Kindergarten Cupids

It was the first real emotion he’d shown and it pierced her own fragile armor. Especially his accusation that she didn’t feel for the boys.

She tilted her chin. “I am thinking of the boys. They’ve been apart since before kindergarten broke up last year. Why throw them back together now, when we know it will only be for a short time?” Why throw the two of us together, she wanted to add, when it will only keep the bitter memories alive for both of us?

But Mardi knew in her heart that it wasn’t bitter memories she was worried about. It had more to do with a tall, handsome, potently attractive man with cobalt-blue eyes who’d been haunting her dreams for months. Why did that stranger at the gate have to turn out to be Sylvia Templar’s husband and Benjamin Templar’s father? And why did he have to turn up here, making demands that would force her to see more of him?

“They’re only five years old,” he said, visibly changing tack, the hard light in his eye softening a trifle. “They don’t understand what’s happened, or why they’re being kept apart. They only know they want to see each other again.”

He leaned forward, using the full force of his compelling blue gaze. “I know it will be as difficult for you as it will for me, Mrs. Sinclair, but I think we should put our own feelings aside…for the sake of our sons.”

For the sake of our sons. Mardi felt a tremor, recalling Nicky’s plaintive pleas to see Ben again. Was she being selfish by keeping the boys apart? Was she thinking more of herself than two little boys in need? “Mardi,” she reminded him absently, as she found herself wavering.

“Mardi.” He gave a brief smile, and her eyes flickered under its impact. What, she wondered dazedly, would a real smile be like?

“Look, let the boys see each other…for as long as you’re still here.” Cain injected a note of pleading into his voice. “Come to dinner with us tonight. A casual meal together to break the ice.”

She thought of Nicky’s unhappy face, of his constant pleas to see Ben, and felt herself weakening even more. But she wasn’t going to cave in yet. “We—we can’t come tonight. There’s my grandfather to—”

“Maybe he’d enjoy it, too.”

She shook her head, her eyes wistful. “I don’t think so. He doesn’t go out much. He has a bad hip and it’s too painful for him. He’s—” She was about to say “waiting for an operation,” but Cain Templar wouldn’t understand why anyone should have to wait. He’d have private health insurance and wouldn’t even know about waiting lists at public hospitals.

“Besides,” she continued, “Grandpa doesn’t eat much these days.” Which was just as well, with tonight’s dinner lying in ruins. She still had some vegetable soup she’d made a couple of days ago, she remembered. She could add some potatoes—she had one or two left. And she had bread in the freezer. That would have to do for tonight. Followed by whatever she could salvage of her carrot cake.

Cain thrust his face closer, and she felt her breath stop for a disturbing second. “Then let Nicky come and play with Ben tomorrow. At our home. It’s Saturday and I’ll be home all day.” He pinned her with his magnetic blue gaze. “I’ll come and pick him up in the morning, give the boys lunch and drop Nicky home again later in the day.”

She hesitated, biting her lip. “I—I’d prefer to have the boys here—” she faltered “—where I can keep an eye on them myself. I—I like to know exactly where Nicky is and what he’s doing.” She wasn’t sure she trusted Cain Templar. He obviously wasn’t used to looking after small boys. What if Nicky fell over and broke his glasses and no one was there to help him? What if Ben had a temper tantrum and Nicky couldn’t deal with it?

Cain looked faintly surprised, which didn’t unduly surprise her. He and his wife, she was well aware, had been in the habit of leaving their son with baby-sitters—though Sylvia had shown more interest in Ben, she reflected caustically, when she’d started her involvement with Darrell. Their sons, wanting to play with each other after kindergarten or at weekends, had given them a perfect cover, a perfect excuse to see each other.

Of course, they’d soon found an even more convincing excuse to see each other—alone. The lonely, neglected wife, needing legal advice from her new lawyer friend. Darrell had never told Mardi what kind of legal advice Sylvia Templar had sought.

Perhaps Sylvia Templar had been seeking a divorce from her husband and Darrell had been giving her advice, or even setting the wheels into motion.

Had she? Mardi’s teeth clamped down on her lip. And had Darrell—besotted as he’d been with this rich, beautiful, perfect woman, whose home he’d described as a palace—been planning to divorce his wife? His boring suburban housewife?

Mardi jumped as she felt Cain Templar’s hand on her arm. “I meant for you to come, too…naturally,” he said, his voice gentler than she’d heard it so far. But his eyes were unreadable, projecting little warmth. Well, perhaps hers weren’t, either, she thought wryly. They were, after all, arranging this reunion purely for the sake of their sons.

“Ah…” was all she could say, the last of her arguments crumbling.

“How about I pick you both up at ten-thirty?” he suggested, a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. “Is that too early?”

“No…ten-thirty’s fine,” she said faintly, wondering what she was getting herself into. To spend a whole day with Cain Templar…How unwise was that? And why would he want to spend his time with her? Simply because she’d insisted on being there to watch over her son?

Her eyes flickered in quick suspicion.

“If I’m coming, too, there’s no need for you to come and pick us up,” she said firmly. “I have my own car.” She could always park it a few doors down the street so that Cain Templar wouldn’t be embarrassed by her old bomb. Darrell had bought her a secondhand car under sufferance, when she’d insisted on going back to work part-time. Her husband hadn’t believed in working wives. Wives were meant to stay at home and run the household. In return for his “generosity,” she’d had to agree to the purchase of his ill-fated BMW.

“As you wish.” Cain’s blue eyes were as cool as his tone. “Well, I must go,” he said, and she nodded, pleased that he seemed anxious, finally, to get home to his son.

Next minute he was gone, leaving the air crackling and swirling in his wake. She had to take several deep breaths on her way to the bathroom. Cain Templar was a forceful, dynamic presence and an incredibly persuasive man. Determined as she’d been not to get involved with the Templar family, he’d swept all her arguments aside.

But his motives weren’t so clear. Did he genuinely love and care about his son—the son he’d left recently for eight long weeks? The son he’d left so often with baby-sitters? Or did he simply want a more controllable son and a more peaceful, undemanding life at home?

She sighed as she trudged back along the passage.

About twenty minutes later, as she was drying Nicky’s hair after his bath, she heard the front doorbell ring again.

“Oh, no,” she groaned. “Who is it now?”

“I’ll get it,” Grandpa shouted from the den, and she heard his stick tap-tapping along the passage.

“Well, be careful,” she yelled out. “Take it slowly.” Grandpa tried so hard to help her, but every movement was painful for him, every step a hazard.

“I am, I am!”

A few moments later she heard voices, and footsteps coming along the passage to the kitchen. One was Grandpa’s voice and the other a deeper voice that sounded suspiciously like—

Her hands froze midair.

“Mummy, you’ve stopped rubbing!”

“Sorry.” She resumed her rubbing, but with her ears pricked, trying to pick out what the two men in the kitchen were saying. Why had Cain Templar come back? Had he left something behind? Or had he already changed his mind about tomorrow? Maybe he’d remembered something more important he had to do.

Mardi tightened her lips, wondering if he was in the habit of letting his son down. She just hoped he hadn’t told Ben in advance that he intended to visit Nicky.

She frowned, straining to hear. She could only hear Grandpa’s voice now, and she would have sworn he was thanking the other man for something. But for what? Had Cain told him about tomorrow’s planned reunion for the two boys? Grandpa knew how much Nicky wanted to see Ben again. But would he be thanking Cain for bringing that Jezebel’s son back into their lives?

She heard her grandfather calling out goodbye with a gusto she hadn’t heard from him for some time, then firm footsteps—not Grandpa’s—sounded again in the passage and a moment later the front door slammed shut. Cain Templar had gone.

She released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Well, he obviously hadn’t come back to see her. She wasn’t sure if she felt disappointment or relief.

She heard the tap-tap of Grandpa’s stick coming from the kitchen, and a moment later his head poked round the bathroom door. “That was your friend again. He brought us dinner.”

“He brought us what?”

“He said it was his fault you burned our dinner, and he’s brought us another pie and another cake, from some homemade cake shop, he said.”

Mardi rose slowly to her feet, touched, despite herself, by Cain’s thoughtful gesture. Or was it more that he felt sorry for her, because he’d guessed that she was hurting financially? She flushed, glad that she hadn’t had the embarrassment of having to accept his offer herself. She didn’t want anyone’s charity! Especially not his.

“Wow! Let’s go and look!” Nicky made a dash for the kitchen, with Grandpa, broadly smiling, hobbling behind. Mardi didn’t follow immediately, cleaning the tub and tidying up first. But despite her misgivings about accepting charity from a virtual stranger—from a Templar—it was a load off her mind to have another pie and cake to give to her family for dinner.

She hadn’t had too many loads taken off her mind lately.

Chapter Three

“Are we nearly there, Mummy?”

“Nearly, darling.” Mardi glanced over her shoulder at her fidgety, bright-eyed son and smiled. If she’d had any doubts about accepting Cain Templar’s invitation to his home today, the glow on Nicky’s face since she’d told him he’d be seeing Ben again had chased them away. If there were to be any consequences in the future, she would worry about them then. “Here’s Ben’s street now.”