“Yes.” Jan had met the woman once, and Liz returned both her and Seth’s greetings with a less than friendly response. Jan had the distinct impression the other woman would be thrilled if Seth was no longer a part of Bo’s life. Was that it? Had Liz put her foot down?
“Well, she doesn’t really know Seth.” Bo sounded almost defensive. He turned and looked at Jan. “I need to fix that.”
Okay. That wasn’t what she expected. “How do you plan on doing that?”
Bo definitely looked uncomfortable. “They need to spend some time together.”
Jan stopped washing the plate in her hands and turned to stare at Bo. “So, she can see him when you have him on practice nights or at the game.” What was the big deal?
“That…that won’t work,” Bo admitted. “I need to…”
“You need to what?” Jan was totally confused.
Bo set down the dishtowel and took her wet, soapy hand in his. “Well, our family day every Sunday...I need to do that with Liz and Seth sometimes.”
Jan’s confusion was slowly replaced by a mixture of hurt and anger. “You want family day to change from including me, Seth’s aunt, to including your girlfriend?”
Bo looked miserable. “Not every Sunday, Jan. Just once in a while. Like this Sunday, I want to take the two of them to the zoo.”
Jan knew she and Bo weren’t a couple. The three of them weren’t a real family. But she always assumed Bo felt the same way she did about Seth. He needed both of them equally. Now, Bo was asking her to remove herself from the day they set aside each week for the past year, so he could let Seth bond with another woman?
Without warning, tears filled her eyes. She pulled her hand away from Bo’s and quickly turned away. Janet Sellers did not cry. She never cried. Not when she was a child growing up in a dysfunctional family. Not when her own mother put her need for a bottle of vodka over those of a teenage girl. Not when her older sister disappeared, leaving her alone to bear the burden of caring for a woman who would otherwise have lain in her own filth and vomit. And not even when she was told her nephew, who she now loved and put above every other part of her life, had been abused, probably since he was a small child. She just didn’t cry.
“Jan?” Bo’s voice was soft as he put his hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that she’s part of my life, too, and I can’t go on keeping it all separated. It’s not working.”
“I’m thinking,” Jan managed to say, moving far enough forward so his hand would fall off her shoulder. She didn’t want to be touched at that moment. Seth. His needs came first. She spent at least part of every evening with him, and most of every Saturday. She would still be with him on most Sundays. He needed Bo. Bo was telling her he needed her to step out of the picture once in a while to let the woman he loved step in. Was he really asking too much? She knew he loved Seth every bit as much as she did.
She finally turned back to him. “You can take him to the zoo on Sunday.”
Bo looked relieved. “Thank you. I promise, I’m not trying to replace you with Liz in Seth’s life. I’d never try to do that. I just need her to be in his life, too.”
He started to reach around to hug her, but she sidestepped him. She was giving him what he wanted, but she didn’t feel like accepting a hug. Something about the whole situation didn’t feel right. Maybe it was some kind of aunt’s intuition, but Jan didn’t like it. Not one little bit.
“Okay, we have fifty dollars to spend on new things for the rec room,” Jan told all seven residents.
“Can I have some new yarn?” Gertrude asked.
Lance wrote on his paper. “I put it on the list, Gertrude.”
“What else would any of you like?” Jan asked.
“I had a puzzle once,” Albert said. “It was in a book, I think. I put pieces of it together and it made a sailboat.”
“Would you like a puzzle to put together?” Jan glanced at Lance, who was already adding it to their list.
“If there’s a magazine with Dr. Phil, I need to read it,” Mildred proclaimed.
“We can get a few new magazines, Mildred,” Lance said, “but I can’t promise any will have Dr. Phil in them.”
Jan usually looked forward to community Fridays, when she and Lance took all seven residents out for a couple of hours. This trip was an approved shopping excursion with allocated funds from the director. Since the residents had so much fun buying new things, shopping trips had always been one of Jan’s favorite activities.
Today, all she could think of was Sunday. The closer it drew, the heavier the lead in her stomach felt. Had she made the right decision when she told Bo Seth could go with him and his girlfriend? If she had, why did she feel so much trepidation? Of course, it was a done deal. Seth was counting on going, and Jan couldn’t change her mind and disappoint him now. She’d just have to trust Bo.
“You with us, Jan?” Lance had evidently been trying to get her attention.
“I’m sorry,” she replied. “I was woolgathering.” She looked back at the group. “Would you like anything special, Raymond?”
“Maybe I can bring a friend back with me today.”
She hated to tell him no, but she had to put a stop to that idea. “I’m sorry, Raymond, but we won’t be able to bring any of your new friends back with us today. We won’t have room on the bus for them.”
“Can Leroy come with us?” Gertrude asked.
Jan sighed. “Yes.” Leroy didn’t take up any space since he only existed in the sweet old lady’s mind.
“If there isn’t anything else to put on our list, we’ll just look while we’re at the store and see if we can find something you like,” she suggested.
“The bus is here.” Lance pointed to the back door, where the small, yellow bus was sitting. “Let’s get you lined up so we can go see how Loretta is doing.”
Loretta was the woman who drove the bus that transported them on their outings. She interacted with the residents respectfully and with a sense of humor, two things necessary for the job.
Lance stuck the list and pen in his shirt pocket and walked over to open the door. Jan had no trouble getting the happy people to stand in line. They all liked their outings.
With Mildred leading the way, they were soon on the bus. When Jan got on and sat down, she saw an old flyer advertising the zoo. And there it was again—that wariness. Bo better know what he was doing.
“Throw it to home plate, Seth!” Coach Winters yelled.
Seth, standing on first base, threw the ball. It landed in the catcher’s mitt with a satisfying smack.
“Good throw!” Bo called from the bleachers.
He enjoyed bringing Seth to his Friday night school baseball practice. It had taken the teenager quite a bit of finagling to get his coach to let him play first base, and the boy was determined to keep his position.
“That your boy on first?” asked a man Bo didn’t recognize as he sat down beside him.
Bo considered Seth his. “Yeah.”
“He’s a good first baseman.”
“Thanks.” Bo didn’t think he was biased. “He works hard.”
The man stuck out his hand. “I’m Fred Stanton. That’s my son Junior out there in center field.”
Bo shook his hand. “I noticed he has a good throwing arm.” He looked out at the boy. “Did he just join the team?”
“We just moved here from St. Louis.” Fred seemed pleased with the relocation.
“Go, Seth!” Bo yelled. “Get in there and get the ball!” He had gotten caught up in the play. He turned his attention back to the man sitting next to him. “Sorry.”
“I understand.” He chuckled. “Your son is lucky to have such a dedicated father.”
A familiar feeling slammed into Bo’s gut. There was something he had never told anybody. After all, he was only thirteen years older than Seth and really didn’t know anything about raising kids. But the truth of the matter was he wanted to be Seth’s dad.
The ot
her man was still talking. “My job keeps me so busy, I don’t get to watch many of Junior’s games, let alone his practices. You’re fortunate to have so much time with him.”
“Yeah, I am.” So why did it never feel like quite enough?
This day had started out bad, and continued to get worse. Bo was unpleasantly surprised when Al Madison, the Slammers’ coach, called at seven o’clock that morning and told him the Pacers forfeited the game. Too many of their players were out of commission.
Then Bo called Seth and disappointed him with the news. The boy cheered up when his aunt told him she would take him to the arcade for a few hours, and Bo reminded him they were going to the zoo the next day.
Ordinarily, a Saturday with no obligations would have been perfect. He had been working on his own house for more than a year, living in the one-bedroom mobile home parked next to it. He was already planning to take advantage of the days Logan had given him off to get in some extra time on it.
He had just started putting up siding when Liz’s convertible pulled into the driveway. She slid out of the car, her long, black hair hanging below her waist, and her blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight.
Despite what his friends said about her figure, those eyes were what captured his attention the first time he saw her. The Slammers were enjoying a winning season’s celebration at Butlers, one of the nicer restaurants in Ransom, when Bo noticed Liz sitting at a table with a group of women. It was a surprise when he caught her checking him out every time he looked her way. That gave him the courage to ignore his buddies’ ribbing and approach her. He was stunned when he left the table, not only with her name and phone number, but a date for the following Friday. They had been dating ever since.
It hadn’t fazed him when he discovered her dad owned the Zimmers Jewelry store chain, nor did it affect him when he realized as her father’s only child, she was used to getting what she wanted when she wanted it. It was just part of who Liz was.
Until Seth. She turned her nose up and commented that it would be a waste to spend his time with “a boy like that.” It was the one and only time Bo lost his temper and told her no. He would not give Seth up. He knew right away when she backpedaled and said she understood, she was lying, but he let it go. After all, he managed to make it work – for a while.
But Logan and Emily were right. He couldn’t keep compartmentalizing his life. And he had already hurt Jan—he saw it in her eyes even though she tried to hide it—to arrange for Liz to get to know Seth better.
So, when she stopped by his house, it seemed like the perfect time to tell her about his plans for the next day. He planned to call her, but face-to-face was much better.
“You want me to go where with you and…Seth?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
“I’m taking Seth to the zoo, and I want you to come along so you can get to know each other better.”
“I thought Sunday was your precious family day with Seth and his aunt. You usually don’t have time for me before dinner,” was her snide comment.
He explained that Jan was willing to step back and give Liz a chance to bond with Seth. Her smile was forced, but he kept telling himself once she really got to know Seth, things were going to change. They had to.
After she finally agreed to the outing, she sprung her request on Bo. She wanted him to accompany her to a dinner party one of her friends was having that evening. He needed to wear a suit and tie.
So, there he was, sitting at a table between Liz and another woman named Yvonne, he thought. He had never been so flippin’ bored in his life. If the man on the other side of Liz told one more “joke,” Bo was either going to have to excuse himself from the table and get lost for a few minutes, or chuck that sad little excuse for dessert at him. He knew one thing. As soon as he dropped Liz off, he was hitting McDonald’s for a couple of Big Macs.
“Bo, did you hear Kim?” Liz asked, laughing. “His secretary couldn’t find the cord to close the blinds in his office because they were automatic.”
“Yeah.” And wasn’t that just hilarious?
“So, Liz told us you’re in construction,” the woman he thought was Yvonne commented. “What do you build?”
“Houses.” Bo Daniels had never been known for his conversation skills.
“So, do you ever erect anything?” What did the broad mean by that? And was that her hand on his thigh?
“If you’ll excuse me a minute.” He abruptly stood and quickly made his way to the men’s room.
Once inside the unoccupied room, he stopped and stared at himself in the mirror. What was he doing there? He no more fit in with this crowd than a pup would in a litter of kittens. He heard the door open behind him and glanced over his shoulder. Yvonne stood right inside the door.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I think you came into the wrong room.”
She sashayed over to him and brazenly reached out and caressed his family jewels. “I’m pretty sure I came into the right room.”
He stood there, stunned, as she began to unbutton her dress from the bottom up.
“Look, lady, I don’t know what you’re expectin’ here, but I’m with Liz.” He started to walk around her so he could leave the room.
Her response was a firm grasp of his groin. “I expect the best ride I’ve ever been on, Big Bo.” She lifted her leg and began rubbing herself against him.
Bo unceremoniously shoved her away and walked out of the room. Maybe the next guy who had to use the can could give her the ride she craved so much. And this was supposed to be one of Liz’s friends?
“You ready to go?” he asked Liz as he approached the table.
She looked up from yet another one of Kim’s stories, consternation on her face. “You haven’t even eaten your dessert yet, Bo. Don’t you like crème brulee?”
He didn’t care anymore. The bathroom fiasco had just removed what little was left of his manners. “I don’t even know what it is. I’m leavin’. Are you coming with me, or are you going to sit here and listen to another one of those moronic stories?”
Liz’s face went from ashen to a deep red. Her eyes blazed with anger. “Bo! Really!”
“Yep.” He could care less how mad she was. “I’m really leaving.” Without waiting to see if she followed, he turned and headed for the door.
He was rather shocked to see her rushing out as he started to back his truck out of the space. Ordinarily, he would open the door for her, but this time he sat and waited while she climbed in.
It wasn’t until they were on the road he realized her silence was fueled by anger. In fact, he’d wager his house she was furious.
“I’ve never been so humiliated in my life,” she finally hissed.
“Well, you should have come into the bathroom with me and watched your good friend Yvonne try to undress and dry hump me, ‘cause that just made my day flippin’ perfect!” He snorted. “You think you and your friends are so much better than mine. There’s not a one of my buddies, Liz—not a one—who would ever hit on you. We don’t do things like that to our friends.”
A dead silence met him.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I had no idea.”
“You know, Liz, maybe we’re just too different.” Bo glanced over and, for the first time, saw a wealthy, aristocratic woman. “You don’t want to fit into my world, and I sure don’t fit into yours.”
There were tears in her voice when she spoke. “Don’t say that, Bo. I’m going with you tomorrow, aren’t I? And the next time we go out with my friends, I’ll make sure Yvonne isn’t one of them. Don’t give up on us over this one night.”
Bo sighed. This was the Liz he knew, and he couldn’t stand for her to cry. He silently pulled off the road into an empty parking lot.
“Come here.” He reached for her.
Liz unfastened her seat belt and slid across the seat to him. He lowered his head and kissed her. It started out as a gentle kiss meant to comfort her, but it soon became passionate.
“I want you,” Liz
whispered.
“Buckle up.”
Not moving from the center of the seat, she fastened the belt there.
“My place is closer,” she said, leaving her hand where it would keep him interested.
He drove as quickly and safely as he could. They barely made it inside her house before she was all but undressed. He only got as far as her sofa before she jumped on him, forcing him to sit down. She pulled his jacket off and was working on his shirt when something that had never happened to him in all his life occurred. He couldn’t do this. What’s more, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
The back of his head hit the wall behind her couch for a moment before he lifted his gaze to look into determined female eyes. Too bad it did nothing other than slightly annoy him.
“I’m sorry, Liz.” Bo took her hands and pulled her off his lap. “Maybe I’m just too tired.”
She was breathing heavily. “Are you sure?” She reached down and caressed his groin. Nothing.
Liz slowly scooted away from him. “Maybe if you spend the night, you’ll feel … up to this later.”
Somehow, he knew he wouldn’t. “I think I better go home and get a good night’s sleep.” He leaned over and barely brushed her cheek with his lips. “I’m sorry, Liz.”
She turned and sat on the sofa as he stood and pulled his jacket back on.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He headed toward the door.
“Okay.”
He paused in the open doorway, feeling like he should say something…but he could think of nothing. Instead, he closed the door behind him and walked out to his truck.
During the drive home, he thought about what just happened. Lack of energy might be due to exhaustion, but lack of interest? He just couldn’t quite shake the feeling this thing between him and Liz had changed tonight—and not for the better. Something important was missing from their relationship, and he had no idea what.
Jan’s Saturday plans had changed from one minute to the next. First, she was going to take Seth to watch the Slammers play the Pacers. Then, after she saw her nephew’s disappointment when Bo called to tell him the game was cancelled, she offered to take him to the arcade for a couple of hours.
Just Practicing (Hearts for Ransom Book 2) Page 3
