His Potential Wife

In the meantime, Ms. Tyler had poured her coffee and was hovering.

“I must admit,” she said, “that I’m surprised to find you so…at home…in the kitchen.”

“Did you think I was just a hewer of wood and a drawer of water?” He grinned. “Heck no, I’m a New Age Man. Able to turn my hand to any household task you care to mention.”

Waving her toward a chair, he said, “I hope you’re hungry.”

As she perched on the chair, he opened the oven door and withdrew two plates arranged with the bacon, over-easy eggs, hash browns and tomato wedges he’d prepared earlier. Setting a plate in front of her, he murmured, “Bon appétit.”

And setting the other plate down on the table across from her, he took his own seat.

She looked at her plate with a dazed expression.

“Dig in,” he said.

“I…usually just have coffee in the morning. But…I must admit, this is very tempting…”

“Coffee’s not a food, Ms. Tyler. As long as you’re under my roof, you’ll eat properly. And that means, no skipping breakfast. Understood?”

Her tone had a mischievous edge as she said, “Then perhaps we should have held off on ordering my uniform…or perhaps we should reorder now. The next size up!”

He deliberately sidestepped any further discussion of uniforms. “Believe me,” he said, “no matter how heartily you may eat, my brood will keep you so busy running after them you won’t put on a single ounce. I guarantee it.”

“Then—” she lowered her eyes demurely to her plate as she picked up her fork “—we’ll stick with the Small.”

Out of nowhere, he was suddenly visited by an image of her petite figure, stretching naked in the sunlight. The memory was vivid. Tantalizingly vivid.

He felt a stirring of desire and decided it was time—past time!—to change the subject completely.

“Tell me, Ms. Tyler, the little boy you were with at Morganti’s the other day…was he one of your charges?”

She dropped a morsel of bacon from her fork, and it fell into her mug. Her cheeks turned pink and she made a vexed tsking sound. She seemed to take an inordinate length of time to rescue the bacon scrap from the coffee. Only after she’d achieved her goal and finally transferred the scrap to the edge of her plate did she look up at him.

Her eyes were blank of emotion as she gazed at him levelly. “He’s my son.”

“Your son?”

“I’d assumed Mrs. Trent would have filled you in on my background.”

“Mrs. Trent filled me in on your credentials, and your experience, but…no, she didn’t mention that you have a child. Who’s looking after him at present? His father?”

The pink in her cheeks had faded away, leaving her skin pale. Paler than it had been before. “His father…isn’t involved. My mother looks after Jamie.”

“Does the guy at least give you financial support?”

“No.” Lowering her gaze to her plate, she toyed with her hash browns. When she looked up again, her gaze was still shuttered. “He’s no longer in my life. I’m a single mom, yes, but that’s not going to affect how I carry out my work here. I have everything under control.”

He nodded. “Good.”

And for the next few minutes they ate. He cleared his plate, and brushed his napkin over his mouth, before starting up the conversation again.

“Where,” he asked, “does your mother live?”

“We rent a house at the east end of town. It’s small, but the area’s quiet. My mother’s been a widow for some years—her health isn’t all that good so she doesn’t go out to work. She enjoys staying home and looking after Jamie.”

“How old is the boy?”

“Six.”

“In between Lizzie and Amy. But,” he added with a self-deprecatory twist of his lips, “judging by what I saw of him at Morganti’s, much better behaved.” He raised his eyebrows. “Maybe you could bring him up here sometime? He might be a good influence.”