Dateline Matrimony (Hot off the Press! 3)

Dan chuckled. “You know you don’t really dislike kids as much as you pretend.”

“Nah, they’re okay. As long as I don’t actually have to listen to them sing, or watch them dance or act in school plays. Or share a plane ride with them. Or a movie theater. Or a restaurant. Or—”

Dan was laughing quietly when he cut in. “Okay, I get the picture.”

So did Teresa.

She wasn’t really disappointed, she assured herself. She hadn’t seriously considered accepting a date with him. She wasn’t interested in dating anyone right now. Especially a man who’d just made it crystal clear how entirely wrong he was for her.

She filled the police chief’s cup first, and then Riley’s. “Is there anything else I can get for you gentlemen?”

“I’ll take the check,” Riley said. “I like to stay on the chief’s good side—just in case I ever need a ticket fixed or anything.”

“I wish you’d stop saying things like that,” Dan said, sounding rather exasperated. “People who don’t know better might think there’s some truth in what you’ve implied.”

Teresa smiled faintly. “Don’t worry, Chief. I take very little of what he says seriously.”

“I said she was intelligent,” Dan said to Riley, who was giving Teresa an exaggeratedly aggrieved look.

“If there’s nothing else you need, I’ll get your check,” she said, taking a step back from the table.

“You’re sure you won’t reconsider my dinner invitation for tonight?” Riley asked enticingly.

“I’m quite sure,” she said in a tone cool enough to freeze the smile from his face. No teasing this time—no humorous rejoinders or implied maybes. This was a flat-out no, and she wanted him to recognize it as such.

There was no need for either of them to harbor the delusion that there would ever be a date—or anything else—between them.

Riley didn’t make a habit of talking to kids. For one thing, he never knew quite what to say to them. And parents frowned on strangers approaching their offspring—rightly so, of course. So, all in all, it seemed safer to just stay away from the tykes.

He was sitting in a city park with a book on a pleasantly cool afternoon during the first week of October when a snub-nosed urchin approached him.

“Hi,” the kid—who looked to be about ten—said.

Resting the paperback on his knee, Riley studied the boy a moment before coming to the conclusion that he’d never seen him before. “Hi.”

“Whatcha doing?”

Riley sat on a concrete picnic bench, his back to the table, facing the small, pretty lake that was the center of the park. A can of soda and the remains of a burger and fries were scattered on the table behind him. He figured it was pretty obvious that he was taking advantage of a nice, warm day to picnic, read and commune with nature for a while, but apparently the boy was simply trying to start a conversation.

“I’m just taking a break from work,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to feed the ducks.” The boy held up a clear plastic bag filled with bread cubes.

Riley looked toward the lake, where several hungry-looking ducks were starting to congregate nearby, apparently deciding the boy looked like a promising food source. “I’m sure they’ll like that. How come you aren’t in school?”

“No school today,” the kid announced with pleasure. “It’s a teacher workday.”

Glancing around at the few other people in the park, none of whom seemed to be monitoring the boy’s actions, Riley asked, “You aren’t here by yourself, are you?”

“No, my sitter’s with me. Well, she’s in the rest room with my little sister. I’m supposed to wait for them before I start feeding the ducks, because Maggie gets mad if I start without her.”

“Maggie’s your sister?”

“Yep. My name’s Mark.”

Because it seemed like the right thing to do, Riley extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mark. I’m Riley.”

The boy pumped Riley’s hand gravely. “It’s nice to meet you, too. Now you’re not a stranger, right? It’s okay for us to talk, right?”