Matt turned to hide his smile as he washed his hands at the sink. “Those puppies were kind of cute,” he agreed. “But your sister is even cuter.”
“Do you think so?” Quinn’s tone was skeptical.
“Absolutely.” He smiled at the baby still securely strapped into her car seat but directed his next words to Georgia. “Can I take her out of there?”
She hesitated. “If you want, but she doesn’t have a lot of experience with strangers so she might …”
Her explanation trailed off when she saw that he already had Pippa out of her carrier.
Matt looked up. “She might what?”
“I was going to say ‘fuss,’” she admitted. “But obviously she is doing anything but.”
Instead, the little girl’s big blue eyes were intently focused on Matt’s face and her mouth was stretched into a wide, gummy grin that filled his heart so completely, his chest ached.
“She’s a charmer,” he said, tucking her carefully into the crook of his arm so that her head and neck were supported.
“She has her moments,” her mother agreed.
“Mostly she cries,” Quinn said.
“’Specially at night,” Shane added.
Georgia’s sigh confirmed it was true. “Colic.”
He’d had his own experience with a colicky baby, and he winced sympathetically. “Are you getting any sleep?” he asked.
“A lot less since my mom went away,” she admitted. “But I’m managing—if you disregard the fact that I’m falling behind on my work, housework and yard work.”
Shane tugged on the hem of her shirt. “I’m hungry.”
“I know, honey. I’ll get your lunch as soon as I get the groceries put away.”
“Gill cheez?”
She smiled. “You bet.”
“I want twisty pasta,” Quinn announced.
“You had pasta yesterday,” she reminded him. “We’re having grilled cheese today. But you can go put cartoons on TV while you’re waiting for your lunch, if you want.”
Apparently that was an acceptable compromise, as the boys both scampered off to the living room.
“But you’re not falling behind with your kids,” he said. “And that’s what really matters.”
The smile that curved her lips was both genuine and weary. “And thanks to you, I’m no longer as far behind with the yard work as I used to be.”
He shrugged. “I was cutting my grass anyway.”
She took a jug of 2% and a tub of yogurt out of the bag, found room for them in the fridge.
“You should try soy milk,” he told her.
She lifted a brow. “Because you have futures in soybeans?”
He grinned. “Because colic can be caused—or aggravated—by an intolerance to the proteins in the cows’ milk consumed by a nursing mother.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “How did you know I’m nursing?”
To his credit, he managed to keep his gaze on her face without his eyes even flickering in the direction of her very lush breasts. “No baby bottles in the drying rack or the fridge.”
“Very observant,” she noted. “And how do you know about the soy milk?”
“I read a lot.”
She’d finished putting away her groceries and reached into the drawer under the oven for a frying pan. “I used to read,” she told him. “Sometimes even for pleasure.”
He smiled. “You will again—someday.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” She retrieved the butter from the fridge. “But for now, we’re getting through one day at a time.”
“I’d say you’re doing better than that. You’ve got three great kids, Georgia.”
She started buttering slices of bread. “I wish you could be here to tell me that at 3:00 a.m.” Then she realized how her words might be misconstrued, and her cheeks filled with color.
He knew she wasn’t issuing an invitation, but he found himself wishing that he could find some way to help her out, to be the man she turned to when she needed someone, to be the one who could ease some of the fatigue from around her eyes and put a smile on her face. But those were very dangerous wishes. She wasn’t his wife, her kids weren’t his kids, and he had to stop wanting things that couldn’t be.
“I only meant that it would be nice to have someone around to reassure me in the early hours of morning when I feel like crying right along with Pippa,” she hastened to clarify.
“Sharing a burden makes it lighter,” he agreed easily, and scribbled his phone number down on the notepad on the counter. “And if you ever do need a hand—with anything and at any time—give me a call.”
“You’ve already done me a huge favor by cutting the grass.” Butter sizzled as she dropped the first sandwich into the hot pan.
“I didn’t know there was a limit on good deeds.”
She smiled again, and though he could see the fatigue in her eyes, the curving of her lips seemed to brighten the whole room. “I don’t mean to seem ungrateful—”
“I wouldn’t say ungrateful so much as resistant.”
“I lived in New York City for the past dozen years,” she told him. “I wasn’t even on a first-name basis with most of my neighbors, and the biggest favor any of them ever did for me was to hold the elevator.”
“Obviously moving to Pinehurst has been a big adjustment.”
“My mother told me it was a different world. She encouraged me to make conversation with people I don’t know, and she chided me for locking the doors of my van when it’s parked in the driveway.”
“You lock the doors of your vehicle in your own driveway?” he asked incredulously.
“When I first moved to New York, I lived in a third-floor apartment in Chelsea. Two weeks later, I wandered down to the little coffee shop on the corner without securing the dead bolt and by the time I got back with my latte, the place had been completely cleaned out.”
“I can see how an experience like that would make anyone wary,” he admitted. “But around here, neighbors look out for one another.”
“Says the man who just moved into the neighborhood,” she remarked dryly, turning the sandwich in the pan.
He grinned. “But I grew up in Pinehurst and I’ve lived here most of my life.”
“And probably quarterbacked the high school football team to a state championship in your senior year,” she guessed.
“Actually, I was a running back,” he told her.
“Yeah, ’cause that makes a difference.”
She removed one sandwich from the pan and dropped in another. Then she cut the first into four triangles, divided them between two plates and set them on the breakfast bar. She reached into the cupboard above the sink for two plastic cups, then maneuvered past him to the fridge for a jug of milk.
Though she moved easily in completing tasks she had no doubt performed countless times before, he was suddenly cognizant of the fact that he was just standing around.
“I’m in your way,” he noted, moving aside so that he was leaning against the far stool at the counter, the