What a Man's Gotta Do

“I’m real sorry to hear about your husband,” he said.

Mala glanced at him, clearly as startled as he was, then away. “S’okay. It’s ancient history now. But thanks. I guess. Lucas, now. We’ve got to go—”

“Not until you help me with a taste test!” Galen said as she waddled over to the prep table. She planted her hands on her swollen belly, either ignoring or oblivious to the tension sputtering around her. “Wow, it smells absolutely fantastic!” She picked up a fork from the tray on the end of the table and went after the sausage and peppers. “C’mon, Mal—dig in. You know you want to.”

“Galen, really, I’d love to—” Mala wrestled the coat onto the boy, who kept craning his neck to stare at Eddie like he couldn’t figure out what he was “—but I’m so far behind now—”

“Oh, my God!” Galen pressed her hand to her chest, her expression downright rapturous, then dug into the ziti. Two seconds of chewing later, she said, “You can start looking for that apartment, because mister, you are hired! Mmm, Mal—” she swallowed “—what about yours?”

“What about my what?”

“Your upstairs apartment. Didn’t you say you were looking for a tenant?”

The words bad and idea came roaring out onto the field from opposite sides of Eddie’s brain and collided right at the fifty-yard line. It was one thing dealing with tight jeans for fifteen minutes, another thing entirely dealing with the prospect of being permanently—and hopelessly—erect for the next four or five months.

Because that’s what living anywhere near this woman would mean. He didn’t understand any more now than he did twenty years ago what it was about Mala Koleski that turned him on so much, but the fact was, she did. However, what he did understand was that—even allowing for the mutual consideration of such an eventuality—women with kids were bad news, not unless the idea of long haul was at least sitting on the sidelines. Hell, in Eddie’s case, they weren’t even in the stadium.

And judging from Mala’s expression, she apparently thought the idea held about the same appeal as lying naked on hot coals. He wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or flattered. Or what to do with the image of her lying naked on anything, which was now stuck to his brain like a piece of Scotch tape you can’t shake off. “Oh, uh…eventually, sure,” Mala said, then waved her hands. “Wait a minute…what about the apartment over the restaurant?”

“Not available. I promised it to Hannah Braden a few days ago.” Galen turned to Eddie, her nose wrinkled. “College kid, wants a little independence, you know how it is.”

“Well, my place isn’t available, either. I mean, not yet.” Cheeks blazing, Mala knelt down to zip the kid’s coat. “It’s not fixed up. The other tenants left it in a real mess and—”

“Oh, get over yourself. What did they do…leave crumbs on the counter? Besides, you just said yourself you needed to get someone in there soon.”

Shew. That glare Mala was giving Galen could broil steaks.

“Hey, look, it’s okay,” Eddie interjected before somebody spontaneously combusted. “Besides, I need to find someplace furnished—”

“Oh, it is,” Galen said, a tiny frown nestling between her brows, like she was wondering why everybody was making this so complicated. “And it’s just a few blocks away, too.” Then she leaned over and stage-whispered, “And she’s a real pushover. Bet she’d let you have it for next to nothing.”

“Galen! Honestly! Would you mind letting me negotiate my own deals?”

A triumphant smile spread across the redhead’s face. “Be my guest.”

Mala opened her mouth, only to immediately shut it again.

A short person tugged on Eddie’s sleeve. He looked down into Lucas’s blue eyes, fought the urge to straighten the kid’s glasses. “If you come live with us, I’ll let you borrow Mr. Boffin.”

“Lucas, for heaven’s sake—he wouldn’t be living with us! Just…oh, rats.” Mala forked one hand through her hair, which only added to her frazzled look. Then she said to Galen, “Mind if we use your office?” turned on her flat heel at Galen’s “Sure” and stomped to the back.

Chapter 2

Eddie followed, shutting the door behind him. Damn, but it was a small office.

“Open the door,” Mala said.

He did. It didn’t help.

As badly as he’d wanted to see if she was as soft as she’d looked twenty years ago, that was nothing compared with how much he wanted to find out now. And if it’d only been a certain part of his anatomy talking, he probably could’ve ignored it a lot better than he was doing. But there was something else going on here, something he didn’t understand and certainly didn’t like. Something that involved wanting to ease those worry lines in her brow and convince her that not all men were idiots even though Eddie wasn’t all that sure they weren’t.

Especially the ones in this room.

“We don’t have to let her bully us, you know,” she said, startling a grin out of him.

He slipped his hands in his pockets, wondering if it was just his imagination that Mala seemed to be having a real hard time focusing on his face. “No, I suppose we don’t.” And here’s where he could have said, without any trouble at all, “And I could just go find someplace else, so why don’t we just forget about it?” So nobody was more surprised than him to hear come out of his mouth, “But sounds to me like you got an apartment that needs a tenant. And it just so happens I need a place to live. So this could be a mutually advantageous proposition, when you get right down to it.”

Mala looked at him, wide-eyed, while he weighed the danger of getting down to…things and wondered when his mouth and libido had joined forces against his brain. She crossed her arms. “Do you smoke?”

“Not anymore.”

For a second, she almost looked disappointed. Except then she half smiled, just enough for him to see the dimples, and he thought maybe she was about to say something else. Only she didn’t, not right then at least, like her thoughts had tripped her up. He thought again about this business of him unintentionally rattling women the way he did, and it occurred to him that this one didn’t seem to be quite as rattled as most. At least, not in the same way. Even as a teenager, she’d had no compunction about looking him dead in the eye. And even now, while he could plainly see something like fear etched in those faint lines around her mouth, the fear wasn’t about him, he didn’t think, as much as it was about herself.

Although, the way he was thinking at the moment, maybe it should be about him.

And where did he get off guessing what was going on inside other people’s heads? Let alone worrying about it?

Then they both seemed to realize they’d been staring at each other for some time, which apparently provoked Mala into saying, in a rush, “Okay, here’s the deal. It’s a small one-bedroom apartment, separate entrance, on the top floor of my house. There’s a kitchenette and a full bath. Yes, it’s furnished, but we’re not talking the Hilton, here. Despite Galen’s avowals to the contrary, the tenants did leave it in a mess, and I haven’t had a chance to clean it yet, so don’t come crying to me if the toilet doesn’t sparkle. I normally charge four-fifty a month, plus utilities, but since you’ll be moving into it ‘as is,’ I’ll knock off two hundred bucks for the first month. It’s actually a pretty good deal, considering. And it’s close.”

“And you don’t want me there.”

“Smart man.”

“So why’re you giving me a sales pitch?”

“Because I need the money and prospective tenants aren’t exactly lined up around the block.”

Traces of what was left of her perfume wriggled through the cooking smells from the other side of the door. Something pretty, unfussy. Potent. He thought for a moment. Real hard. And not with the part of his anatomy that was.

“In other words, you can’t be picky.”

“You got it.”

“I’ll need a place for my car.”

“There’s a detached garage in the back. You can use it.”

“Well, then, it sounds good to me. As long as—”

“But you have to promise to stay away from the kids.”

Not that he’d planned on adopting the little buzzards, but still. His eyes narrowed. “Since I’m not much of a kid person, that shouldn’t be a problem. But what prompted this…condition?”

She let her breath out in a harsh sigh, then pinned him with her gaze again. “I can tell how much the kids already like you.”

That was not what he’d expected her to say. “I don’t—”

“Galen told me all about your not ever staying in one place very long. This is nothing personal, believe me…” She stopped, studied her hands for a moment. “They’ve been abandoned once already,” she said softly. “And to be perfectly honest…well, Carrie sees Galen with her husband, and my brother with his new wife, and I can see the wheels turning in her head. That they have a complete family and we don’t. Or at least, what she thinks of as ‘complete.’” In the split second between sentences, Eddie saw her eyes darken. “What kind of mother would I be, letting them become attached to somebody who’s only going to be around for a few months? So if you take the apartment, you have to promise me you won’t let them glom on to you.”