She set T.J. down long enough to remove her coat, then carried him to the kitchen, where she began searching through cabinets.
“What are you doing?” Ray asked.
“I’m going to make this boy some macaroni and cheese.” She pulled out a familiar blue box and turned to him. “Do you want some?”
He stared at her with the same lost expression as his son, but his gaze was devoid of all childlike innocence. His eyes held a wariness. And beyond that was grief and exhaustion and another sharper emotion—a hard masculinity that touched the most feminine part of her, and sent a warm flush over her cheeks.
Then he blinked, breaking the spell. “Better make two boxes,” he said. “I’m hungry.”
She set T.J. on the floor. He had quieted, though he still sniffed from time to time. “Come on, big boy, you can help,” she said. “Ray, would you drag a chair over here by the stove for T.J. to stand on?”
“Are you sure that’s safe?” he asked.
“I’ll be right here,” she said, smiling at T.J. Then, in a softer voice, she said to Ray, “The trick is to keep him distracted. I can’t guarantee no more meltdowns, but maybe this way you can shorten the duration.”
He nodded and moved the chair. “Thanks.”
She filled a pot with water and set it on to boil, then opened the first box of macaroni and gave T.J. the cheese packet to hold on to. “When I’m ready, you can help me put that in,” she said.
He nodded, and clutched the foil packet to his chest.
“I see you have some new furniture,” she said, adding salt to the water in the pot.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want him to come home to an empty house,” Ray said.
“That was smart.”
He leaned against the counter, close enough that one step back would have brought them into contact. “So you can admit I’m not a moron as a parent?”
“I never said you were.” She stared at the pot, willing the water to boil, every part of her aware of his eyes on her. What did he see when he looked at her? Did he still think of her as his enemy? Or as the lonely woman she was? She cleared her throat. “This is a difficult situation,” she said.
“Yes.” He let out a breath, almost a sigh. “For everyone.”
For her, too, she thought as she poured the dry macaroni into the boiling water. A person watching her might think she’d never been alone with an attractive man before. She didn’t know where to look, how to act.
She settled for focusing on the little boy beside her. He stared at the macaroni spinning around in the pot. “It looks like it’s swimming,” he said.
“Yes, but it wouldn’t be any fun for you to swim in boiling water,” she said. She gave the noodles a stir. “What should we have with our macaroni?” she asked. She turned to the cabinets once more. “We have green beans. Or tomato soup.”
“Soup,” father and son answered in unison.
She laughed. “Not much for vegetables, are you?”
“I don’t like green beans,” T.J. said.
“Me neither.” Ray ruffled his son’s hair. The boy grinned at him, tears now forgotten.
They ate macaroni and cheese and tomato soup, with water to drink, since there was no milk. “I guess tomorrow I need to go to the grocery store,” Ray said.
She opened her mouth to offer suggestions of what he should buy, then quickly shut it. Ray Hughes didn’t strike her as the helpless type. He was probably perfectly capable of buying food for himself and his son.
T.J. cleaned his plate, then sat back. “Can I go watch cartoons now?” he asked.
“All right,” Ray said. “For a little while.”
When they were alone, Chrissie started to clear the table. Ray put out a hand to stop her. “I’ll get the dishes later. You’ve done enough.”
His hand on her bare arm was warm and firm. He kept it there longer than was really necessary, but she didn’t protest. How long had it been since a man other than her father had touched her at all?
“I’d better go,” she said after a moment and turned away.
“T.J. said you babysat him sometimes,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“When Tammy went out.”
She risked looking at him then. His expression was guarded, mouth a hard line, eyes revealing little. “Yes. She told me she was taking classes at the community college, but I suspected that wasn’t true.” She raised her chin, daring him to disbelieve her. “No matter what you think, I didn’t approve of what she was doing. I tried to talk to her about it, but she wouldn’t listen.”
He looked away, his posture still rigid, but he didn’t protest her explanation. “She said you were single,” he said after a long pause.
“Yes. I…My husband was killed in an assault on Fallujah. In the early days of the war.”
All the stiffness went out of him. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
There was an awkward silence. She wasn’t sure why she’d told him something she rarely revealed to anyone. Maybe because she wanted him to think better of her, to realize she wasn’t some wild, partying jezebel who had led his wife astray.
“I really should be going.” She was scared to take things too quickly—to hope for too much. If anything was going to happen between them, he’d have to make the first move. She slipped past him, into the living room. She reached for her coat, but he took it, and held it while she fit her arms into it.
“What time should I put him to bed?” he asked.
She glanced toward T.J. She could just see his profile in the light from the television screen. “He’ll be tired tonight,” she said. “Make it early. By eight. Give him a bath first. And read him a story.”
He nodded solemnly, a man receiving instructions for an important mission. “I can handle that. And thanks.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I was ready to pull my hair out when you walked in.”
“It will get easier,” she said.
“I hope so.”
She hurried away, almost running across the lawn to her own house. Safely inside, she leaned against the door and took a deep breath, trying to conquer the shakiness she felt. “Oh, boy,” she said out loud. She wasn’t sure what had happened back there, why a man who had professed to not even like her had her so shook up. He was masculine and strong, physically handsome, and his obvious desire to be a good father to T.J. touched her. He was also a soldier on active duty who could be sent back to fighting at any time, a man separated from his wife with a child to care for. A man who could so easily make her forget common sense and caution. He was everything a woman could want—and everything she absolutely didn’t need.
“COME ON, sport, time for a bath.” Ray picked up the remote and clicked off the television.
T.J. looked up at him. “Are you going to take a bath?”
The question stopped him. “Uh, I usually take a shower.”
“You could take a bath with me.”
After the long drive from Omaha, a hot bath might feel good at that. He shrugged. “Sure, why not?” Father-son bonding and all that.
In the bathroom, he helped T.J. undress and started the water running, then began removing his own clothes.
“Mama puts in bubbles.” T.J. picked up a bottle of Mr. Bubble from the bathtub ledge.