A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father: A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father

“Yep.” Leaving the door ajar, Eli squatted to inspect one of the lower cupboards. “Used to come over now and again to check up on Charley after he started going downhill.”

“Huh. Fred didn’t mention that little detail.”

“Not sure he knew about it, to be honest,” Eli said, straightening to make notes on the clipboard. “Dad did, mostly, but I’d stop by once a week or so. Bring Charley a stuffed sopapilla from Ortega’s. Or a beef and potato burrito. Man, he did love those. Grinned like nobody’s business the minute I’d unwrap it—”

“Down!” Julia screeched. “Down, down, down!”

Realizing she and Eli would never be able to hear each other if she didn’t give in, Tess lowered the child to the dusty tile floor; immediately she zoomed off to join her big brother. Eli glanced over, his expression…odd.

“Sorry,” Tess said. “What she lacks in vocabulary she makes up for in volume.”

“And earnestness.”

“That, too. My little toughie.”

“Like her mother,” he said, opening another door. “And that was a compliment, so don’t go gettin’ all bent out of shape.”

She smirked. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” Wandering away to keep an eye on her little hooligans, their high voices echoing in the empty space, she shook her head. “I just wonder why Charley’s kids didn’t get him out of here sooner.”

“You’d have to ask them that. Although I think you can guess.” When she turned, Eli rubbed his thumb and fingers together. “As in, they didn’t want to see their potential inheritance dwindle by spending it on their own father. Fortunately, he never got too bad—never wandered down Main Street naked or anything. And he always knew who Dad and I were. It was just…It was like he was in a dream. In his own little world.”

“Still,” Tess said, facing her kids again. “That’s so sad. To think…” She shook her head.

“If it makes you feel better—” she heard Eli’s metal tape measure rattle across the countertop “—I don’t think he was unhappy. Or lonely. But I know what you mean. I can’t imagine leaving my folks to the mercy of whoever happened to be available.”

“I couldn’t do that to Flo, either.”

The tape measure snapped back. “Still on the outs with your mom, then?”

“She has her life, I have mine,” Tess said softly, her heart swelling with love for those hooligans even as old hurts tried to wind themselves around it.

“She sees her grandkids, though, right?”

“Once in a blue moon, maybe. She’s…not much of a kid person.”

In the empty room, Julia let out one of her belly laughs, probably at something her brother did. Tess nearly jumped when Eli’s hand landed on her shoulder—bzzzt—for an instant before he swept past her out of the room. “Okay, that’s it for in here,” he said as Tess told herself she didn’t miss his touch. Really. “Let’s go check out the bathroom. No telling how bad that must be by now—”

“I got Blue to sit, Eli!” Miguel said, accosting the poor man the instant he hit the living room, as he was wont to do with every male he met these days. Sensing the void, Tess supposed, left by his rarely-there father, their infrequent visits infected both with the boy’s wary neediness and his father’s discomfort or guilt or whatever. “Wanna see?” Miguel said, hopping about like a curly-headed little flea.

Eli halted, briefly, giving Miguel a strained smile. “Maybe later,” he said, with an equally brief, strained glance at Julia, who’d taken up the flea dance, too, accompanying herself by “singing” at the top of her robust little lungs.

As Eli continued down the hall, Miguel frowned at Tess, not so much hurt as confused. Make that two of us, Tess thought. Seeing Eli with Christine in Ortega’s, listening to him talk about how he and his dad kept tabs on poor old Charley…why would he be standoffish with her kids? Although…

“It’s okay, baby,” she said. “He’s just busy. Um…watch Julia for a sec, okay?”

“’Kay.”

Busy poking at tiles and such, Eli didn’t at first notice Tess when she leaned against the bathroom door. “Sorry about the ambush,” she ventured. “Micky tends to gravitate to Y chromosomes like metal filings to a magnet.”

Eli flashed a glance in her direction. “No problem.”

“Even so…all he did was ask you to watch him get your dog to sit.”

Retracting his tape measure from across the grime-encrusted sink cabinet, Eli gave her a steadier look, his normally mischief-riddled eyes flat. “Just trying to keep things moving, that’s all,” he said mildly.

“You don’t like kids?”

Eli’s brows shot up, followed by a startled laugh. “Just because I didn’t stop and watch Miguel and the dog, you automatically assume I’ve got a problem with kids?”

“You looked…pained, is the only word I can come up with.” No, she realized as the flatness in his eyes sharpened. What he looked was scared. “I mean, not that I care one way or the other. I’m just curious.”

One corner of his mouth tucked up before he looked away. “Nothing to be curious about. You’re reading more into it than there is.” He scratched behind one ear, then squinted at her. “And when we’re done, I’ll be glad to let Miguel and Blue show me their trick, okay? So you can ratchet down the Mama-protecting-her-cubs thing a notch.”

“This isn’t about me, Eli,” Tess said, unaccountably irked. “But after what Miguel’s been through with his dad, he’ll pick up in an instant if you’re just playing nice.”

“I won’t be,” he said, frowning at the ugly gold sink before gesturing toward the hard-water-stained tub. “You do realize this room’s gonna have to be gutted, right? New tub, new toilet, the works?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“No, actually I’m getting back on subject,” he said, his opaque eyes at odds with the it’s-all-good grin. “Which would be this house.”

Fine, two could play at this, Tess thought, despite the not-so-vaguedissatisfaction suddenly gnawing at her. No, more than that—an annoyance that the man was systematically annihilating her preconceived notions about his being, well, basically one-dimensional.

Like she needed layered men in her life right now.

Like she needed any man in her life right now.

“The Harrises have been warned,” she said, following him out of the room and back into the kitchen, hauling Julia up into her arms when the little girl came running over to her, a multilimbed bundle of joy. “In fact—” she kissed the baby’s chubby cheek, then looked back at Eli, who was giving her a strange look “—I told him flat out the scuzzy bathroom was a big reason why the place hadn’t sold. Squicking out potential buyers is not the way to go. Oh, no, honey,” she said when Julia launched herself toward Eli. “He doesn’t want—”

But he’d caught the baby before she landed on her noggin, setting her in the curve of his arm like it was the most natural thing in the world. He didn’t exactly go all goo-goo-ga-ga over her, giving her what seemed to Tess a cautious smile, but he seemed comfortable enough holding her, so she let it go.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, looking back at the cabinets, “easiest thing would be to just rip ’em all out, replace ’em with standard stock from Lowe’s or Home Depot or someplace. Heckuva lot cheaper, too.”

“They won’t look cheap?”

“Nah, they’ll look fine. And we can do granite veneer on the counters, looks great, but for, like, a quarter of the cost of solid.” He looked around. “Ditch the wallpaper, paint the walls, maybe do some tiling on the backsplash if you want…” He looked over, a slight smile tilting his lips. “I can get you an estimate by late tomorrow. How’s that?”

“Um, sure, that’s great—”

“Okay, pumpkin, back to your mama,” he said, handing the baby over and returning to the living room. “So, Miguel. Show how me what you taught the dog.”

It was pitiful, the way the kid lit up. Pitiful and totally understandable. “Okay!” he said, bending over and patting his thighs. “C’mere, Blue! C’mere, boy!” The dog’s bat ears half-lowered, he looked back at Eli as if to say, Do I gotta? At Eli’s nod, the thing sighed and plodded over to Micky. “Now sit!” When the dog sat, Miguel looked at Eli, beaming. “Told you!”

Smiling, Tess glanced back at Eli just in time to catch an achy expression on his face that stopped her smile cold, even as the man chuckled. “Let’s see if it works for me. Come, Blue.” The dog literally rolled his eyes, heaved himself to his feet and plodded back to Eli. “Sit, Blue. Well, look at that—you’re a good teacher, Miguel! Okay,” he said, gathering up his things. “I gotta git, but you two be good for your mama, y’hear?” Then he boot-scooted his fine self out of there, Blue trotting along behind.

Bizarre.

And all the way home, as Miguel yammered about how cool Eli was, the whole dog-sitting incident bugged. Yeah, Eli’d done and said all the right things, but Tess couldn’t shake the feeling something was off. Not that he didn’t like kids, or even that he didn’t know what to do with them, but…