He stared at her, blank – faced.
“Wasn’t that what you were going to ask me?”
“No. I was going to ask you to crack the eggs for the gingerbread. I keep making a mess of it.”
She looked at the brown dough in the big bowl on the counter. “Sure, I get all the tough jobs.”
“So why don’t you want to marry me?”
“Nothing personal. I don’t want to marry anyone. I’m a free spirit. I’m the wind. I’m a saucy strumpet.”
He grinned. “Do you know what a strumpet is?”
“Not exactly.”
He whispered the definition in her ear.
“Hmmm,” she said. “Well, I’m not one of those.”
He draped his arm around her shoulders. “What about it, Windy? Will you crack my eggs?”
“I suppose it’s the least I could do, since you’ve mixed everything else together.”
An hour later, Megan took the last cookie sheet out of the oven and set it on a wire rack. “This isn’t going to work,” she told Pat. “You’ve already eaten half of the cookies. We’ll never get enough for Thanksgiving at this rate.”
“I can’t help it. They’re great. Besides, I’m not the only guilty party.”
She planted her fists on her hips. “I ate one cookie. One!”
“Yes, but you’re wearing half a dozen.”
She examined her shirt. It was caked with cookie dough and smudged with flour. “I’m not a neat cook.”
He tweaked her nose. “You’re an adorable cook.”
So they were back to nose tweaks, she thought, pouting. Fine. “I’m going home.”
He looked disappointed. “I’ll make cocoa and popcorn if you’ll stay awhile longer.”
“I can’t. Tomorrow is Saturday. I have to work tomorrow.” That much was true, but she could have stayed. She was just in a snit because he’d tweaked her on the nose. Men were so fickle. One minute they were slobbering all over you in a fit of passion, and the next thing they didn’t want to marry you. The hell with them.
“Where’s your car?” he asked. “I didn’t see it when I parked in the garage.”
“It’s at Merchants Square. I went to see Tilly’s apartment.”
“She’s not home.” He plunged his hands into his pockets. “I check on her every day.”
Megan glanced over at the little boy sleeping by the fireplace. “What happens if Tilly doesn’t come back?”
Pat leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. “I don’t know. I’d adopt him, honest to goodness I would, but it’s not that easy. I’m not sure of the law. I think he’ll be made a ward of the state, probably placed in a registered foster home until relatives can be located. Even if I tried to adopt him, it would take a year for the paper work to be done, and I probably wouldn’t get him, because I’m not married.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
Pat gritted his teeth when he saw the tears clinging to her lower lashes. He was close to tears himself, and he was mad. Tilly Coogan had disappointed him. She was a young unwed mother, but she’d seemed responsible and mature for her years. Timmy was a healthy, happy, well – loved baby. Ten days earlier Tilly and Timmy had left his office as a functioning family unit. And now she’d abandoned him. What had gone wrong? Maybe he should have been more observant. Maybe he could have prevented this.
He pulled Megan to him and hugged her, burying his face in her hair. “I don’t know, Meg. I’m giving her until Thanksgiving, and then I’ll hire a lawyer and a detective. In the meantime, we’ll take good care of Timmy.”
Megan blinked back the tears. “It’s his first Thanksgiving. We have to do this right.”
Pat smiled. “Yeah. He probably can’t wait to sneeze turkey on you.”
She slipped her arms into her pea coat. “I’ll leave on that happy note.”
Pat handed her the keys to his car. “How about if we swap cars for tonight? I don’t want you wandering the streets alone.”
He walked to the car with her and waited while it churned a few times and caught. “I’ll come pick it up tomorrow at six o’clock. Wear something pretty. I’m taking you out to dinner. I think we both need a decent meal.”
“What about Timmy?”
“I have a baby – sitter. My receptionist’s daughter.”
The following day, Saturday, Megan dressed in her colonial costume, skipped down the stairs of her house, locked her front door with a flourish, and whistled all the way to work. She cracked her knuckles throughout the day, glancing at the watch she had hidden in her pocket, sighing heavily when time seemed to drag. At five o’clock she bolted from her ticket taking post in front of the silversmith’s shop, and at five – thirty she flew into her house and practically jumped out of her big, black shoes. She dropped her long skirt and white apron at the top of the stairs and was stripped down to her long johns by the time she reached the bathroom.
She had a dinner date with Patrick Hunter, and she only had half an hour to make herself ravishing. She caught a glimpse of her red cheeks and flyaway hair in the vanity mirror. Maybe not ravishing, she thought. Ravishing would take days. In thirty minutes the most she could accomplish would be to look clean and presentable.
Half an hour later, Megan applied the final swipe of mascara to her lashes and stepped back to appraise herself. She wasn’t sure how she looked, but she felt ravishing. She’d used the blow dryer and brush on her hair until it was a shining cloud of soft waves around her face. She wore a smudge of eye liner, a little peach – toned blush over cheeks that were already flushed, and a pale coral lip gloss.
“Geez,” she murmured, “is that me? Last time I got dressed up like this was in April… for my wedding.”
Pat knocked once and let himself into the house. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. A khaki jumper or a denim skirt. Maybe a pair of dressy corduroy slacks. He was completely unprepared for the woman who appeared at the top of the stairs.
She could have stepped off the cover of a magazine or hosted an exclusive Washington tea. She wore a pale pink sweater and matching skirt. The outfit was belted at her waist and clung to all her delicious curves and made her hair seem impossibly red. The slim skirt came to just above her knee, baring long, shapely legs in silky tinted stockings. Her dressy heels matched her small black handbag.
“I can’t believe I made it on time!” she said breathlessly.
He nodded. He didn’t know what to say. Megan Murphy was so many different people, he couldn’t keep up with them all. He watched her hair swing around her shoulders as she descended the stairs, and wasn’t sure how he would get through the evening. She was breathtaking… and he was just a cute pediatrician.
“Are you Megan Murphy?” he asked. He wanted to make sure. “You’re beautiful.” He reached out to touch her sleeve. “What’s this soft, fuzzy stuff?”
“It’s an angora blend. Do you like it?”
Like it? He wanted to get naked on it. Good thing they had a six – thirty reservation and had to leave the house immediately. He was afraid once he started fondling Megan Murphy in her bunny dress, he’d lose control.
It wasn’t in the plan for him to lose control. This was their first date. It was supposed to be romantic and civilized. Extreme fondling on a first date wasn’t civilized, he told himself, helping her with her black wool coat.
He locked the house and held the driver’s door open for her. “The other door is broken,” he explained, and immediately decided he would never get it fixed when he saw her dress ride high on her thigh as she slid across the seat.
He drove to the historic area and pulled into a parking lot on Francis Street. “I thought we’d eat at the King’s Arms Tavern,” he said. It had been the most romantic, elegant restaurant he could imagine, but suddenly he worried that this exquisite creature sitting next to him might be jaded. Surely she was taken to expensive restaurants every day of the week and had eaten at the King’s Arms hundreds of times.