Harlequin Special Edition February 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Once Upon a Valentine\The Real Mr. Right\Celebration's Family by Allison Leigh

Author:Allison Leigh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

In his living room, Matt laid the paint roller in the pan on the newspaper-covered coffee table and grabbed his can of cola off the windowsill—the prissy sheers having gone to the Big Window in the Sky a week ago—and stretched out his back as he frowned at the newly painted wall. Kind of a brown-paper-bag color, which looked better than it sounded. With white trim it’d be okay, he guessed. Some random lady at Home Depot—who he’d finally figured out was coming on to him—tried to sell him on either this gray the color of wet cement, or an acidy green that had reminded him of something he’d pitched from his fridge the other night. She insisted the colors were very popular these days. Sophisticated, she said. Ugly was what they were. Not to mention depressing as hell.

A moment later, the feeble early-March sun scooted out from behind a cloud and lit up the still-wet wall, and the color brought to mind fresh-baked peanut-butter cookies. He’d take that over mold any day, he thought with a slight smile as his gaze landed on the picture album the Colonel had left on the family room coffee table the other day, now splayed open on Matt’s.

Cola in hand, Matt crossed the room to lower himself to the edge of the sofa, the corners of his mouth tucked up as he leafed through the album again. He wasn’t sure why he’d lugged it back to his house—nostalgia was usually lost on him—but the damn thing had sucked him right in, all those pictures of his brothers and sisters as kids. Of the people he’d called his parents for most of his life, his mother laughing, the Colonel close by, his eyes always on her, never the camera. Of skinny baby Abby, her flyaway blond hair floating around a perpetual glower. Like she’d been born tough.

Of Kelly, grinning shyly between Matt and Bree at middle school graduation, her ballooned red hair tickling Matt’s nose; as a wild-haired Thelma to Bree’s head-scarfed Louise that next Halloween; a shot of her asleep in one of the Adirondack chairs out back, one-year-old Abby sacked out on top of her, both of them with their maws wide open.

She had no idea he’d taken that picture, Matt thought with a slight smile. Let alone that it had found its way into the family album—

Her nose smashed to the bottom the front door, Alf started woofing and whining and wagging; a moment later Matt heard the side door to Kelly’s van slide open, the kids’ chatter as they disembarked. He got up and sidled over to the window, his mouth stretching again when Aislin headed straight for a puddle left over from yesterday’s rain and he heard Kelly’s exasperated “Don’t even think about it!” as she grabbed the back of the little girl’s puffy coat. Beside her, Coop yakked away, swinging his backpack. Matt thought maybe the kid’s face looked thinner. He seemed happier, too. Okay, so maybe “happy” was overstating it.

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