BACHELOR NUMBER FOUR

by Megan Hart

  "Nice first date," she said to the empty car, and laughed again.

  A few minutes later, she'd picked up her children. The girls were both full of stories about their night's events. Aislin had been to a Brownies' sundae party to kick off their fall fundraiser, and Maeve had been invited to a movie with her friend Unagh. Both girls were high on sugar and up-past-bedtime excitement, but their excited chatter gave Arden the chance to drive and think about her date with Brian.

  She ought to have felt worse about it. She'd been a bad judge of character. Brian's charm had turned sour faster than milk on a hot day. His expectation of fast, easy sex had affronted her...not because she was looking for a boyfriend, but rather, because he'd assumed getting in her pants meant not giving a damn about anything else. Getting laid was one thing. Getting laid by a moron was something else entirely.

  She glanced into the rear mirror to catch sight of her daughters still babbling to each other about their evenings. Their sweet faces made Arden's throat close with emotion. She was a mother, a mommy, not some siren of sex. Not even a M.I.L.F., as she'd heard the term. At least, she'd never thought so.

  Making love with Jason had always been good, even in the dry times when pregnancy and caring for infants had sapped her sexual desire. He'd always made her believe there was more to her than changing diapers and cleaning toilets. He'd made her feel like a woman, even at her times of lowest self-confidence, with baby weight and leaking breasts, greasy hair and bad-fitting clothes. Jason had always made Arden feel beautiful...and loved.

  But those feelings had been saved for him alone. If other men looked at her with appreciation in their eyes, she'd never noticed, content to be a wife and mother. Today had been her first experience with seeing male reaction to her in twelve years--since meeting Jason.

  Knowing that a man, even a man as scummy as Brian had turned out to be, found her attractive could not offend her. Discovering she was desirable after so long pushing away that part of herself was a heady feeling. That some man other than the one she'd married and invested her life in could want to take her to bed...that made Arden grin and giggle out loud.

  "Mo-oom! It's not funny!" Aislin's cry tore Arden's attention away from her thoughts.

  "I'm sorry, honey. What's not funny?"

  Aislin gave a long-suffering sigh. "Brittney Zook at Brownies said her mom's going to buy her a bra, and she made fun of me because I don't have one."

  Arden thought carefully before replying, flicking on her turn signal and heading down the street toward their house. "Do you want a bra, Aislin?"

  Maeve burst out laughing. "She doesn't have any boobies!"

  "They're called breasts," Aislin told her sister haughtily before saying to Arden, "No, but I don't want Brittney to make fun of me either."

  Arden pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine and turned in her seat to look at her older daughter. At eight years old, Aislin was still pretty far away from needing a bra, but Arden remembered being the last girl in her class to get one. She swallowed against another wave of emotion threatening to make her voice tremble. "Honey, you really don't need a bra, but if you think you'd like one..."

  Aislin crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't want one! I don't have any boobs!"

  "Breasts," Maeve corrected and earned a scornful look from Aislin.

  "Maeve," Arden said gently, "don't tease. Aislin, does Brittney need a bra?"

  "No." Aislin giggled. "She doesn't have boobs either."

  "Maybe it make her feel more grown up to have one," Arden offered.

  Aislin snorted. "That's so dumb. Besides, she just wants to get one so the boys can snap her straps. She thinks that means the boys like you when they do that, but that's dumb, too. Like I would ever want a boy to snap my straps!" She made such a face of disgust Arden stifled a laugh.

  "That means they want to do sex!" cried Maeve importantly.

  Arden's laugh cut off. "Maeve, who told you that?"

  "I saw it on TV."

  "Ah." What to say now? They'd already had the talk about the birds and the bees, how women's bodies worked, how babies were made. The girls both knew about eggs and sperm, and if they weren't quite clear on the exact details of how the two combined, Arden was okay with them not understanding for a little while. But this...

  "Kids our age don't do sex, Maeve." Aislin unbuckled her belt and gathered her things. "You have to be a grownup."

  And that was the end of that, Arden thought as she followed them into the house and supervised their night's routine. She was wrong. As she bent to kiss Aislin good night, her daughter said, "Mom, you did sex with Daddy, right?"

  Arden sat on the edge of the bed and took Aislin's hand. "Yes, honey. To make you and Maeve."

  "But didn't you do it other times, too?"

  Arden squeezed Aislin's fingers. "Yes, Aislin. That's what men and women do when they're married."

  She braced herself for the next question, not sure how'd she'd continue to answer, but certain she wanted to give her kids a healthy view of sex.

  "But you don't do it now?"

  She smiled and shook her head, glad the answer was an easy one. "No, honey."

  Aislin's eyes were serious. "But will you ever do it again, do you think?"

  A few different answers whirled in Arden's brain before she said, "I don't know, Aislin. Sex is something that's very special and is better when it's shared with someone you really care about."

  "Like you cared about Daddy."

  Arden took a deep breath, not wanting to cry. "Yes. Like Daddy."

  "I don't ever want to do it. It sounds disgusting to me." Aislin turned on her side and pulled her hand from Arden's.

  "Good night, sweet pea." Arden bent and kissed Aislin's forehead, tucked the covers around her, and went downstairs.

  Another milestone covered, she thought as she went to the computer. The sex talk. It only gets more complicated from here.

  She adjusted the keyboard and clicked the mouse to stop the swirling screen saver. "Hello, handsome."

  The photo of Keanu filled her screen, marred only by a few icons on her desktop. Idly, she arranged them so they lined up along the side of the screen and no longer blocked his distinctive features. She leaned back and stared at his perfect face, then peeked at the clock. It was already almost nine. The girls would both have a hard time getting up in the morning since they'd gone to bed so late past their normal bedtime. She should get some sleep, too.

  Just a quick note to Lida, she thought as she opened her email program. She wanted to let her friend know about the disaster date.

  She clicked the "compose" button and started typing as the program collected her incoming messages. A small red number five appeared on top of her email icon, letting her know she had five new messages.

  She paused in typing her note to Lida to see what she got. "Junk, junk, junk...oh!" The gasp tumbled from her lips and made her feel foolish, and her hand jerked so the mouse no longer highlighted the fourth message. It was from Shane.

  She took a deep breath to calm herself, then clicked on it.

  Hey, nice to hear from you. I saw the notice in the paper about your shop. Looks good. Give me a shout some time. S.

  "Don't overanalyze it," she whispered, but, of course, did just that. She read the message several times, but couldn't convince herself of any hidden meaning in the innocuous words. And she shouldn't expect any, she scolded. Her note to him had been just as bland. But what could she have sent instead?

  Hey, Shane, just wondering if you're still available and interested in a fuck buddy? Stupid, Arden.

  Her words to Aislin flew back at her. She had meant them. And yet, her memories of Shane, naked in candlelight, sent a shiver through her powerful enough to peak her nipples even now.

  Her fingers moved on the keyboard, crafting her reply.

  I'm glad you wrote back. I saw your company's website. It looks very successful. Congratulations.

  Signing it with only her initial gav
e the letter the same casual feeling as his, though she felt anything but casual about sending it.

  She sent the message and sat back, her heart still thumping. She shook her head at her foolishness and returned to her note to Lida. She'd only typed a few words when a bright red one appeared on the email icon. Curious, she minimized her message to Lida, then sat back in her chair, a wide grin on her face.

  He was online. She clicked on the message, which he must have sent only moments after getting hers. The note was brief, and again her eyes scanned it multiple times, trying to glean any hidden meaning behind the words.

  Yeah, the business is doing well. It keeps me out of trouble.

  No signature, not even an initial, this time. She looked over the words once more, then crossed her arms over her chest while she stared at the screen. Contemplating.

  Shane had been a master of innuendo and double entendre, of veiled meaning and subtle invitation. She'd also known him to be blunt to the point of being shocking. The trouble was, she'd never learned how to anticipate which approach he'd take.

  She typed fast, so as not to give herself too much time to think. Glad to hear you're staying out of trouble. It's nice to see you're doing something that makes you happy.

  Send. She went back to Lida's note, but her fingers stuttered so much on the keys she misspelled every other word. She tried to pretend she was not looking down at the email icon every few seconds, but she was.

  Her program was set up to automatically collect mail every five minutes, and not even two had passed. She looked at the Get Mail button, but didn't click on it. That would be desperate, wouldn't it? That would be stupid, wouldn't it? If he was going to reply tonight, she could wait another few minutes.

  "Oh, you bugger," she muttered as she clicked on Get Mail and no new messages appeared.

  Again, she opened her message to Lida and tried to type. Maybe he went offline. There was no reason to think he'd waited for her reply. Maybe he'd just happened to answer her so fast from coincidence, and now he was offline. Doing something else, like she should be doing, instead of waiting like a high school girl for the phone to ring...

  A small red one appeared.

  She kept her fingers firm on the keyboard and forced herself to finish typing Lida's note. She read it over to make sure she had been semi-coherent and hadn't made any more glaring spelling errors. Satisfied she wouldn't be sending anything embarrassing, she clicked Send.

  Now she could turn her attention to the new message in her Inbox. It was from Shane. Arden hesitated before clicking on it, but it only took her three seconds to read what it said.

  Who said I was happy?

  No mistaking the helluva lot of potential meaning in that. Arden stared at the words, pondering how to reply. He'd left it wide open for her. There was no good way for her to construe that as anything but a leading statement. The question was, what was he leading her to?

  You're not happy? That's too bad, she typed.

  She ought to go to bed. It was now nearing ten, and the morning would come way too early. She stared at the computer screen so long it flickered and began to disintegrate into the screensaver again. She tapped the keyboard to stop the swirling colors. Still no new messages.

  "Stupid," she muttered, and minimized the email window. "Go to bed, Arden. He's not going to answer tonight."

  She had some invoices to catch up on, though, and a few items she wanted to check out online. It couldn't hurt to surf the 'net for a few more minutes. She could finish up the last bit of work so she didn't have to do it tomorrow at the shop. She could spend more time sewing that way. Rationalize it, she told herself, but knowing what she was doing didn't stop her from doing it.

  She opened her documents and typed up a few orders, a couple of invoices, and deleted some old correspondence she no longer needed. Then she opened her internet browser and did a few searches on some items she was looking to buy for the shop, did a few price comparisons, picked what she could afford, and ordered what she needed.

  Still no new mail.

  "Give it up," she said. "Go to bed!"

  And, just before she told the computer to go into sleep mode, that magic red number appeared at the bottom of her screen.

  An order confirmation, she was certain. Or a message from Lida. The one became a two, then a three, and she opened her inbox. She'd been right about the first two. The last was from Shane.

  Arden read it with narrowed eyes.

  I didn't say I wasn't. I just said who said I was?

  Let the games begin, she thought. Her anticipation soured. Now he was toying with her, something she had never appreciated. At least now she knew which way he was going, and it wasn't blunt and to the point. She'd changed, though. While once upon a time she'd been willing to toss the verbal ball back and forth, now that sort of sparring only left a bad taste in her mouth.

  "I'm past playing games," Arden said to the screen and, with resolve, she deleted his message and all the ones before it. Then she put the computer to sleep and went upstairs to do the same.

  * * * *

  "Could this place be any louder?" Lida grimaced, then shouted toward her son, "Way to go Henry!"

  The boy's grin was a perfect replica of his mother's as he turned and did a victory dance. "I got a strike!"

  "Good job!" Lida turned back to Arden. "They must amplify the noise on purpose so we go to the bar to self-medicate our headaches."

  Arden laughed and clapped as Maeve followed Henry. "It's not that bad."

  Lida pushed the plate of fries toward her. "Maybe I'm just getting old. Here. Clog your arteries."

  Dipping a fry in ketchup, Arden waved toward Aislin as the girl took her turn. Her two girls were having a blast with Lida's three boys and Heather's daughter Elyse. While none of the kids looked likely to break a hundred on the score, they were all having fun.

  "They're so cute," Arden said.

  "Cute, schmoot. Tell me about your date."

  "There's not much to tell beyond what I wrote last night. It was pretty much a disaster."

  Heather looked up from tying Elyse's shoe, then scooted the girl back into the game. "She might know already, but I don't. Spill the beans already."

  Heather had been divorced for over a year. Elyse had been in Aislin's swimming class last year, when Arden was a brand-new widow. They'd both been prone to awkward bouts of tears in public, which had immediately endeared them to each other. Thankfully, they'd both passed that stage, but if there was anyone besides Lida who could appreciate the story about Brian, it would be Heather. Arden outlined the spur of the moment date, the awkward dinner, the uncomfortable ending. Heather laughed.

  "Typical guy. Puts a price on dinner like he's saved your life. Like a burger and fries should be worth at least a hand job, right?"

  Lida laughed. "Oh, brother. With women it's a whole different story. I tell my husband, 'Honey, the biggest turn on you can give me would be the sight of you running the vacuum cleaner.'"

  The three women laughed, but Arden shook her head. "Brian was very cute, and it's not like I'm looking for an immediate boyfriend. What made me mad was his assumption that I've been leading him on."

  "Aren't you?" Lida laughed again at Arden's rolling eyes. "C'mon. I don't mean for a man, necessarily...but for a man." The emphasis made her meaning clear.

  Arden looked over at her daughters. "I told you, Lida. That's not me."

  Lida followed her gaze, and her expression softened while she patted Arden's hand. "I know. I'm only half kidding. The other half thinks you should dude yourself up and head down to the bar on karaoke night, find yourself some young, hot college guy and let him rock your world."

  Arden burst into laughter. "Oh, that's so likely to happen."

  "It's not so unlikely." Heather washed down her mouthful of fries with some cola. "The cutest boy ever mows my lawn. It sounds like a cliché, very Mrs. Robinson, but hell-o! That boy is to-die-for-cute, very flirtatious. If I didn't have Leo, I'd seriously consid
er taking him up on what he's been offering me all summer."

  "Get out of here." Arden looked more closely at her friend. "You're not kidding?"

  Heather shook her head. "No way. His name is Jordan, and he is fine with a capital F."

  "Doesn't do Arden any good," Lida pointed out. "Henry, it's Maeve's turn next. Don't you give me that look!"

  "What kind of guy are you interested in?" Heather got up to referee the scuffle that had broken out between the girls and the boys, giving Arden time to imagine dark hair, blue eyes and attitude.

  What she said, instead, was, "Keanu Reeves."

  "Who isn't?" Lida passed the fries, but Arden didn't take any more.

  Heather grabbed the rest. "I'm asking because there's a nice guy who works in Doug's office. His fiancée left him at the altar about three months ago."

  "Sounds like a winner."

  Lida chuckled. "Why'd she leave him? What's wrong with him?"

  "Nothing that I know of," Heather said. "He seems like a nice guy. I think she ran off with an old boyfriend or something."

  "Ugh." Arden watched Maeve and Aislin take their turns. "I don't know, Heather."

  "You don't have to marry him. I just thought if you wanted to get your feet wet in the dating pool, so to speak, you might be interested. His name is Greg. He's about thirty."

  "Too young!"

  "Oh, Arden, that's only a little younger than you." Lida scoffed. "Is he cute?"

  "Sandy blond, blue eyes, nice build." Heather shrugged. "He's put on a bit of weight, but he's not fat or anything. Decent sense of humor."

  "How do you even know he's interested in going out?" Arden demanded.

  "Because he's always moaning about how there aren't any decent women in the world who aren't married already."

  "Ah." Arden sipped her soda and gave Lida a look. "Oh, all right."

  The women laughed. Heather gave Arden an around-the-shoulder squeeze. Lida waggled her eyebrows.