by Cara Colter
He took his hand away as if he could snatch back the feeling that had just passed between them. He smiled at her, that devil-may-care smile, and she realized a smile, even a sexy one—or maybe especially a sexy one—could be a mask.
“I’m going to kiss you one day,” he promised.
Was that a mask, too? A way of not feeling? Of not connecting on a real level? She looked at his lips.
The terrible truth was she was dying to be kissed by him.
But not like that. Not as part of a pretext, a diversion, a way to stop things from hurting.
“Actually, you’re not,” she said, and was pleased by his startled expression, as if no one had ever refused him a kiss before.
Probably no one had. And probably she was going to regret it tonight. Today. Seconds from now.
Before that weakness settled in, she got up and gathered up the tray and headed for the house. She pulled open the screen door with her toe and looked over her shoulder.
“You know,” she called back to him, “kissing can’t solve your problems. They will still be there after you unlock lips.”
He sat there, looking as if a bomb had hit him, and then got up and stalked across the yard, stood at the bottom of her steps, glaring up at her.
“How would you know what kissing solves or doesn’t solve?” he asked her darkly.
“What are you saying? That I look like I’ve never been kissed?”
“As a matter of fact, you don’t look like any kind of an expert on the subject!”
That exquisite moment when she had felt so connected to him was gone. Completely. Absolutely. The oasis was an illusion, after all.
“You pompous, full-of-yourself Neanderthal,” she sputtered.
“Don’t call me names over five syllables.”
“It was four! But just in case you didn’t get it, it’s the long version of caveman.”
He looked like he was going to come up the stairs and tangle those strong, capable hands in her hair, and kiss her just to prove his point. Or hers. That he was a caveman.
But his point would be stronger; she would probably be such a helpless ninny under his gorgeous lips, just like a thousand helpless ninnies before her, that she would totally forget he was a caveman. Or forgive him for it. Or find it enchanting.
She slid inside the door, let it slap shut behind her and then turned, reached out with her little finger from under the tray and latched it.
“Did you just lock the door?” he asked, stunned.
She said nothing, just stood looking at him through the screen.
“What? Do you think I’d break down the door to kiss you?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she said. Pique made her say it. Not that it was a complete lie. She had spent most of junior high hiding from the overly amorous affections of Harley Houston. Once he had leaped out of a coat closet at her, with his lips all puckered and ready. That was certainly close enough to breaking down a door.
Ben regarded her with ill-concealed temper. “It probably would.”
“Look,” she said coolly, “I don’t understand, if you think I’m so incapable of inspiring great passion, why you’re the one, who out of the blue, with no provocation at all on my part, said you would kiss me someday. As if it wasn’t necessary for me to feel something first. Or you. As if you can just do that kind of thing because you feel like it and without the participation of the other person.”
“Believe me, if I ever kissed you, you’d participate.”
“I wouldn’t,” she said stubbornly, though she didn’t want to be put to the test. And did want to be put to the test. Which most certainly meant she would fail any kind of participation test that involved his lips. Still, there was no sense feeding his already oversize ego. He was impossible. And aggravating. Irritating.
She had known he would be from the first time he had come into her classroom. And instead of letting good sense reign, what had she done?
She had been swayed by the most superficial of things. By his enormous good looks and by his even greater charm. By the sound of laughter. By a tree house taking shape in her yard.
She, Beth Maple, who really should have had so much more sense, had allowed their lives to tangle together! Given him her address, for God’s sake. Allowed him into her yard. Baked him cookies. Fed him milk and lemonade.
She had shamelessly watched him take off his shirt and allowed him to put his big mitt prints in her concrete! Which would be a constant and irritating reminder of the fact that, given a chance, she could make a greater fool of herself for this man than she had for Rock aka Ralph!
She closed the inside door firmly, and locked it with as much noise as she could manage, too. But it wasn’t until she was slamming dishes into the dishwasher that she realized he had gotten exactly what he wanted, after all, and it had never really been about a kiss.
He had been feeling something when he had told her his sister was going to die.
Sadness. Vulnerability. Maybe even trust in Beth.
And whether with a kiss or by starting an argument, he had managed to distance himself from his discomfort, move on.
No sense feeling a little soft spot for him because of that. It was a warning. There was no future with a man who was so shut off from his emotional self, who was so frightened of it.
When exactly had some sneaky little part of herself started contemplating some kind of future with that man?
“Never,” she told herself later, as she watched him load up his tools and his nephew and drive away without saying goodbye, without even glancing at her windows. “I hope he never comes back,” she told herself.
But when she wandered out in the yard and saw that the framework for the staircase was nearly completed, she knew he was coming back. If he was a quitter, he would have left right after the argument, and he hadn’t.
The argument. She’d had her first argument with Ben Anderson.
And as silly as it seemed, she knew that real people disagreed. They had arguments. It was not like her relationship with Rock, which had unfolded like the fantasy it had turned out to be. Full of love notes and tender promises, not a cross word or a disagreement, only the gentlest of chiding on her part when Rock had been compelled to cancel yet one more rendezvous with his myriad of creative excuses.
“I’m probably not ready for real,” she decided out loud, peering up through the thick leaves to where the platform would be.
But it was like being ready to be kissed by him. He didn’t care if she was ready. If she wasn’t very careful, he was just going to take her by storm whether she was ready or not.
And just like a storm, her life would be left in a wreckage after he was done blowing through. That’s why storms of consequence had names. Hurricane Ben. Batten the hatches or evacuate?
“You’re overreacting,” she scolded herself. But she bet a lot of people said that when there was a storm brewing on the horizon.
To their peril.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Top Secret Diary of Kyle O. Anderson
I THINK Miss Maple and Uncle Ben had a fight. After she brought us out cookies and drinks—lemonade and milk—she went in the house and didn’t come back out. My uncle didn’t say goodbye to her when we left. He was pretty quiet on the drive home, but when I asked him if anything was wrong, he looked surprised and said, no everything was great, and how did I enjoy work today.
The truth? I really like working with my uncle. I love Miss Maple’s tree house. I never, ever thought about the future before. I’m not one of those kids who always dreamed about being a fireman when I grew up.
Getting through each day seemed like a big enough undertaking to me.
But working with my uncle made me realize I like building things. And he says I’m good at it, too. When I suggested a way to change the steps so that they would work better, he said I was a genius. And one thing about my uncle, you can trust that when he says something like that, he means it.
If he did
have a fight with Miss Maple, I’m really glad he didn’t tell me about it. My mom always told me everything that was going on in her life, and if you think it feels good knowing all about grown-up problems, think again. Still, it’s kind of funny, because I thought I wanted Uncle Ben and Miss Maple not to get along, but now that they aren’t I feel worried about that.
When we got home, the phone was ringing and my uncle picked it up and gave it to me. The only person I could think of who would call me is my mom, so I nearly dropped the phone when it was Mary Kay Narsunchuk. She said that the planetarium was having a special show called Constellation Prize and would I like to go with her?
At first I thought it was a joke, like if I listened hard enough I would hear her girlfriends laughing in the background, but I didn’t hear a sound.
“Why are you asking me?” I said, trying to sound cool and not too suspicious.
“Because you are the smartest person I know,” she said, and I liked her saying that, even though we don’t really know each other. And then she said she liked it that I protected the frog against Casper, even though she doesn’t really like frogs.
She told me she hates Casper, which means we have something in common already.
Her mom picked me up at Uncle Ben’s house and drove us to the planetarium, which was kind of dorky. I’ve been taking public transit by myself since I was six, and I don’t really think the planetarium is in a rough neighborhood, so I thought the warnings to stand right outside the door when she came back to pick us up were hilarious, though I didn’t laugh, just said yes, ma’am.
On the way in, I noticed Mary Kay is at least three inches taller than me, and had on really nice clothes, and that bad feeling started, like I’m not good enough. Then I told myself it wasn’t like it was a date or anything, and when she asked what I had done today I told her about building the tree house for Miss Maple, and she thought that was the coolest thing she had ever heard.
The weirdest thing happened when we took our seats. The lights went out and she took my hand.
That was all. But the stars came on in the pitch-blackness, like lighted diamonds piercing black velvet, and I thought, All of this is because of Kermit. The tree house, and being with Mary Kay right now, and her thinking I was smart, and not even seeming to notice I was way shorter than her, and not dressed so good, either.
The stars above us made the universe look so immense. That’s when I had the weird feeling. That good could come from bad, and that maybe I was being looked after by the same thing that put the stars in the sky, and that maybe everything was going to be okay.
It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt that way. Like I didn’t have to look after anything at all.
And all that was nothing compared to what happened later. Believe me, my uncle Ben and Miss Maple were about the furthest thing from my mind.
It was the first time Ben Anderson had had an evening to himself since Kyle had become a permanent part of his life. At first, watching his nephew go down the walk in front of the house and get into an upscale SUV, Ben felt heady with freedom.
He cocked his head and listened. No steady thump of the bass beat from down the hall.
“I could rent a movie, with bad language and violence,” he said out loud, contemplating his options. “Man stuff.” He beat his chest to get in the mood for man stuff, something he’d refrained from doing to avoid being scoffed at by his roomie.
Strangely, he discovered he could feel ridiculous all by himself. It was the influence of the annoying Miss Maple. Somehow, even though he was all alone, he could just picture her eyebrows shooting up at chest beating.
“I’ll show her,” he decided. “I’ll call Samantha.” But before he got to the phone he found his steps slowing at the thought of an evening with Samantha, pretty as she was. He’d given up on her even before Miss Maple, so imagine how dumb he’d find her now that he had someone to compare her to. Someone who could quote Aristotle, no less!
“Okay,” he said. “Hillary, then.” But Hillary hadn’t had a moment of wonder for at least twenty-five years, and he didn’t feel in the mood for worldliness or cynicism.
Pam had always been light-hearted, but he knew he’d find her giggling grating after the day Miss Maple had been hi-jacked by the compactor and he had heard her laughter. And seen her crinkle her nose.
“Okay,” he said, annoyed with himself. “I’ll call the guys.”
But lately the guys were on a campaign to get him back in the game, as they called it, and the very thought of that made him feel more tired than a day of pouring concrete.
The truth was, once he stopped talking out loud, Ben thought the house felt oddly empty without Kyle. Ben had become accustomed to the bass boom in the background, the squeak of the refrigerator door, the feeling of being responsible for something other than himself.
For a man who had never even succeeded at looking after a houseplant, the fact that he had taken to his guardian duties was a surprise.
Maybe he was maturing. Becoming a better man.
But then he thought of how he’d behaved this afternoon at Beth Maple’s, and he didn’t feel the least bit proud of himself.
“I think I will rent a movie,” he said out loud, and reached for his jacket. At the movie store he picked up Jackals of the Desert a movie with a military theme, and a rating that would have never allowed him to watch it with Kyle, even though Kyle rolled his eyes at his uncle’s adherence to the rating system.
But before he got to the cash register, he turned around and put the movie back on the shelf. There, under the bright lights of the video store, Ben faced the truth about himself.
He was trying to run away, fill space, so that he didn’t have to look at an ugly fact about himself.
He’d hurt her. He’d hurt Miss Maple.
And he’d done it because telling her his sister was not going to make it, and feeling her hand rest, ever so slightly on his arm, had made him come face-to-face with a deeply uncomfortable feeling of sadness about his sister, and vulnerability toward Beth. He didn’t want to face his feelings. He didn’t actually even want to have feelings, messy, unwieldy things that they were.
So, not facing his feelings was nothing new, but hurting someone else?
Not okay.
Especially not okay because it was her.
By taking on the tree house project, Ben was trying to repair the damage that had been done to her, not cause more.
All she’d done was touch him when he’d told her Carly wasn’t going to make it. But something in that touch had made him feel weak instead of strong. As if he could lay his head on her lap, and feel her fingers stroking his hair, and cry until there were no more tears.
No wonder he’d lashed out at her. Cry? Ben Anderson did not cry. Still, he could now see that it had been childish to try to get his power back at her expense.
“Man up,” he’d said to Kyle when Kyle had been trying to shirk from the damage he had caused.
Now it was his turn.
He went out of the video store, and was nearly swamped by the smell of fresh pizza cooking. He hadn’t eaten yet.
And that’s how it was that he showed up on Beth Maple’s doorstep a half an hour later with a Mama Marietta World-Famous Three-Topping Pizza and a six-pack of soda.
Beth opened the door, which gave him hope, because she’d peeked through the security hole and clearly seen it was him. But then she had folded her arms over her bosom like a grade-five teacher who intended not to be won over by the kid who had played hooky.
She was wearing a baggy white shirt and matching pants, that sagged in all the wrong places. Pajamas?
The outfit of a woman who did not get much company of the male variety by surprise.
And that gave him hope, too, though what he was hoping for he wasn’t quite ready to think about.
So he thought about why he had come.
“Peace offering,” he said, holding out the pizza box so she could see the name on it. Nob
ody in Cranberry Corners could resist a Mama’s three-topping pizza. “And apology.”
“Where’s Kyle?” she said, peering into the darkness behind him.
“No Kyle tonight.” And lest she think he was an irresponsible guardian, he said, “Kyle’s at the planetarium, with Mary Kay somebody.”
“Ah. I have to say I didn’t see that one coming. Or this one.”
She was speaking to him. After he’d been thoughtless and cruel and insinuated no one would break down a door to kiss her.
“Are you going to let me in?”
“I’m going to think about it.”
“You know something, Miss Maple? There’s such a thing as thinking too much.”
“Probably not a problem in your world, Mr. Anderson.”
“Not generally.”
And then her lips twitched, but she still didn’t open the door.
“Okay,” he said, “I’m getting the fact that somehow you are finding me resistible, but Mama’s pizza? Three-topping? Come on.”
“What three toppings?” she said.
“Mushroom, pepperoni and the little spicy sausages.” He could see her weakening at the mention of the sausages. Which under different circumstances could be quite insulting to a man like him. She could keep the door shut to him, but not sausages?
“There have to be some rules in place,” she said.
“There’s such a thing as too many rules, too.”
“There’s the whole thing about dating family members of my students.”
“This isn’t a date!” he protested. “It’s a pizza.”
“Well, there is the complication of the kissing that you brought up earlier.” She blushed when she said it.
“Okay,” he grumbled. “I won’t bring up kissing.”
“You can’t even think about it. Since we are unchaperoned this evening.”
“Miss Maple, you cannot control what I am thinking about!” Especially now. Because she’d mentioned it, and his male mind had locked in on the delicate curve of that puffy bottom lip.
Suddenly this whole thing seemed like a really stupid idea. What had he come here for?
