The other two calls he let go to the answering machine. Working with water and grease and heat under the sink was a whole lot more fun than talking to his ex. Nancy wanted to arrange a time to be with Teddy.
He’d call her back.
When he got around to it.
Even hearing her voice put a snarl in his mood. He was long over Nancy, but still testy on some of the divorce details. He was working on moving on, getting past it, all those stupid slogan words that divorced people used. But it was one thing to have a failed marriage…another to have your marriage end because your wife took off with a germ-freak nerd who couldn’t weigh more than one hundred and fifty pounds.
That she could desire such a jerk was part of what festered. Even if the marriage had long lost its luster before the divorce, Mike never had any reason to doubt his ex was happy in bed. It wasn’t losing her that hurt. It was losing her to such a ninny. His sexual pride still felt stomped on by a bulldozer.
Anyway. He’d had enough of chores by four o’clock. He showered, put on old shorts and his Harvard tee-his favorite, as exhibited by the frayed neck and holes-called the hound and aimed for the deck. Teddy wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours. He figured a half hour of slouch time in the shade was just what the doctor ordered.
He opened the door to the deck-and almost tripped over a twelve pack of beer. Cold beer. Dripping, sweating cold. A fancy longneck brand. Bottles.
It was enough to make a warrior weep. Since he only hit a grocery store when he was desperate-those places were terrifying-he hadn’t picked up beer or any other side goodies. He glanced around for a note, but he already knew who’d done this to him-even before he turned his head.
One glance was all it took to identify the slim, bare foot perched on the white lawn chair next door.
Her deck was smaller than his, with a lattice privacy half wall-which was why he couldn’t see the rest of her body. But he could see the foot. And the curve of her white calf.
The Sissy Dog was snoozing on her lap, but as if sensing testosterone in the air, she jumped to the ground and sat at the edge of the deck. Slugger was too tired to move-his position on life, twenty-three hours out of twenty-four-but his tail started wagging like a metronome.
Mike ignored the critters. He could hear Amanda talking on a cell phone, even if he couldn’t see it. He opened a beer. He didn’t want or mean to listen. He just figured he’d hang for a few moments so he could thank her once she finished her call. Except, she kept talking.
“Mom. Come on now. You know I love you, and I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I’m just asking you not to call her princess… Yes, I know the kitten’s name is Princess, but that’s entirely different-Molly named her, and I couldn’t talk her out of it. Mom…”
The foot lifted. Disappeared from sight. He heard the clunk of a glass, as if she’d poured something and then set the glass down on a metal surface.
“I know you called me princess. And you were a wonderful mom. The best. Dad was a wonderful dad. The best. But you two spoiled me rotten. I really want to raise Molly more independent than I was. I don’t want her expecting…”
The foot showed up moments later with sex-red color on some of the toes. So. She was drinking, talking to her mother and repainting her toenails all at the same time. Obviously she came from the estrogen side of the species.
“…I didn’t mean that, Mom. I’m just saying…I don’t have skills. Skills I need. Skills I want. I don’t know how to mow a lawn. How to shampoo a carpet. How to do anything practical. I knew how to behave at a cotillion, a country-club dance, a symphony. But I never saw Thom coming. He bamboozled me. I should have been too old to be bamboozled. He was cheating right in front of my eyes, and I never noticed the clues. Mom. I know I’m not stupid. But just because I was smart in school doesn’t mean anything now. I need to be smart in life, and I’m a dimwit!”
The left foot was done, raised to be examined, then the right foot was started on. She was drinking wine, he identified, when a bottle showed up on the deck floor.
“No, no. I love how you raised me. I had the most wonderful childhood a girl could have. I’m just saying that times are a little different. I want Molly to be more self-reliant. To not expect a prince to rescue her, or to think she needs a prince to be happy. I want her to be able to rescue herself. No, no, I swear, I didn’t mean it that way…Mom…all right! All right! I give up! You can pay for the riding lessons! But no buying her a horse! And I mean it!”
It seemed possible the phone call rather abruptly ended, because there was suddenly a series of muttered swear words from the other side of the lattice, all said in a tone of utter exhaustion. He finally had a chance to speak and he took it.
“Hey. Thanks for the beer.”
There was a moment of total silence, and then a face showed up from the other side of the lattice. She wasn’t completely naked, contrary to what his imagination had tried to lead him to believe. Her T-shirt read Duke. Maybe it was hers, maybe an old boyfriend’s, but whichever, it was even older than his, more frayed, more holey. He gained respect for her right then and there. Of course, he also noticed the shortest shorts he’d ever seen. My God, she might be a redhead, but she did have a set of legs. En route, he did happen to glimpse she was shooting fire from her eyes.
“Were you listening to that conversation?”
“Me? I don’t know what you mean. I just walked out on the deck a second ago, saw the beer, couldn’t imagine anyone who would have left it but you. Appreciate it. Want one?”
“No, of course not. I… Yes.”
He was going to have to rename her the whirling dervish. She put the Sissy Dog inside, grabbed her icer and wine bottle, her wineglass, and zipped down the steps and into his yard faster than he could retract the offer.
Slugger took one look and rolled on his back, assuming she’d want to pet him. She did. Then poured another glass of wine for herself. “I started with wine, so I don’t want to mix it with beer, but I’m more than up for sharing a drink.” She took the chair across from him-another Adirondack chair, nothing fancy. Her Duke T-shirt was so oversized that when she bent down again to rub Slugger’s tummy, he could see the tips of a lace bra. The view suggested that there was a lot more bra than boob in there. The red toenails shined like Chinese lacquer. Her hair was swooped up, all messy, all wild, held off her neck with some clips.
It was hard to define why he liked the whole package. But he did.
A lot.
“What do you think?” She motioned to the space between their houses. “Do we need a fence? Because of the dogs and kids and all? I like the open space between the properties…but I don’t know. A fence still seems like a good idea. At least if you think so. The point is that we should agree on the nature of fence, don’t you think? And just for the record, I know perfectly well that it was you who sneaked the tools in my cart this morning.”
He was having trouble following her fast changes in subject. Particularly when his attention was so zealously focused on her bare legs and inadequate neckline. “There was no point in your throwing away money on tools that weren’t going to hold up. As far as I could tell, you weren’t worried about price. You were just choosing stuff that had pink handles.”
“Well, yes.”
He wiped a hand over his face. No point in discussing that any further. “If you want a fence between the yards, naturally, I’ll spring for my half.”
“I’m not trying to be difficult. It was just an idea. If we both wanted a fence…I just didn’t want to act unilaterally. For one thing, there are all kinds and types of fences-”
“I get it. You’re not being difficult.” She was. He wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t sure why they were talking about fences, either, except for the obvious reason. They wanted protection from each other.
“I’ve just had a really long day.”
He thought she was trying to explain why she was being difficult again, but then he heard the old song “I Will Survi
ve,” and realized it was her designated cell-phone ring. She lifted a hand and, apologizing to him, said, “This’ll be short, but I really need to take it.”
“No sweat.” He took another pull on his beer, put his bare feet on the deck rail and let his head fall back. In two seconds, he realized the caller was her ex-husband.
“I wasn’t ducking your calls, Thom. We were busy with the move this week.” And then, “I think it’s a little ridiculous that you’re pushing for equal custody when you couldn’t even make the last two visitations. This isn’t about Molly, and you know it. You just want the child support cut. It’s not as if you can’t afford it, for heaven’s sake-”
She bounced up from the chair, turned her back-as if turning around would make it harder for Mike to hear her. Not.
“I’m not listening to yelling, Thom. Not now. Not ever. I expect you to pick her up on Saturday at noon. Have her back here by seven. I have nothing else to say.”
Once she snapped the phone closed, she whirled around, her smile brighter than glass. “I’d turn off the cell phone but I can’t. There could always be a call related to Molly.”
“Same problem here. I can duck calls with the answering machine, but I don’t want Teddy to have any problem getting hold of me.” He felt a sudden restlessness. The kind of thing he felt when he was about to do something he shouldn’t. She sashayed back to the chair, crossed her legs, all her movements classy and elegant-not a put-on, just apparently how she always was. The call from her ex should have been another turnoff. She was complicated, and so was her life and problems. Every encounter he’d had with her so far indicated she was high-maintenance, trouble, no one and nothing that he could possibly want in his life.
But damn it. She was so upset her hands were shaking.
She noticed him looking at her hands, and immediately said, “It’s no secret to anyone. I hate confrontations. I’m terrible at them. My job used to be in advertising. Everybody called me tough. I was tough, I swear. But that was my business life. In my private life, well, you could say I flunked the course in fighting altogether.”
“Amanda-?”
“What? Oh. I know. I’m talking too much. I pretty much don’t drink at all for just that reason. One glass of wine and out it all spills. My life. And this was such a trying day-”
“And you’re nervous around me.”
“-and I’m nervous around you.” She blinked. “I’m not. I don’t know where that came from.”
He hunched forward, motioned her closer.
She hunched forward with a curious frown.
He said, “Here’s the thing. I’ve got one priority for this summer. Teddy. To get him set up. To make this a home. Check out the preschools and pediatricians. Find some kids in the neighborhood, locate the parks, the library, the stuff he can get involved in. That’s my whole job this summer. And there just can’t be any women in that picture.”
“Okay.”
“He’s still ripped about the divorce. Sometimes I think it’s because he never saw his mother and I argue. We never did, not in front of him. I thought that was how you were supposed to behave, but now-crazy as it sounds-I think it’s part of the problem. He’s got it in his head that Nancy left because of not wanting him, that he was somehow at fault. What Nancy pulled was a downright turkey move. But I can’t change that or fix it. All I can do is try to settle my kid into the happiest, most stable life I can. To put it in blunt terms-”
“Do,” she encouraged him.
“I’ve given up sex forever. Now it has occurred to me, in the past couple of days, that ‘forever’ might not be a precisely achievable goal. But through this summer, I really need to do the celibate thing. No entanglements. No distractions. My world has to be my kid.”
“Whew!” She let out a long breath, tossed him a smile-not that glassy, classy smile but one so real it jammed the air in his lungs. It was that sexy. That natural. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that. Mike-I’m in exactly the same boat.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re on the same page. I just made the no-sex vow the same way.” She laughed, inviting him to. “The best thing about the divorce was figuring out how many wrong roads I’d been taking. I had every advantage a girl could have, was pampered and spoiled from the get-go, fell for the whole fairy tale that I was something special. I could have had a sign on my forehead that said Me-Me-Me.”
“That sounds pretty harsh.”
“It’s the total truth. I thought my ex was the Prince Charming in the story. Never once looked further than the surface-until it all crashed. So…I’ll likely look for a job in the fall. I don’t know what kind. I’ll work that out after Molly starts preschool. But I’m determined that this summer be about her. I want her to be about everything that I’m not. More self-reliant. More capable. I want her to take more pleasure in accomplishments than in material things. Which means…”
“Somehow I sense the punch line is coming.”
“Yes. No men for me. Indefinitely probably-but definitely not this summer. I need to figure out the stuff I was doing wrong. Change. Change into being more of the person I want to be. Oh, God, it’s so boring hearing someone talk about this kind of thing, isn’t it? I’m sorry. I just wanted to be clear-”
“Amanda.”
“Yes.” He’d leaned forward, with such a serious expression, that she leaned forward, too.
“It’s pretty obvious we’ve been worried about the same thing, don’t you think? Both of us have these…life plans. About not getting involved with anyone right now. About needing to concentrate on nothing but parenting for a stretch. So we both agree…it’d be a real pain in the keester if you and I…” He motioned with his hands.
She nodded vigorously. “It would just be completely awkward.”
He filled in more. “It’d be complicating. Unsettling. Exactly what neither of us want right now.”
“I couldn’t possibly agree more!”
He nodded. “So let’s get this over with, okay? We’d better find out how dangerous the problem is before figuring out how to handle it.”
Chapter Four
Granted, Amanda had had almost two glasses of wine-and before dinner, besides. So she realized she was a little addled, but she was still astonished when Mike-out of the complete blue-pulled her onto his lap.
The last she knew, they’d been talking, not flirting.
The last she knew-positively-they’d been talking about celibacy. His intention to be celibate. Her intention to be celibate. Their completely agreeing with each other.
So the fire started from nothing, came from nowhere. The smolder and snap of sparks suddenly caught, and just as suddenly spread. The heat startled her nerves, her skin, turned her senses incredibly tender. Smoke clogged her brain and fogged her vision. Sirens echoed in her ears-not sirens communicating danger, but a siren song calling mesmerizing, wicked things to her.
It was just a kiss, for Pete’s sake.
She’d been kissing boys since she was fourteen. She’d been married. There wasn’t a reason in the universe that this one should be so different.
But it was.
He was.
He’d kind of tumbled her onto his lap. His mouth had found hers before she’d found her balance. It was just all suddenly…there. The solid warmth of his body. The strength in his thighs and chest, the manly smell of him, the swoop of his arms creating a natural cradle.
And then there was the whole problem with his mouth. His lips were softer than butter. He offered a skim of a taste, then settled in, in a tangle of his taste and hers, the combination unexpectedly explosive.
She figured she should raise her hand and express a little outrage…but she couldn’t seem to conjure any up. Objections appeared in the back of her mind, but never showed up at the front door.
This wasn’t nice.
He didn’t kiss nice.
He kissed as if he wanted to swallow her whole.
As if no touch, no kiss,
no woman had ever ransomed his attention as she did.
Thrills shot through her blood as if she were on a roller-coaster ride.
She shifted, accidentally jamming her elbow into his ribs-but she had to look at him, had to catch her breath. His eyes were as glazed as hers. His breath coming as heavy. His frown just as dark.
But that made no sense. She went back for another kiss, to figure out what was really going on. A kiss-a few kisses-couldn’t rock a girl’s world. It had to be something else. Maybe some unusual kind of allergy attack. Or maybe pheromones were raining down from the sky. There had to be something that could be logically explained if she just studied it long enough.
So she studied a long, deep, eyes-closed kiss on him. The experiment failed. It seemed… Well, it seemed that she couldn’t argue with a tsunami. She wrapped her arms around him, held on and just hoped she didn’t drown-or if she was stuck drowning, that he was going down with her.
She felt his fingers tangling in her hair, holding her still, felt the sudden hard tumescence against her thigh, heard the shuddering breath coming out of him as he lifted his head…then dove back for more of that tsunami business.
A few hours later, she lifted her head.
Conceivably only a few minutes had passed, but definitely long enough for her to feel both exhausted and energized. Exhausted, as if she craved a nap. Energized, as if the only thing she could think of was jumping him.
He had dark brown eyes. Liquid brown. The badboy disreputable attitude was gone. Now, she suspected that attitude thing was just a defense. This man, the Mike so close she could see every line and bone on his face, was as serious about life as she was.
Maybe even as vulnerable.
“I think,” he said slowly, “that we just both found out how big the problem is.” He helped her off his lap. They were both standing against each other for a millisecond, but Mike swiftly retreated to the side of the deck rail.
“A major uh-oh,” she echoed, trying to make her voice sound light and easy. She didn’t want him realizing how wild she’d felt in his arms. How crazy. How totally unlike herself.
Yours, Mine & Ours Page 4
