Free The Prince Charming List by Kathryn Springer Page B

greeted me when I stepped into her kitchen on Sunday after church. She was cuddling a pink blanket—Joanna Ruth—and Dex was standing beside her, holding a blue-wrapped bundle—Nathaniel.
    “We’ve met. Alex hired him to fix up the apartment this summer.” I was going to start repeating this in my sleep.
    “Stephen invited him to have lunch with us, too.” Annie eased Joanna into my arms and ignored the desperate look Dex cast in her direction. “I’ll get you two some lemonade. Why don’t you meet me in the backyard? Stephen is already out there messing with the coals.”
    “Hand him over,” I sighed as soon as Annie disappeared. “You’re holding him like he’s a football and you’re about to fumble him.”
    I didn’t have to ask him twice. Dex tucked him into the crook of my arm and beat a hasty retreat. At least he had the presence of mind to pause long enough to hold the screen door open for me.
    “Hi, Heather.” Stephen waved a basting brush at me.
    The entire backyard of the Carpenters’ duplex was the size of the sunroom in the house I grew up in. I wondered where they were going to put a swing set and sandbox when the twins got older. Both Mom and Dad served on a lot of committees at church, so I knew pastors didn’t make much money—especially in towns the size of Prichett. That Faith Community could even afford a full-time youth pastor told me a lot about their priorities. They were definitely in the right place.
    I sat down gingerly on the edge of a lawn chair, shifting Joanna and Nathaniel into a more comfortable position in my arms. Joanna smiled at me but Nathaniel was as serious as a professor. He reminded me a little of Dex.
    “They’re quite an armful, aren’t they?” The screen door slapped against the frame as Annie came out of the house, carrying a tray of picnic supplies.
    “Flex for them, sweetheart,” Stephen teased. “Show them the bulging biceps you’re getting without an annual gym fee.”
    Annie looked at him in mock disgust. “Next thing you know, he’ll be hiring me out to chop wood at Lester’s place.”
    Stephen pretended to consider it and Annie pitched a plastic spoon at him. Then she turned to Dex and me. “Why don’t you guys figure out this ice-cream maker while I put Jo and Nate down for their nap?”
    Dex hadn’t said two words to me and I was still trying to decide if he was stuck-up or just shy. He must have come right to the Carpenters’ from church, because he was wearing wrinkle-free khakis (I can always pick out a polyester cotton blend from the real thing) and a junior executive white shirt with the cuffs buttoned at the wrist.
    “We can figure this out, right, Dex?” I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and went with shy . If necessary, I could talk enough for both of us. “There has to be directions in the box somewhere.”
    Stephen coughed lightly and I looked up.
    “Don’t count on it,” he whispered with an anxious glance toward the house.
    I blinked. “No directions?”
    “Annie puts all the directions and warranties for stuff in a box. Which happens to be underneath the Christmas ornaments, which happens to be in the basement behind the hot water heater. You’ll just have to wing it.”
    I slid the box toward Dex. “Winging it? Here you go, Dex. That’s definitely your department.”
    For a second I thought I’d offended him. He stared down at the ice-cream maker and his glasses slid down to the end of his nose. When he lifted it out of the box, his hands were shaking.
    “Dex—”
    He laughed, so suddenly and freely that it collided with the apology I was about to make and blew it into pieces. Then he muttered something that sounded like distractions .
    “An ice-cream maker is a distraction?”
    Dex ignored me as he dove headfirst into the box and then began lobbing pieces of the ice-cream maker at me. “Green is a distraction,” he muttered. “Gold is a distraction.”
    Was he talking about the Green Bay