What a Woman Should Know

by Cara Colter

  “Elana would kind of come and go,” she said, “but I was always there.”

  Unsaid, he heard, picking up the pieces.

  Tally talked about the kind of baby Jed had been. About buying him that little tiny bunny outfit for his first Easter. About giving him a mashed banana for his first real food. She talked about the photocopy of his hand she had taken on the school copier, and about his love-hate relationship with a cat named Bitsy-Mitsy.

  “He loves her, the cat hates him.”

  In a way he’d been Tally’s baby right from the start. Elana there, and then gone, and then back, and then in the hospital. Tally had always been Jed’s touchstone, his rock, his safe place.

  She talked, and talked, and yet he could not hear enough. J.D. wanted to hear it all.

  He wanted to hear about the crayon Jed had eaten, and the encounter with dog poop. He leaned forward eagerly when she told him about the little fishing rod she’d gotten him, and the baseball bat.

  He realized that Tally was going to be a darn good mom for his son once he got her straightened out about a few things. Her world was just a little too well-ordered.

  “Tell me a little about this guy you are going to marry,” he said.

  “Oh, Herbert’s a lovely man. He owns the hardware store in Dogwood Hollow.”

  Lovely was such a generic term. And not exactly one J.D. could feel enthused about in terms of the man who would be helping to raise his son.

  “What does lovely entail exactly?” J.D. asked.

  “Oh, you know.”

  “I don’t.”

  She seemed very uncomfortable. “Well, as I said, he has the hardware store, so he’s very prosperous and stable.”

  Is that what he wanted his son learning about relationships? That prosperous and stable counted more than passionate and loving?

  “Herbert has a heritage home. And stainless steel appliances in his kitchen. Bitsy-Mitsy is his cat.”

  J.D. didn’t like it one little bit that she was cataloguing Herbert’s belongings instead of his character. She didn’t seem superficial so he had to assume, after the pain of loving her sister, Tally Smith was probably afraid to trust her heart.

  “How does he feel about Jed?”

  “He adores him!” she said, way too quickly.

  J.D. took that to mean his son was tolerated. Tolerated.

  “How does he show he adores him?” he asked.

  “You should see the collection of Tonka trucks he’s brought him from the hardware store.”

  Great. More stuff.

  As the miles slipped by and she rattled on about Herbert, J.D. felt his mission was becoming clearer by the second. It was his sacred duty, his obligation to his son, to tilt her world right on its axis.

  He was pretty sure it was going to be just about the most fun he’d ever had.

  Chapter Four

  Dogwood Hollow surprised J.D. by being quite a bit larger than Dancer. It actually had traffic lights, a small shopping mall and several office and apartment buildings.

  They had been six hours together in his truck, and J.D. was pleased to see he was having a positive effect on her already. Tally Smith was looking quite rumpled. Her blouse was wrinkled, her slacks had dog hair on them, her hair was falling messily from the bun and her lipstick had worn off. Already she was a different woman than the pressed, perfectly turned out Miss Priss she had been yesterday.

  And he’d had her in his power less than a full day! In no time he would be able to show her what a woman should know in order to raise his son.

  “You look good,” he told her gruffly, the opening maneuver of the mission. He needed to encourage this hair-let-down look and attitude.

  She had found a book somewhere in that gigantic bag of hers, and though she had folded the cover over so he couldn’t see it, she hadn’t been quite fast enough. Just as he’d suspected a woman in a period costume that showed a great deal of breast had been running from a dark and sinister-looking castle. Tally looked up from her book reluctantly, and focused on him with a frown.

  “What?”

  Here she was in the cab of the truck with a real live man, and she had her attention riveted on the fictional item? He was slightly offended by that, though of course he had browbeaten her. There was also the possibility he smelled like a real live man at the moment.

  As gallantly as he could, he said, “You look nice right now.”

  She gaped at him, then turned away, pressed her face to the window and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the side view mirror. She grimaced then looked down at herself, tried to straighten her blouse, and picked a few stray hairs off her slacks.

  “I suppose you think you’re funny,” she said in a tone that went much better with her old self.

  “Not at all. You do look better. More real. Relaxed. You know?”

  “I do not,” she said and returned her interest to the book.

  His gallantry had been rejected! The opening maneuver abandoned, he snapped, “I feel sorry for the kids you teach. You’re as uptight and tense as a hen in a coyote den. One frog in the desk drawer and they’re probably writing lines for life.”

  “My students would not dare put a frog in my desk drawer,” she said, not looking up from the book, and then, “At least I’m a good-looking hen in the coyote den, according to you.”

  It wasn’t good enough to reject his gallantry. Oh, no, she had to throw it back in his face. “You make me wish to be in grade five again.”

  “You mean you aren’t?” she said with artificial sweetness.

  “See what I mean? Uptight.”

  He watched out of the corner of his eye as her lips pursed up in a precise underscore of what he had just said about her being uptight. At least he was getting to her!

  Her voice very measured, she said, “I have been forced from my bed in the middle of the night, had a stinky dog drooling on my lap for six hours, been subjected to your driving, which is borderline reckless, and I’m uptight? I think I should be nominated for sainthood.”

  “Same thing,” he said, “as uptight. So, you’re nominated. Saint Tally of Dogwood Hollow. And I do not drive recklessly. I drive fast because I know exactly the capabilities of my vehicles and myself. Besides, with a bona fide saint on board, what do I have to worry about?”

  “You were incorrigible in school, weren’t you?”

  “That’s right,” he said happily. “Incorrigible. Incorrigible and the Saint. It would make a good title for a book, wouldn’t it?”

  “And that tells me everything I need to know about your reading material.”

  “You’re commenting on my reading material? What are you reading? The Duchess and the Duke Do It at Dorchester?”

  “As it happens this is an excellent study of life in the Victorian era. The research is impeccable.”

  “Well, if people really wore dresses like that one on the cover, I envy the duke. There must have been surprises falling out all over the place.”

  She sniffed regally, arched a snobby eyebrow at him, and returned to her book. The attitude was in contrast to her appearance. He decided he liked how she looked because she looked amazingly as if she’d just tumbled out of bed after a wild romp. He decided not to share that with her.

  His urge to stop the truck and kiss her until she went crazy was strong. He told himself, not without righteousness, kissing her was probably going to be par for the course, part of what the woman who was going to be raising his son needed to know.

  That you didn’t settle in life. You didn’t settle for stainless steel appliances instead of wild, hungry nights of endless passion.

  But even as he had that thought, it occurred to him, uncomfortably, that maybe he had settled himself. Hadn’t he chosen a life that was safe and predictable instead of spontaneous and daring? Where was the passion in his life? Clyde Walters’s ‘72 Mustang hardly counted.

  “Well, maybe we’re both going to learn a little something,” he muttered.

  “Par
don?”

  “Can’t you say ‘what?’ like normal people?”

  “Are you a normal person?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then, no I can’t.”

  Having successfully diverted her so he didn’t have to share the life lesson he was learning, he tried to return his attention just to the road. But the question had been asked now. Wasn’t he settling, too?

  “No!” he said out loud.

  She cast him an apprehensive look.

  “I’m tired,” he snapped. And that explained everything, really. He decided the all-night drive was warping his thinking. His life was not safe and predictable. He had fun. He took apart old cars and put his feet up on the coffee table. He sang in the shower. He was the rarest of things. A free man. He was the charter member of the A.G.M.N.W.N. Club. What more could he ask for?

  Her scent—warm and lemony—chose that moment to fill up the whole truck and wrap itself around his overly tired senses.

  He pulled himself up short. He told himself he was a soldier, with a mission. Save his son from her uptight world.

  Period. Emotional involvement was unnecessary. No, downright dangerous. Lemon scent should be outlawed.

  “This is where we live.”

  He pulled over and eyed her home critically, still a soldier, sizing up his mission. It was a nice apartment building—two stories high, freshly painted, big balconies, nice landscaping. J.D. was aware he couldn’t stand it that his son lived here.

  “Come on, Beau, out.”

  “Oh, he can’t come in.”

  J.D. narrowed his eyes at her. She really couldn’t get it through her head that she was not calling the shots.

  “What? Someone will call the dog squad if he enters the apartment?”

  “It’s just not allowed.”

  There was lesson number two. Right after he convinced her you didn’t settle in life, he was going to have to teach her too many rules were damaging to a small boy’s spirit. Actually, to anyone with any spirit. Imagine a world with so many rules that a perfectly well-mannered, one hundred percent housebroken animal would be banned from a building!

  “Tell you what,” he said, calling Beau to his side, “Let’s live dangerously.”

  She glared at him, and muttered, “What do you think we’ve been doing for the last six hours with you at the wheel?”

  But he ignored her and took her suitcase out of the back of the truck. “Lead on,” he said.

  Her jaw locked stubbornly, her fists clenched at her sides, she marched toward the front door. Tut-tut. The tension!

  There were neat flower beds lining the sidewalk, which J.D. hated because a small child probably got in trouble for trampling them. It looked like that kind of place. He spotted a hand-printed Keep Off The Grass sign on the manicured lawn, and sighed.

  The door was locked. She had to punch a code to get in.

  “Crime rate high here?” he asked conversationally, but he didn’t feel conversational. If his son was living in a high crime area, that was it. Mission revised immediately. Both of them, Tally and Jed, stuffed in his truck and taken to Dancer never to be returned.

  Which is about the scariest thought J. D. Turner had ever had. Tally Smith in Dancer? Permanently?

  A man could run a mission when it had a time limit on it. He couldn’t resist the temptations of lemon scent forever.

  “Of course it’s not a high crime area,” she said, “but there are places in the world where people lock their doors.”

  He knew that. He just didn’t think his son should live in one of them.

  She led him into a nice foyer. It had a light-colored leather couch that looked like it marked easily, a carpet that looked like it had come from the bazaar in Istanbul and a four foot glass vase sprouting peacock feathers. The vase, aside from looking impractical and plain silly, looked highly breakable. J.D. bet a kid would probably get chewed out for throwing a ball or running or having muddy feet.

  Beauford sniffed a large potted tree and instantly forgot he was perfectly trained and one hundred percent housebroken.

  “No,” J.D. cried as Beauford lifted his leg. The dog dropped his leg and gave him a hurt look. “Well, who can blame him,” J.D. defended against Tally’s I-told-you-so-look. “It confused him to find a tree inside.”

  The tree was big enough for a small boy to climb, but J.D. bet that wasn’t allowed either.

  Beauford gave him another hurt look and shuffled along with them to the elevator. He whined when they got inside and the door slid closed.

  “I don’t like them much myself,” he muttered.

  “Don’t like what?” she asked.

  At the risk of appearing like a complete hick, he said tightly, “Elevators. Too confined. Don’t like the way they make my stomach feel.”

  If she laughed, he could commence with the kissing lesson right now, and wipe that look of smug superiority right off her face.

  But she didn’t laugh, and in fact the tight look left her face.

  Sympathy replaced it!

  He glared at her until she looked away. When the elevator door opened Beauford rushed off in a panic, nearly knocking over an elderly woman in a pink jogging suit who was punching the button impatiently.

  “Well, I never,” she said indignantly.

  A building full of uptight people!

  “Ms. Smith, really,” Pink Jogger said, “there are no dogs allowed in the building, as you well know.”

  Tally shot him a baleful look, and he took a deep breath, deliberately increasing his chest size. He disliked the old bat on principle. He was willing to bet she used that same tone of voice on his boy. No running. Too much noise. Don’t play. He bet she was responsible for that sign on the grass.

  “Undercover,” he snarled, and then gestured at the dog, “K-9.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh my.” She studied him with wide-eyed and ghoulish curiosity, got on the elevator and reluctantly let the door slide shut.

  Tally’s mouth was very tight. “She believed you. How could you do that?” she snarled. “I have to live in this building. I’ll be the talk of the laundry room that I was escorted in by the police and a drug-sniffing dog.”

  “After all the rumors you’ve started about my life? We’re not anywhere close to being even,” he said dryly. “Besides, I’m not responsible for what she thinks. I never told her I was a cop. That would be illegal.”

  “You did so. You said—”

  She stopped and remembered what he had said.

  He smiled at her. “Undercover,” he confirmed. “And I was under covers not so long ago. Actually, I’m not so bad under covers.”

  She blushed an unbecoming shade of beet-red that he nevertheless found he liked. All part of the plan. Un-uptight her. Shock her a bit. If she pictured him under covers, so much the better.

  Unfortunately, the picture that formed seemed to be in his own mind. Of a wild and hungry night of endless passion with her.

  Instructive only.

  He gulped and said, his voice hoarse, “And, of course, Beauford is a canine. There is absolutely no doubt about that.”

  He noticed something very interesting. The tightness around her mouth wasn’t because she was angry. It was because she was trying not to laugh.

  God, what a job it was going to be to teach this woman to let go!

  She turned quickly away from him and led him down the hall. She knocked on the door and then inserted her key. But before she had turned the bolt completely, he heard wild scrabbling on the other side of the door, and then it was flung open, and her knees were attacked by a pint-size quarterback.

  She laughed then.

  It was a rich and joyous sound that almost distracted him from the miracle that was his son. Almost.

  The boy was beautiful, sturdy and strong. Other fathers had their moment in the delivery room. This was J.D.’s moment and nothing in his life experience had prepared him for the glorious reality of his son. J.D. noticed his own features stamped str
ongly on the child’s face. He noticed Jed’s coloring, the brilliance of his smile, the light that shone deep and bright in mischievous brown eyes.

  J.D. felt astounded by this miracle. His child, his flesh and blood, so real that he could almost sense energy and life exuding from Jed in powerful waves.

  Tally hooted, an un-Tally-like sound, and lifted Jed up with surprising strength. She wrapped her arms around the child and hugged hard. After a moment, Jed captured her face between his two chubby hands and smothered her in kisses while she pretended to try and evade him and laughed helplessly.

  In that moment, J.D. had a stunning picture of who Tally really was, and it was so bright and so beautiful it nearly blinded him.

  For a moment his mission faltered. She did not look like a woman who needed any help from him.

  When it felt like he might be sucked into the vortex of her energy, he looked away from her, and noticed another woman, standing in the shadow of the apartment hallway.

  His reaction was one of grave sympathy for the male world. There was yet another gorgeous Smith sister, that same blond hair, fine bone structure and amazing eyes.

  “I’m Kailey,” she said, coming forward. He knew immediately she was shy…and scared. Tally had called and let her know they were coming, but he suddenly saw that tilting a world on its axis was a very grave undertaking.

  He considered himself something of a moron when it came to sensitivity but he knew he had to let Kailey know her world was going to be okay, that he wasn’t going to pull Jed out from under them or anything like that.

  That he was just going to retrain her sister.

  Since he couldn’t think of the words, he took her hand, and gave it a reassuring squeeze, and looked long and hard right into her eyes. Considering how gorgeous she was, and that she was a Smith, the handshake proved somewhat surprising.

  He did not have that sensation of having been shocked that he got when he touched Tally. In fact, shaking hands with Kailey had a rather sisterly feel to it.

  Kailey smiled, suddenly, quickly, and the fear dissolved in her eyes.

  Jed had nestled into Tally’s shoulder and was now peeking at J.D. Jed’s thumb found its way to his mouth and he took a couple of happy slurps on it.