Unnatural Relations (Lust and Lies Series, Book 1) (33 page)

"See what I mean?" Matt exclaimed. "You're still treating me like a baby, but
he
comes in after it's all over and you call him a superhero!" He gave Kyle a shove to get him out of his way then ran out of the kitchen.

Barbara's shoulders slumped in frustration. "I'm sorry. He usually has the best manners, but it's been a very difficult day and—"

"And he's just a little worried that I'm trying to take his place with you. Let me to talk to him. If I can't put him at ease, I'll leave."

Barbara sighed. "I don't know if you should—"

"Please," he said taking her hands in his. "Let me try." He kissed her knuckles and started to move away, but turned back to kiss her mouth. "I love you."

She stood there as Kyle left the room, wondering how big a mistake this was. Then again, Matt wanted to be treated like a grownup, and what could be more grown up than a man-to-man talk?

But Kyle had no experience dealing with children, other than entertaining them, and Matt didn't seem to be in a mood to be bought off tonight. She decided to give Kyle five minutes while she set the table then she'd check to see if they needed a referee.

* * *

"Hey, Matt," Kyle said from the doorway of the boy's bedroom. "Can I come in?" Matt shrugged indifferently and Kyle sat down on his desk chair. "I think we need to talk."

Matt sat upright on his bed and crossed his legs and arms. "So, talk."

Kyle cleared his throat. "You know, we have a lot in common—we like the circus, the zoo, the arcade, pizza, adventure movies, collecting comic books—"

"And your point is?" Matt interrupted with a bored look.

Kyle pinched the bridge of his nose and organized his thoughts. "The point is, there's something we have in common that's a lot more important than any of those things."

He gave Matt a second to look at him. "We both love your mother very much and would do anything in our power to protect her from every bad thing in the world. From what I can tell, she has more than her fair share of bad things to deal with, so she should have more than one man to protect her. I was hoping the two of us could team up. That way she'd almost always have at least one protector, and when she needed more, she'd have us both."

Matt twisted his mouth from side to side. "I guess that makes sense. But what about when neither of us is around? Like today when Russ bothered her at the bank."

Kyle shot up from the chair. "Russ was at the bank? That son-of-a—" He cut himself off. What had Russ said to Barbara?

"You can cuss in front of me. I call Russ names like that all the time. Well, not in front of Mom."

The humor in Matt's comment brought Kyle back to the discussion at hand and he sat down to deliver his conclusion. "Anyway, the main thing I'm trying to say is that I don't want to change anything between you and your mother. I just want to be added on." He could tell by Matt's expression that he needed to reword that. "Let's see. Think of a motorcycle."

Matt brightened. "A Harley?"

"Okay, a Harley," Kyle said with a grin. "Imagine your mom is the front wheel and you're the back wheel. You need each other to keep going, and you could go along fine by yourselves as long as you keep moving. But if you stop, there's a chance you could lose your balance. I want to be a sidecar to your cycle. That way, I'd get to ride along with you, while helping you both keep your balance even if you're standing still. And sidecars have lots of other advantages, too, if you'll just give me a chance to show you."

Matt tilted his head up at Kyle. "You're pretty smart, aren't you?"

Kyle became very serious and shook his head. "Not always. I've made some really bad mistakes and there are a lot of things I don't understand. Like why two incredibly terrific people like you and your mother have had such a tough time of it."

"Okay," Matt said simply.

"Okay?"

"We can try teaming up... for a while. But you're gonna have to learn all the signals and codes and swear to keep them a secret."

Kyle solemnly agreed and Matt proceeded to fill him in on the special language only he and his mother had previously shared.

When they returned to the kitchen, Kyle could see that Barbara was dying to know how the discussion went, but he figured he'd leave it up to Matt to decide what to tell her. Meanwhile, he had questions of his own. As soon as they sat down to eat, he began. "Matt said Russ paid you a visit at work this morning."

"Yes, but the bank guard helped get rid of him."

That wasn't exactly what Kyle needed to know. "Did he have, um, anything in particular to say?"

Barbara glanced at Matt then shook her head. "No. Same old, same old. I let him know I filed a restraining order against him, but he hasn't been served yet."

Kyle was certain there was more, something she didn't want to say in front of Matt, but whatever it was, she wasn't angry at him because of it and that was all he cared about. "And what about the man who was in your bedroom?"

Barbara arched an eyebrow at him then laughed when she remembered Matt's earlier comment. "He was taking fingerprints. Dani sent him by after I told her I thought an intruder had been in the house this morning. Which reminds me, do you know if your prints are on file anywhere? If not, they might need you to go down to the station and have them taken to compare with what they picked up."

Kyle felt the egg foo yung turn into cactus on its way down his throat. He tried to keep it moving, but only ended up choking. After some vigorous back-pounding from Matt and several sips of water, he finally got it under control, but it was another minute before he could speak.

Fingerprints.
Not only would his real name be revealed, but his arrest record along with it. His voice had a croaking quality when he finally responded. "I've been fingerprinted before, for a, uh, job application. Did they say how long it would take to identify the prints?"

"The technician said about a week," Barbara said, watching him closely. "Are you sure you're all right?"

He patted his chest. "Fine now. Must have gone down the wrong pipe."
About
a
week
.
It was far less than he'd counted on. He would just have to move up his timetable. "Would the two of you mind if I stayed on your couch tonight? With everything that's happened around here in two days, I'd be too worried to sleep anywhere else, except maybe in my car in your driveway."

Barbara almost said yes without thinking then looked to Matt for his decision.

"Sure," he said. "Or you could have my room and I could sleep on the couch."

Barbara winked at him. "Nice try, kiddo, and while we're asleep, you'd stay up and watch television all night. I don't think so."

Rather than admit that she was right, he changed the subject. "Can we play Monopoly tonight?"

"If you agree to a two-hour time limit," she returned. "You can set up the game while I put away the leftovers."

"I'll help," Kyle said, closing a container.

She noticed a glint in his eye and guessed at what he was thinking. "It will be faster without your
help."
His phony pout proved her intuition was right.

"Fine. Then I'll just go bring in my suitcase."

Since it took at least ten minutes for Barbara to put the kitchen back in order, she was surprised to discover that Kyle hadn't come back in from going to get his bag.

From the front window she could see him sitting in his car with the interior light on. Concerned that something might be wrong, she went out to check on him. As she drew closer, she realized that he was talking on his cell with his attention on the seat beside him. Only when she was right beside him did he notice her.

He smiled, ended the call, hurriedly pushed some papers back into his open briefcase then closed it. Barbara thought his smile looked a little shaky as he climbed out of the car, phone in hand.

"I forgot I left my phone in my briefcase," he said as he got his bag out of the back seat. "And of course, there were three messages from my office. I just figured I'd get that call over with before we start our evening."

She accepted his hand as they walked back to the house, but the little voice in her head was yammering at her. They were alone outside, but he didn't jump at the opportunity to take her in his arms, as he had seemed to want to do in the kitchen. He was nervous, as if she had caught him at something. He gave too many unnecessary details. He was talking to a girlfriend, or worse yet, a wife that he had denied having.

She found it nearly impossible to keep up a happy front for the entire two hours while they played Monopoly and as soon as Matt was securely bedded down, Kyle let her know that he wasn't fooled.

"I've never been very good at reading women's minds," he said when she sat on the sofa a good two feet away from him. "But I'm better than average at analyzing facts. Despite everything that's happened, you were happy to see me and in a fairly up mood... until you saw me on the phone." She didn't bother to deny that. "I see. Well, the only thing I can say in my own defense is that I'm really trying to break the habit."

Barbara's mouth fell open. "I beg your pardon?"

"I told you when we first met that I'm a workaholic. Every woman I ever dated complained about it. But I swear, since I met you, I've cut my hours in half."

"Wait a minute. Are you saying that you were embarrassed that I caught you making a business call in your car instead of helping Matt set up the Monopoly board? And you figured I'd resent that?" His guilty expression was her answer. "Then you weren't talking to..." she had to make sure, "another woman?"

He let out a laugh and quickly covered his mouth for fear he'd wake Matt. "You thought... Oh god, Barbara, I can't tell you how happy that makes me." He closed the space between them and pulled her into his arms. He hugged her hard then held her away so that he could see her eyes. "You love me. You may not have said the words, but this proves it."

"Kyle..."

"Admit it. You were upset because you thought there was someone else."

"Well, maybe a little."

He kissed her hard on the mouth. "There is no other woman in the world for me but you." He kissed her again, a little softer, a little slower. "There has never been another woman in my life who meant anything to me." His third kiss was long, lingering and thoroughly seductive. And when he spoke again, he was on his back and she was on top of him, moving with the need he made her feel. "There will never be another woman in my life but you. I love you and now, whether you're ready to say the words or not, I'm satisfied that you love me too. Unfortunately, if you keep squirming like that, I'll forget who's sleeping down the hall and—"

"Oh!"
Barbara squeaked and brought them both upright again. "I don't believe how easily you can do that to me. That kind of power should be illegal."

He touched her chin with his finger and gave her the lightest possible kiss on her nose. "The only power I have is the power of love and you're the one who activated it."

"And that's another thing. How do you manage to say things like that without sounding corny?"

The corners of his eyes crinkled with laughter, but he held back the sound this time. "Things like that only sound corny when they're lies. Now, in order to save my sanity, I'm going to suggest we do the last thing I actually want to do. You'll probably deny this too, but you're exhausted. Let's watch the news and go to sleep—in separate rooms."

Barbara thought there was very little chance of her falling asleep with him so close by, but she must have, for when she heard a high-pitched ring, it took her a moment to figure out that it was neither her telephone nor the alarm. She squinted at the illuminated digits on her clock. It was only twelve-thirty. What had awakened her?

She told herself it was a dream and rolled over, but a man's voice came to her from a distance. She sat up and listened with both ears.

"Tough... more complicated than... power of persuasion... no, no... a hundred sixty-five million..."

Barbara strained her ears, but she couldn't hear anything else. Kyle was definitely talking business rather than romance, but why would a sales manager get a call so late at night? She tried to make sense of the words she'd heard, but they didn't fit into the context of his job as she understood it to be. In spite of the confusing questions in her mind, though, she was asleep again minutes later.

* * *

"Did you get a call last night?" Barbara asked Kyle over breakfast.

Before answering, Kyle washed down a bite of toast with a gulp of orange juice. "Yes. I couldn't believe it. A wrong number in the middle of the night. I was hoping you hadn't been awakened by it. Sorry."

"It's okay. I went right back to sleep." Barbara couldn't remember exactly what she'd heard him saying, but she hadn't thought it sounded like the response to a wrong number. Considering how quickly she fell back to sleep, however, there was a good chance she'd been dreaming.

"Are you sure you and Matt should go to work and school today?" Kyle asked with a worried look.

"Yeah, Maw," Matt quickly added. "I probably oughta stay home today."

Barbara smirked at him then said to Kyle, "Yes, I'm sure. Whenever possible, we try not to let Russ stop us from living somewhat normal lives. Anyway, both the bank guard and school officials are looking out for him, so we should be okay."