The Red Hat Society's Domestic Goddess (7 page)

Wally was still upset over their daughter Judy’s divorce. He always wished he’d done more to help. Theresa accepted that there
were some times when nothing could help. She really hoped that this wasn’t one of them, though.

“Help us,” Theresa appealed, wrapping her fingers around his hand as it swung at his side.

“How?”

“Join the class,” she beseeched him.

“I’m not a bachelor.”

“Neither is Millie’s son. Yet.”

He turned toward her, stopping on the sidewalk, just outside their end unit. There were three in their building, with arched
windows and doors, shining bright in the street lamps. The moonlight shone on Wally, caught a question in his shadowy green
eyes. He wondered if that
yet
applied to him, too.

She looked hard for the young man he’d once been. The one who, like a gentleman, would walk her home after their dates and
steal kisses on her front porch. Maybe it was darker than she thought because she couldn’t see him. All she saw was an old
man with graying hair and tired eyes, a man who’d given up, not just his business, but the life he used to lead. A stranger.

She squeezed his fingers, and maybe he felt her desperation because he nodded.

“All right. I’ll be one of your pupils.”

And Theresa couldn’t help but wonder if the marriage they were trying to save was
theirs.

S
weat dripped from Kim’s hair and slid down the back of her neck. Theresa called it “perspiring” but she never admitted to
actually doing it. Kim snorted. No matter the intensity of the class, Theresa barely glistened. On the other hand, she and
Millie sweated. They weren’t classy ladies, not like their glistening friend.

Kim was a little irritated with Theresa. She’d skipped her class to play welcome wagon lady to some new Hilltop resident.
Maybe Kim’s new neighbor. The SOLD sign had been up in front of the unit next to hers for a while now.

Kim really hoped her new neighbor wasn’t allergic to cats because that old fleabag was going to be Kim’s welcome-to-the-neighborhood
gift. Heck, the cat had lived there first; it was only fitting it should live there again.

It.

Was it a male? Probably. That would explain why it hogged the whole bed and why, no matter how many times she told it not
to, it kept climbing onto the kitchen counter. The thing couldn’t be trained, so it had to be a male. And when Kim was leaving
the house, it wound between her legs, leaving cat hair all over her pants. Marking its territory. Definitely a male.

Kim bent over, digging a towel from her duffel bag. She had just hooked it around her neck when she felt holes boring through
her gray yoga pants and white leotard, into her backside. The feeling was familiar since Mr. Lindstrom spent more of the class
staring at her rear end than attempting any of the exercises.

But the class was over; Mr. Lindstrom and everyone else was gone. Millie was off working on Plan B to get her sons to join
the Bachelor Survival Course, and she’d had to go grocery shopping before the lunch they’d scheduled with their Red Hat chapterettes.
Kim had thought she was alone in the community center basement, but for the wide assortment of exercise equipment arranged
around the area where she conducted her class in front of a wall of mirrors.

She was not alone.

She was being stared at. She could actually feel it. Hot. Another trail of sweat dribbled down, this one between her breasts.
She put her hand back in her duffel bag, feeling around for Harry.

“Kim,” Theresa’s soft voice called out, “I thought you were gone since class was over. But I see Mr. Fowler found you.”

As she straightened up and turned, she looked first to her friend. From the twinkle in Theresa’s eyes, she knew what Kim had
been reaching for. Then Kim turned toward Mr. Fowler of the hot stare.

She hadn’t minded missing last night’s movie. Leo was not her thing, nor was she into Pierce Brosnan like Millie had once
confessed she was. Kim was more into George Clooney. Okay, she was
really
into George
Clooney, and Mr. Fowler, with his thick head of dark brown hair finely threaded with silver and his warm brown eyes, crinkling
at the corners with a grin that involved his whole face, was a dead ringer for George.

“It
is
you,” he said, his voice as deep as the amusement in his eyes. He chuckled. “I can’t believe it. Miss O’Malley.”

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” she asked, although she already knew she didn’t. She sure as heck would have remembered him.

“He’s your new neighbor, Kim. He bought Mrs. Milanowski’s place,” Theresa informed her.

She’d forgotten Theresa was still there, watching from the last step of the wide stairs leading down to the basement. She
was
not
glistening while Kim sweated all over the place in front of this handsome stranger.

“George Fowler,” he said, extending his hand.

His first name was
George.

Kim wiped her hand on the towel before putting it in his. Maybe she got the sweat off her palm, but she couldn’t tell as her
skin heated and sizzled in his firm grip.

“Should I recognize your name?” she asked, still having the impression that
he
knew
her.

“I don’t expect you to. It was so long ago when we met. In high school.”

Despite the silver in his hair, she doubted he was fifty… like she’d turned just a few months ago, graduating from a pink
hat to a red one. He was probably only early forties. “I don’t think we went to high school together.”

“No,” he chuckled again. “
I
was attending high school. I was in the first class you taught.”

A former student. Usually she remembered them. But then she’d been teaching a long time. That was why she’d been let go when
they’d had to cut a physical education teacher from the payroll.

“You made a man out of me.”

Some odd sound emanated from Theresa. Not a giggle. Not a snort. Something.

But Kim couldn’t worry about her. Spots danced across her field of vision. She was having enough of a struggle keeping her
wits about her. Had she worked out too long? Maybe she was having a stroke? She blinked and cleared her head. Then she was
able to see his face more clearly. And the amusement heating his brown eyes.

Belatedly she realized he still had her hand, and she withdrew it, with some regret. He had great hands. Big. Wide. Strong.

“I’m sorry I don’t remember you.” She really was. Just how early could a person get Alzheimer’s? She had to have it to have
forgotten
him.
He looked just like George…

“I was a scrawny kid. Real nerd. Not an athletic bone in my body.” He laughed. “Or a muscle either.”

His comments invited her to check him out now. So her gaze scanned him from wide shoulders down over a well-muscled chest,
lean hips and heavy thighs, clad in a dark T-shirt and jeans.

“Until you got a hold of me,” he added. “You made me love working out.”

If he owed that body to her, she had certainly done something right in all her years of teaching.

The amusement faded from his eyes as they darkened with solemnity. “You helped me pick my career, too.”

“You’re a gym teacher?”

He shook his head. “No, a cop.”

“I—”

“When you invited your dad to talk to the class.”

She’d done that every year, even after he’d retired. The visits had meant a lot to both of them and not being able to do them
anymore was the hardest thing for her to accept about losing her job.

“I was so impressed, I decided I wanted to be just like him,” he said. “When I first got out of the academy, I worked under
him for a while. Everybody still misses him around the department. How is he?”

“Stubborn as a hound dog with a treed possum.”

Theresa laughed clearly this time. “Colorful, Kim.”

“You’ve met my father,” she reminded Theresa. “Am I wrong?”

Theresa shook her head. “That you’re not.”

“How old is he now?” George Fowler asked.

“Eighty-three. But don’t tell him that. He doesn’t have a clue.”

He laughed again, a deep laugh that had warmth spreading through Kim’s midsection. “That’s good, though,” he said, “that
he’s still going strong.”

“Well, he’s still going,” she amended. “So you’re my new neighbor?”

A former student. And a cop. She didn’t like her
chances of getting him to take Mrs. Milanowski’s cat off her hands.

He nodded. “Just a wall between us.”

She resisted the urge to shiver. Had to be the vent blowing air on her sweat-slick skin. That was all it was. Not the mention
of only a wall separating them. That didn’t bother her at all.

“Ask him,” Theresa said.

About the cat? “What?”

“About the class.”

“What class?” George asked.

“We’re teaching a Bachelor Survival course right here at the community center,” Theresa answered, probably sensing that Kim
couldn’t.

“You’re teaching it?” he asked Kim, those brown eyes full of warmth.

Warmth that overheated Kim again. She dabbed the damp towel against her skin. “Yes. With Theresa. And our friend Millie. We’re
actually starting it for—”

She stopped herself from talking about Millie’s problems. Or her son’s problems, as it were.

“For bachelors,” he finished, lifting one seductive graying brow.

Theresa laughed, probably enjoying seeing Kim flustered. “Do you qualify?” she asked. She might look like a classy lady, especially
in her smart, ivory-colored, welcome-lady suit, but sometimes she had no manners.

Kim ignored her friend’s nosiness and held her breath, waiting for his answer. Then she mentally smacked herself for doing
that. It meant nothing to her. Really it
would be better for her if he were married. She’d have a better chance of pawning the cat off on his wife.

“I’ve got a divorce decree that says I do,” he admitted.

“Is that why you bought into Hilltop?” Kim found herself asking. He was younger than the usual condo dweller. But then she’d
been younger when she’d bought her unit, too. It was the smartest thing she’d ever done… if only because of Millie and Theresa.

“I’ve been divorced for a few years and living in an apartment. That’s not the ideal place to live, lots of noise and traffic,
but I was too busy to house hunt. So I knew I was too busy to have a house. A condo seemed a smart decision. I assume you’ll
be quieter than my previous neighbors.”

She nodded. “As a mouse,” she swore, using her fingers to cross her heart. A gesture he seemed to follow a little too closely.
Then she added, “I’m sure you’ll get used to the howling.”

He lifted that brow again, probably totally aware of how darned sexy it made him look. Probably. “You howl?”

“Not me. The cat.” Then she mentally smacked herself again. She shouldn’t speak badly about the cat, not if she wanted him
to keep his welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift, the one she intended to drop on his doorstep the minute she got back to her
place. Well, maybe not the minute. She’d shower first.

And probably feed the cat, too. She wouldn’t want it howling at George first thing.

“So it’s just you and the cat?” he asked, his brown gaze strangely watchful.

Theresa made that sound from the doorway again, but Kim could barely hear it over the thumping of her heart, which had to
be a delayed reaction to the exercise. She was
not
reacting to her new neighbor, no matter how much he resembled George Clooney.

“Yes,” she answered finally, a little breathlessly. “Just me and the cat.” And that was how she intended to keep it. Well,
except for the cat.

He
would wind up keeping the cat.

“So should we sign you up?” Theresa dropped her question into the long silence that had fallen between them while George stared
at Kim and she stared at him.

“When is it?”

Whenever he couldn’t make it, Kim decided. “What shift do you work?” she asked.

“Second.”

Kim had heard that shift had killed many a marriage, so it could be the reason for his divorce. But Kim didn’t want to believe
it was something as simple as his wife getting sick of his shift. It made more sense that she’d gotten sick of him, as Kim
would probably even George Clooney if she had to live with him.

“That’s too bad.” she said, not even trying to sound as if she meant it. “We need to hold the class after five… to make sure
Millie’s sons can make it.”

He stepped closer to her and lowered his already deep voice as he said, “Well, since I’ll be living right next door to you,
maybe I can talk you into private lessons.”

If he kept talking to her like that, that close and that deep, Kim had a moment’s concern that he might
be able to talk her into anything. And that wouldn’t do at all.

She started pumping her arms and jogging in place. “Well, it was nice meeting you. But I have to run now… before I cool off…”

As she passed Theresa in the doorway, she ignored her friend’s highly amused chuckle and her muttered taunt of, “Chicken.”

Chapter Five