Miss Maple and the Playboy
Page 10
“Guess what?” Kyle told her. “Mary Kay and I went to the planetarium last night.”
“And how was that?” she asked.
“Awesome,” he breathed.
She saw in him what she had always wanted for him, a capacity to know excitement, to feel joy, to be just an ordinary kid, a boy moving toward manhood, who could have a crush on a girl and still love tree houses at the very same time.
She glanced at Ben, and knew he saw it, too, and saw the incredible tenderness in his eyes as he looked at Kyle.
And she knew he could say whatever he wanted, but she would always know what was true about him.
“Could I bring her here and show her the tree house?” Kyle asked. “When we’re done?”
“Of course,” Beth said.
“It’s not going to get done if we stand around here, drinking coffee,” Ben said, and set his down deliberately. “Kyle, you can start hauling lumber from the truck for the platform. Stack it here.”
Ben looked like he intended to ignore Beth, but she had a different idea altogether. She had found an old tool belt in the basement, and she strapped it on, too, picked up some boards and headed for the stairs.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m helping.”
“You don’t know anything about building a staircase,” he said with a scowl.
“Well, you didn’t know anything about crossword puzzles, either.”
“We don’t want this to end like that,” he said. “Building things isn’t like doing a crossword puzzle. There’s a purpose to it.”
“There’s a purpose to crossword puzzles,” she told him dangerously.
“Which is?” he said skeptically.
“They build brain power.”
“But nobody gets hurt if they’re done wrong. If we don’t build this right, you could be up there in your hammock on a sunny summer day, sipping lemonade and reading romance novels, and the whole thing could fall down.”
“Romance novels?” she sputtered. Had she left one out last night, or was she just that transparent?
“It’s just an example.”
He saw her as a person who had filled her life with crossword puzzles and fantasies! And annoyingly it wasn’t that far off the mark!
But she was changing, but that made her wonder if it was true that nobody was going to get hurt from doing the crossword puzzle wrong. She was open in ways she never had been before, committed to living more dangerously. Rationally, that was a good way to get hurt.
She didn’t feel rational. She felt as if she never cared to be rational again!
“Show me how to hammer the damn steps down, and how to do it so that I and my lemonade and my romance novel don’t end up in a heap of lumber at the bottom of this tree,” she told him.
“Ah, ah, Miss Maple. Grade-five teachers aren’t allowed to say damn.”
“You don’t know the first thing about grade-five teachers,” she told him.
His eyes went to her lips, and they both knew he might know one thing or two. He hesitated and then surrendered, even though it wasn’t the marine way. “Okay, I’ll put the stringers and then show you how to put the treads on.”
In a very short while, she wondered how rational it had been to ask. Because they were working way too closely. His shoulder kept touching hers. He covered her hand with his own to show her how to grip the hammer. She was so incredibly aware of him, and of how sharing the same air with him seemed to heighten all her senses.
Alive. As intensely alive as she had ever been. Over something so simple as working outside, shoulder to shoulder with a man, drinking in his scent and his strength, soaking his presence through her skin as surely as the beautiful late-summer sunshine.
Before she knew it, they were at the top of the staircase.
“It’s done,” she said.
“Not really. At the moment, it’s a staircase that leads to nowhere.”
Trust a man to think that! It showed the difference between how men and women thought. He so pragmatic. She so dreamy. Amazing he had thought of the tree house in the first place!
Just to show him the staircase led to somewhere, she stepped carefully off the stair and onto a branch.
“Hey, be careful.”
She ignored his warning, dropped down and shinnied out on the branch. From her own backyard was a view she had never seen before.
“I can see all of Cranberry Corners,” she said. “This is amazing.”
And that’s what happened when you took a chance and lived on the edge. You saw things differently. Whole new worlds opened to you.
“You better come back here.”
She ignored him, pulled herself to sitting, dangled her feet off the branch, looked out the veil of leaves to her brand-new view of the world and sighed with satisfaction.
“If you fall from there, you’re going to be badly hurt,” he warned.
She looked back at him. He looked very cross. Too bad.
“In between romance novels, I try and squeeze in a little reading that has purpose. Do you know Joan of Arc’s motto?” she asked him.
“Oh, sure, I have Joan of Arc’s motto taped to my bathroom mirror. What kind of question is that? Come down from there, Beth. Now is no time to be quoting Joan of Arc.”
“‘I am not afraid,’” she said, wagging her legs happily into thin air, “‘I was born for this.’”
“Hey, in case you don’t remember, Joan’s story does not have a happily-ever-after ending.”
“Like my normal reading?” she asked sweetly.
“It’s not attractive to hold a grudge. I’m sorry I insinuated you might just read something relaxing and fun in between studying Aristotle. Get off that branch.”
She glanced at him again. He did look sincerely worried. “You’re the one who likes to live dangerously,” she reminded him.
“Yeah. Me.”
“You’ve encouraged me.”
“To my eternal regret. Beth, if you don’t come back here, I’m going to come get you. I mean it.”
“I doubt if the branch is strong enough to hold us both.”
“I doubt it, too.”
It was a terrible character defect that she liked tormenting him so much. Terrible. It was terrible to enjoy how much he seemed to care about her. Though caring and feeling responsible for someone were two entirely different things.
“Is it lunchtime yet?” Kyle called up the tree. “Hey, that looks fun, Miss Maple. Can I come up?”
“No!” she and Ben called together, and she scrambled in off the branch before Kyle followed her daredevil example. Ben leaned out and put his hands around her waist as soon as she was in reach. He swung her off the branch and set her on the top stair. But his hands stayed around her waist as if he had no intention of letting her go to her own devices.
“I’m safe now,” she told him.
But his hands did not move. They both knew that she was not safe and neither was he, and that what was building between them was as dangerous as an electrical storm and every bit as thrilling.
He let her go. “I’ll take Kyle and grab a bite to eat.”
She knew he was trying to get away from the intensity that was brewing between them.
“No need,” she said easily. “There’s lots of leftover pizza.”
And so even though surrender was not the marine way, she found Ben Anderson in her kitchen for the second time in as many days. The problem with having him in her space was that it was never going to be completely her space again. There would be shadows of him in here long after he’d gone.
And men like that went, she reminded herself. They did not stay.
And right now it didn’t seem to matter. At all. It was enough to be alive in this moment. Not to analyze what the future held. Not to live in the prison of the past. Just to enjoy this simple moment.
“Microwave or oven?” she asked of reheating the pizza.
They picked the oven, and while they waited she mixed up
a pitcher of lemonade and asked Kyle about the program at the planetarium.
“Hey,” she said, catching a movement out of the corner of her eye. “Hey, put that back!”
But Ben had his prize. He held up the puzzle that she had tacked on her fridge the night before.
“Ah,” he said with deep satisfaction, and folded it carefully. He put it in his pocket.
“That belongs to me,” she said sternly.
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“It was on my fridge! It’s out of my book.”
“My. My. My. I thought by fifth grade you’d learned how to share.”
And then she couldn’t help it. She was laughing. And he was laughing.
Kyle, giving them a disgusted look, gobbled down the leftover pizza. “Is there any dessert?” he asked.
“Kyle!” Ben said.
But she was glad to see the boy eating with such healthy appetite. Since she didn’t have dessert, she said, “Let’s not go right back to work. Let’s take the bicycles down to Friendly’s and have an ice cream.”
“How many bikes do you have?” Ben asked, looking adorably and transparently anxious to keep her away from that staircase to nowhere and her perch on the tree branch.
“About half a dozen. I pick up good bikes cheap at the police auctions. Then if there’s a kid at school who needs a bike, there’s one available.”
“You really have made those kids, school, your whole life, haven’t you?”
He said it softly. Not an indictment, but as if he saw her, too. “You have a big, big heart, Miss Maple.”
And he said that as if a big heart scared him.
“Ice cream,” she said, before he thought too hard about their differences.
Kyle made a funny sound in his throat. “I don’t want ice cream,” he said. “You guys go. Without me.”
“Without you?”
They said it together and with such astonishment that some defensiveness that had come into Kyle’s face evaporated.
“I don’t know how to ride a bike,” he said, and his voice was angry even while there was something in his face that was so fragile. “And you know what else? I don’t know how to swim, either. Or skate.
“You know what I do know how to do? I know how to stick a whole loaf of bread underneath my jacket and walk out of the supermarket without paying for it. I know they put out the new stuff at the thrift store on Tuesday. I know how to get on the bus without the driver seeing you, and how to make the world’s best hangover remedy.”
Suddenly Kyle was crying. “I’m eleven years old and I don’t know how to ride a bike.”
He said a terrible swear word before bike.
Beth stared at him in shocked silence. And then her gaze went to Ben. He looked terrified by the tears, but he quickly masked his reaction.
“Big deal,” Ben said, with the perfect touch of casualness. Somehow, he was beside his nephew, his strong arm around those thin shoulders. “Riding a bike is not rocket science. I bet I can teach you to ride a bike in ten minutes.”
Beth knew if she lived to be 103, she would never forget this moment, Ben’s strength and calm giving Kyle a chance to regain his composure.
Ben met her eyes over Kyle’s head, and she realized the whole thing was tipping over for her. The look in his eyes: formidable strength mixed with incredible tenderness shook something in her to the very core.
It wasn’t about living dangerously.
It was about falling in love. But wasn’t that the most dangerous thing of all?
“Ten minutes?” Kyle croaked.
“Give or take,” Ben said.
Of course he couldn’t teach Kyle to ride a bike in ten minutes.
“Are you in?” Ben asked her.
It wasn’t really about teaching Kyle to ride a bike. It was about so much more. Going deeper out into unknown waters. Going higher up the treacherous mountain.
It was about deciding if she was brave enough to weave her life through the threads of his.
What were her options? Her life before him seemed suddenly like a barren place, for all that she had convinced herself it was satisfying. It had been without that mysterious element that gave life zing.
“I’m in,” she said. And she meant it. She was in. Totally surrendering. She’d never been a marine, anyway. It was perfectly honorable for her to give in to whatever surprises life had in store for her, to be totally open to what happened next.
It was like riding a bike. There was no doing it halfheartedly. You had to commit. And even if you ended up with some scrapes and bruises, wasn’t it worth it? Wasn’t riding a bike, full force, flat-out, as fast as you could go, like flying? But you couldn’t get there without risk.
They selected a bike for Kyle from her garage and took it out on the pavement in front of the house. Soon they were racing along beside him, Ben on one side, she on the other, breathless, shouting instructions and encouragement. Just as in life, they had to let go for him to get it. Kyle wobbled. Kyle fell. Kyle flew. They were so engrossed in the wonder of what was unfolding that no one noticed when ten minutes became an hour.
“I think we’re ready for the inaugural ride,” Ben finally said. “Let’s go to Friendly’s for ice cream.”
“Really?” Kyle breathed.
“Really?” she asked. Friendly’s was too far for a novice rider. There would be traffic and hills. Try out those brand-new skills in the real world?
Maybe there was a parallel to how she felt about Ben. Try it out in the real world, away from the safety of her yard and her world? She remembered last time she’d been at Friendly’s with Ben, too.
He’d gotten up abruptly and left her sitting there, by herself, with a half-eaten ice cream cone!
It reminded her he was complex. That embracing a new world involved a great deal of risk and many unknown factors.
But again she looked at her choices. Go back to what her life had been a few short weeks ago? Where reading an excellent essay full of potential and promise had been the thing that excited her? Or where finishing a really tough crossword had filled her with a sense of satisfaction? Or where building a papier-mâché tree for her classroom had felt like all the fulfillment she would ever need?
Her life was never going to be the same, no matter what she did.
So she might as well do it.
“Let’s go,” she said.
They rode their three bikes down to Friendly’s Ice Cream. And then, after eating their ice cream cones, instead of riding back to her place, they took the bike trail along the river and watched Kyle’s confidence grow. He was shooting out further and further ahead of them now, shouting with exuberance when they came to hills, racing up the other side, leaving them in his dust.
“You go ahead,” Ben said to him. “You’re wearing me out. Me and Miss Maple are going to do the old people thing and lie under this tree until you get back.”
There were miles of bike trails here and they watched him go.
“Are you sure he’s ready?” she asked, watching Kyle set off.
“Yup.”
“How?”
“Look at him. Have you ever seen a kid more ready to fly?”
They sat there, under the tree, enjoying the sunshine and the silence, the lazy drift of the river. They talked of small things: the tree house, the wonder of Friendly’s ice cream, bicycles and kids.
Beth was aware of a growing comfort between them. An ease as relaxed as the drift of the river. But just like the river, how smooth it looked was deceiving. A current, unseen but strong, was what kept the water moving.
And there was an unseen current between them, too. An awareness. She was so aware of the utter maleness of Ben Anderson. She had seen the way the women in the ice cream parlor looked at him, knew the body language of the women who jogged by on the bike path.
The old Beth would have been intimidated by that. The old Beth would have thought, He’s out of my league. Or What would a guy like this ever see in me?
“Do you want to kiss me again?” she asked, thrilled at her boldness.
“Miss Maple, do you know what you’re playing with?”
“Oh, I think I do, Mr. Anderson. Look at me. Have you ever seen a woman more ready to fly?”
He hesitated, momentarily caught, and then he leaned toward her, and she saw his nostrils flare as he caught the scent of her. His eyes closed, and he came closer.
“Beth,” he said, and her name on his lips right before he kissed her sounded exactly as she had known it would, like a benediction.
His lips touched hers, as light as a dragonfly wing. And she touched his back, felt again that delicious sense of coming home, of knowing truth about someone that was so deep it could never be denied.
But then the lightness of the kiss intensified. He took her lips, and she felt his hunger and his urgency, the pure male desire of him.
It occurred to her maybe she didn’t know what she was playing with, at all, but the thought was only fleeting, chased away by intensity of feeling such as she had never known.
This was not a picket fence kind of kiss.
It was the kiss of a warrior. The claim. It was fierce and it was demanding, and she knew another truth.
A man like this would take all a woman had to offer. She would have to be as deep and as intense, every bit as strong as he was. With a man like this there would be few quiet moments in the safety of the valleys.
He would take you to the peaks: emotional highs that were as exhilarating as they were terrifying and dangerous.
You would go higher than you had ever been before.
And you could fall further than you had ever fallen.
Unless you could fly. And hadn’t she just asked that of him, if he had ever seen a woman more ready to fly?
Only, now that she was here, standing on the precipice of flight or falling, she was not sure she could fly at all.
Was she strong enough? Hadn’t she broken a wing?
“Gross.”
Ben pulled away from her as if he had been snapped back on a bungee cord. Neither of them had expected Kyle’s solo flight be quite so brief.