Matt couldn’t wait to see Natasha and Emily again.

Gone was his interest in hitting a bar tonight. Instead, he ordered room service for dinner and replayed the conversations from the afternoon in his head.

He’d been off his game for too long. Or maybe he didn’t have the right game to date a single mother. He frowned at that thought because, damn it, he liked her.

“So it’s just the two of you?”

“Always has been. Her dad lives in Toronto.”

What kind of man would abandon this woman? That child?

He pulled out his phone, not for the first time, and clicked on her contact information. It was too soon to text her. He was here for three days. He’d reach out tomorrow and see if they wanted to grab lunch since she worked at night.

Yes, he’d like to see her again. And Emily, too. He knew they came as a package deal, and the fact that didn’t scare him at all? Surprising didn’t touch it.

Huh.

Matt Foster and a gorgeous single mother.

Stranger things had happened, of course. He’d hit a dry spell for the first time in his adult life, although right now he was wondering why he’d ever lost faith in the pursuit of women. Because Natasha was all woman, and he was very interested in pursuing every inch of her. It wouldn’t be his usual modus operandi, but maybe that had been the problem.

Maybe he could try something a little more serious for once in his life. A friendship.

And they could see where that might lead.

Or not. That would be her call, and for the first time in ages, Matt had to face the reality that he might not measure up. Oh, they had chemistry, there was no doubt. But more than once this afternoon he’d seen wariness in her eyes.

If she was reluctant to trust someone now, it might be that she’d had her trust broken before.

He was out of his depth. He thought about his brothers, his circle of friends, and wondered who he could call, who might be able to advise on how to handle this. When you grew up in a small town, your siblings were your best friends. He was the second youngest of four boys. They’d grown up around the corner from the Minellis, four boys and a girl. Matt was the same age as Tom Minelli, and of the entire crew, Tom was his closest, oldest friend.

But Tom was also the responsible one. The serious one.

He definitely would know the right way to woo a single mother, but that advice would also come with a dose of hard reality about how Matt wasn’t the right kind of guy for a woman like that.

He didn’t want to hear that nonsense.

On the other hand, Tom’s oldest brother Zander, who was the same age as Matt’s oldest brother Dean, had married a single mother. A widow named Faith with a little boy. Eric.

And Zander had been a confirmed bachelor before he met Faith.

In the end, he chickened out and called Sean instead.

His younger brother answered on the second ring and sounded tired. “Hello?”

“Did I wake you from a nap?”

“Nah. I was just stretching out on the couch a bit before dinner.”

“Jenna home tonight?”

“Yeah.” In a single syllable, his brother went from tired to happy. “She pushed me out of the kitchen because she’s just reheating some soup.”

“Sounds good.” It sounded perfect. And for the first time all day, those thoughts he hated threatened to close in again.

Matt had thought he knew what it was to be happy.

He’d been wrong. And he’d spent the last six months painfully aware of the yawning deficit in his life, but hadn’t known where to start in rectifying the problem.

“Do you want to come over for dinner?” Sean asked.

“Nah, but thanks. I’m actually in Port Elgin for a couple of days.” He exhaled. “Last minute work thing. I’ll be back Thursday night.”

“I’m going to the Search and Rescue training site Friday morning to put Tom through his paces if you feel like being punished.”

He huffed a laugh. “I might need it after this week.”

“That bad?”

“That something. The course will be whatever it’ll be, but honestly, I—” I met someone. The words died on his tongue. “Yeah. Something. Anyway, I should go.”

“All right, man. See you Friday.”

“Good deal.”

He stared at the phone after he ended the call. Wondered why he hadn’t told his brother about Natasha. About the warmth in his chest, a new and interesting feeling that made the generalized worry that plagued him seem less scary.

But of all the Foster brothers, Matt was the last one anyone would think to have feelings of any kind—and especially not sensitive ones about a single mom. Sean might get it. Jake and Dean wouldn’t. Like Tom, they’d have reservations about the harm he might do.

Would they be wrong?

Fuck, he didn’t know. And he didn’t want to dig into that question, because what if they weren’t?

Natasha took her time putting Emily to bed. It was a bittersweet cuddle for reasons she understood too well but didn’t want to name. She didn’t want to give them power in her head. This was enough. This was perfect.

When she got up, she thought about going straight to bed herself, but she could hear her sister moving around in the kitchen. She went up to offer help and found Meredith putting the last of the dishes away.

“Sorry,” she said, but her sister waved her off.

“Dan’s fallen asleep reading Logan a story,” Mer said. “I thought maybe you’d done the same with Emily and I had the television all to myself tonight.”

Natasha half-laughed, half-sighed. “I did think about an early night.”

Her sister twisted around and gave her a searching look. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want tea?” That was Meredith’s way of saying she didn’t believe nothing was wrong.

“Sure.”

“So much detail, don’t overwhelm me all at once.”

Natasha shook her hands, wiggled her arms, and rolled her shoulders before taking a deep breath. She didn’t want to get all the way into it, but she’d learned her sister was a good listener, and always had her back. “I was thinking about regret. Not a healthy place to dwell, so now I want to shake that off.”

“Fair enough. Do you want to talk about it?”

No. Yes. Sort of. “We met someone today. At the cooking class series.”

“A guy?”

“Yeah.”

“And he was a complete monster.”

She laughed. “No. He was really nice.”

Meredith didn’t say anything.

Natasha sighed. “We had to share a table. Emily demanded pink icing and he made that happen for her.”

“That is nice.”

“Right? What kind of guy gets that when a three-year-old demands something, it’s not rude, it’s just…they’re little and they don’t know that the world is not their oyster just yet?”

Her sister snorted.

“But he didn’t blink. He just clicked with Emily, which was nice, and then…” She trailed off. And then. Her chest pulled tight.

“You’re not ready to date yet.” Maybe if her sister had phrased it in the form of a question, she’d have corrected that misunderstanding.

She was ready, in a guarded kind of way. She missed sex, although the thought of having sex and the very real consequences that can come from it also terrified her.

Maybe she just missed third base. Second base was pretty good, too.

Matt would round the bases like he had all the time in the world because he’d knocked it clear out of the park.

Yeah. He would.

With someone else.

“Yeah,” Natasha said quietly. “I’m not prepared to handle all of that.”

The truth, even if the real question was different. Was she ready to date? Maybe, yes. Was she ready to date a Foster? No, never.

Meredith squeezed her arm. “You got burned, and more than once. But not all people are like David and Jake.”

They rarely talked about Tasha’s most humiliating period in her life, when she chased after Matt’s older brother when he wasn’t interested and had made that clear.

She didn’t want to start talking about it now, either, but maybe she needed to get it off her chest. Process it, four years later. “Yeah, I know that. David is a special kind of narcissist.” She told her sister about his text. “If it’s so urgent that we need to talk, why didn’t he call today? But I can’t let him manipulate me like that, I can’t care about it too much, because he doesn’t care at all. And Jake…” Natasha winced. “That was just a mistake all around. One I need to forgive myself for and move on, but that’s easier said than done when it’s the biggest mistake of my entire life.”

“Wow, that’s not just a little bit of regret.”

“Bah. I know. But…shaking it off, see?”

“Good.” Mer looked like she wanted to say something else, but decided better of it. Instead, she made tea, and they drank it in the living room while they watched a reality singing show and booed the judges together.

Sleep was a long time coming when Natasha crawled into bed.

The next morning she kept Emily busy with finger-painting and creative laundry folding, but by the time lunch rolled around, she was all out of distractions.

And it didn’t help that Matt had sent a text mid-morning.

Nope. Not free. Not available. She closed the messaging app without replying, doing her best to ignore how good the question felt low in her gut.

Emily bounced in front of her. “Can we go back to the park today, Mommy?”

Natasha gave her a knowing smile and ignored the pang of regret that reverberated through her insides. “Are you hoping to see Matt again?”

Her three-year-old did a surprisingly good job at looking innocent. “I like the park.”

“Mm-hmm.” She dropped to her knees and pulled Emily in tight. “He’s not going to be there. Remember? He said he’s working today. He was just there for one day. He won’t be back.”

How many times would she have to repeat that?

As many as it took to convince them both. “We won’t see him again, but that was a really nice day yesterday, wasn’t it?”

Emily’s head bobbed against Natasha’s neck. “I like him,” she whispered, and pain lanced through Natasha’s chest.

“I know, baby. I liked him too.”

Emily sighed, then pulled away. “Can we watch a TV show instead?”

That was how to get over the disappointment of a hot man being unavailable, one hundred percent. “Sure thing. A Mommy show?”

That made Emily giggle. “No! A Millie show.”

Natasha mock-groaned. “Come on! Let’s watch a Mommy show about cooking. Long and boring.”

More giggles, then a tickle attack that ended up with Natasha sprawled out on the couch and Emily perched like a princess on top of her while they watched My Little Pony.

After two episodes, they went to the grocery store before collecting Logan and Noelle at the school. The kids helped her make cupcakes for dessert, so she could practice her piping skills learned the day before, and then they went out to the backyard while Natasha started dinner. When her sister and brother-in-law got home from work, they all sat down to eat as one big happy family.

She was lucky. Maybe she wasn’t getting laid, and maybe she was a bit lonely in the quiet minutes before she fell asleep each night, but their life could be a lot harder than it was. They were blessed.

“Icing doesn’t melt,” Emily announced as she wiggled her cupcake at Noelle. “Right, Mommy?”

“Pardon, baby?” Natasha heard the words filter into her head a little too late and only realized where Emily was going after she’d missed her opportunity to change the subject.

“Matt said icing doesn’t really melt. It softens. Right?” Emily looked at her expectantly.

So did Meredith.

“Right,” Natasha said, her cheeks heating up. “We learned that yesterday at cooking class.”

“I like Matt,” her daughter continued.

Meredith cleared her throat and took a long sip of her coffee. Dan looked back and forth between the sisters, and Natasha willed him not to ask what was going on. She failed.

“Who’s Matt?” her brother-in-law asked.

“Nobody,” Natasha said at the same time as Emily beamed. “He’s my new friend. He played with Mommy at the park.”

Oh, sweet baby Jesus. She lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “He’s someone we met at the cooking class. Nice guy. Doesn’t live around here, though. Not a big deal.”

There was a pause, then Dan made an appreciative statement about the cupcakes and the girls started talking about icing colours.

When Naasha dropped her gaze back down from the heavens, her sister was grinning. Nice guy, she mouthed. Named Matt.

Yep. But he’d been a single day’s fantasy, and now she really needed to move past him. Permanently.

After dinner, Noelle dragged Emily off to play with dolls, and Meredith shooed Natasha downstairs. “I won’t ask anything about Matt, but at some point, I want to know more. Now go take a few minutes for yourself before you head to work.”

At some point like four years down the road. That seemed about how long it took Natasha to get over awkward feelings.

She took a long, hot shower, then dried her hair, blowing it out smooth before carefully putting it up in a ponytail. She got dressed in her work outfit of dark jeans and a black t-shirt, then made up her face. Back upstairs, she found Emily dancing toy ponies over the headboard in Noelle’s room.

“Mommy’s going to work, baby. Gimme a kiss?”

Emily launched herself into the air and Natasha caught her.

“Love you so much,” she murmured into her daughter’s hair. “See you in the morning.”