An Engagement Of Convenience

If he was suffering a severe case of spring fever, he’d have to do something to take his mind off Lili.

He also had to do something fast to get rid of her before his dad made it all the way across the playing field. But parts of Tom still hurt too much to hurry, and a quick mental calculation told him he would never make it to the ice cream truck and back before his father arrived. Besides, how could he reject the woman’s efforts to help him?

Another problem was the way she’d taken to calling him Tom instead of her usual “Mr. Eldridge” in that intriguing accent. Intriguing enough to send his thoughts down paths he’d deliberately managed to avoid until now.

He turned back to check on his father’s progress, but Homer had stopped to admire a baby. Tom noticed Paulette streaking after another soccer ball and desperately looked around for some shrub where he could hide.

Before he could take refuge, Lili came hurrying up to him. “Now,” she said briskly as she glanced around the grassy area, “all we need to do is find a place for you to lie down.”

Lying down sounded like a good idea, Tom thought wryly as he put his weight on both legs. The problem was that he would be in plain sight for his father to spot him. The bigger problem was the brown paper bag Lili carried.

“Why?” he asked warily, even though he admitted that under difference circumstances, lying down with Lili might have been an idea worth considering.

“So that I can help you!”

To his dismay, she was gazing quizzically at his shorts.

“Help me?” Tom eyed the leaking brown bag. “If that’s what I think it is, I have to tell you I’m not in the mood for ice cream just now. Thanks, anyway.”

“No.” Lili smiled at what she obviously thought was his attempt at a joke.

If she only knew he wasn’t trying to be funny.

“When I told the ice cream vendor what had happened, he was kind enough to give me some ice cubes to ease your pain. I didn’t have any way to carry them, so he gave me this bag. Now, come with me,” she added. “As soon as we can find a place away from the ball field, I will apply the ice to your injury.”

Tom shivered at the thought of having Lili anywhere near his aching groin.

He tried putting his weight on his right foot. A sharp pain shot down his legs. “I’m sure I’ll be fine without the ice. Just give me another minute.”

“You are sure?” Lili eyed him dubiously. “Ice always helps Paulette when she scrapes her knee.”

“If it were my knee, Lili, I’d let you apply the ice cubes,” Tom said fervently. “As it is…” He hesitated at her blush. There was no way he could come up with a creative way to describe his injury without embarrassing them both.

It was time to compromise.

He glanced around the surrounding area. Letting Lili help him hide from his father sounded like a good idea, but that was as far as he was willing to go. Unfortunately, the only place to lie down, short of staggering back to his car, appeared to be on the other side of a grassy knoll a few yards away. He took a deep breath.

“Toss the ice cubes and follow me.”

To his dismay, after Lili tossed the bag of ice cubes behind a tree, she hurried to put her arm around his waist as he slowly made his way up and over the small embankment. He tried leaning away from her, but it wasn’t working. Even the lingering pain that ran through him couldn’t distract him from her sweet scent, earnest blue eyes and the determined set of her lips.

Tom swallowed a groan. The last thing he needed was Lili’s close proximity to remind him that while he might be mentally ready and willing, he wasn’t able.

“There.” Lili stopped and admired a lush patch of grass. “Now, stretch out, please.”

Tom still wasn’t convinced it was the brightest idea he’d ever had, but he let her help him sink to the ground. Once on his back, he closed his eyes and tried to relax, but nothing short of a tornado could have kept him from being aware of Lili.

“Just let me rest for a few minutes.” He threw an arm over his eyes to block out the strong sun shining down on him, and the look of concern in Lili’s eyes. The last time he’d experienced such tender loving care had been as a kid at his late mother’s knee, he thought fleetingly. But he was sure as hell a long way from thinking of Lili as his mother.

“You are certain you are going to be okay without the ice cubes?” Lili asked when she saw him wince. “I can always go back and get more.”

Between Lili’s attempt to help him and his father’s determination to see him married, Tom was beginning to feel like a goose being fattened up for dinner.

A child’s voice broke into his reverie. “Mama? Is the man going to be okay?”

Tom opened his eyes to see two wide hazel eyes gazing down at him with sympathy. Recognizing the kid’s shorts and shirt, he mustered a smile. “Don’t worry. I’m okay, Paulette.”

The kid frowned. “I’m not Paulette.”

Beside him, Lili giggled, a happy, tinkling laugh that, if he hadn’t felt like a fool, would have brought a smile to Tom’s face. “This isn’t Paulette.”

“No?” He shaded his eyes against the blinding sunlight. A closer look revealed a small boy with short blond hair instead of a golden ponytail.

“Don’t tell me there are two of you!” Tom groaned, then remembered Lili had mentioned twins. The thought that not one but two small children came with Lili was overwhelming. For a man who’d had almost nothing to do with kids for most of his adult life, he wasn’t sure how to apologize to the boy.

“Yes,” Lili replied, smiling fondly at the newcomer. “This is Paul, Paulette’s twin brother.”

“You don’t happen to have a soccer ball on you, do you?” Tom asked eying the boy warily.

Paul shook his head. “My sister plays soccer. I like action figures. I’m going to be an artist like my mother when I grow up.”

Tom smothered a sigh of relief, closed his eyes again and tried to pretend he was somewhere else. Somewhere nice and quiet where there were no soccer balls to dodge and no need for ice cubes to cool his overheated, aching body. And no children.

He must have fallen asleep for a few minutes, because the last thing he remembered was Lili leaning over him. The spaghetti straps holding up her body-hugging sundress drooped over creamy shoulders. In the hollow between her breasts, a single gold chain nestled, and wisps of blond hair fell over her forehead and tickled his nose.

The next time he opened his eyes, Lili was sitting cross-legged at his side and eating an ice cream cone. A few feet away, Paul was on his hands and knees investigating a gopher hole. To Tom’s amusement, the gopher turned out to be as curious about Paul as Paul was about him, and they almost bumped noses. Tom wasn’t sure who was the more surprised, the gopher or Paul.

Tom found himself laughing. By his side, Lili laughed, too. Judging from her loving glance, it was obvious she felt that children were a joy and a blessing, not a nuisance.

Tom realized that to strangers passing by, they must look like a normal family enjoying a picnic in the park.

Lili’s twins were cute, and he had a feeling that all it would take was a few more moments like this to make him forget Sullivan’s Rules calling for caution in male-female relationships.

Maybe the attraction was simply because he was vulnerable.

“Ah, so there you are!” Homer Eldridge beamed as he made his way over the grassy rise. “I lost sight of you for a while, but I knew that if I looked hard enough I’d find you.”

Tom smothered a groan.

Trouble had a way of following him, he mused as he tried to sit up. The picture of Lili, little Paul and him sitting together had apparently been enough to bring a smile to his father’s face. Tom hadn’t seen Homer so happy in years.

Happy was good, Tom thought with compassion as he gazed at his dad. Homer had been in the dumps ever since he’d talked himself into retiring from Today’s World, ostensibly to give Tom the opportunity to make his mark on the magazine. More likely, Tom suspected, his father had wanted to encourage him to settle down—in both his professional and personal life.

“Married with children” had become a broken record.

“Sorry I didn’t get up, Dad.” Tom explained to his father about the errant soccer ball. “I feel a little better now.

“By the way,” he added, remembering he wasn’t alone. “I guess I should introduce you to Lili Soulé. Lili is the magazine’s graphic artist. Lili, this is my dad, Homer Eldridge.”