Adding Up to Marriage Read Online Free PDF Page A

foil-covered plate. Catching a whiff of the peanut butter cookies lurking underneath, he smiled. Despite himself.
    â€œYou might want to put peanut butter on your list,” Jewel said, her back to him as she continued cleaning. “I got carried away with that, too.”
    Silas bit into one, sighing at the taste of childhood, of innocence against his tongue, and felt like a heel. “Where’d you get the flour?”
    â€œOne of your neighbors. Which reminds me, you owe Mrs. Maple two cups of flour. And an egg.”
    Silas hesitated, hoping she’d turn around. She didn’t. “These are delicious, too.”
    She shrugged. Silas sighed.
    â€œJewel, it’s been a long day and I’m ready to drop, but that’s still no excuse for me acting like I did when I came home. Especially considering you basically saved my butt. You not only survived my kids for—” he squinted at the microwave clock “—nearly six hours, you obviously took excellent care of them. Not to mention going above and beyond with dinner and the cookies. So I apologize for acting like a bozo.”
    Finally she looked at him. “You didn’t—”
    â€œI did.”
    A smile teased her mouth. “Okay, maybe a little.”
    Silas smiled, then ground the heel of his hand into his slightly aching temple. “This single fatherhood business,” he said, dropping his hand, “it’s not for sissies. I remember what my brothers and I were like when we were kids and it gives me the willies, to think those two carry my genes.”
    â€œYou mean you weren’t always this…this…”
    â€œUptight?”
    She lifted her hands. Whatever.
    â€œNo,” he said on a soft laugh. “But I’ve gotten so usedto who I am now, I guess I’ve forgotten what it’s like to drape cloths over the dining room table and pretend it’s a fort. Used to make my mother batty. Especially the time we used her best lace tablecloth.”
    â€œI bet,” Jewel said, giving the now-bare kitchen table one final swipe. “Speaking of mothers…do the boys ever see theirs?”
    The unexpected question made his breath hitch in his chest. “She died in a car crash when the boys were very little,” he said quietly. “Not long after our divorce.”
    â€œOhmigosh…” Spinning around, Jewel pressed her hand to her mouth, then lowered it. “How awful,” she whispered. “Do they even remember her?”
    â€œOllie does, a little. At least he thinks he does. But Tad was still a baby.”
    â€œOh. That accounts for…”
    Silas tensed. “For what?”
    â€œWhy you’re so protective of them,” she said gently. “And no, that’s not a criticism, anybody in your position would be.” She leaned across the counter and touched his wrist, only to remove it almost before it registered. “You’re obviously a really good dad, Silas. But man—” her eyes twinkled “—you’d be a pain in the butt to live with. There,” she said, surveying the much cleaner kitchen, a big smile on her face. “All fixed. Although I have to say my own place—well, Eli’s, I suppose—never looks half this good. Suzy Homemaker, I’m not.”
    Somehow, he wasn’t surprised. “I never could understand how people could live in clutter. Noah and Eli shared a room when we were teenagers—I think my mother was ready to call the HazMat team at one point.”
    â€œSounds like Noah and me would get along great, then,” she said, and he glared at her, which got another shrug. “Driving myself nuts trying to keep a place clean when it’llonly get messy again simply isn’t a big priority. And it’s not like I’ve got the kind of wardrobe that needs padded hangers. Or any hangers, for that matter. I’m not dirty, ” she said to his appalled expression,