Just One Kiss

He frowned as the kid banged the bottom of an empty pot with a wooden spoon. He hit it several times, then smiled up at Jack, as if awaiting a compliment on his rhythmic skills.

Jack averted his gaze, and within seconds the kid lost interest in the pot and instead played with a set of plastic measuring spoons. Jack focused on the woman busily cleaning up the mess he’d assumed Maria would be cleaning today.

“You don’t have to clean up the whole place just to make breakfast,” he said.

She turned and smiled once again. “I don’t mind. I don’t work well in chaos. Besides, I feel partially responsible for you firing your housekeeper this morning.”

“Why do you feel responsible?”

Leaning against the counter, she shrugged. “You probably wouldn’t have fired her if you hadn’t been particularly cranky this morning from your injuries.”

He stared at her, surprised at her audacity in claiming he was cranky. “That’s ridiculous,” he scoffed. “I’m not more cranky this morning than I ever am. Besides, this is the sixth time I’ve fired Maria in the last three years. She irritates me on a regular basis. Most people irritate me.”

“I still feel partially responsible,” she repeated, then turned back around. She poured him a cup of freshly brewed coffee and placed it on the table before him. “Here, maybe coffee will improve your disposition.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my disposition,” he retorted. “I like being cranky.”

“Cwanky.” The kid beamed up at Jack, rounded blue eyes sparkling with merriment. Sure, the kid was happy. His leg wasn’t broken.

Jack sipped his coffee and watched Marissa work. She was clad in a pair of faded cutoffs and a navy short-sleeved blouse. The deep darkness of the blouse accentuated the fairness of her short, curly hair. With the sunlight streaming in through the window and playing on her pale strands, her hair looked like a golden halo.

Yeah, right. An angel of mercy with the kid from hell at her side. Still, he had to admit, the child didn’t make an attempt to get into anything, didn’t pull open cabinets or climb on the furniture like most toddlers. He seemed perfectly content to sit on the floor and play with the various cooking utensils his mother had given him.

“You live around here?” he asked. Mason Bridge was a relatively small town. Jack thought he knew, at least by sight, most of the natives.

“No. We’re here on vacation. We’re from Kansas City.” She didn’t stop her work as she spoke. “We just arrived yesterday morning.”

“Why here? Most vacationers don’t even know about Mason Bridge and instead go straight to Miami or one of the other more popular Florida beaches.”

“My grandmother visited a friend here once and was charmed by the place. Anyway, we’d just gotten settled on the beach when you had your accident.”

“You mean when your kid tried to kill me.”

This got her full attention. She turned to face him and her green eyes sparked with a hint of irritation of her own. “His name is Nathaniel. He isn’t ‘the kid’ or ‘the monster’ or ‘Dennis the Menace.’ He’s Nathaniel Criswell. And it’s childish of you to make a two-year-old personally accountable for what was nothing more than an accident.”

She looked exceptionally pretty, with her eyes flashing and her cheeks flushed with color. He wondered if her eyes would flash like that when he kissed her. He sat up straighter in his chair, wondering where that particular thought had come from.

He had no intention of kissing Marissa. He had no intention of kissing anyone. He liked his life just fine without complications…and women inevitably became complications.

Still, even though he didn’t intend to kiss her, he couldn’t help but admire her backside as she worked. She had long, shapely legs and a rounded behind that wiggled provocatively as she whipped eggs in a mixing bowl, then poured them into a waiting skillet.

“Nathaniel? What kind of a name is that?” he asked. Someplace in the back of his mind, he was aware that he might be picking a fight. But he was comfortable with exasperation. He wasn’t comfortable with the stir of desire that had momentarily fluttered through him.

“It’s a good name,” she replied as she placed a plate in front of him. She smiled, not rising to his obvious baiting. “I named him after Nathaniel Hawthorne.” Her smile remained in place, although her eyes glittered with a hint of challenge. “At least it shows a little more imagination than Jack. What kind of name is that?”

He laughed, surprising himself with the rusty-sounding verbalization.

“Now, stop being cantankerous and eat before it gets cold,” she exclaimed. She poured him more coffee, then grabbed her son from the floor and put him on the chair next to Jack. “I hope you don’t mind if I feed him. He’s a social guy. If anyone in the room is eating, he thinks he should eat, too.”

Jack shrugged and watched as she took a sash from the sack she’d brought and tied it around the back of the chair, effectively creating a seat belt for the little boy. She handed him half a piece of toast, then poured herself a cup of coffee and joined them at the table.

Jack focused on the food on his plate, awkwardly handling the fork with his left hand. He’d often thought it would be nice to be ambidextrous, but at no time more than now.

He relaxed slightly as he realized she wasn’t watching him, but instead was feeding Nathaniel a serving of biscuits and gravy.

For a few minutes the only sound in the room was the little boy’s chatter between bites. Jack kept his attention studiously focused away from the boy. However, he did find his gaze going again and again to Marissa.

Her round face was wreathed in a smile as she fed her son. Jack was close enough to her to smell her scent, a fresh fragrance of blooming flowers. Freckles danced across the top of her nose and gave her face a lively quality that was both arresting and girlish.

She was not his type at all. Although he had to admit, it had been so long since he’d been with a woman, he wasn’t sure he remembered what his type was.

Still, it intrigued him that his scowls and growls didn’t seem to bother her a bit. In fact, she was the only person, other than Edmund, who seemed not only able to take what he gave, but to fling it right back at him.

“So, what do you do back in Kansas City?” He figured the least he could do was offer a little small talk in exchange for the wonderful breakfast.

“You mean between the care and feeding of the monster child?” Her eyes twinkled with good humor. “I’m a nurse’s aide.”

A nurse’s aide. He shook his head ruefully, remembering how she’d knelt on his hand, then kneed him in the ribs while he’d been lying helpless on the beach. He pitied the patients she worked with.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she exclaimed, her cheeks flushing a pretty pink. “And I’m very good at what I do.” She raised her chin a notch and eyed him defiantly.

“I’ll say one thing, you’re a terrific cook.” He shoved his plate away with a sigh of contentment.

“Thank you. I enjoy cooking. I don’t do it very often just for me and Nathaniel.”

“So, how long you been divorced?” Jack asked as she wiped Nathaniel’s mouth with a napkin.

“I’m not divorced.”

“Oh, a widow…I’m sorry.”

Her cheeks were becoming a darker shade of pink. “I’ve never been married.”

“Oh, I just assumed…” Jack was embarrassed by his assumption.

“It’s a natural assumption.” She smiled, that sunny smile that shot a wave of warmth through Jack. “I’m not particularly proud of the fact that I’m not married. But I’m not ashamed, either. I got pregnant. I assumed my boyfriend would be thrilled, and instead, the thought of fatherhood sent him running for the woods.”

There was no trace of bitterness in her voice, but bitterness swept through Jack with a vengeance. There was nothing he hated more than men who ran from their responsibilities as parents…unless it was women who kept men from shouldering those responsibilities and relishing the joys of fatherhood.

He studiously shoved away thoughts of a little boy not much older than Nathaniel…a little boy with dark brown hair and big brown eyes…a little boy Jack hadn’t seen for five long years. He couldn’t afford to think about him, couldn’t stand the pain such thoughts brought with them.

Instead he focused his attention once again on Marissa. Smiling Marissa with the dancing freckles. “So, I suppose your experience with your boyfriend has made you hate all men. Isn’t that the way it usually goes?”

She laughed, a musical chime that awakened desire in him. “I don’t know how it usually goes, but no, I haven’t become a man hater.” She untied the sash that held Nathaniel, kissed his forehead and sat him on the floor.

When she once again gazed at Jack, her eyes were the lush green of spring, the promise of summer warmth and verdant meadows. “I’m an eternal optimist and I believe in true love and promises kept and vows of forever. All I’m waiting for is to find the right man.”

Jack smiled cynically. He believed in none of those things. Not anymore. “And what are you going to do if you don’t find Mr. Right?”