She pressed her lips together and glared at him.
“Are you okay?” he asked belatedly. “Did you get hurt?”
“I’m fine, but I’m disgusting. I never realized being a mother was so dangerous.”
He gently helped her to her feet, then put his arm around her shoulders and steered her to the stairs. “I have a great idea. How about if you take a nice, hot, relaxing shower, wash all the beans away, get dressed in one of my clean shirts, and I’ll mop up the floor?”
She dug her heels in at the foot of the stairs. “Wait a minute. Is this a trick to get me up to your bedroom in a naked condition?”
“That’s insulting. Boy, that really hurts. What kind of a person do you think I am?”
“Desperate? Perverted? Lecherous?”
“Besides that?”
Megan smiled at him. He wasn’t desperate, perverted, or lecherous. He’d been very nice. For three days now he’d been a perfect gentleman. A little too perfect, she admitted. She missed getting swept off her feet by his passionate kisses. She knew it was all for the best, yet still, it had become a tad frustrating. It was like waiting for an earthquake that never happened. You were relieved, but you were also strangely disappointed.
Ten minutes later, she stepped out of the small upstairs bathroom and admired Pat’s bedroom while she towel – dried her hair. These two rooms occupied the entire top floor of the cottage. The bedroom was directly under the eaves, so that the roof sloped on two sides, and two dormer windows looked out on the street. Window seats had been built into the alcoves, and their chintz teal cushions matched the puffy down quilt on the queen – size cherry wood four- poster. The upper half of the room was papered in a small, Williamsburg teal – and cream print. Below the chair rail the walls were painted creamy white. Two large pewter- and glass chimneyed candlesticks sat on the low cherry dresser.
It was the most romantic bedroom Megan had ever seen. It was a room for loving long into the night, she thought dreamily, until the candles were melted stubs and the lovers were sated and comfortably entwined under the feather quilt. She had such a strong feeling of belonging in the room that the thought of Pat lying under the quilt without her brought a painful lump to her throat.
Dumb, Megan, she told herself. Really dumb. You’re going to let that good, solid brick wall you’ve built around yourself crumble because the guy sleeps in a room with wallpaper and a pineapple bedstead.
Kitchen sounds drifted up to her. The refrigerator opened and closed, spoons clanked on glass bowls, and there was a soft splat followed by an expletive. “What happened?” she called down.
“I dropped a damn egg on the damn floor, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put Humpty – Dumpty together again. I wish you’d get down here. I have something to ask you.”
She put her jeans back on and helped herself to a blue plaid flannel shirt hanging in Pat’s closet. It all felt very intimate, wearing his shirt, using his shower. Downstairs their baby would sleep in his crib by the fireplace. And Pat was making domestic sounds in the kitchen, waiting to ask her something. Lord, what could it be? The Big Question? He’d already told her he wanted her. It was all a little sudden, but sometimes love was like that. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter. Megan Hunter. She looked at herself in the mirror. She was over the edge.
“Are you around the bend?” she asked her reflection. “Mrs. Hunter? Don’t you ever learn?” She stomped down the stairs. “Just because I’m wearing your shirt, don’t think I’m going to marry you.”
He stared at her, blank – faced.
“Wasn’t that what you were going to ask me?”
“No. I was going to ask you to crack the eggs for the gingerbread. I keep making a mess of it.”
She looked at the brown dough in the big bowl on the counter. “Sure, I get all the tough jobs.”
“So why don’t you want to marry me?”
“Nothing personal. I don’t want to marry anyone. I’m a free spirit. I’m the wind. I’m a saucy strumpet.”
He grinned. “Do you know what a strumpet is?”
“Not exactly.”
He whispered the definition in her ear.
“Hmmm,” she said. “Well, I’m not one of those.”
He draped his arm around her shoulders. “What about it, Windy? Will you crack my eggs?”
“I suppose it’s the least I could do, since you’ve mixed everything else together.”
An hour later, Megan took the last cookie sheet out of the oven and set it on a wire rack. “This isn’t going to work,” she told Pat. “You’ve already eaten half of the cookies. We’ll never get enough for Thanksgiving at this rate.”
“I can’t help it. They’re great. Besides, I’m not the only guilty party.”
She planted her fists on her hips. “I ate one cookie. One!”
“Yes, but you’re wearing half a dozen.”
She examined her shirt. It was caked with cookie dough and smudged with flour. “I’m not a neat cook.”
He tweaked her nose. “You’re an adorable cook.”
So they were back to nose tweaks, she thought, pouting. Fine. “I’m going home.”
He looked disappointed. “I’ll make cocoa and popcorn if you’ll stay awhile longer.”
“I can’t. Tomorrow is Saturday. I have to work tomorrow.” That much was true, but she could have stayed. She was just in a snit because he’d tweaked her on the nose. Men were so fickle. One minute they were slobbering all over you in a fit of passion, and the next thing they didn’t want to marry you. The hell with them.
“Where’s your car?” he asked. “I didn’t see it when I parked in the garage.”
“It’s at Merchants Square. I went to see Tilly’s apartment.”
“She’s not home.” He plunged his hands into his pockets. “I check on her every day.”
Megan glanced over at the little boy sleeping by the fireplace. “What happens if Tilly doesn’t come back?”
Pat leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. “I don’t know. I’d adopt him, honest to goodness I would, but it’s not that easy. I’m not sure of the law. I think he’ll be made a ward of the state, probably placed in a registered foster home until relatives can be located. Even if I tried to adopt him, it would take a year for the paper work to be done, and I probably wouldn’t get him, because I’m not married.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
Pat gritted his teeth when he saw the tears clinging to her lower lashes. He was close to tears himself, and he was mad. Tilly Coogan had disappointed him. She was a young unwed mother, but she’d seemed responsible and mature for her years. Timmy was a healthy, happy, well – loved baby. Ten days earlier Tilly and Timmy had left his office as a functioning family unit. And now she’d abandoned him. What had gone wrong? Maybe he should have been more observant. Maybe he could have prevented this.
He pulled Megan to him and hugged her, burying his face in her hair. “I don’t know, Meg. I’m giving her until Thanksgiving, and then I’ll hire a lawyer and a detective. In the meantime, we’ll take good care of Timmy.”
