“He likes you,” Matt said, startling her. She hadn’t even realized she’d been standing just inside the door. Matt had already changed into a pair of pajama bottoms, so she must have been in a daze for a couple of minutes at least.
“I think Kieran is the type of man who likes everyone, Matt,” she said, brushing aside the tiny thrill that ran through her at Matt’s words, even as images of the immaculately coiffed and voluptuous Natalie wormed their way into her mind. If that was the type of woman that Kieran Callaghan courted, then she had even less than a snowball’s chance in hell of catching his interest. Faith was the anti-Natalie.
“Don’t read anything more into it.” There was no place in her life for silly things like that. She was a grown woman, a single mother with a teenage son. And Kieran was a nice guy.
A really hot, incredibly sexy, gorgeous, muscular, nice guy who helped them out.
Because he was a nice guy.
“He didn’t like Natalie,” Matt smirked, attempting to mimic the seductive way the young woman had spoken to Kieran.
Yes, he did, Faith thought as she held back a dejected sigh. At least once, anyway. Maybe more, based on the look of desire in the woman’s eyes. Though it had appeared that Natalie was a whole lot more impressed with Kieran than Kieran had been with her. Faith probably shouldn’t have taken as much pleasure in that thought as she did.
Lacie’s words came back to her again. Kieran had lots of women interested, and for good reason. Did this kind of thing happen all the time?
Maybe he was that way with all of the women he dated. She’d known men like that. Men who prided themselves on hooking up with as many women as possible, but having a set threshold of encounters to avoid things from ‘getting complicated’.
Somehow that didn’t quite ring true with the impression she’d formed of him throughout the day, but she had no reasonable basis for that. She’d known Kieran for all of what, twelve hours? How could she possibly know what he was like? She’d been wrong before, and with men she’d spent a lot more time around than a mere half day. So what if he had affected her more in that short span of time than anyone else had in the last fourteen years?
It was a depressing thought. Pine Ridge wasn’t that big. Was she bound to run into Kieran groupies wherever she went? It was only their second night in their new town and already she had managed to make an enemy. The notion settled in her chest like a heavy stone.
“She was very pretty,” Faith sighed. And young. Really young, not just young-looking like people told her she was. And blonde. With the toned body of a Zumba instructor. She probably drove a sporty little red convertible, too. Bitch, her snarky side added on for good measure.
“Not as pretty as you,” Matt said sincerely. Faith felt the tears start to well up in her eyes and had to look away. Someday all too soon her sweet son would understand what drew men’s attentions. Blue collar single moms who didn’t have the time or money for things like salons and fitness memberships weren’t at the top of the desirable date list. But for now, she would gratefully accept her son’s heartfelt compliment.
“You should go out with him,” Matt said firmly, apparently having thought about it and deciding the issue.
Faith’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?” Never had she heard anything remotely similar come out of her son’s mouth. He was usually very protective, and had a trademark scowl reserved for any man who exhibited the least amount of interest in her.
“You should go out with him,” Matt repeated with exaggerated patience. “I like him. He’s cool.”
“First of all, you barely know him. And second, I don’t have time for that kind of stuff,” Faith said. She bit her lip to avoid adding number three – Kieran hadn’t asked.
She was still reeling as much from her son’s declaration as the fact that he seemed to genuinely take to Kieran. It certainly wouldn’t hurt for him to have a positive male influence in his life. Faith knew as well as anyone how difficult the next few years could be, and based on what she’d seen so far, Matt could certainly have picked a lot worse for a role model.
“But I don’t think I’d have a problem if he wanted to take you to a game or something,” she amended.
To her further surprise, Matt grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that. Kieran’s doing that martial arts demo tomorrow in town, and he did say we could stop by. Can we go?”
It was amazing how fast ‘you should’ became ‘can we’, she mused, but she felt some measure of relief. Dealing with her son’s desire to attend a martial arts demo was more in her comfort zone than her desire to... Faith slammed a heavy brick wall down on that avenue of thought before it could make it any farther along what was certainly a dead-end.
“What time is the demo?” she asked. “I was hoping we could get a few more things done before I start work on Monday.”
“Kieran said you’d probably say that,” Matt said. “So he said if you brought me down, he’d bring me home and then he’d help with whatever.”