Mummy in the Making

She sighed audibly. “I don’t know, I just kept watching what all of you did with your kids and thinking that I don’t know any of it.”

“You have some time to learn, to get ready,” he said on a positive note.

“I’m not sure time will help.”

Hutch did glance into the rear of the SUV then, at Ash, pausing the conversation for longer than seemed necessary.

Then he looked at Issa again and said, “How about a crash course? Would that help?”

She had the impression that he’d weighed those words before he’d said them, that that had been the purpose of that pause.

“A crash course?” Issa repeated because she wasn’t sure what he was offering. If he was offering anything.

“In kids. In parenting, although I’m in no way an expert. But I know from my own experience that it isn’t easy to step into those shoes, so I’d be willing to give you a couple of lessons. And the loan of some child-rearing books I still go to whenever I have a question. And there’s also Ash. You could do some practicing on him so you can start to get used to kids, to being around the little ones and dealing with them.”

She didn’t know if Hutch had any idea how generous she considered his offer to be at that moment.

Taking her eyes off the road to look at him, she said, “Really?”

He shrugged as if it were nothing. “I’ll make you a deal. The Realtor gave me a list of properties for sale in town so I could drive by them and decide if I want to see inside any of them before she sets anything up—”

“Marsha Pinkell? She gave me a list, too. Probably the same one because Northbridge is a small town and there aren’t that many things available.”

“All the better. I was going to say that you could help me find the places, but now it’ll give you the chance to check them out, too. And while we’re at it, I was also going to say that we could trade services—I’ll do the crash course in parenting for you if you give me the guided tour of Northbridge and introduce me around, help me to start becoming part of the community.”

“I’m not really part of the community—I haven’t lived here since I went away to college.”

“You’re still a hometown girl. Jenna said you hadn’t seen each other in years and years, but you picked right up where you’d left off with her. I’m betting that’ll happen with everyone. In fact, it’ll give you the chance to get it started, let people know you’re back. Or is this too much to ask of a Bashful Betty?”

It was. But the stress of that was less than the stress she’d been suffering over the thought of becoming a totally unprepared and incompetent mother.

So she made a counter-suggestion.

“How about if rather than making a whole project of introducing you around, I just do it when the opportunity arises, like when we run into someone I know. I don’t think I can promise to be your sole entry into Northbridge society, but I think I can give you a foot in the door.”

“Fair enough. So it’s a deal?”

Was it a deal? Issa asked herself as she pulled his SUV into the driveway beside her own, smaller version.

Turning off the engine roused Ash, who sleepily demanded, “Where Za-Za?”

“Za-Za?” Issa parroted.

“The floppy lion he sleeps with. Don’t ask me why he calls him Za-Za, he just does,” Hutch confided before he got out of the SUV, closed his door and immediately opened the rear one to lean inside to say to Ash, “It’s okay, buddy. I’ll have you in bed with Za-Za in a minute.”

Issa decided she could use that minute to consider the deal she might be striking with Hutch Kincaid.

Earlier in the evening she’d reminded herself to beware of this man because he was the kind of guy she knew she was susceptible to. And nothing about that had changed, she reflected as she got out of the SUV and went up to the house’s main door to unlock it.

Plus she realized she was susceptible to Hutch in particular. If she weren’t, during the drive home she wouldn’t have been as aware as she had been of the scent of his cologne, of the heat of his body just a console away, of that long arm stretched across the back of her seat.

She wouldn’t have thought so much about her hands being on the same steering wheel his hands had been on, or that she was sitting where he usually sat, and liking the sort of familiarity that seemed to breed.

She wouldn’t have just spent the past few hours at the barbecue stealing every glimpse of him that she could steal, and then have been secretly pleased afterward to have him to herself again.

So was it smart now to sign on for spending more time with him? She pondered the question as she opened the door and waited for Hutch to finish getting his son out of the car. Because time would have to be spent with him if she showed him around Northbridge, if she showed him whatever properties were on the market, and if she had him teach her what to do with a kid.