What a Man's Gotta Do by Karen Templeton Page A

sandwich,” he said, even though he had no idea what one thing had to do with the other.
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    For an hour, maybe a bit longer, they sat across from each other at her kitchen table and listened to golden oldies on the radio and the sleet tick-tick against the window, while they drank coffee and ate turkey and ham sandwiches and pumpkin pie and talked about safe things, like how the restaurant was doing and her plans for fixing up the house one day. Then the pup, who’d been snoozing nearby in a little box Mala had lined with an old blanket, woke up and actually asked to go outside to do his business.
    â€œSure wish it was that easy to housebreak kids,” Mala said, drying him off again with the towel when he scampered back in, his fur glistening with melting sleet. Still seated at the table, Eddie laughed, which made her feel really, really good. Sophomoric, but good.
    Why he’d accepted her invitation, she had no idea. And her issuing the invitation to begin with wasn’t exactly the smartest thing she’d ever done. She was playing with fire, and she knew it. But Eddie King made her laugh, too, more than she had in a long time. He could tell a wicked story, in that quiet drawl of his. And, boy, did he have a ton of them stored up from his exploits as a gypsy chef, as he called himself. Yes, she wondered about his sudden loquaciousness, for maybe, oh, two seconds. But it was nice, how he made her forget, just for a little while, that she was the mother of two high-maintenance children and the sole proprietor of a struggling new business and a woman with a shattered marriage on her résumé.
    That she was, at times, almost unbearably lonely, unable to reconcile her basic female need for the company and attention of a man with her resolve to stop making herself crazy trying to find something that obviously didn’t exist. Not for her, anyway. It was a good thing, then, she told herself as she poured them both their second cups of coffee, that the long-legged, soft-speaking man currently sitting in her kitchen was a nomad, a loner, the kind of man who wouldn’t let another human being past that veneer of nonchalance for love nor money.
    And that she had no business trying. Everything else aside, it wasn’t fair, trying to get a peek at his pysche when she’d been so adamant about not revealing hers.
    But where was the harm in a question or two?
    â€œSo, what did you do for dinner today?”
    His mouth hitched up as he stirred his coffee. “Cooked it.”
    â€œBut the restaurant—”
    â€œNot there. At a homeless shelter in Detroit.”
    Why his answer should derail her, she didn’t know. But it did. “Oh. Wow. That’s really…nice.”
    His mouth quirked up on one side, Eddie arched back, linking his hands behind his head. “Does that make you uncomfortable?”
    Her brows lifted. “No. Why should it? I was just thinking that maybe if you didn’t keep it such a secret, other people might be goaded into being more generous with their time, too.”
    His hands still laced behind his head, his gaze never wavered. “I wasn’t tryin’ to keep it a secret. Just don’t see the point in going around, callin’ attention to myself. Besides, guilt’s a lousy motivator, Mala.”
    â€œWhatever works.”
    â€œBut it doesn’t. Trust me on this, folks who are down on their luck can spot someone who’s in it to appease their own conscience faster than this little guy can wolf down a piece of turkey.” He picked up a scrap from his plate and waved it at the dog, who tripped all over himself in his split to get to the loot.
    She watched as the pup demonstrated Eddie’s simile, telling herself it wasn’t prying if he’d given her the opening. “Sounds as though you’re speaking from experience.”
    He glanced at her, then wiped his fingers on a napkin, which he balled up and tossed