An Unexpected Match (9 page)

“Just a few more minutes.”

“Okay. Five.” Haley smiled to herself. At least she'd remembered this time to build a little extra time into this process so she could “give in” for a few minutes and keep with the schedule.

“Yippee!”

Elizabeth picked this moment to slap both hands on the table, wreaking creamy white havoc on her igloo and all of its inhabitants. Unfortunately, the shaving cream also landed with multiple splats on the wall, the other dining chairs, the hardwood floor, even the oval-shaped rug beneath the table.

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah. Uh-oh, Lizzie. I mean Elizabeth.” Haley pulled a glob of shaving cream from her own hair, while glancing at the spattering of white dotting the child's braids. So much for her amazing idea for fun with an easy cleanup.

“Daddy's going to be mad.”

“Of course he won't. We'll just get it all cleaned up before he gets home.” She didn't even delude herself with the hope that Matthew wouldn't learn the whole story later. He did live with a four-year-old reporter after all. “Here, let me wet some washcloths.”

She hurried over to the sink and put a few cloths under the faucet. A noise from behind her caught her attention, so she glanced back over her shoulder to find that they weren't alone. Matthew stood just inside the door with his arms crossed.

Swallowing hard, Haley shut off the faucet, wrung out the cloths and turned to face him. “Hi, Matthew.”

“Daddy!” Then, as if she'd just remembered the mess that surrounded her, Elizabeth added, “Oh.”

“Right. Oh,” he repeated.

Haley grabbed the rags and headed back to the table. “Look, we just had a bit of an accident here, and we're hurrying to clean it up so Elizabeth will be on time for her—”

“Here. Let me help.”

Haley opened her mouth and then closed it. She didn't know what she'd expected him to say, but it wasn't that. Probably something about messes and lack of responsibility. Definitely not this. She stared at his outstretched hand before finally thinking to pass him a cloth. She put another cloth in Elizabeth's hands.

“Hey, sorry about this. It's only shaving cream. We'll get it cleaned up. Really.”

But Matthew didn't seem to be listening. He was bending instead, his suit jacket draping forward, as he wiped white globs from the bright yellow kitchen wall. Across the room, his daughter was smearing circles of shaving cream on the formerly shiny hardwood.

Haley settled on her hands and knees and started scrubbing the rug. With each swipe, the mess foamed more, and another whiff of lime filled her nostrils. Would this stuff ever come out?

Finally, Matthew stood up again. He stepped over to the table and leaned closer, studying the mess that remained on the wax paper.

Elizabeth scrambled to her feet, her cloth dangling from her fingers. “I'm sorry, Daddy. We were just having fun and…” She chewed her lip and stared at the floor.

“Hey, why the sad face?”

Matthew reached her in two long strides and awkwardly messed with her bangs. The tenderness of the moment squeezed Haley's heart.

“I was just admiring some of your artwork.” He waited
until she looked up at him before continuing. “What were you building here before the…er…explosion?”

“Igloo,” Elizabeth mumbled.

“I'm sure it was a great…uh…igloo.”

“It sure was,” Haley agreed.

Haley was tempted to say more, to rave about Elizabeth's creations, but she kept quiet instead and continued to scrub the rug. This was Matthew's time with his child, not hers, and even if he felt uncomfortable with imaginative play, he was trying.

She continued to watch as Matthew followed Elizabeth around the table and patiently listened while she described her artistic vision. It couldn't have been more endearing. Haley had always thought Matthew was handsome, but to her, he'd never been more attractive than he was right now, simply being daddy to his little girl.

“I messed up my igloo.” Elizabeth pointed to the spot where her structure had once stood. “I made a mess, too. It was supposed to be clean.”

“Messes are okay sometimes, especially when you're having fun,” Matthew told her. “Were you having fun?”

She nodded. “Miss Haley said I needed to stop because it was time to rest. I didn't want to stop.”

“I know. Maybe next time you can play longer with the shaving cream. Why don't you head upstairs and read while Miss Haley and I finish cleaning this up?”

“Okay, Daddy.” With a hug and a kiss for him and for Haley, she headed toward the stairs.

That left Haley alone in the kitchen with Matthew. The last time they'd been alone in there, just over a week before, he'd shown her his list of mandates taped to the counter. Although he'd moved those documents—they could be found hanging from the side of the refrigerator
with a magnet—that didn't mean the rules had changed. Haley braced herself for the worst, which was what it would be if he decided she couldn't be with Elizabeth anymore.

M
atthew watched as Haley sat crisscross on the floor and continued to work on the mess. Having already wiped the remaining spots from the wall, he walked to the sink to rinse his washcloth. She was still scrubbing when he stepped back over to her. Was she that worried about what he planned to say?

“This place is going to smell like lime air freshener for a long time, don't you think?”

At his words, Haley's hand stilled. “Really, Matthew, I'm sorry.”

“Lime's not a bad smell.” He waited for her to look up at him before he continued. “Definitely better than that menthol stuff.”

“That's what I thought.”

He moved over to the table and started to lift the wax paper only to find it secured with tape. Just like his list of rules had been. “So, what was the plan here?”

Haley twisted out of her seated position and stood, resting her hand on the table's edge. “Supposedly to keep
the table clean and be an easy cleanup.” Her smile held as much irony as her words.

“Well, you know what? That table still looks clean.”

Her smile made him wish he'd said something funny a whole lot earlier.

“Unfortunately, the table's the only clean thing.”

“Nothin' a few hands and some elbow grease can't fix.”

Haley stared at him, appearing surprised by his uncharacteristic use of slang. “Wait. Was that Matthew? If I didn't know better, I'd say that was your mother talking. Or mine.”

“Our two mothers are pretty wise women overall.”

She crouched down again, going after a blob next to the table leg. “You mean about
the plan?
”

“Except for that.”

“You've got to give them credit for trying.”

“I guess.”

“At least they have your best interests at heart.” She carried her washcloth over to the sink and rinsed it.

“Now don't you start.”

“Don't worry. This is a matchmaking-free zone.”

“Whew.” He gave his brow an exaggerated swipe. “I was ready to run for my car.”

“They are right though. Caroline is a great person.”

Matthew glanced at her, but when he didn't find the mischief in her eyes that he'd expected, he nodded. What she said about her sister was true. He couldn't think of a clever way to respond to that, either, so he reached under the table and began unfastening the tape. Haley did the same thing on the other end. Soon they were rolling the two ends of the paper together, easily keeping that part of the mess inside.

When Matthew had all the paper in a ball, Haley grabbed the trash can from beneath the sink, and he stuffed the ball inside it.

“See.” Matthew indicated the table with a nod. “A perfectly clean table.”

“Great,” she said without enthusiasm.

Haley plopped down on the floor and started on a new section of the rug. Matthew hung his suit jacket on one of the dining chairs, grabbed his cloth again and worked on the spots that dotted the sideboard. For a few minutes, they worked companionably to restore the kitchen.

Finally, Haley's head popped up. “Hey, you never said why you're home in the middle of the day.”

“I had this sudden need for a good shave.”

“It's definitely important to be clean-shaven in court,” Haley agreed but then tilted her head, studying him. “So you're sure you weren't just checking up on us? Maybe seeing if we were jumping off the roof to test the law of gravity?”

Matthew shook his head. “Have I dropped in to check up any other day?” Though he emphasized his point, his smile was probably too wide for her not to notice. Checking up on them wasn't his motivation for coming today, and he'd prefer that she not know about those times last week when he'd been tempted to do just that.

She moved her head from side to side as if considering his question. “No. I guess not. But maybe you just couldn't get away, and you would have checked up on us before.”

If it were possible for his smile to widen, Matthew was sure it would have. Haley Scott was a clever woman. He must learn not to underestimate her.

“Okay, you're at least partially right. This is the first time I could get away, but I didn't come to check up on you two.” Glancing around to ensure that they'd cleaned the last of the mess, he reached for the cloth in her hand and carried his and hers into the laundry room just off the kitchen.

When he returned, he added, “I came to see what you two were doing.”

“Can you explain to me how those two things are different?”

“I just wanted to see what fun activities you'd planned for today.” He opened the refrigerator door and collected the makings of a turkey and provolone sandwich before leaning out again. “You always have some kind of exciting event planned.”

“How did you—”

“You didn't expect a four-year-old to be able to keep a secret, did you? I've been getting the play-by-play every night. The A-B-C clay monsters, Princess and one hundred peas, those amazing pairs on Noah's ark. She's told me about all of them.”

At first, he'd been a little jealous of both Haley's creativity and the fact that Elizabeth was so enamored with her, but now he just appreciated that someone was making such an effort to make learning fun for his daughter.

Haley's cheeks reddened, but she didn't look away from him. “I guess I don't have any secrets, then.”

“You're like Mary Poppins with that satchel of yours. It has as many surprises as her carpetbag. I'm beginning to expect you to pull a floor lamp out of it soon.”

“I doubt I can do that.”

“But you've done something even more important with your fun approach to learning. You've convinced Elizabeth that she should try preschool in the fall. She wasn't ready earlier this year.”

Her smile and her pretty blush made everything he'd said seem worthwhile. He was tempted to say more, just to keep her smiling that way, so he focused on making his sandwich. He offered her one, as well, but she'd already
eaten with Elizabeth, precisely at noon, as the schedule required. Trying not to feel guilty over that, he asked her to join him while he ate, and she took a seat opposite him at the dinette.

When he looked up from saying grace, Haley was watching him.

“Maybe I am a little like Mary Poppins. ‘Practically perfect in every way.'” She chuckled over her own joke.

“Elizabeth sure thinks so.”

He understood that Haley had been kidding, and he'd just been playing along, but Matthew was surprised by how tempted he was to agree with his daughter. In a lot of ways, particularly those that involved Elizabeth, Haley was “practically perfect.”

The fact that he was beginning to think so worried him, so he pushed away the errant thought. He needed to remind himself that this particular Mary Poppins was also known for her Peter Pan complex. She considered growing up something other people did, and while the rest of the world had to work in jobs even when they hated them, Haley never stuck to any long enough to have business cards made.

Sure, she might have put more effort into her activities than any of Elizabeth's other child-care providers, but Haley would never be around long enough to see the success of her efforts.

“I'm sorry I made Elizabeth late for her nap again,” she said, clearly misunderstanding the meaning of his pause.

“There's no reason to apologize. I'm the one who should apologize for being so rigid about the schedule and the rules. I get caught up in the details sometimes.”

“Ya think?” She stopped, looking wide-eyed. “I mean, you think so?”

“Okay, that's fair.”

“No.” Haley closed her eyes, shaking her head. “That's not what I meant.”

“So, what did you mean? That my schedule and list of rules were over-the-top? That a few house rules and general schedule guidelines would have been plenty?”

“You said those things, not me.”

She looked as if she was trying to keep a straight face, but the ends of the straight line of her lips slipped upward, and then she started giggling. Not a laugh like he would have expected from an adult woman but a youthful giggle. A strangely contagious one, too.

Soon Matthew found himself laughing right along with her. At himself, no less. He was surprised by how good it felt. Most of the time, he didn't have the luxury of taking himself less seriously. Too many people, too many things, were relying on him. He couldn't afford to fail.

When she finally stopped laughing, Haley rested her hands on the table and gave him a steady look. “Okay, maybe the lists were a bit…er…painstaking, but you had every right to make them. It's your house. Your child. You were just doing what you felt you had to—”

“To be the one in control,” he finished for her.

She started shaking her head, but he continued, anyway. “You might not know this about me, but I'm a control freak.”

One side of Haley's mouth lifted, but she didn't say anything clever. If they were discussing her negative personality traits, he doubted he would have shown the same restraint. He certainly hadn't before.

Pushing back from the table, he crossed to the refrigerator where the rules and the schedule were hanging from separate magnets. He pulled them both lose and ripped
them in half. When he looked back to the table, Haley was watching him.

“I'm not suggesting that there should be no rules in this house,” he explained, “but it wasn't necessary to post them like edicts. You know my general expectations. Beyond that, I'd just like you to use your judgment.”

“Why the change of heart?”

“I overreacted.” He returned to the table, carrying the torn papers with him. “We both know that. Yet, you followed all the rules and deadlines without complaining and still managed to squeeze in time for fun. I realized I don't need any lists to know you have my daughter's best interests at heart.”

Haley lifted the remnants of the two torn documents. “So just how hard was it for you to get rid of these?”

He waved away her question. “Not hard.” Then he stopped. “Okay, a little hard. I like to have all my ducks in a row, and I want all the mallards separated from the domestic varieties, too. I like plans, deadlines and boundaries. Could there ever be a person better suited to practice law?”

“There's nothing wrong with wanting to be in control of your life, Matthew.”

He shrugged. “I guess as long as you realize that you're not ever really in control.”

“There's an old saying that if you really want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans,” she said.

Finishing the last bite of his sandwich, Matthew pushed his plate aside. “I didn't get that. I figured as long as I did the right things, jumped through the right hoops, then my life would turn out differently than—”

Matthew stopped himself. What was he doing? It wasn't like him to spill his guts to anyone about Stacey or his father, so why was he tempted to make Haley the first?
Sure, she could relate to the experience of rejection, but she couldn't understand what it felt like for a father to fail his child, how emasculating it felt to not be able to protect Elizabeth from people who would hurt her.

He stared at her and waited. If she were anything like either of their mothers, she would be pressing him for details before he had time to exhale.

Finally, he couldn't resist his curiosity. He looked up to find her studying him. Her eyes were so warm. So wise. She didn't ask him to say more, but she seemed to understand him almost too well, more than her own experiences should have taught her.

“You know,” she said, taking an exaggerated pause, “one good thing about never having any plans for your life is that you always get to be surprised.”

“I've never thought of it that way.” Matthew smiled. She'd let him off the hook, and he was grateful. Maybe it had been wrong of him to always think of Haley as not quite a grown-up. She had grown into a kind, perceptive woman.

“Planning for a whole new life outlook?”

“You know me. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.”

“You're not an old dog. Only twenty-eight in human years though I'm afraid it's far older in dog years.”

“That's one hundred ninety-six.”

“Okay, I take it back. You are an old dog.”

“Thanks.”

“You're welcome.” Haley grinned but then her expression became serious. “I sure hope old dogs can change when they really need to. I know I'm trying.”

Matthew glanced at her, but she was studying her hands. He wasn't sure what she was trying to tell him. It could have been anything from a decision to choose a
more reliable fiancé to finally picking a career she liked enough to stick with it.

“Your mom told me that you're thinking of going back to school again,” he said, hoping she would clue him in.