“Okay, okay.” Laughing now, Kate set aside the rolling pin. “I definitely came on too strong. But when I ran into him the first time in the toy store when he was getting a toy for Jack, and we were flirting, I thought we were on the same wavelength.”

“In the toy store,” Natasha murmured. She and Spence had met the first time in the toy store, when he had been picking out a doll for his daughter, Freddie.

Fate, she thought. You could never anticipate it.

“Yes, then when I realized he was buying that truck for his son, I assumed he was married. So I was annoyed he’d flirted back.”

“Of course.” Natasha was grinning now. It just got better and better.

“Then, of course, I found out he wasn’t, and the field was open. He’s interested, too,” she muttered and banged the rolling pin. “Just stubborn about it.”

“He’s lonely.”

Kate looked up, and the little spark of temper she’d hoped to fan into flame flickered out. “Yes, I know. But he keeps stepping back from me. Maybe he does that with everyone, but Jack.”

“He’s very warm and friendly with me. Yet when I asked him to come by tomorrow, he made excuses. You should change his mind,” Natasha decided. She rose to get back to work. “Yes, you should go by his house later, take him a dish of the black-eyed peas for luck in the new year, and change his mind about coming by tomorrow.”

“It’s pretty presumptuous, dropping by a man’s house on New Year’s Eve,” Kate said, then grinned. “It’s perfect. Thanks, Mama.”

“Good.” Natasha dipped a finger into the pastry filling, licked it off. “Then your father and I will have a little New Year’s Eve party of our own.”

Brody nursed a beer and wished he hadn’t eaten that last slice of pizza. He was sprawled on the couch, with Jack, in the center of the disaster that had been their living room. Some B horror flick involving giant alien eyeballs was on TV.

He loved B movies—couldn’t help himself.

In a couple of hours, he’d switch it over to the coverage of Time’s Square. Jack wanted to see the ball drop—and had insisted he could stay awake until midnight.

He’d done everything but prop his eyelids open with toothpicks to make it, which explained the state of the house. He’d finally dropped, snuggled into the crook of Brody’s arm.

Brody would hold the fort until five minutes before midnight, then wake Jack up to see the new year in.

Brody sipped his beer and watched the giant eye menace the humans.

And nearly jumped out of his skin when the knock sounded at his door.

Cursing, he slid Jack down onto the couch so he could lever himself off. The odds of someone coming to his door after ten at night, he figured, were about the same as giant alien eyeballs threatening the Earth.

He stepped over and around toys, shoes, socks, and headed for the door. Somebody lost or broken down, he decided. Everyone he knew was celebrating the new year, one way or the other.