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  “I'm surprised Peaches had kids at all,” he said.

  “We were her accidents. That was actually how she referred to us. Affectionately, but as her three little accidents,” Delia said, knowing it would never, ever be something she said to her own child. Not even affectionately. It had always stung anyway. And made her feel unwanted.

  “Oh,” Andrew responded as if he didn't know what else to say.

  “I told you, Peaches was not a cookie-baking, storybook-reading, mother-earth kind of mom,” Delia reminded.

  “Did she not want to marry any of your fathers?”

  “Absolutely not. Starlets—which was what she always considered herself, even as she got older and older—were not married. And none of our fathers wanted to marry her, either. They were young, most of them trying to be movie stars or actors, too. They were guys she met doing work as an extra on a movie or at one of her other odd jobs.”

  “How did she support three kids? I assume there wasn't a lot of child support paid by boy toys.”

  Delia didn't like that term any better when Andrew used it and felt a little ashamed of herself for referring to him as that when he said it with such disdain. “No, there was no child support. And we didn't live well, that's for sure. Peaches got all the work she could in the movies—being an extra in mob scenes was her biggest claim to fame. Otherwise she did whatever she could that was near to movie studios, hoping—”

  “To be discovered.”

  “Exactly. She worked in a dry cleaners, waited tables, drove one of those buses that take tourists by the homes of famous people. She never kept one job for long because the minute she thought it interfered with something she believed would launch her into stardom—for instance, if her boss wouldn't let her off for a cattle call—she'd quit. Right there and then. Mainly we did a lot of living in studio apartments or trailer homes, and sneaking out in the middle of the night because we were months behind in the rent and didn't have the money to pay.”

  “How did you feel about living like that? About having a mother like that?” he asked, clearly trying not to sound judgmental. But Delia could tell he was passing judgment in spite of it. She understood that it was difficult not to.

  “There were mixed feelings,” she answered candidly. “I hated the uncertainty of it all. I hated having to move around and I definitely didn't like doing it like cat burglars. I really hated it the couple of times when we got caught and there were ugly scenes and the police were called on us….” Delia knew she wasn't helping the impression Andrew had so she cut that part short. “And of course there were always things that I wanted that we just couldn't afford. But I wasn't a miserable, unhappy kid, either. Some of Peaches's flamboyancy was fun. Nothing ever got her down-”

  “Not even having the police called on her?”

  “The few times that happened she'd managed to cajole the landlord out of pressing charges by the time the police actually got there, so everything worked out all right. And Kyle and Marta and I were closer than we might have been under other circumstances. I'm actually thankful for that because we have a great relationship. We've always looked out for each other, taken care of each other, known we could trust each other and depend on each other no matter what. I guess in a lot of ways, we found stability through that.”

  “So, are there parts of the way you were parented that you'll repeat?”

  Delia laughed. “Don't sound so worried. I'm about as different from Peaches as it's possible to be, and beyond loving this baby unconditionally and being accepting of just about anything it is or does—which was true of Peaches—I have every intention of being as traditional a mom as I possibly can be.”

  Andrew seemed relieved to hear it. Relieved enough to return to what they'd been talking about before he inquired about her feelings about her mother. “So in all the time you were growing up there was never even a stepfather? Or one of the real dads who played a role in your lives?”

  “Nope. Kyle's father didn't even know he existed until Kyle was three, and after Peaches told him about Kyle we never saw him again. Kyle doesn't have any clear memories of him but he did go to great lengths growing up to try to find a replacement.” Delia grimaced slightly. “Marta's father showed up occasionally, but that was almost worse.”

  “Why?”

  “He and Peaches sort of had an on-again, off-again thing. He was trying to act, too, so they'd meet up at different auditions. Plus whenever he moved, he'd let her know where he was, and she did the same whenever we moved. But he was… I don't know, he was so young when Marta was born and he wasn't the brightest bulb in the box, and he certainly wasn't a kid person. The rare times when he did appear he was awkward with Marta, standoffish. He just didn't seem to know how to relate to her and he definitely didn't give the impression that he wanted to. The trouble was, Marta wanted so desperately for him to love her, to be a dad to her, that as soon as she learned to dial a phone she started calling him, begging him to come see her or let her go to his place or take her somewhere. Begging him for some semblance of a father-daughter relationship that just never happened.”

  “Not ever? Even now?”

  Delia shook her head. “Marta knows where he is and calls him once or twice a year to say hello and see how he's doing, but there's just no effort from the other end. He has nothing to say beyond that he's fine or getting work as a stand-in here and there. He doesn't show an interest in her or give her any indication that he feels a connection to her at all. When she and Henry got married she asked her father to walk her down the aisle—she even said she'd send him the plane ticket to come to Chicago so it wouldn't cost him anything. He said he was in a bind with his landlord and would rather she send him cash than a plane ticket.”

  “And did she?”

  Delia nodded sadly. “I'm pretty sure she did. Kyle ended up walking her down the aisle, and her father didn't even call that day or send a card to congratulate her. She's just had to accept that he isn't ever going to be a father to her. Reluctantly, but there hasn't been any other choice.”

  “Which brings us to your father.”

  “Which brings us to my father,” Delia conceded with a sigh.

  “Who you never met.”

  “Well, I'm told that he showed up once when I was three days old, but I don't count that as my having met him.”

  “That was it?”

  “That was it. He was from Chicago and I have no idea if he came back here after that or what. All I know is that he told his mother about me, about Peaches, that he died of hepatitis two years before his mother had a heart attack, and that since I was the only living relative left, his mother decided after his death to have a will made that gave me the house—the only thing she owned. She knew my name. My mother's name. And that we were last known to live in California. So when she died, her attorney got on the Internet and found me to notify me of the inheritance.”

  “That must have come as a surprise.”

  “It did. The attorney I spoke to had been hired by my grandmother after she found his name in the phone book so it wasn't as if he knew her or could tell me anything about her. She had just told him that her son—my father—had died and she didn't want the house to go to the state, so it should go to me.”

  “That doesn't inspire any warm fuzzies,” Andrew said sympathetically.

  “No, but at least she was letting me know that she knew about me and thought of me as some sort of family.”

  “And that was enough for you to leave California and your business there and move here?”

  Delia smiled. “It wasn't that cut-and-dry. Marta and I came here to see the house, thinking that I would just list it with a realtor and sell it. But once we got here…” Delia took a deep breath and when she exhaled, it came out with a shrug and the need to fight a welling up of emotion that made her voice softer. “I don't know. Until that point I'd thought that I had dealt pretty well with the lack of a male parent in my life. Yes, there had been times when I'd wished for a dad. When I'd
missed having one. But on the whole, I thought I'd adjusted better than Kyle and Marta had. That I had accepted things the way they were.”

  “And then you got here,” Andrew said to invite her to confide in him what he seemed to realize wasn't easy for her to admit.

  “Then I got here,” she said. “And I guess the house felt like the closest thing I was going to have to a connection with my father or his mother, and I sort of wanted to absorb what I could of that.”

  Andrew took that hand she'd been so engrossed in earlier and used it to squeeze not her knee this time, but her arm where it was hugging her leg. A comforting squeeze that somehow managed to send little shivers of something sensual through her even as he succeeded at consoling her.

  “The place gave you roots,” he said.

  Delia smiled and blinked back some moisture that had suddenly dampened her eyes. “Even if the roots were only peripherally mine,” she joked. “I suppose a psychiatrist would have a field day with it. But for whatever reason, something about being here just felt like home to me. A tie to family, even if it wasn't much of a tie. Even if there wasn't a family anymore by the time I got here. Still, it was the best I could do, so I stayed and started the Chicago branch of Meals Like Mom's.”

  Andrew gave her a moment to gain some control of her emotions and then, just when she was wishing he'd say something else, he said, “And how did Marta come to stay with you?”

  The fact that her sister had made her own home here had been a source of comfort and support for Delia, it was something she was grateful for, and so it made her smile again. “Henry was the realtor I was going to list the house with. Marta and Henry hit it off, so she stayed here, too.”

  “And that left Kyle to run the California end of the business?”

  “It did. Which was good for him. It gave him more autonomy than he'd had before and he's really flourished with it. He's expanded operations and taken production farther than I probably would have if the status quo hadn't been disrupted.”

  “And you ended up with two branches of Meals Like Mom's.”

  Delia laughed. “Yes, but I've already gone on and on with the saga of my own background. I can't talk about the business stuff tonight, too.”

  “Okay, we'll save that for another time,” Andrew said as if he were making a promise. “I do have one more question about the non-business end, though.”

  He took his hand away from her arm and Delia felt a wave of disappointment.

  Still, she hid it and said, “Okay, one more question but then that's it for me tonight.”

  “Did you decide not to even try finding me to tell me about your pregnancy because of Peaches's track record with the fathers of her kids?”

  “That was part of it,” Delia answered honestly. “I've witnessed firsthand three examples of male response to unplanned pregnancy, and none of them led me to believe it would make a whole lot of difference if I did track you down and tell you.”

  “So you thought 'why bother'?”

  “I'm afraid there was an element of that in the decision.”

  “But all three of you have gone to some great lengths to get even a semblance of a father in your lives. Seems like that might have factored into your decision, too.”

  “Except that the only one of the three of us to actually have the real thing around was Marta and that has been more negative than positive.”

  Andrew made a face. “That doesn't bode well for me.”

  Delia shrugged, not wanting to say that the ball was in his court when it came to that, but thinking it just the same.

  He read the shrug correctly. “Okay, so it's up to me to make it a positive or a negative. But now that I do know, and want to be involved,” he added pointedly, “you don't have any objection, right?”

  She still wasn't convinced that he really did want to be involved, wondering if he might simply be going through the motions. The way Marta's father had. But Delia didn't say that.

  “Reservations, maybe. But no objections, no,” she said with a tentativeness to her tone. “Although you should also know that if it turns into a negative—”

  “It won't,” he said with something that sounded as much like bravado as conviction.

  Then he gave her a killer half smile so full of mischief it was infectious and said, “Or you could make sure it's a positive that I'm around by marrying me.”

  Delia laughed and teased him. “Who says that would make sure it was a positive?”

  “It would be more a positive than if we aren't married, wouldn't it?” he challenged.

  “Not necessarily.”

  “So what is that? Another no, you won't marry me?”

  “Another no, I won't marry you,” she said unequivocally

  “I guess I'll just have to keep trying, then,” he countered, sounding undaunted.

  Or maybe he was just able to sound that way because he was relieved that once again she'd rejected his proposal. Which Delia thought was more likely when she recalled his earlier reaction to her mention of the nursery and his total lack of interest in it.

  He checked his wristwatch then and stood. “I took up your whole night. I'd better let you get to bed.”

  Delia didn't do anything to stop him. But she did discover another rise of disappointment in her. This time that she was losing his company the way she'd lost his touch before.

  But again she concealed those feelings and stood, too.

  “Don't forget the leftovers for your roommate,” she reminded.

  “I'll get them. My coat is in the kitchen, too,” he said, heading in that direction.

  Delia let him go, turning off the living room lamps while he was gone.

  He had on the leather jacket again when he returned with the fast-food sacks in hand, and Delia led the way to the front door.

  “Thanks for dinner,” she said then.

  “For what it was worth,” he answered as she opened the door and he stepped near to the threshold.

  He didn't go out, though. Instead he stopped there and turned to face her. “I had a good time,” he said.

  “I didn't bore you too much with the story of my life?”

  “Not a boring life, not a boring story,” he said as if he meant it.

  There was honesty in his dark eyes, too, as they met hers and held them. Honesty and warmth and a huge helping of that appeal that had sucked her in so effectively in Tahiti. An appeal that kept her looking up at him and made something inside her soften.

  He's only twenty-eight, she silently shouted to herself.

  But at that moment it didn't actually register. At least not as anything important enough for her to break off that eye contact and send him home.

  It didn't even register enough for her to rear back the way she knew she should have when he began to lean forward. Or when he got close enough for her to be sure he was going to kiss her. And kept on coming.

  Then he did kiss her and even as she was wondering why she was letting him, she was kissing him back. She was savoring the feel of supple, talented lips parted over hers. Tantalizing hers with memories of that night in paradise while still providing an entirely new experience, since this was the only time he'd kissed her when her mind wasn't fogged with martinis.

  And heaven help her, she liked it. She liked kissing him. She liked him kissing her. She liked it all more than she wished she did.

  Enough so that she was sorry when it ended at just the right length for a first kiss that wasn't truly a first kiss at all.

  When it had ended Andrew smiled down at her, his expression slightly dazed. “I remembered enjoying that. I just didn't remember how much,” he said almost more to himself than to her.

  Then he muttered a good-night and finally went out onto her porch.

  Delia made herself close the door right then, when she was inclined to keep it open and watch him go all the way to his car.

  But it was a minor gesture that didn't revoke the fact that she'd just let him kiss her. That she'd just kisse
d him.

  And for some reason, even though she told herself forcefully that she shouldn't have done either of those things, self-loathing wasn't what she felt.

  She felt all warm and soft and tingly.

  She felt like she wanted him back there right then.

  To do it all again…

  Chapter Eight

  “Morning,” Andrew said to announce his presence as he left his bedroom bright and early on Thursday and came across his roommate with a pretty brunette standing at the front door of the apartment he and Mike Monroe shared.

  “Hey,” Mike greeted in return, sounding as if he hadn't been awake long.

  There was more evidence of that in the fact that Mike was wearing nothing but pajama bottoms. The woman around whose hips Mike's arms were draped, however, had on a running suit.

  “Melanie, this is Andrew,” Mike said then, performing a casual introduction. “Andrew, this is Melanie.”

  No last names. Andrew knew what that meant—Mike didn't know the woman by anything but Melanie.

  “Good to meet you,” Andrew said, moving on to the kitchen to leave them alone for what appeared to be a kiss he'd interrupted.

  “You, too,” Melanie called after him.

  It was a variation of a scene that had played out in numerable times in the apartment, both for Andrew and for Mike. Bringing someone home to spend the night was hardly an unusual event. But for some reason, as Andrew went into the kitchen, this time it struck him as a stupid thing for them both to have done so capriciously.

  Maybe because of where his last one-night stand had landed him.

  He heard the apartment door open and close, and Mike wandered into the kitchen, too.

  “New girl?” Andrew asked with an edge of censure to his voice that had never been there when he'd made the same inquiry in the past.

  “I've been jogging again,” Mike answered, giving no indication that he'd caught the tone. “I keep meeting Melanie on the path. We've talked a little. Joked around. Last night I finally invited her to come by for a post-run cooldown.”