Her Perfect Stranger

12

No doubt about it, Mike's presence in her family home scared Corrine, really scared her.

He looked good here, comfortable. Confused, she took a walk. Unsatisfied, she ended up in her parents' garden, where she found her father showing off his prize roses to Mike.

Both of them were hunkered down in the dirt, their backs to her, admiring the growth of a flower.

It was a contradiction in terms, these so very masculine men surrounded by such sweet, feminine beauty, and yet that was one of the things she loved so much about her dad.

He didn't fit into a type. She stood there, rooted by a sudden realization.

That was why she liked Mike as well.

Oh, God, it was true. He was an astronaut, which meant by definition he should have been cocky, arrogant and in possession of a certain recklessness. A wild adventurer.

He was those things, but he was also so much more. And watching as he reached out now and touched the tip of a blooming rose with such joy, with his entire face lit up, made her heart tighten.

The reason for being one half of a couple had always escaped Corrine, mostly because she'd never wanted to be half of anything. She'd certainly never wanted anyone able to veto her decisions, or God forbid, make them for her.

And yet her parents were a couple, a solid one, and for years they'd managed to work things out with an ease that Corrine always admired but never understood. They were both well-educated overachievers, stubborn as hell, and single-minded, so really, their success was one big mystery.

A mystery Corrine suddenly, urgently needed to solve.

She waited until dinner time, when she found both her parents together in the kitchen. Her father was chopping vegetables. Her mother was standing over him, shaking her head. "You're not cutting diagonally, dear. You need to-" "I think I know how to cut a tomato, Louisa." "No, obviously you don't. You have to-"

"Louisa, honey? Either let me be or order takeout."

"Take-out sounds wonderful."

"Don't you dare," Donald said, smiling when his teasing wife laughed at him.

"How do you do that?" Corrine asked, baffled by the mix of temper and affection. "How do you fight over a tomato and still love each other?"

"Forty years of practice." Her father grinned. "You going to marry Mike and learn how?"

"No!"

Louisa sighed. "Well, darn."

"Mom, I didn't invite him here."

"But he followed you." Her mother sent her a dreamy look. "He loves you, you know."

"What?"

"He's head over heels. Ga-ga. Fallen off the cliff."

Corrine felt the color drain from her face, but managed a perfectly good laugh. "You've been dipping into the cooking sherry."

"No, really. He-" At the elbow in her ribs, Louisa glared at her husband, who gave her a wordless glance. Whatever unspoken communication they'd shared, Louisa went quiet on the matter. But she did manage to get the knife from him and push him toward the door.

"I can tell when I'm not wanted," he said, kissing his wife on the cheek before he went.

"Why did you argue with him over the knife, Mom? He was just trying to help."

"Oh, I know."

"But you kicked him out."

"Kicked him out… Oh, honey." Louisa laughed. "You think I hurt his feelings. Trust me, I didn't. It's just that he always cooks, and he's worked an eighty-hour week already. The poor man is dead on his feet, but he didn't want to leave me alone to do the work. It's just a little game we play, that's all."

Corrine glanced at the swinging double doors where her father had vanished, and knew the mysteries of cohabiting were still escaping her. "A game."

"Yes." Louisa set down the knife and smiled easily. "Of love."

Mike poked his head in the kitchen. "Can I help?" He moved to the cutting board and picked up the knife Corrine's mother had just set down. "I'm good at slicing veggies," he said, following Louisa's diagonal cuts.

Corrine's mother positively beamed. "What a handy man you are." She shot Corrine a telling look, pointing at Mike's back and mouthing the words, Loves you.

Corrine rolled her eyes and turned away, but that lasted no more than a second before she had to crane her neck and stare at him. He was the same person he'd always been: the same dark hair and darker eyes; the same long, leanly muscled body that made her mouth water; the same here-I-am attitude that both drew and annoyed her at the same.

So why was she looking at him in such a different light here in the house where she'd been raised?

"Louisa." Donald stuck his head back in the kitchen and waved a checkbook. "Babe, this thing is a mess. I can't figure out how much money is in here."

"Look at the bottom line, hon," Louisa said, pulling more salad makings out of the fridge.

"Which bottom line? You have three of them here."

"Oh." Louisa straightened, lettuce in one hand, a beet in the other. "Well, the first is in case the check I lost clears the bank. If I lost it before I wrote it, which is entirely likely, then that wouldn't be necessary. Hence the second number."

Donald sighed. "And the third?"

"Why, that's what we'll have when my automatic deposit comes in tomorrow."

"Tomorrow."

"That's right."

"But what do we have today?"

"I just told you, it's either-"

"Never mind!" He withdrew his head and vanished.

Louisa grinned. "Perfect."

"Why is annoying him to distraction perfect?" Corrine asked, confused beyond belief.

"I just bought his birthday present." Louisa grinned. "And if he wasn't so annoyed, he'd have found the check entry. He would talk me into giving him that present early, no doubt about it. Now he'll toss the checkbook aside and give up." She laughed. "Secret kept."

"Louisa!" Donald bellowed from the other room. "I'm going out to chop wood!"

"Good Lord," Louisa murmured. "I meant to have that nice young man down the street do that before your father tried it himself. Last year he nearly lost his fingers."

Mike set down the knife. "I'll go help him."

"Bless you," Corrine's mother said fervently, giving him a quick hug.

Corrine watched pleasure dance across Mike's face as he hugged her back, far more easily this time.

Why was he still here, damn him?

"He's a wonderful man," her mother said when he was gone. "Shame on you for keeping your feelings to yourself."

Out the kitchen window Mike reappeared, walking toward her father.

Corrine forced herself to turn away. "He's a pest."

Louisa laughed. "Okay, hon. If that's how you want to play this thing. Just tell me he's not an adventurous, intelligent, gorgeous man and I'll believe you."

"I hadn't noticed."

"Uh-huh."

"Okay, he's adventurous."

"And intelligent."

"Yes."

"And gorgeous."

"Mom, please."

"And gorgeous," Louisa repeated.

"Okay, fine." Corrine sighed. "And gorgeous."

"He's a keeper, Corrine."

A keeper. Her heart tugged. "Yeah, about that. Keepers. I don't understand something." She drew a deep breath. "You and Dad. What keeps you together? You should have killed each other by now."

"Why? Because we're two strong-minded, strong-willed people?"

"Well…yeah."

"That doesn't mean we can't make peace over such simple things as making dinner and paying the bills."

"It just seems…" Corrine once again glanced out the window. Watched Mike's muscles bunch and flex as he raised the ax over his head and brought it down, perfectly splitting a log in two.

Every hormone in her body reacted, but that was physical. Would she still want in him in forty years? "Hard," she said, no pun intended. "It seems hard."

Louisa looked shocked and more than a little annoyed. "I can't believe we didn't show you better than that, after all these years."

"You're telling me this is easy?"

"Of course not! But it's beautiful anyway, and worth all the work."

"You work at it?" she asked doubtfully. What she'd seen so far didn't seem like work so much as…good luck.

"Goodness, darling." Louisa let out a little laugh. "I think I'm insulted that you have to ask. Yes, we work hard. You can't believe such a loving relationship comes naturally."

"It does in the romance novels," Corrine muttered, taking another quick peek at Mike. He straightened and pulled off his shirt, tossing it aside before once again lifting the ax.

Oh. My. God.

Muscles. Skin shining with sweat. She purposely looked away. And this time, she wasn't going to take another sneak peek!

"Phooey," Louisa was saying. "Nothing this good comes easy. It takes compromise." She picked up the paring knife again. "Give and take. And after so many years, it just keeps getting better and better."

"It does?" What was this silly hope that sprang through Corrine at that? What did it matter if marriage was wonderful? She wasn't planning on trying.

Was she?

Oh God. She was. She was planning on exactly that. Putting a hand to her suddenly damp forehead, she sank to a chair.

"Corrine? Corrine, honey, what's the matter?" Her mother dropped the paring knife and rushed over. "You look terribly pale."

"Oh, Mom. It's… it's…"

"What? It's what?" She knelt down and gripped Corrine's knees. "Are you going to be sick? Do you need a bucket?"

"Yes, I think I do." Corrine gulped, but then managed a hysterical laugh when her mother turned to leave. Grabbing Louisa's wrist, she shook her head. "No, it's not that kind of sickness. It's my heart, you see." And she rubbed the ache that had settled there the day she'd met Mike and had never, not once in all these months, gone away.

"Oh, dear Lord. You've got heart problems? You didn't tell me! We'll get a second opinion. Your father-"

"Mom, it's…" She took a big gulp of air. "It's love. I think I'm in love with Mike. I just realized it, just now, and it's making me sick."

"Oh, darling!"

"Don't look so excited," Corrine warned, pointing a finger at the joy scrambling across her mother's face. "This is a terrible thing. I actually-" she pressed both hands to her heart now "-I actually want forever with him."

Louisa's eyes filled. "Oh, baby."

"Don't you dare cry."

Louisa sniffed and wiped a tear from her cheek. "I'm not." Then a sob escaped and she slapped a hand over her mouth. "Really, I'm not."

"Mom!"

"I can't help it," Louisa cried. "It's just that I'm so thrilled for me. He's just what I always wanted in a son-in-law."

"No! Mike can't know!"

"What? Why not?"

"Don't you see? This can't happen. It just can't. It's an impossible situation, for a million different reasons." Though all of them were crowding her head, she couldn't put words to any of them.

"Name one," her mother commanded.

"There's…well…"

Louisa cocked a brow. "Why, Corrine?"

"Yes," Mike said from the doorway, with a perfectly indescribable look on his face. "Why?"

Corrine's stomach dropped to her toes. So did her heart, and all her other vital organs.

How much had he heard?

There was no telling from the look on his face. "I-I thought you were chopping wood."

"I was. Until I got the strange feeling there was something far more interesting going on in here." He leaned back against the doorjamb, casual as you please. "I was right."

"Yes, well." Corrine leaped to her feet and became a whirlwind of activity, busying herself by straightening up an already tidy kitchen. "We were just-"

"Talking about me," he said, taking her shoulders, turning her to face him.

How had he moved so fast? Reluctantly she looked into those dark eyes, thinking Please don't have heard me, oh please don't have heard.

But those eyes were filled with knowing, and she swallowed hard. "You caught it all, didn't you?" she whispered.

"Every word."