The Red Hat Society's Domestic Goddess Read online

  She chuckled. “You haven’t signed up for Kim’s aerobics class, have you?” She’d already surmised that he didn’t need it. “She advises against pie, too many calories and too much cholesterol.”

  “No.”

  She smothered the sigh of relief. The class was hard enough for her without worrying about him being in attendance, possibly watching her, as she struggled through the simple exercises. Not that she was all that out of shape. For a woman who loved to cook, she was surprisingly close, except for a few stubborn pounds, to her target weight. She probably owed that to cleaning Mitchell’s apartment. She definitely worked off some calories with that chore.

  “We’re starting another class you might want to sign up for,” she said nonchalantly. She would have tried for coy, but she had no idea how.

  “What kind of class?”

  “Cooking will be part of it.”

  “I have to admit I’m pretty impressed by your cooking.” He ran his finger around the rim of the bowl, where filling still oozed, then licked it. His blue eyes closed, as he savored the taste.

  Millie’s heart rate kicked into a higher gear.

  “I’d like to learn how to cook like this,” he said.

  “But you’d said you were a bachelor a long time,” she reminded him. “You must know how to cook.”

  “Nope. Just how to dial for takeout. And that gets old.”

  She nodded in agreement even though she never got takeout. Maybe she would… once she retired. “Well, it’s going to be a bachelor’s survival course on how to maintain a household. Kim O’Malley and Theresa Shearer are going to help me teach.”

  “I should learn how to do more things around the house,” he admitted.

  She clenched her hands together behind her back to hide their trembling, but she heard it in her voice as she replied, “Then this could be the class for you.”

  He laughed. “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “Mind what?”

  “My joining the class. After what happened this afternoon…”

  When she had nearly run him and his dog over? “My thinking your wife was dead?”

  “Yes, I hoped there wouldn’t be any awkwardness between us over that misunderstanding.”

  Awkwardness? No. Embarrassment. Humiliation. Yes. “Of course not,” she lied. “It’ll be great to have you in the class.”

  He nodded. “I think so, too. Sign me up. I’m looking forward to it.”

  With a giddy little rush, she acknowledged she was, too. “It’ll be great,” she promised. “You’ll learn a lot.” And hopefully so would she, about flirting.

  “Oh, and I meant to tell you earlier today,” he said, reaching out with his free hand to touch a curl at her cheek. “I like your hair. A lot.”

  “Uh… thanks…” His touch had been fleeting, just the briefest brush of hard knuckle against her cheek, but the feel of it lingered, long after he moved his hand away.

  “Thanks for the pie,” he said, gesturing with the container as he nudged the dog awake and turned to leave.

  She stood there, watching him walk away. Why did he really want to join the class? To learn to cook or for another reason? That little giddy rush coursed through her veins, setting her pulse to race. Maybe flirting would be easier than she’d thought, if it were all she had to learn.

  She also had to learn how to teach; something she’d never done before. Nerves churned the apple pie in her stomach. Maybe she’d bitten off more than she could chew by inviting Charles to take the class. How would she teach the boys and flirt with Charles… without making a fool of herself?

  She could have called him back and told him that she’d rather he didn’t take this class, but she wasn’t even tempted to back out. If she didn’t at least try to kill these three birds with one stone, then she’d really be a fool. She watched Charles until he was gone from sight, then she closed the door with one hand as she cradled her cheek with the other.

  Chapter Four

  “The important thing about women today is, as they get older, they still keep house. It’s one reason why they don’t die, but men die when they retire. Women just polish the teacups.”

  —Margaret Mead

  Thanks for picking me up,” Theresa said, surprised that Wally had actually walked instead of bringing the car. She fell into step beside her husband. He was much taller than she was, his strides longer, but he walked slower than she did so they managed to keep perfect rhythm.

  Walking.

  Life was another matter. Or it was now that he’d retired.

  He lifted a hand to his mouth, smothering a yawn. She couldn’t fathom why he was tired. He slept all day. Every day.

  “I didn’t want you walking home in the dark, alone,” he said gruffly.

  With the street lamps and the lights from the city below them sparkling in the night, it was hardly dark. But still his concern was sweet, reminiscent of the chivalrous man she used to know. Her heart softened at his thoughtfulness, which alleviated some of her irritation at the mess he’d left in their bathroom earlier in the day: toothpaste smeared over the mirror, his socks on the floor, as well as other unmentionables. And the basement family room, where she’d banished the easy chair he seldom left, was an even bigger mess with newspapers and DVD sleeves spread all around the floor, covering the carpet.

  “You didn’t need to worry about me,” Theresa assured him, although she was pleased he’d left that chair even if just for a short walk. “Kim and I would have walked home together. Nobody messes with Kim and Harry.”

  Wally laughed. “She’s something else.”

  Most men said that about Kim. Most women called Kim something else, with jealousy not admiration. But Theresa loved her and Millie. She’d been fortunate to find such wonderful friends.

  She wished Wally would do the same, find some people that were just his. Find a life, like Theresa had since they’d moved to Hilltop.

  “You really should come to Kim’s aerobics class in the morning,” Theresa urged. She’d been trying to get him to join the class since it started, hoping that the exercise would give him more energy and that he might make friends there.

  “A lot of men come, too,” she added. To watch Kim, probably. Even Mr. Lindstrom stayed awake for the sight of her in her leopard print leotard.

  “Men can’t bend like that, Theresa.”

  “We’re starting up some more classes,” Theresa said, as they followed the sidewalk uphill toward their condo. Thanks to Kim’s class, she wasn’t even winded, but she could hear Wally breathing. Maybe now was the time to manipulate him, when his brain was oxygen-deprived. Any other time she wasn’t likely to fool the man. He was too brilliant a businessman to be manipulated. Or at least, he had been…

  “More exercise ones?”

  She shook her head. “No. No bending required. We’re going out on a limb with this one. Mrs. Ryers was already mocking us after we put the sign up on the bulletin board.”

  “Old busybody.”

  Theresa laughed. “That’s a lot nicer than what Kim calls her.”

  “Don’t let her get to you.” It wasn’t a flip comment. His tone was too serious. By nature men were problem solvers, and Wally had taken this penchant to the extreme when he’d built his consulting business.

  She just might be able to manipulate him yet. Theresa forced out a shaky sigh. “Well, she could be right this time.” She worked on adding a little catch to her voice when she continued, “I’d hate to fail. She’d never let us forget it.”

  Wally’s fingers brushed over her hand. “You won’t,” he assured her. “You always pull off whatever you try, Theresa.”

  “I don’t know. We came up with the idea to help Millie. A Bachelor’s Survival Course.” She filled him in on the situation between Millie’s son and his wife. “This might be the only thing to save their marriage. But we have to have more than one student sign up, or he’ll figure out what Millie’s up to…”

  “And his pride will get the best of
him, probably like it did when he left his wife.” He sighed. “You’re doing a good thing. All of you, trying to save a marriage.”

  Wally was still upset over their daughter Judy’s divorce. He always wished he’d done more to help. Theresa accepted that there were some times when nothing could help. She really hoped that this wasn’t one of them, though.

  “Help us,” Theresa appealed, wrapping her fingers around his hand as it swung at his side.

  “How?”

  “Join the class,” she beseeched him.

  “I’m not a bachelor.”

  “Neither is Millie’s son. Yet.”

  He turned toward her, stopping on the sidewalk, just outside their end unit. There were three in their building, with arched windows and doors, shining bright in the street lamps. The moonlight shone on Wally, caught a question in his shadowy green eyes. He wondered if that yet applied to him, too.

  She looked hard for the young man he’d once been. The one who, like a gentleman, would walk her home after their dates and steal kisses on her front porch. Maybe it was darker than she thought because she couldn’t see him. All she saw was an old man with graying hair and tired eyes, a man who’d given up, not just his business, but the life he used to lead. A stranger.

  She squeezed his fingers, and maybe he felt her desperation because he nodded.

  “All right. I’ll be one of your pupils.”

  And Theresa couldn’t help but wonder if the marriage they were trying to save was theirs.

  Sweat dripped from Kim’s hair and slid down the back of her neck. Theresa called it “perspiring” but she never admitted to actually doing it. Kim snorted. No matter the intensity of the class, Theresa barely glistened. On the other hand, she and Millie sweated. They weren’t classy ladies, not like their glistening friend.

  Kim was a little irritated with Theresa. She’d skipped her class to play welcome wagon lady to some new Hilltop resident. Maybe Kim’s new neighbor. The SOLD sign had been up in front of the unit next to hers for a while now.

  Kim really hoped her new neighbor wasn’t allergic to cats because that old fleabag was going to be Kim’s welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift. Heck, the cat had lived there first; it was only fitting it should live there again.

  It.

  Was it a male? Probably. That would explain why it hogged the whole bed and why, no matter how many times she told it not to, it kept climbing onto the kitchen counter. The thing couldn’t be trained, so it had to be a male. And when Kim was leaving the house, it wound between her legs, leaving cat hair all over her pants. Marking its territory. Definitely a male.

  Kim bent over, digging a towel from her duffel bag. She had just hooked it around her neck when she felt holes boring through her gray yoga pants and white leotard, into her backside. The feeling was familiar since Mr. Lindstrom spent more of the class staring at her rear end than attempting any of the exercises.

  But the class was over; Mr. Lindstrom and everyone else was gone. Millie was off working on Plan B to get her sons to join the Bachelor Survival Course, and she’d had to go grocery shopping before the lunch they’d scheduled with their Red Hat chapterettes. Kim had thought she was alone in the community center basement, but for the wide assortment of exercise equipment arranged around the area where she conducted her class in front of a wall of mirrors.

  She was not alone.

  She was being stared at. She could actually feel it. Hot. Another trail of sweat dribbled down, this one between her breasts. She put her hand back in her duffel bag, feeling around for Harry.

  “Kim,” Theresa’s soft voice called out, “I thought you were gone since class was over. But I see Mr. Fowler found you.”

  As she straightened up and turned, she looked first to her friend. From the twinkle in Theresa’s eyes, she knew what Kim had been reaching for. Then Kim turned toward Mr. Fowler of the hot stare.

  She hadn’t minded missing last night’s movie. Leo was not her thing, nor was she into Pierce Brosnan like Millie had once confessed she was. Kim was more into George Clooney. Okay, she was really into George Clooney, and Mr. Fowler, with his thick head of dark brown hair finely threaded with silver and his warm brown eyes, crinkling at the corners with a grin that involved his whole face, was a dead ringer for George.

  “It is you,” he said, his voice as deep as the amusement in his eyes. He chuckled. “I can’t believe it. Miss O’Malley.”

  “I’m sorry, do I know you?” she asked, although she already knew she didn’t. She sure as heck would have remembered him.

  “He’s your new neighbor, Kim. He bought Mrs. Milanowski’s place,” Theresa informed her.

  She’d forgotten Theresa was still there, watching from the last step of the wide stairs leading down to the basement. She was not glistening while Kim sweated all over the place in front of this handsome stranger.

  “George Fowler,” he said, extending his hand.

  His first name was George.

  Kim wiped her hand on the towel before putting it in his. Maybe she got the sweat off her palm, but she couldn’t tell as her skin heated and sizzled in his firm grip.

  “Should I recognize your name?” she asked, still having the impression that he knew her.

  “I don’t expect you to. It was so long ago when we met. In high school.”

  Despite the silver in his hair, she doubted he was fifty… like she’d turned just a few months ago, graduating from a pink hat to a red one. He was probably only early forties. “I don’t think we went to high school together.”

  “No,” he chuckled again. “I was attending high school. I was in the first class you taught.”

  A former student. Usually she remembered them. But then she’d been teaching a long time. That was why she’d been let go when they’d had to cut a physical education teacher from the payroll.

  “You made a man out of me.”

  Some odd sound emanated from Theresa. Not a giggle. Not a snort. Something.

  But Kim couldn’t worry about her. Spots danced across her field of vision. She was having enough of a struggle keeping her wits about her. Had she worked out too long? Maybe she was having a stroke? She blinked and cleared her head. Then she was able to see his face more clearly. And the amusement heating his brown eyes.

  Belatedly she realized he still had her hand, and she withdrew it, with some regret. He had great hands. Big. Wide. Strong.

  “I’m sorry I don’t remember you.” She really was. Just how early could a person get Alzheimer’s? She had to have it to have forgotten him. He looked just like George…

  “I was a scrawny kid. Real nerd. Not an athletic bone in my body.” He laughed. “Or a muscle either.”

  His comments invited her to check him out now. So her gaze scanned him from wide shoulders down over a well-muscled chest, lean hips and heavy thighs, clad in a dark T-shirt and jeans.

  “Until you got a hold of me,” he added. “You made me love working out.”

  If he owed that body to her, she had certainly done something right in all her years of teaching.

  The amusement faded from his eyes as they darkened with solemnity. “You helped me pick my career, too.”

  “You’re a gym teacher?”

  He shook his head. “No, a cop.”

  “I—”

  “When you invited your dad to talk to the class.”

  She’d done that every year, even after he’d retired. The visits had meant a lot to both of them and not being able to do them anymore was the hardest thing for her to accept about losing her job.

  “I was so impressed, I decided I wanted to be just like him,” he said. “When I first got out of the academy, I worked under him for a while. Everybody still misses him around the department. How is he?”

  “Stubborn as a hound dog with a treed possum.”

  Theresa laughed clearly this time. “Colorful, Kim.”

  “You’ve met my father,” she reminded Theresa. “Am I wrong?”

  Theresa shook her h
ead. “That you’re not.”

  “How old is he now?” George Fowler asked.

  “Eighty-three. But don’t tell him that. He doesn’t have a clue.”

  He laughed again, a deep laugh that had warmth spreading through Kim’s midsection. “That’s good, though,” he said, “that he’s still going strong.”

  “Well, he’s still going,” she amended. “So you’re my new neighbor?”

  A former student. And a cop. She didn’t like her chances of getting him to take Mrs. Milanowski’s cat off her hands.

  He nodded. “Just a wall between us.”

  She resisted the urge to shiver. Had to be the vent blowing air on her sweat-slick skin. That was all it was. Not the mention of only a wall separating them. That didn’t bother her at all.

  “Ask him,” Theresa said.

  About the cat? “What?”

  “About the class.”

  “What class?” George asked.

  “We’re teaching a Bachelor Survival course right here at the community center,” Theresa answered, probably sensing that Kim couldn’t.

  “You’re teaching it?” he asked Kim, those brown eyes full of warmth.

  Warmth that overheated Kim again. She dabbed the damp towel against her skin. “Yes. With Theresa. And our friend Millie. We’re actually starting it for—”

  She stopped herself from talking about Millie’s problems. Or her son’s problems, as it were.

  “For bachelors,” he finished, lifting one seductive graying brow.

  Theresa laughed, probably enjoying seeing Kim flustered. “Do you qualify?” she asked. She might look like a classy lady, especially in her smart, ivory-colored, welcome-lady suit, but sometimes she had no manners.

  Kim ignored her friend’s nosiness and held her breath, waiting for his answer. Then she mentally smacked herself for doing that. It meant nothing to her. Really it would be better for her if he were married. She’d have a better chance of pawning the cat off on his wife.

  “I’ve got a divorce decree that says I do,” he admitted.

  “Is that why you bought into Hilltop?” Kim found herself asking. He was younger than the usual condo dweller. But then she’d been younger when she’d bought her unit, too. It was the smartest thing she’d ever done… if only because of Millie and Theresa.