And as it turned out, once she settled in, watching Carlos cook was a real pleasure. He moved with confidence, somehow not too big for her tiny kitchen, even though he seemed to fill it to bursting with his size and his presence.
He cleaned as he went, too, scrubbing out plates and bowls as he waited for pans to heat. Pauline had been automatically cataloging how many dishes there would be, and the number just kept vanishing down to nothing.
All in all, it was a show she was realizing she could watch over and over again. Carlos flashed her a smile occasionally—at one point, he flipped a pancake just by flicking his wrist while holding the pan, and then he grinned over his shoulder with such obvious self-satisfaction that she had to laugh.
Drew, too, was slowly starting to relax. “None of my mom’s boyfriends ever cooked,” he observed to Pauline.
“My ex-husband never did, either,” she confided back. “And he never did the dishes.”
Drew snorted. “No one in our house ever did dishes.” He sobered a little. “I try to, but I don’t always have time. I don’t want the kids growing up in a dirty house, though.”
Pauline closed her eyes for a second. “Drew,” she said quietly, “no matter what happens tomorrow—no matter what—I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen. Okay? You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
He was quiet, thinking about it. Then he said, “I don’t think I’m going to stop worrying about it. But it’s...nice. That you’re there.”
Pauline breathed through the rush of feelings, and said in as steady a voice as she could, “It’s nice that you’re here for me, too.”
He startled, looking over at her. “Me?”
“You,” Pauline confirmed. “All I’ve ever wanted is a family. I never had any siblings, my ex-husband didn’t want kids, I couldn’t adopt after we divorced, even though I tried. And you—Drew, you care about family more than anyone I’ve ever seen. You’ve worked your butt off for your family, you were willing to do anything it took to make sure they were okay. I would be...honored, to have someone like you in my own family.”
Drew looked almost scared. Pauline...understood. She remembered how frightening it had been to realize that she had a mate.
Sometimes the things you wanted the most were the scariest of all.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she said. “I just wanted you to know that.”
He nodded slowly, then looked away.
“All right,” Carlos announced—Pauline felt certain that he’d been waiting for the right moment to intrude. “Breakfast for dinner!”
They all sat down at Pauline’s tiny dining table—she wondered, with a rush of feeling, whether Carlos was going to move in here with her, or if they would get a new place together. With room for three more...?
Don’t put the cart before the horse, she told herself. Don’t count your children before they’re hatched...
She dug into the food to distract herself. And was immediately, intensely distracted, because it was delicious. Chocolate-chip pancakes smothered in maple syrup and butter, and an omelet full of practically everything she’d had in her fridge: ham and cheese and onions and green peppers and God knew what else.
“Oh,” she sighed. “This is so good.”
Pauline didn’t cook much for herself, because being on her feet all day at the diner didn’t give her a lot of energy to stand in the kitchen after she got home—plus, she could usually grab a sandwich or something at the diner, so she wouldn’t even need to eat once she got home. She was frankly surprised that Carlos had been able to create anything that tasted this good with the contents of her kitchen.
Drew made a noise of agreement. He’d inhaled his plate already. Carlos grabbed it and hightailed back to the kitchen.
“I don’t need any more—” Drew started to protest.
“Then you can stare at it and appreciate the perfection of my cooking skills,” Carlos called over his shoulder. “If you want to eat it, though, that’s fine, too.”
A hungry teenaged boy wasn’t going to leave food untouched for long. Drew made another halfhearted protest, but once the plate was in front of him, he didn’t spend too long just looking at it.
They all ate until they were stuffed, and then Carlos insisted on doing the remaining dishes. God. Pauline was going to have to fall on her knees and thank her lucky stars later, but for now she appreciated it because it let her transition smoothly into making up the bed in the rarely-used spare room and installing Drew in it, without any room for protests or possible suggestions that the kids might go home for the night instead of staying here where it was safe.
“Do you mind sharing with Val?” she asked. “She’s in my room right now, but—”
Drew shook his head immediately. “She shouldn’t wake up and not know where she is at all,” he said. “She crawls in with me a lot, anyway.”
So Pauline slipped into her room and scooped up the sleeping toddler. Val was a warm, heavy weight in her arms, and Pauline was tempted to just sit down for a second and revel in the feeling of a little child breathing softly against her shoulder.
But Drew was waiting, so she brought his sister out to him, and together they