It took Natasha ages to wind down that night, and in the end, she only tossed and turned for a few hours before it was time to get up.

Meredith gave her a worried look as they waited for the coffee maker to finish brewing. “You were up late last night.”

“David called.” She told her sister about the woman in the background.

“Are you jealous?”

“What?” Natasha made a face. “No. Whoever she is, she’s welcome to his mess. Maybe she’ll straighten him out, which would be good for Emily. Just…I don’t know what it means.”

Meredith sighed. “Sorry.”

“There’s something about this whole situation that is freaking me out. He’s so consistently been a non-factor in our lives, and now…this is different. I don’t like it, but I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

“I don’t know, I think he got exactly what he deserved from the sounds of it.” Meredith grabbed two mugs from the cupboard. Extra big ones, because it was that kind of a Saturday. “Listen, there’s something else I need to talk to you about, but I don’t want to stress you out.”

That didn’t sound good. Natasha took a deep breath. “Too late. Shoot.”

“Dan’s had an interview for a new position. He was headhunted, actually, last month, and we didn’t think anything would come of it, but now they want to bring him in to meet some people.” Meredith’s face tightened up. “The job sounds amazing. But it’s in Ottawa.”

All the way across the province. Her heart plummeted. “Oh.”

“He may not be offered the job.”

But Meredith wouldn’t have said anything if it wasn’t a possibility. “That sounds exciting,” Tasha said, which was the truth. “So, they’re flying him there for an interview?”

“Yeah.” But her sister still didn’t look thrilled, and Natasha hated that any worry about her might be clouding a very good thing for their family.

“Oh, honey.” She moved over and wrapped her arms around Meredith. “It’s okay.”

“It may turn out to be nothing…”

The unspoken but was crystal clear. “Are you interested in moving? For you?”

Her sister squirmed, looking guilty. “Yes,” she finally admitted. “I’d like to live in a bigger city. It would be a big adjustment for the kids, of course. We’re still talking it over.”

“They’re both outgoing kids, they’d probably take to new schools no problem.”

Mer lifted one shoulder. “More variety, too,” she said quietly. “There are some advantages to living in a city.”

She grabbed Mer’s hands. “Then I hope it’s perfect for him, and you guys, and I don’t want you to worry about me. Deal?”

“Deal.” Her sister gave a sheepish look. “Is it terrible that I really want to be within driving distance of a Starbucks?”

She shook her head. “Nope.” It wasn’t for her, but she got it. She’d had that once. It had come with a painful side-effect of not being enough to hold all of David’s attention, but it had been fun while it lasted. “Okay, while we still live on the same side of the province, what should we do with the kids today?”

The weekend sped by, working at night and cramming as much sister fun as possible into the days. By the time Monday rolled around, Natasha found herself needing the normalcy of seeing her sister and brother-in-law off to work, then walking the kids to school, and finally—blissfully—having alone time with Emily.

They cleaned up the kitchen, then talked about the cooking class that afternoon. “This one will be mostly talking, baby. So you’ll want to bring a book and some crayons, okay?”

“No pink icing?”

“None.”

“Boo.”

“I feel your pain, kiddo.”

“Will Matt be there?”

Ah, crap. Kids never forget anything. “He doesn’t live near here. Remember? Last week was his only time coming to the lessons.”

“Boo.”

Despite her best efforts to forget him, Natasha had to admit she felt Emily’s pain on that point, too.

“Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“You like cooking.” Emily said it like the statement it was, not a question. The wisdom of a three-year-old.

“I do.”

“Okay.”

Natasha smiled to herself. If only everything could be as simple as that. You want to have an inn. I do. Okay.

You want to go back in time and never sleep with men who didn’t value you enough. I do. Okay.

But life wasn’t that easy; wishes and wants didn’t just come true. She had to live with her past decisions, which was okay—they’d made her smarter, wiser, sharper.

“Mommy?”

She jerked her attention back to her gorgeous daughter. “Yes, baby?”

This game could go on forever. Emily never tired of getting her attention. Her eyes sparkled. “I love you.”

As Natasha sank into the sweet, soft-armed hug, she reminded herself that it wasn’t just wisdom she’d gotten out of her past decisions. She’d also got this. Pure, unconditional love. She buried her face in Emily’s hair. “I love you, too.”

Which was an important thing to remember three hours later when she was willing herself to not grump at Emily for fidgeting at cooking class.

They were at the Chinese restaurant today. Mrs. Chan’s class was called Cook Dinner in Under an Hour! and promised prep tips and tricks from a chef. No pink icing, no cupcakes.

Her adorable three-year-old was grumpy and wanted everyone to know it. When Mrs. Cargill stopped by their table to say hello, Emily scowled before quietly whispering her response.

Mrs. Cargill just smiled. “Having a rough Monday, are we?”

Emily opened her colouring book and grabbed a crayon.

Natasha took a deep breath and nodded. “Little bit.”

The older woman sat in front of them, and the tables quickly filled up, but maybe everyone could sense Emily’s mood because nobody sat in the chair at the end of their table.

Mrs. Chan called the class to order promptly at the top of the hour, launching into an overview of the objectives. She was about to give her first tip when the door chimed, and everyone turned to see who the straggler was.

Not a regular, that was for sure. A big, broad body stood in the doorway, backlit by the afternoon sun. Someone who shouldn’t be here, because he didn’t live here, and last week was a one-off. Or something like that.

Natasha felt her eyes go wide and her mouth drop open as Matt Foster gave the room a sheepish wave. “Sorry I’m late. I’ll just, uh…” He pointed to the empty chair next to Emily, who was beaming at him, and dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “Is that spot free?”

Emily gave him the world’s biggest grin and nodded her head.

She doesn’t know Matt is off-limits.

And neither did most of Natasha’s rioting body parts, either.

He gave them both a quick smile as he sat down. Once again they were sharing a table with Emily in between them. Again Natasha was doing her best to not look at him even though she was completely, utterly aware of every inch of his six-foot-plus deliciousness.

Most of all, she couldn’t stop seeing the hint of a blush along his cheekbones.

God damn it, if he was a little nervous, that would just melt her heart. She wasn’t prepared for heart-melting. She wasn’t prepared for any of this.

She’d told him it was complicated and pushed him away. Why had he come back?

From the counter, Mrs. Chan gave Matt a disapproving look before continuing with her tips on getting organized before you begin. “Really, the true secret to cooking dinner quickly is having a clean kitchen from the previous meal. If you have a wide open counter space with lots of room to do your prep, everything will go faster.”

That was true. Bailey’s had a small prep space, and it meant that Malcolm spent more time doing that work and cleaning up in between, rather than waiting for the dishwasher to come in.

In her fantasy future inn, she’d have a big farm kitchen with a giant work space in the middle. In reality, she’d probably be working as a bartender for the rest of her life and doodling kitchen drawings when she was fifty, an empty-nester who worried that her daughter was making a big mistake by not going to medical school. Or something. God, she didn’t want to fall into the same trap her parents had.

Whatever Emily wanted to do with her life would be just fine.

And Natasha’s Big Dream Plan was fun to think about.

Plus it was an excellent distraction from the Big Hot Hunk on the other end of her table—who was taking notes.

Notes.

He’d brought a notebook.

She gave up pretending that she wasn’t aware of him and turned her head, giving him a brow-pulled-together curious look before shooting a glance at his notebook. Taking notes? she mouthed.

Very interesting, he silently responded. Then he grinned.

She turned her attention back to Mrs. Chan, who’d moved on to a comparison of cooking techniques. “Obviously, I am biased toward the stir-fry,” she said, leaving room after that for a round of weak laughter. “But anything with high heat and small pieces of meat is sure to cook quickly. Big pieces of meat and slow heat? Those are for Sundays. Or when you are retired, so for some of you, why are you here? Go home and make a roast.”

From the table in front of them, Mrs. Cargill muttered something about having better things to do with her time because she was old, not dead, and glanced meaningfully at Matt.

He grinned at her, too. Free and loose with those smiles, the Big Hot Hunk was.

Mrs. Chan sighed. “Moving on. When time is short, it’s smart to choose recipes that can be accomplished in much less time than you have. Whatever time it says on a recipe, double it. That’s how long it will take.”

The tips continued for the next ten minutes, all common sense but most not applicable for Natasha. She already knew how to cook for a family and in a hurry. She was here for the hands-on part of the class—a salad prep race.

The little things in life amused her. Racing senior citizens for the fastest vegetable chop in town would usually be the highlight of her social life for the week. Now Matt was at the end of the table, and she was very distracted by his mouth.

His smile, not his mouth, she tried to tell herself.

Definitely not the promise of a kiss she couldn’t have.

She wanted to ask him what he was doing here, except she knew the answer would almost certainly be dangerous.

Matt liked the way Natasha kept looking at him. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her, either.

She had a notebook in front of her, covered in neat writing, organized into stacks of words. Somehow she managed to sneak looks at him, give the presenter her full attention, and keep an eye on Emily, too.

The young Miss Kingsley was colouring right now, but she kept fidgeting. Each time she got restless, Natasha would pull out something to redirect her attention. A little plastic pony, a sheet of stickers. Sometimes she just flipped the page of the colouring book to give Emily something new to focus on.

He couldn’t blame the three-year-old for being bored. This class had nothing on cupcake decorating.

If Natasha wanted to concentrate on the lesson, though, he could at least help keep Emily occupied. He hunkered down, bringing his head to her level. “Can I colour with you?”

She gave him a blue crayon. “Here. You can do the sky.”

He did, and then he was tasked with filling in a tree while Emily did the rainbow in alternating pink and purple stripes.

“I told Mommy you would be here,” she whispered.

Ah, shit. He could imagine how that would have gone with Natasha. “I can’t always come to cooking class. But I liked last week.”

“Me too.” She pursed her tiny mouth and scribbled harder.

He switched out green for brown and coloured the trunk of the tree.

Emily didn’t say anything else, and he wondered why she was so different today than last week. But she kept giving him colours to use, and smiling when he did her colouring-related bidding, so he didn’t worry too much about it.

Maybe she was trying to be good for her mom, who was taking the most diligent notes.

Matt was quite glad he’d decided to bring his own pad of paper. They could bond over food prep. It might be the start of a beautiful friendship.

After the lesson wrapped up, the hands-on task was a salad-assembly race. There were only eight trays assembled, so people needed to group up. Natasha gave Emily a nervous look, and Matt cleared his throat. “Uh, how about I hang out with Emily, and we colour, while you join a group? We’re good here, I swear.”

She looked at the red flower he’d just finished colouring in. “Yeah?”

“Promise. Go slay a head of lettuce.”

Emily turned the page and handed him the green crayon again. “Now this other tree.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He got back to work as the class grouped up. Natasha wasn’t that far from them, and he could hear her taking the lead with their plan as the small Asian woman in charge gave them a two-minute warning.

Once the whistle went, she leapt into action, taking on the chopping, while the older women on her team made the dressing and ripped lettuce. By the sounds of it, there were three necessary steps, and Natasha was keeping track of all of it, even as she focused on her own task.

And she made time for good-natured smack talk to the other teams, too. He grinned as she raised her voice to comment innocently on the size of the onion slices at the next table. She was fierce, although her competitiveness had a distinctly kind edge to it.

The other table grabbed another onion and this time their slices were more consistent.

He caught her gaze with his knowing one. I see you.

She pinked up as she undoubtedly realized that he knew she’d just helped them a little, although now they were behind. So she’d helped her team, too.

Afternoon cooking classes were more cutthroat and entertaining than he’d ever have thought.

“Is Mommy winning?” Emily asked.

“It looks like she is,” he said, finishing his treetop with a careful line around the curved edge.

“Mommy likes cooking.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s your favourite thing she makes?”

“Pasghetti.”

“Nice.”

“Do you like pasghetti?”

“I do. With extra sauce.”

The three-year-old gave him a sideways look and echoed him. “Nice.”

He laughed out loud.

Of course Natasha’s team finished first, everything tidied up and the salad up to the exacting standards of the chef. For their efforts, they got praise and first dibs on the fortune cookies. Natasha grabbed three and brought them back to the table.

“Thank you,” she murmured as she sat down and handed him a cookie, then gave one to Emily. “Did you have fun colouring with Matt?”

“Yep.”

“Good.”

Emily turned to him. “Can you come to the park with us?”

“Uh…” He looked up at Natasha’s face, but her expression was carefully neutral. “You’ll have to ask your mom if it’s okay first. I can’t stay long today, though. I worked last night, so I need to get back home and grab some more sleep soon, because I’m working again tomorrow morning.”

“On the ambulance?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay.”

Natasha laughed. “Life is simple when you’re three. Okay is her new answer for everything.”

“I like it.”

She nodded. “Yeah, me too. It’s like, a reminder that some things just…are. Anyway, we don’t want to keep you.”

“Mommy, can Matt come to the park?”

Natasha laughed. “Okay, one of us wants to keep you a bit longer. Do you…?”

“Going from a night shift to a day shift is weird, but I’ve got twenty-four hours to re-arrange myself. Gotta stay busy for the afternoon anyway.” Which wasn’t exactly honest, but he’d driven an hour to come and see her. See both of them. He wanted to squeeze as much as he could out of this time, because he wasn’t sure if he’d get another chance. “If you don’t mind me inviting myself along.”

She shrugged, then grinned, a wide, unexpected smile he felt in his chest. “Sure. Why don’t you follow us over there.”

They made their goodbyes and he did just that, driving the short distance to the park behind the school. Today they had it all to themselves, and Emily sprinted ahead of them toward the climbers, scampering up the stairs and zooming down the slide before they stopped at the edge of the wood chip ground covering.

“I was surprised to see you today,” she finally said.

“Is it okay that I showed up?”

“Better to beg for forgiveness than ask permission?”

“Story of my life.”

She laughed. “Really? That’s honest.”

He grinned and tried to remember he’d had a noble purpose today. Okay, a noble-ish purpose. Come to the cooking class and give her a chance to feel comfortable around him in public again. Just as a friend, no pressure.

“Of course it’s okay you came,” she said before he could respond. “Although I’m surprised Mrs. Chan didn’t take you down for being late.”

“That would have been awkward. But worth it.”

Before she could reply to that, Emily ran over and tugged on his hand. “Can you lift me up?” She pointed to the monkey bars.

He looked at Natasha, who waved her hand.

“Sure.”

The three-year-old was light as a feather as he hoisted her into the air, arms wiggling to grab the metal bars. But even when she had a good hold, he wasn’t sure if he should let go. Loosening his grip, he waited to see if she had it, and he’d been right to be cautious. She let out a nervous yip, and he squeezed her sides again. “I’ve got you,” he said. “Get your legs up.”

She shifted back and forth until her legs were securely hooked over another bar, but then she couldn’t move on her own.

“It’s hard to figure out,” he told her. “Want to go up on top?”

“Yes!”

So they did that next, then they tried hanging again. Finally she figured out how to pull herself up between the bars, and slowly started to move back and forth on top.

The whole time, Natasha silently watched, her gaze locked on her daughter.

He leaned against the climber, keeping one eye on Emily as she scampered along the monkey bars, but also turned part of his attention back to her beautiful mother. “So, what’s next week’s class?”

Natasha burst out laughing. “Don’t you know? How did you find it this week?”

Ah. He scuffed his heel against the wood chips under the climber. “I called the conference centre and had a clerk go and find the flyer for me on the bulletin board. I thought I’d be pushing my luck to ask for all the dates over the phone. I can stop there on my way out of town and take a picture.”

She held his gaze for a long, poignant beat, then pulled out her phone, waving her hand at Emily at the same time. “Watch her.”

With a deep inhale, she flicked her thumb across the screen, and a moment later his phone vibrated. He reached for Emily. “Come on down from there, Miss Monkey. I have an important text I need to check.”

She sprinted off to the slide again, and he looked at his screen.

A text message with a link.

“The schedule is online, too,” Natasha said, and he looked up in time to see her smiling at him. Laughing with him.

He gave her all of his attention now. “I’ll ask in advance this time. How would you feel if I showed up next week?”

“Mmm. My answer’s kind of complicated.” Her eyes softened and she gave him a smaller smile. “How’s that?”

“Sounds honest.”

“It is.”

“Good.”

Emily called his name and he turned to watch her go down the slide with a big squeal.

Natasha drifted closer. He glanced at her next, and found he couldn’t look away.

“You’re staring at me,” she finally said, her voice a low murmur.

But he could hear it because she was right next to him, and damn, he liked that a lot.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Another deep inhale. “No,” she finally said. “But I don’t know what you’re hoping to find.”

You, he wanted to say. He brushed his knuckles against the back of her hand instead.

She exhaled and swung her hand, touching him back. Each brush of her skin against his made it hard for him to think straight.

“I told myself I could come today if I were focused on just being your friend,” he said under his breath.

She smiled as she looked straight ahead. “Really?”

“Yep.”

She bumped her shoulder against his and grinned. “Come on. You aren’t usually this sweet, are you?”

“No.” He took a deep breath and winced. “Wait, I shouldn’t have said that.”

She laughed. “Yeah, you should have. It’s good. Honesty is good. We’ve got a healthy communication theme going on, it’s refreshing.”

Well, if they were being honest…

He gestured at Emily zooming down the slide for the dozenth time. “I’ve never dated a single mom before.”

“We’re not dating.”

“Fair point. But last week, I was…” He laughed. This was such a mistake. “You know what I was looking for? A hook-up. I thought, cupcakes in the middle of the day. Gotta be a single woman there.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide and her lips parted.

He kept going. “I haven’t had a great social life lately, to be honest, which is not something I’d tell you if I was trying to hook up with you. It’s actually not something I’ve told anyone else. I know that’s a weird thing to admit to a woman I’m trying to impress, but I want you to know that I may not have been looking for friendship, but as soon as I saw you, I wanted to know you. And anything else on my agenda immediately disappeared.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah.” He let out a short laugh. “Surprised the hell out of me, I gotta say.”

“What about when I told you…I know Jake?”

He shrugged. “That didn’t change how I feel. It really couldn’t, because you’re not the only one with a history. I don’t care about yours, and I hope you could look past mine. I’ve made a lot of choices in the past you might not like, but they’re done now. That might not be the right thing to say, but—”

She reached out and took his hand, her fingers cool and small against his. “I don’t care about the right thing to say, Matt. I’ve dated players. I've had men say all the right things to me, and mean none of them. I'm not interested in that ever again.”

He squeezed her hand and then let it go. Too soon to linger, no matter how good it felt. “Then I'll do my best to blunder my way through this.”

“This,” she whispered with a small laugh. “What exactly is this?”

He couldn’t say dating. She’d already shot that down. Wooing her, seducing her…none of that worked, either. “Truly no clue,” he admitted. “But I like it, whatever this is.”

That got him another smile. “Me too.”

He wanted to put an endless stream of those on her face. “So I’ll see you next week?”

“That sounds really good.”

“What if I showed up at the bar one night? I’m not working this weekend.” He knew he was pushing his luck, but he couldn’t help it.

She screwed up her face, then dragged in a tortured breath. “I thought I’d never want to see a Foster ever again.”

“Damn.” But he couldn’t help grinning. “And yet…?”

“And yet…” Did she know how beautiful she was when her feelings skittered across her face like that? “Yeah. Sure, if you want to come by the bar this weekend, I wouldn’t mind that. As a friend, right?”

“As a friend.”

“I’ll be working,” she warned him.

“I’ll be good. A paying customer.”

“Okay.”

It’s a date, he wanted to say, but he’d pushed his luck far enough for one day.