Page 31 of Megan's Mate
“Some. I thought I might take an hour or so at night to work on it.”
“I don’t think that’s what your daddy meant by living a little, Meg.”
“Regardless.” She turned back to the safer topic of the account book. “Some of the pages are faded badly, but other than a few minor mistakes, the accounts are very accurate. Except for the last couple of pages, where there are just numbers without any logic.”
“Really. They don’t add up?”
“They don’t seem to, but I need to take a closer look.”
“Sometimes you miss more by looking too close.” Nathaniel winked at Julie as she set another round of drinks on the table. It was coffee for him this time. She knew that when he was driving, he kept it to one beer. “I wouldn’t mind taking a look at it.”
Megan frowned at her. “Why?”
“I like puzzles.”
“I don’t think it’s much of a puzzle, but if it’s all right with the family, I don’t have any objection.” She leaned back, sighed. “Sorry, I just can’t eat any more.”
“It’s okay,” Nathaniel switched his empty plate with hers. “I can.”
To Megan’s amazement, he could. It wasn’t much of a surprise that Kevin had managed to clean his plate. The way he was growing he often seemed in danger of eating china and all when he sat down for a meal. But Nathaniel ate his meal, then half of hers, without a blink.
“Have you always eaten like that?” Megan asked when they were driving away from the restaurant.
“Nope. Always wanted to, though. Never could seem to fill up as a kid.” Of course, that might have been because there was little to fill up on. “At sea, you learn to eat anything, and plenty of it, while it’s there.”
“You should weigh three hundred pounds.”
“Some people burn it off.” He shifted his eyes to hers. “Like you. All that nervous energy you’ve got just eats up those calories.”
“I’m not skinny,” she muttered.
“Nope. Thought you were myself, till I got ahold of you. It’s more like willowy—and you’ve got a real soft feel to you when you’re pressed up against a man.”
She hissed, started to look over her shoulder.
“He conked out the minute I turned on the engine,” Nathaniel told her. And, indeed, she could see Kevin stretched out in the back, his head pillowed on his arms; he was sleeping soundly. “Though I don’t see what harm there is for the boy to know a man’s interested in his mother.”
“He’s a child.” She turned back, the gentle look in her eyes gone. “I won’t have him think that I’m—”
“Human?”
“It’s not your affair. He’s my son.”
“That he is,” Nathaniel agreed easily. “And you’ve done a hell of a job with him.”
She slanted him a cautious look. “Thank you.”
“No need to. Just a fact. It’s tough raising a kid on your own. You found the way to do it right.”
It was impossible to stay irritated with him, especially when she remembered what Coco had told her. “You lost your mother when you were young. Ah... Coco mentioned it.”
“Coco’s been mentioning a lot of things.”
“She didn’t mean any harm. You know how she is, better than I. She cares so much about people and wants to see them...”
“Lined up two by two? Yeah, I know her. She picked you out for me.”
“She—” Words failed her. “That’s ridiculous.”
