An Unexpected Match (5 page)

Smiling, Matthew waited for her reaction. And waited. Her bland expression offered no hints about what she was thinking.

“How could I resist an offer like that?” she said finally.

It wasn't the enthusiastic reaction he'd expected, given how taken Haley seemed to be with Elizabeth, but he pressed on anyway, so his own misgivings wouldn't get the best of him. “So you'll do it?”

She nodded.

“Oh, good. So do you think you could commit to the job for, oh, let's say, one month?” Something seemed to cloud the blue sky of her eyes, but Matthew tried not to read anything into it. “I can even draft a contract to that effect. Then we'll both know we're on the same page.”

Haley pushed back from the table, stood and crossed to the sink without looking at him. Turning on the faucet, she took out a glass, then filled it and took a sip. He'd offended her just as he had at church the day before. At first the contract had seemed like a good idea, even necessary given Haley's work history, but now it felt mean.

He was already out of his chair and approaching from behind her to apologize when Haley turned to face him.

“I need you to know,” she paused as if weighing her
words, “that what I said to you earlier was the truth but maybe not the whole truth. I did step in today for Elizabeth's sake, but I also did it for you.”

“I know that.” And because he did know it, he also recognized that one of them had grown up to be a nicer person than the other. “I'm sorry for suggesting the contract.”

“It's fine. I'll even sign one if it will make you more comfortable.”

He shook his head. “That won't be necessary.”

“Okay, then.” She poured out the water and put the glass in the dishwasher.

“So we're agreed on one month?” Maybe he was willing to forego the contract, but he was a lawyer after all, and he needed to come to some sort of official agreement.

When Haley glanced over her shoulder at him, her smile suggested that she understood his need to have all the details at least signed on the imaginary line.

“There's one more thing you should know. I'm here for Elizabeth
and you,
and I'll be here for as long as you need me.”

H
aley couldn't help grinning at the disaster zone of her mother's usually spotless living room. Opened boxes of stoneware and flatware place settings virtually buried the coffee table, and pastel ribbons and gift wrap littered the floor. Her sisters were sprawled in the middle of the chaos, cheering on Elizabeth who gleefully tossed handfuls of bows into the air.

“We should invite Mrs. Warren over,” Haley suggested. “She would really appreciate this place. It looks just like an exploding wedding cake.”

“You'll be picking up every single paper and ribbon scrap of this
explosion,
young lady,” Trina Scott said from her chair where she'd been viewing with disapproval the activities of the last half hour.

“Don't say things like that, Mom. You just gave me a scary childhood flashback.”

“Haley Lynne Scott…”

At the warning in her mother's voice, Haley popped up from the spot where she'd been sitting cross-legged on the floor and bent to kiss her mother's dark hair. “Ah, come
on, Mom. We're having fun. Anyway, I doubt my wedding guests would mind if Elizabeth opens a few of the gifts. We're still returning them, aren't we?”

“Of course, we are,” Caroline supplied. To emphasize her point, she plopped down a cardboard box that she'd just addressed to one of the wedding guests. “We should have it all done before Jenna and I go home this weekend.”

Jenna caught Elizabeth around the waist and stuck a bow to the top of her head. “I don't know about the rest of you, but I was dying to know what was inside those boxes.”

“You mean the stuff that Haley only would have been allowed to keep if she'd made the biggest mistake of her life by marrying Tom?” Caroline's words dripped of sarcasm.

At the mention of her ex-fiancé's name, Haley braced herself and waited for the pain to return. A twinge of discomfort filled her, but it was nothing compared to the ache and humiliation she'd felt a few days before. Would it continue that way, hurting a little less each time someone spoke about her wedding?

Trina glanced sidelong at her firstborn as she leaned forward in her chair. “Okay, we get it, Caroline. You think wedding gifts are passé. Maybe you think that single-gal showers should be the new trend.”

“Don't laugh,” Caroline said, wrinkling her nose. “A
single-gal shower
as you call it probably will be the only kind you'll ever plan for me because I'll never prance down any aisle.”

This wasn't the first time Caroline had mentioned that she never planned to marry, but Trina Scott had always sidestepped that topic. Even now she sent her daughter a look that said, “We'll see about that.”

“Oh, did I mention that Amy wanted us to go out with them for pizza tonight?” Trina asked.

“Who's ‘them'?” Caroline said with a frown.

“Will Dylan be there?” Jenna asked hopefully.

Trina shook her head. “It's just us and Amy, Matthew and young Elizabeth here.” She reached out to brush the child's arm as she scampered past.

Haley chewed her lip, trying not to laugh. Their mother clearly wasn't going to give up this matchmaking thing. She was like a bulldog with a particularly juicy bone: she wasn't about to let it go.

“Stop meddling, Mother,” Caroline said.

“I don't know what you're talking about.” Trina crossed her arms over her chest and settled back into her chair. “Anyway, I never meddle. I mother.”

“We're especially blessed, then.” Haley paused, casting a conspiratorial glance at her sisters. “Because you
mother
us better than anybody.”

Jenna and Carolina both covered their mouths with their hands to hide their laughter, but Trina quelled it with that same stern look that always had made them straighten up during church services.

“Now that's better.” Their mother's voice was pleasant, and a hint of a smile appeared on her lips.

Haley peeked over at Caroline, pitying someone else for the first time all week. Caroline had every reason to be worried as far as Haley was concerned.

Usually when Trina Scott wanted something, there was nothing that could stop her from making it happen. Unless God had other plans, anyway. This time Trina appeared to want Matthew Warren for a son-in-law, so Caroline had better watch out or she'd be picking a china pattern before she could make her happy-to-be-single speech again.

Even with Caroline's determination, Haley couldn't blame her mother for giving her matchmaking a try with those two. Probably no one in North America had more in common with Caroline than Matthew had. Classic over-achieving firstborns, both filtered intensity and drive through their pores the way other people sweated frustration.

Pairing them would be one for the record books. Just the thought of it made Haley smile but no more than her incredulity that she'd once imagined herself as a good match for Matthew Warren did. And roommates Felix and Oscar of the old TV show
The Odd Couple
thought they'd had it bad.

Caroline must have caught sight of Haley's grin because she narrowed her gaze.

Elizabeth saved Haley from having to answer that unspoken question by crouching in front of her. “Can I open another present, Miss Haley? Just one more. Please?” Already, she had the paper off a box that contained a dessert service set.

“You absolutely
may,
little Lizzie.” Haley reached for a wad of gift wrap and tossed it in a trash bag. “Just make sure you put the cards with the presents so we know where to return them.”

“You'd better watch calling her ‘Lizzie,'” her mother warned. “Matthew doesn't like anyone shortening his daughter's name. He doesn't like anyone interfering with his parenting decisions, either. Not even his own mother.”

“Ah.” Haley waved away the warning with a brush of her hand. “You worry too much. It's just a name, anyway, and hers is too big for someone so small.”

“Don't say I didn't warn you.”

Haley winced at her mother's words that sounded all
too familiar. From when she'd changed her business major to computer science and then to sociology. From when she'd taken that night job at the animal shelter. From when she'd decided to give up her most recent job before the wedding.

Haley had to admit that some of those times—okay, all of them—her mother had been right. This time just wasn't one of them. Haley had been around Matthew and Elizabeth enough to know that he needed to lighten up with his daughter, and maybe she was just the person to show him how to do it. How could anyone live with so many rules?

Still, she would take her mother's warning seriously about Matthew's refusal to take parenting suggestions, and she would try to call his daughter by her given name. If Haley offended him now, he might forget about their one-month agreement and begin searching for her replacement right away. She didn't want that to happen, and not just because she really needed this job, either.

She'd had more fun caring for Elizabeth these past three days than she'd ever had in any job. Elizabeth was just amazing. Clever and creative and funny. It just so happened that Elizabeth needed Haley to care for her, and Haley liked the idea of being needed.

Did Matthew even realize the blessing he'd been given to parent this sweet girl? Haley was just getting to know her, and already she knew. She couldn't get enough of seeing the child's inviting smile or hearing her innocent observations of the world.

Yes, Elizabeth needed more fun and less structure in her life, but letting Matthew know that Haley thought so right away might be a mistake. She'd already told him she would be there for him and his daughter for as long as they needed her, and she intended to keep her word, especially since
they seemed to need her more than she'd thought. As long as Matthew would allow her to, she would give Elizabeth some of the fun that was clearly missing from her life.

 

Matthew held his breath late that afternoon as he drove down his lane. Not that he was worried that Haley wouldn't keep Elizabeth safe while he wasn't home. His instincts told him to trust her there. But beyond that given, he didn't know what to expect when he pulled up to the house.

Just yesterday he'd found a mammoth, rainbow-colored chalk mural covering his driveway and two laughing “artists” trying to scrub chalk dust off their clothes in the laundry room. He couldn't blame them for wanting to get outside on one of those summer-teaser days that Indiana experienced every winter, but did his daughter really have to miss her nap to work on her graffiti masterpiece?

As if throwing off Elizabeth's schedule wasn't enough, Haley hadn't even bothered to hose off the cement, just leaving it there and waiting for rain…or snow.

The quiet struck him as soon as he pulled into the garage and cut the engine. Where the rumble of tiny running feet should have reverberated from inside the house, there was silence. Come to think of it, Matthew couldn't remember seeing Haley's silver two-door car parked on the street.

He unlocked the garage entry and stepped into the kitchen, finding it empty as he'd predicted. No dishes were piled in the sink, and not a single game littered the floor. From the looks of it, they'd been gone all day.

Matthew rubbed his temples. Yes, a headache was definitely coming on. Wasn't it enough that he had to make a command appearance tonight at another Warren-Scott
get-together? Especially when he would spend the whole night dodging attempts by his mother and Mrs. Scott to shove him and Caroline together. Now he would probably have to deal with a grouchy child, as well, because Elizabeth had missed her nap while she and Haley were gallivanting.

As Matthew flipped open his cell phone, the sound of an engine filtered through the open garage door. He popped his head outside the kitchen door just as Elizabeth's pink and white sneakers came pounding across the cement. He stepped into the garage to meet her.

“You beat us home, Daddy.”

“I guess I did. So, where've you been?”

“We played all day at Mrs. Scott's house.” Elizabeth announced it like she'd just received a cavity-free report at the dentist.

“What about your nap?”

“I wasn't sleepy,” she said with a triumphant smile.

“I see.”

He turned his attention toward the driveway and the approach of the woman responsible for all the whining he'd heard last night and would again tonight. He had no one to blame but himself for hiring someone with Haley's track record to fill in as his child-care provider. How could he expect her to understand the importance of schedules and structure in a child's life when she had neither of those things in her own?

Haley looked back at him guiltily. “We got caught up addressing the packages and lost track of time. You know…the wedding gifts.”

She must have thrown in the last comment as some flimsy form of protection from his censure. To his shame, it worked. At least it kept him from coming down on her
like a piano on a broken pulley lift. Maybe he should give her a break. Not yet a week since she'd been dumped, she still had a truckload of wedding gifts to return.

“I opened all the presents for Miss Haley,” Elizabeth said importantly.

“Yes. Lizzie was a big help.”

Matthew stiffened. “Her name is Elizabeth. I would appreciate your calling her that.”

“Oh. Sorry. Elizabeth I mean.”

His daughter looked up, surprised, but then she shot back to the car. She riffled around in the backseat and returned with a necklace made of string and dozens of bows.

“Look at what Miss Haley gave me.”

“That was nice of her, but…” He let his words trail off because Elizabeth wasn't paying attention to him. She was too busy modeling the necklace for her audience of two.

Matthew nodded his approval before turning back to Haley. “I assume you've heard about the plans for tonight.”

“Pizza with Grammy!” Elizabeth jumped as she said it, her necklace lifting and falling with each bounce.

“Yeah, pizza. We're all over that.” Haley crossed over and gave Elizabeth a high-five.

“I just hope Elizabeth won't be too tired to enjoy it. She really does need her nap.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Nothing we can do about it now. But from now on, I would like Elizabeth to be home in her bed for at least one hour of rest time each afternoon.”

“Absolutely. Come on, Elizabeth. Let's get you cleaned up and ready to go out to dinner.”

As he watched the exchange, Matthew felt a jolt of
adrenaline like those he experienced in the courtroom when the judge ruled on his side. He'd won on this point at least. But when Haley started bunny hopping toward the house, and Elizabeth joined in behind her, holding her hands on her sitter's hips, Matthew felt the way he did when a case went awry.

Elizabeth was crazy about Haley. The disciplined dad versus the festive friend—he was sure to come up short. Reason told him he didn't have to compete: he was the only father Elizabeth had. Still, he had to tamp back his insecurities.