A Little Night Matchmaking

“Oh.” The little girl frowned. “So princes make dragons laugh?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Chloe slumped in her booster seat to ponder the comedian prince puzzle.

“Thank you, Mr. Templeton.” Brandy’s brisk tone let him know the conversation was over. A good mother, she obviously didn’t want to give her kid nightmares about mythical creatures being run through by princely swords.

The ruse might have worked with an ordinary kid, but Little Bit wouldn’t buy it.

“I appreciate you getting the car running,” Brandy continued. “But I really need to take Chloe home to bed.”

The innocent statement should not have conjured up images of getting her into his bed. But it did.

Get your mind out of the gutter. The value of a good woman goes far beyond physical pleasure.

Never mind where it came from, the suggestion had merit. Nice little mamas weren’t into casual what’s-in-it-for-me sex, and that’s all he had time for these days. And on the fly, at that. He’d better cut and run. Brandy was as tempting as her name, but she was a hair-trigger trap waiting to spring.

He drove the conversation down a safer road. “You’ll keep having mechanical problems. Take my advice and trade this heap in on something more reliable.”

“Right. I’ll add ‘new car’ to my wish list. Item number 4,783.” Her weary tone softened the sarcasm, but he couldn’t help wondering what the other four thousand plus wished-for items included.

A woman alone, working long hours to support a child, didn’t have an easy life. She wasn’t kidding when she said she was used to carrying her own load. Yeah, too bad she had to bear so much on her delicate shoulders. Another unbidden thought seized him. Might be satisfying to ease her burden in some way.

“Good night, Mr. Templeton.” Brandy shifted the transmission into Reverse.

“Call me Trick.” He should let her go before he got into any more trouble.

She shook her head. “I shouldn’t be on a first-name basis with one of my employer’s defendants. Not ethical.”

“I see.” He’d been so distracted by the woman’s disarming dimple and darling daughter that he’d almost forgotten she worked for the law firm suing him on behalf of that idiot Harry Peet. Yet another reason not to get involved.

There was a lot at stake in this lawsuit, and she was the enemy. They couldn’t fraternize. Hell, they shouldn’t even be talking.

“Good night, Ms. Mitchum.” Then as she drove away, he murmured, “I’ll see you in court.”

“Isn’t Trick nice, Mommy? You do think Trick is nice, don’t you?” Due to the late hour, Chloe had skipped her nightly bath. With face washed and teeth brushed, she’d slipped into Powerpuff Girl pajamas before climbing into bed.

“I suppose so.” “Nice” was hardly the word Brandy would choose to describe Trick Templeton. Her daughter had great language skills, but her vocabulary did not include words like mesmerizing and intimidating.

“Can I have a story?”

“Not tonight, baby. Give Mommy a kiss and get to sleep.”

After they exchanged a noisy smooch, Brandy pressed a gentle kiss in the center of Chloe’s palm and folded her fingers over it. The spare kiss was a long-standing tradition they shared, because one wasn’t enough to last through the night. Brandy shivered at the thought of the Midnight Man’s next visit. Would this be the night he got close enough to kiss?

Chloe climbed over the covers to the end of the bed, smacked the air and bounced back to snuggle under the flower-sprigged comforter.

“What was that all about?”

“I had to give Celestian a kiss, too.”

“Oh. Right.” Him, again. Still unsure how to handle the situation, Brandy smoothed the covers over Chloe and stroked damp blond hair from her face. “I guess it’s fun to have an invisible friend.”

“Most of the time,” Chloe corrected.

“Just so you realize he’s not real.”

“But he is real, Mommy.” Chloe grinned as her gaze tracked movement from the bed to the other side of the room.

“In here, sure.” Brandy gently tapped her temple. “He only lives in your imagination.”

“Nope. He’s right over there.” Chloe pulled her arm from under the pink sheet and pointed. “He’s sitting on the toy box now. He’s happy ’cause Trick came tonight. He said he would, but I wasn’t so sure.”

Brandy frowned. This had been a long day, full of strange encounters. Not only was she too tired to deal effectively with this troubling problem, she wasn’t sure what course of action would speed the pretend friend along its natural course. It didn’t seem right to impose her will and insist Chloe admit Celestian wasn’t real. What was the harm in indulging her child’s innocent fantasies a little longer? It was her own fantasies she should be worried about.

Far more disturbing than the new playmate, was her daughter’s unlikely fascination with Trick Templeton. She’d never taken to a strange man the way she’d taken to him. The fact that she’d incorporated Templeton into the fantasy by having Celestian “talk” about him was especially troublesome.