the desk and looked at his toe. “Weren’t you folks in here yesterday?”
Ken raised his bright green cast. “Yesterday she broke my arm,” he announced merrily.
A second nurse appeared. Chris felt her face flame as the two nurses studied her suspiciously.
Ken completed the form. He raised his foot. “Today she broke my toe.”
“It was an accident,” Chris gasped.
The nurses looked at each other knowingly and studiously returned to their work.
“How could you embarrass me like that?” Chris looked around furtively to see if anyone else had heard.
“It’s okay.” He grinned. “She probably thought it was part of some bizarre sexual ritual.”
“Good heavens.”
“You should probably call the rink now and tell them you’ll be late, again.”
Chris stared at Ken, struck by the unpleasant reality that she’d sent this man to the hospital two days in a row-and that if positions had been reversed, she doubted she could be so good-natured. “I suppose I should be happy you have a sense of humor,” she ventured.
“Honey, my good mood has little to do with my sense of humor.”
Aunt Edna’s eyes opened wide as she stood back from the door. “What the devil happened?”
Ken carefully swung his foot over the doorjamb and eased himself into the room with the help of a single crutch. “It’s nothing serious, Aunt Edna. I stubbed my toe in the dark this morning and broke it.”
Chris slammed the door behind them. “He did not. He got fresh with me, and I stomped on it.”
Ken rested on his crutch, and looked at her quizzically. “I thought you found that story embarrassing.”
“Oh, what the hell,” she exclaimed in an offhand huff. “So I broke it. What’s the big deal?”
Ken smiled at Aunt Edna. “She’s sorry she broke it.”
Edna looked at the swollen toe taped to the one next to it. “He got fresh with you, huh?”
“Yes. Well, no. He sort of got me…disturbed.”
“Hmmm,” Edna said. “Disturbed?”
Ken slouched into the wingback chair and stretched his long legs in front of him, watching Chris with unguarded affection. “Disturbed?” he asked, the twitching corners of his mouth the only evidence of strangled laughter.
“I’d love to stay and explain all of this,” Chris told them, “but I’ve got to get to the rink.”
“Will you be home for lunch?” Edna asked.
Chris kissed the old woman good-bye and headed for the door. “No, I have to do some choreography today. I probably won’t be back until suppertime.”
Chris checked her watch as she walked up the steps to her town house. It was six-fifteen, and she felt as if she hadn’t slept in days. She opened the door and sniffed. A delicious aroma of herbs and spices wafted through the house. Aunt Edna’s world-famous oven-fried chicken, she decided. She flung her bag into a corner of the hall and shuffled toward the kitchen. It was after a terribly long day like this that she was especially thankful for Aunt Edna. If it weren’t for Edna, Chris knew she’d be staring into the freezer right now, wondering what the heck she could shove into the microwave. If it weren’t for Edna, the role of breadwinner and single mother would leave little time for Chris to read Dr. Seuss or listen attentively to Lucy’s exploits in school. Chris pushed through the kitchen doors. “Aunt Edna-”
Ken turned from the stove and gave her a look like the cat who swallowed the canary. “Nope. Just me, slaving away over a hot stove.”
“Where’s Aunt Edna?”
“Kansas City.”
“What do you mean, Kansas City?”
“Your cousin Stephanie had the baby three weeks premature and Edna flew out to stay with the twins.”
“How could she do that?”
“Stephanie? I don’t think she had much choice. George said her water broke at three twenty-five and she went right into labor…”
Chris blinked in dazed disbelief. Yesterday he’d been a stranger. Today he was ensconced in her kitchen, talking about her family as if it were his own. Babies and labor and broken water. “No,” she intoned mechanically, “not Stephanie…Aunt Edna. How could Aunt Edna do this to me? It will take me days to find someone reliable to watch Lucy.”
“Edna took Lucy with her.”
“She can’t do that! What about school?”
Ken took a bag of noodles from the counter and looked at it, mystified. He turned the bag over and read the instructions, his face brightening with the realization that he now knew how to cook noodles. “Edna said she’ll only be gone for a week, and that Lucy could use a vacation. I don’t think Edna is very impressed with first grade.”
Cold panic squeezed at Chris’ heart. The two people she loved most in the world were gone without even so much as a hug good-bye. And she was left alone with Ken Callahan. It was the latter condition that set her stomach churning and adrenaline flowing.
Ken reached out and gathered her to him. “You look like a lost little kitten,” he said. He stroked her hair. “Don’t worry. They’ll be fine. I took them to the airport myself. And Edna said they’d call as soon as they got to Kansas City.”
“How did you get them to the airport?”
“Taxi.” He raised his foot to display a bright red woolen sock covering the broken toe. “A broken toe isn’t so bad.”
She stepped away from him. “It was nice of you to help Edna and Lucy to the airport, but you’re going to have to leave, now.”
“I live here, remember?”
“I don’t want you to live here.”
Ken filled a pot with water and put it on the stove to boil. “Of course you do. Who will make your supper when you come home late like this?”
“You?” she snorted.
He pulled a package of frozen vegetables from the freezer and read the instructions. “I always wanted to learn how to cook.” He set the vegetables aside and dumped the entire bag of noodles into the boiling water.
“Holy cow,” Chris muttered. “I hope you like noodles. That could feed a family of six for two days.”
He seemed undaunted. “Hmmm,” he replied and emptied sixteen ounces of peas into a small saucepan. He smiled at her. “I surmise by the look of horror on your face that I’m cooking too many peas too.”
“I usually measure out about half and then tie the rest of the bag up with a twister tie.”
“Twister tie?”
Chris wrinkled her nose. “This isn’t going to work. I don’t need a cook. I think your aptitude is dubious, anyway.”
“Boy, you get cranky after a hard day at the skating rink,” he teased. He pushed her into the dining room and held her chair.
Chris looked at the table. Matching mauve linen tablecloth and napkins. Crystal goblets. The good china. Sterling candlestick holders and ivory tapers. Freshly polished silverware. “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble. It’s very pretty.”
“Actually, Aunt Edna did it. She wanted me to make a good impression on you.”
“Hmmm.”
“She likes me.”
“She’s not too choosy, you realize. Last week she fixed me up with the meter reader. And before that it was the butcher.”
“Why is she so determined to get you married?”
“I suppose because she had a wonderful marriage, and she wants the same for me.”
Ken leaned against the table and studied Chris. “Wouldn’t you like a wonderful marriage?”
“I’ve already tried marriage. It wasn’t wonderful.”
“But it could be. Don’t you want to give it another shot?”
“No.”
