Courtney stood on the hot sidewalk watching as one of the gray and white kitties jumped from the lower shelf of the cat tree onto his littermates. That one—she had no idea whether it was Athos, Aramis, or Porthos—had lots of personality and a feisty attitude. She could almost see him coming to live in her apartment.
Wait. No. She did not want a cat. She yearned for a husband and a baby and a family, but of course that was impossible. She needed to quit before that kitten wormed its way into her heart.
She’d just pulled herself away from the abundant cuteness when the store’s front door opened and Melissa came out onto the sidewalk wearing her favorite To Kill a Mockingbird T-shirt.
“Hey, I saw you looking at Aramis. Wanna take him home?”
Courtney felt superglued to the sidewalk as her brain started coming up with all the reasons why a cat might actually be better than a baby. She resisted, and while she battled, she noticed something odd about Melissa’s shirt.
The sleeves looked a little tight under the arms, and it stretched across her front like it might bust a seam any minute. Melissa had owned that T-shirt for at least five years and wore it every week. It was old and faded and unlikely to shrink at this late date. So if the shirt was the same size, then…
Oh crap.
“You’re pregnant,” Courtney said. Her words were not a question.
Melissa smiled and nodded.
Matt slept poorly on Thursday night, so he was in a grumpy mood when he arrived downstairs in his parents’ kitchen the next morning. Mom had once again insisted on making him scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. When would she catch on to the fact that he wasn’t much of a breakfast eater?
“Are you okay?” she asked as he helped himself to the cup of coffee she’d poured.
“I’m fine. Why?”
She turned her back on him. “Oh, nothing. It’s just that you came home so early last night.”
Damn. Most people had parents who worried when they got in late. His parents not so much. It was embarrassing to have his mother so concerned about him because he’d come home from a date at 7:30 p.m. It reminded him of his high school days—a time that held zero nostalgia for him.
Matt had most definitely not been the big man on campus in his younger days. He’d had to compete with his older brother and cousins. His cousin Andrew, the Boy Scout, had chaired the debate club when Matt was a freshman. His brother Daniel, the bad boy, had starred as Nathan Detroit in the school’s production of Guys and Dolls when Matt was a sophomore. His cousin Edward, the foreign-policy nerd, had chaired the school’s Model UN team when Matt was a junior. Even his cousin Amy, who hadn’t excelled academically, had outshined him in high school by virtue of her impeccable fashion sense.
What had come naturally to his family had required years of hard work for Matthew to master. Having Mom hovering over him now, shooting him pitying looks, did nothing to assuage the toxic stew of emotions that churned in his mind and unsettled his stomach, compliments of Courtney Wallace.
What the hell was she up to? Was she crazy? Desperate? Messing with him? Cruel and self-centered like Allison? Or had she been joking? He needed to know, but a sleepless night hadn’t answered any of his questions. If she’d been joking, the joke had fallen flat.
But then again, Matt probably deserved an off-color joke. He should never have taken Brandon’s bet.
Well, either way, he was finished chasing Courtney. A wise man would pay Brandon his one hundred dollars, walk away, and never look back.
“You know, honey,” Mom said, breaking into his thoughts, “you can talk to me about stuff. I know how hard your father is on you sometimes, and—”
“I’m okay. Really.”
She gave him a skeptical look.
He needed to cut this cord. Now. Or she’d drive him insane. “Mom, you know how much I appreciate that you and Dad have let me stay here the last few weeks, but I think I need to find a place of my own.”
“Hallelujah,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “I thought the day would never come.”
What the hell? “You’re okay with that?”
“Of course I am. In fact, let me help you find a place. I’ll call your Uncle Jamie’s real estate person and get you a list of apartments. Would that be okay?”
He ground his teeth. Would she never stop holding his hand? “You know, Mom, I can probably find a place on my—”
“It’s no problem. Let me do the first search, weed out the unacceptable ones, and then you can look at options.”
He begrudgingly agreed to this plan, mostly because she wouldn’t take no for an answer. And then he finished his coffee and made a beeline to the office before she could start planning other parts of his life.
Twenty minutes after he’d arrived at work, Arwen strolled into his office, made herself comfortable in his single side chair, and asked, “So, how was your date last night? To be honest, I was impressed that you asked her out to a nice restaurant.”
He leaned forward on his elbows. “Did she send you here to ask that question?”
Arwen straightened in her chair, clearly surprised. “Of course not. I’m here for our pre-meeting before Leslie Heath arrives.”
“Oh yeah. I forgot. Well, if you want to know how it went, ask her.” He practically snarled the words.
Arwen studied him intently for a long moment with a stare that penetrated him, and not in a good way. A slow smile curved her lips. “She scored points last night, didn’t she? God, she’s good.”
He frowned. “Good at what? Being outrageous? Man bashing?”
“What did she do?”
“I’m not going to discuss it,” he said, shooting the words like bullets. He
