If The Shoe Fits (10 page)

A loin-clothed marble statue of a man with a
massive set of wings on his back stood in the center holding a jug
that spouted water into the pool. Dozens of children ringed the
marble edge, tossing pennies in with squeals of laughter and shouts
of “A new puppy!” “My own room!” “A pony!” One little girl
scrunched her face so tightly it looked painful. Another toddler
leaned in too far and was rescued at the last moment by his
mother.

Reese fingered the coins. This was silly;
wishes were for children.

“
Make a wish, mister,” said a
little boy who’d jumped onto the edge of the fountain beside him.
“They really do come true.” Then he tossed his own coin in and
scurried away just as the color of his eyes registered. Green.
Bright, sparkling green.

Reese shook his head. He was being
ridiculous.

So he went with that theme, made the wish, and
skimmed a coin into the fountain. It skipped five times, then sank
at the statue’s feet.

“
Looks like you spent hours
skipping stones when you were a kid,” said a voice behind
him.

He looked at the statue. No, it didn’t have
sparkling green eyes, but he almost wouldn’t have been surprised if
it did. He turned around. “Hi, Bella.”

“
Hello, Reese.”

“
Hi,” said a high-pitched voice
beside her.

Reese looked down. A younger version of Bella
stood beside her—

She had a daughter?

“
Uh, hi.” He’d always prided
himself on being able to adjust to any situation in a game, but
this blew him away. Bella must have been a teenager when she’d had
her—

His gaze shot to Bella’s left hand. No ring.
Phew
.

Although… she
did
work with food all
day; she could have removed it.

The thought ripped into his gut worse than the
spinach donut had.

Grasping at the shred of hope that he hadn’t
kissed another man’s wife, Reese prayed that Sophia was her niece.
Sister, maybe.

“
Hi. I’m Sophia Casteleoni.” The
little girl smiled with the same enthusiasm—and dimple—as
Bella.

“
I’m Reese Charmant. Pleased to
meet you, Sophia.” He was also pleased that he managed to sound
composed. But this was definitely
not
what he’d been
expecting when he’d come here today.

“
What brings you to the park?”
Bella asked.

“
I, uh, was actually looking for
you.”

“
Is there a problem?”

In a word, yes. She had a daughter.

Did she also have a husband?

“
Reese?”

Problem. Right. “Staci Fontaine came by my
office.”

“
My stepsister?”

“
What’d Aunt Staci do now?” asked
Sophia with more maturity than someone her age should have. Poor
kid sounded like she was used to Aunt Staci doing things she
shouldn’t.

“
Honey, you don’t have to call her
‘Aunt Staci.’ She’s not really your aunt,” said Bella.

“
I know, but Mama—”

“
Let’s not go into it now.” Bella
brushed her hand over Sophia’s hair and the image of a glowingly
pregnant Bella flashed before him.

Mama.
Hell, Sophia
was
her
daughter.

Reese took a deep breath and pulled his head
out of his ass. What difference did it make if Bella had a
daughter? Or a husband? He needed her for her cooking abilities,
not her procreation ones.

He was
not
going to think about
procreating with Bella—”Uh, yeah. Your Aunt Staci. She came to my
office to discuss the auction. I didn’t know she would be working
with you.”

“
Staci will
not
be working
with me. She doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”

Sophia giggled. “Yeah, she tried working at my
daddy’s restaurant once and she sprayed water all over the place
and made a big mess.”

“
It will be yours, too, someday,
Soph.”

Daddy
. Shit. He had a hell of a lot of
apologizing to do for that kiss. But not in front of the kid. Any
idea of asking Bella to Connie’s party was definitely out of the
question. Reese clinked the coins in his palm again. He’d made the
wrong damn wish.

Sophia, her eyes sparkling just like her
mother’s, touched the coins. “Are you going to make a wish with
those?”

Yes he would: that the ground would open up
and swallow him. He just couldn’t get over that he’d kissed her.
Thank God he’d ended it when he had. And that his idiotic action
hadn’t cost him her services the way Luke’s had cost them
Marissa’s.

Yet…

Reese shook his head.
Never.
“No, I’ve
already made my wish.” He held out the coins to the little girl.
“Here, you take the rest.”

Bella put her hand on his arm and it was all
Reese could do not to jerk away. “Reese, you don’t have
to—”

“
I want her to have them.” Not
that they in any way made up for his huge breach of manners or
common sense, but it was the least he could do. The very least. “Go
ahead, Sophia. Make a wish.”

He dropped them into her palm, then shoved his
hands into his pockets, Bella’s touch still lingering on his skin.
“And, Bella, I’ll have my assistant Kelly set up a time we can
discuss your proposal as soon as I get back to my office.” He
turned around and started to do just that. “Have a nice
afternoon.”

***

Jonathan smacked his forehead.
Married
.
He thought she was married.

Honestly, it was no wonder these two needed
help. Too noble for their own good.

Jonathan scratched
Fountain Wishes
off
his list. He needed to come up with something else fast before
Reese blew it.

Chapter Nine

What just happened?

Bella stared after Reese as he walked away,
and, while it was a nice view, she couldn’t figure out how they’d
been discussing the auction on minute, and the next, he’d clammed
up, hands in pockets, all stiff-necked and polite, then left. The
conversation about Staci could have been handled with a phone call,
so she had no idea why he’d come to the park in search of
her.

And her traitorous hormones had been gearing
up for round two.

“
He’s cute,” said a
too-sophisticated ten-year-old.

“
I don’t know that I’d say cute.”
No, she’d use words like
sexy, delicious
,
hot
. Words
a ten-year-old didn’t need to know at this age.

“
He is, too.” Sophia crossed her
arms. “You should marry him.”

Yes she should—

Bella sighed. Hormones and Subconscious were
staging a coup over Common Sense and Familial Duty. “Soph, you
don’t marry someone because he’s cute.”

“
Well, duh. But it doesn’t
hurt.”

Bella did a double-take. She didn’t want to
know how Sophia had formed this opinion. “But Soph, if I married
him, who’d tuck you in at night? Meet you off the bus?”

“
You, silly. I could live with you
guys.”

“
That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
Bella’s heart twisted. It
would
be. Everything she wanted
under one roof. But it’d never happen. Madeleine would never let it
happen. Not when it meant losing her majority hold over Dad’s
estate.

It always came down to money, and how sucky
was that? Bella sighed and, once more, relegated another
what-if
to the Someday corner of her brain.

It was nice in that corner. Wishes and hopes
and dreams danced around like fairies amid a meadow full of flowers
and unicorns—

“
Oh, no!” Sophia’s cry yanked her
back to reality.

She’d barely made the transition when Sophia
took off, racing across the grass toward…

Reese.

Reese?

Bella ran after her—and realized she’d had no
reason to slow her pace earlier on the sidewalk because Sophia had
quite the sprint on her.

“
Reese!” Sophia shouted.
“Help!”

Bella couldn’t for the life of her imagine
what had happened. Reese looked just as confused when he spun
around, but he jumped into action with a move she was sure came
right off the playing field, dodging a kid on a tricycle and a
little old lady walking her Maltese.

“
What’s wrong?” Reese got to
Sophia a few steps ahead of Bella.

“
Please, you have to help.”
Hopping from foot to foot, Sophia grabbed his hand.
“Please.”

“
What happened, Soph?” Bella
hunkered down in front of her sister, visually checking her to make
sure she was okay.

Sophia pointed to the branches above them.
“There. Can you see it?”

Bella looked up.

“
A cat.” Reese saw it first. The
animal’s soft gray fur blended in with the bark and its green eyes
could pass for leaves.

“
It’s a kitten,” said Sophia. “And
he’s scared. You have to get him down, Reese.”

“
How on earth did you see that,
Soph?” Bella walked closer and held up her hand. The kitten shrank
from her.

“
He was chasing something and ran
up the tree.”

“
Sophia, he’ll come down when he’s
ready,” said Reese. “Cats like to climb.”

“
They like to climb
up
. He
can’t get down. Please, will you help him?”

“
Soph, I’m sure Reese has better
things to do—”

“
It’s no problem. I’ll get him.”
Reese rubbed his hands together, then leapt to grab the lowest
branch.

The kitten backed away.

“
Are your shots up to date?” Bella
asked.

“
It’s not mine I’m worried about.”
Reese swung his legs onto a branch, giving Bella the perfect view
of his backside. A sight she would never forget, God help
her.

The kitten sneezed.

“
Oh, please, Kitty!” Sophia wrung
her hands. “Stay where you are. Reese will rescue you.”

Reese grunted as he hoisted himself onto his
feet on the branch. He grabbed the trunk with one hand and leaned
toward the kitten with the other. “Come on, cat.”

The kitten scrambled backwards.

“
He’s a kitty, Reese, not a cat.”
Sophia walked around the trunk so she was facing Reese. Bella was
quite content to stay where she was because the view was pretty
spectacular. “You have to make kissy noises for him to come to
you.”

Bella snorted. Kissy noises. She’d pay to see
that.

“
Keep laughing, Bella. I will
eventually get down, you know.”

“
Me? Laughing? Sorry, Reese. I was
clearing my throat.”

“
Uh huh.” He tested his weight on
another branch. “Come on, cat, er, kitty.”

“
Like this, Reese.” Sophia held
out her hand and rubbed her fingers together. “Here, kitty,
kitty.”

The kitten looked at her, giving Reese the
chance he needed to grab it.

“
Oh!” he yelled when the little
thing clawed on for dear life.

“
Yay, you saved him!” Sophia
bounced around the base of the tree until Bella took the kitten
from Reese and handed it to her. “Can I keep him?”

Oh, yeah.
That
would go over real well
with Madeleine. “How about we keep him at the restaurant, Soph? We
can always use a good mouser. Not—” she looked at Reese—”that we
have mice.”

He swung out of the tree. “Of course you
don’t. And the Health Department won’t have an issue with him
living there either.” He brushed off his hands, then patted the
kitten’s head. “What are you going to name him?”

Sophia looked up with all the hero-worship a
ten-year-old could muster. “Reese, of course.”

Bella choked back a laugh. “That’ll be
interesting when we take him to the vet for the, ah,
procedure.”

Reese got a sick look on his face. “I’m
flattered, Sophia, but why not something a little more cuddly, like
Fluffy or Sweetie or something like that.”

Oh, Bella didn’t know… she had a feeling Reese
could be quite cuddly.

“
I guess you’re right.” Sophia
scratched the kitten’s head. “I think I’ll name him Pussy-willow.
Cause he’s a kitty and he’s gray and furry. What do you
think?”

Bella thought it was a mouthful, but
definitely better than calling him Reese. “And how about Willow for
short?”

Sophia hugged the kitten closer and Bella made
a note to pick up a bed, some litter, and food on the way home.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure exactly where “home” would be for
the little guy. Madeleine was not about to let a cat into the house
and Bella wasn’t up for defying her on this small item.

“
What do you say to Reese,
Soph?”

Sophia beamed that megawatt smile at him and
crooked her little finger. Reese knelt down and Sophia kissed his
cheek. “Thanks, Reese. You’re my hero.”