You are insane, you know.”

He smiled benignly. “And you’re going to join me a lot sooner than you realize.”

She rolled her eyes at that and pulled the door shut in his face. He couldn’t hold back the relief that flooded him, though he knew it was much too early to celebrate. Chances were the poor thing wouldn’t last a week, but then again, she just might. She had fortitude, that girl, and she was young enough to take the punishment. Maybe Miss Matilda Kincaid was the answer to his prayers. He hoped so. He very fiercely hoped so.

Chapter Two

Mattie carefully made no mention to her father of the utterly gorgeous Orren Ellis. She said nothing about his well-muscled six-foot frame and carefully kept her thoughts to herself concerning his finely honed, square-jawed face with its sculpted lips and gold-tipped brows. She made no comparisons with bronze and gold and platinum and his slightly curly, sun-streaked hair, which, in her opinion, could use a good cutting. Most of all, she kept secret how shocking were the electric depths of his light blue eyes, fringed lavishly with gold and bronze lashes.

She spoke instead about his four adorable children, about Chaz, the little man, and the challenging Jean Marie of the wild red hair, and golden Yancy who adored her big brother, and the picture-perfect little doll baby Candy Sue, whom everyone called Sweetums. They were bright children. They were beautiful children. They were sweet and fun and exciting and just a little needy, and she couldn’t wait to get started with them. She just didn’t expect to get started with them two hours early the next morning.

Orren was extremely apologetic and even more frantic than the day before when he called at seven in the morning to ask, to beg, her to come over early. “The mechanic on the early shift has called in sick,” he explained, “and I took yesterday off to stay with the kids and interview sitters. I have to go in to cover him. Please say you’ll come. I don’t dare leave these children here alone.”

“I’ll be there,” she said sleepily. “Give me half an hour.”

“Thank you, Mattie. Oh, thank you.”

Her father was waiting for her when she stepped out of the bathroom. “That call for you?”

“Umm-hmm, Mr. Ellis has been called in early.”