“Exactly.”
“They’ve mixed it up some this year with a private charity party thrown in on Friday night. Great for them, but I lose my whole day on Friday now, since I have to be set up earlier.”
“So an extra set of hands would be good. I could help.”
Kate wanted this so much, and not just to see Royal Oak, either. Kate wanted to be wi sntet of hanth Matt.
“I’d like that,” Matt said, and their eyes held for a long moment.
“But really, guys. They’re not dating. Not even a little bit,” Lizzie said in a deadpan voice. “Can’t you tell?”
Maura made an odd sound. “Okay, and I’m about to be not pregnant. Not even a little bit.”
“What do you mean?” Lizzie asked.
Maura settled a hand on her belly. “I’ve been trying to be cool about it, but all of a sudden my contractions are getting pretty aggressive.”
Matt stood up. “Contractions, as in labor?”
“Bingo. I thought it was just Braxton Hicks lead-up stuff, or we would have stayed home. After all, who wants to disrupt a perfectly good Spaghetti Tuesday?” She closed her eyes for a moment and blew out a slow breath. “Guess I was wrong. If this is anything like last time, it’s going to be fast. Lizzie, could you go outside and round up Todd?”
“Sure,” Lizzie replied, then headed out through the kitchen doorway.
“You can still take the girls for the night as we’d planned, right, Anne? They’re upstairs playing in my old room.”
Anne pushed back in her chair. “No problem. Let me get Jack and we’ll go take care of things at your house.”
Lizzie reappeared with a tall, dark, and semi-worried-looking guy Kate knew had to be Maura’s husband.
He rounded the table and took Maura by the hand. “I told you those contractions were the real deal, babe. Your suitcase is in the trunk, right?”
“Todd, this is Kate. Kate, this is Todd,” Maura said.
Kate had to give Maura major props for having good manners during childbirth. She doubted she’d be able to show the same grace.
“Nice to meet you,” Todd said to Kate, but his eyes never left his wife.
Kate gazed at the empty doorway after Todd and Maura left the room, smiling at each other, holding hands, and Kate realized she’d wanted that love and connection when she’d fallen for her ex. She might not have gotten it quite right back then, but she recognized a solid relationship when she saw one.
When she glanced away, she caught Matt watching her, and the warmth in his eyes had her heart skipping beats.
Matt’s mom leaned her head out of the kitchen, ending the moment before Kate was quite ready to have it over. “Matt, could you and Kate take care of putting away dinner before you come over to the hospital?”
And then, suddenly the house was empty of Culhanes, except for Matt.
Th s=”jed witey moved into the kitchen, and Matt began putting plates away. “This is a new twist on Spaghetti Tuesday.”
Kate helped him with the plates. There was something intimate about the two of them being alone in the house, she thought. A little exciting, too.
“Silverware goes in the drawer second down from the end,” Matt said.
They worked in silence for a minute or so, then he asked, “So you’ve seen my crew. What’s yours like?”
“Smaller. Different.”
“Any sisters?” Matt asked while digging through the contents of a lower cupboard.
“One sister and one brother. Bunny and Chip.”
“Seriously, those are their names?”
“Well, actually Barb and Larry, just like my mom and dad. Everyone calls them Bunny and Chip to save confusion.” She pointed to a harvest gold-colored plastic bowl filled with salad greens. “Do you know where the top to this is?”
He rummaged through the bottom drawer, then paused to look up at her. “So among you summer people, when do adults become too old for names like that?”
“Never. The same holds true in the townie set. Witness Junior Greinwold.”
Matt laughed. “Point taken.”
He handed her the bowl’s lid. “So how’d you luck out and end up without a nickname?”
Kate returned the salad to the fridge. “It was a near miss. Since mom and dad had already used up their own names, they could have moved on to the family parakeet’s.”
“Which was?”
“Spike.”
Matt smiled. “I kind of like it. I think there might be some Spike in you. Remember, I saw you take down the fire chief,” Matt said. “That was definitely a Spike moment.”
Kate squelched a groan. “What should I do with the garlic bread?”
He handed her a box of aluminum foil. “How about if we take the bread and spaghetti to the hospital crew? I know Maura thinks this is going be fast, but I remember what it was like in that waiting room last time.” He smiled. “All the same, it’s totally worth the wait.”
Kate hesitated in her wrapping.
“What?” he asked. “Maybe just the spaghetti should go?”
“No, definitely the garlic bread. But how about if I just help you get things packaged up? I’d feel a little intrusive being there. I mean, Maura and I just met.”
Kate loved what she had seen of the Culhanes, but whatever she and Matt had going on between them didn’t make her family.
“Huh. I guess I wasn’t looking at it that way,” Matt said. “I was thinking more about how I’d like you to be there.”
“You would?”
He came closer and tipped up her chin so that their eyes met. “I like being with you. I like having you next to me. Haven’t you figured that out yet?” Matt lowered his mouth to hers and brushed a light kiss across her lips.
TWELVE
Kate had become a human battlefield. Ten days of excitement over heading home to Royal Oak warred with ten nights’ worth of nervous insomnia produced by the same trip. She’d been tempted to go with Matt to the hospital or his bedroom or wherever their kiss might lead, but in the end, she had him drop her off at her house before he went to find Maura and the rest of his family. The sun hadn’t completely risen when Matt pulled up The Nutshell’s drive. Kate, however, had been packed and ready for a good couple of hours. Preloaded with caffeine, she was waiting by the front door with her suitcase in hand. Matt exited the truck, took the suitcase, and stuck it in the backseat.
Matt opened the passenger door. “Do you want to lock up the house?”
“I can’t lock it. I don’t think we’ve had keys since my parents bought the place. All I can do is dead-bolt it from the inside. Let’s just go.”
“I don’t want to be an alarmist, but since I just changed the locks at the brewery and hired a night guard, I’m tuned in to security issues. Keene’s Harbor’s a great place, but we have our share of crazies, too.”
“All under control.
Matt glanced at Kate. She was really ready. Almost too ready. “Is everything okay?”
Kate fidgeted in her seat. “Everything is perfectly under control.”
The front door burst open and two or three workmen in hazmat jumpsuits ran out the door waving their arms frantically, screaming jibberish. Matt watched as they ran to the back of Kate’s house and jumped into the lake.
Matt got out of his car and walked up to Kate’s front door. There was a faint buzzing coming from inside her
