Yours, Mine & Ours

by Jennifer Greene

  Ten minutes later, she parked in front of Denise and Dan’s Play School-and got half soaked just running the few steps from the car. Sandals squeaking, hat dripping, she opened the shiny red door. Naturally she’d called ahead to tour the facility. Dan-the dad of the D &D team-was waiting for her. His easy smile was the first thing that won her over. Everything about him-and the place-radiated a love and understanding for little ones.

  She loved what she saw. There was a music room, a plant room, a “critter” room-a place where live animals were either borrowed or housed, from aquariums to turtles and spiders and hamsters. The last door on the right was clearly an art room, where smocks hung on hooks, and the walls were exuberantly finger painted.

  The bathrooms were spotless, the facilities all miniature-sized-yet there were also high shelves that stocked underpants and other emergency replacement clothing in a variety of sizes. A central room included a locked refrigerator, where milk and fruits were stored. Available snacks were listed, fruits, nut bars, no cookies allowed except for special occasions.

  A gigantic bathtub, near a window, was piled high with pillows and blankets. “Not for naps,” Dan explained. “But kids sometimes get stomachaches. Or just want to curl up and have some quiet time. When a four-year-old gets out of control, our philosophy is…of course, to remove them from the situation and give them a chance to control themselves. But before we make that into a penalty, we try the curl-up in the tub thing. Most of the time, a child wants to get under control. They just don’t know how yet. So…”

  He opened the front door for her, still talking. Outside, rain still sluiced down, turning green leaves emerald and putting a sting of freshness in the air. She reached in her jacket pocket for her hat, still listening to Dan, but trying to hurry along now. “So you need me to let you know within the next couple of weeks.”

  “That would be best. We’re almost booked up now-”

  “Well, it’s yes, I can tell you right now. I’d have brought the checkbook if I’d known for sure what a terrific facility you have.”

  She turned around, stepped down, and…wham. Another burst of thunder and lightning startled her-not coming from the skies, but from Mike.

  He was headed up at the same time she was headed down. Their eyes met, and there it was, the chemistry of the century. Even with her hair frizzing up and her face washed of makeup, she felt conscious of her breasts, her pelvis. Her skin, the beat in her throat.

  The preschool owner was still talking, as if he had no clue Armageddon was taking place on his school steps. Mike smiled, slow and easy, but he was still taking a lazy sip of how she looked, and she was drinking in his damp hair and sassy eyes and long, lanky frame just as zealously.

  Naturally, she got a grip. “You’re checking out the preschool?”

  “Yeah. Been making the rounds all morning.”

  She gave him a thumbs-up, to show him her vote on the facility, but Dan immediately engaged him in conversation, so she had every excuse to continue on her way.

  There, she thought. Both of them had managed that beautifully. Easy. Comfortable with each other-but neither risking a step closer to harm’s way.

  Maybe Amanda wasn’t strong, but she was getting stronger. Maybe she hadn’t learned self-confidence yet, but she was getting there, too. She was coping. She was making a life. She was being the best mom she knew how to be.

  She just had to refrain from jumping down any well pits.

  Okay, Mike kept telling himself. So he’d run into her checking out preschools. That wasn’t so odd. Certainly not prophetic. They both had four-year olds. They’d both just moved. They both had a lot of parenting things to do.

  Besides…preschools weren’t sexy. Parenting wasn’t sexy, either.

  It was in his head. That she belonged with him. That he belonged with her.

  He had to get it out of his head. He was too damned old-and smart-to let his hormones do his thinking.

  Stopped at a red light, he glanced again at the address. In another minute, he’d be at Dr. June Weavers, who was one of the five pediatricians he’d researched. He could still take Teddy into Chicago-it’s not as if they lived hundreds of miles away from his original pediatrician. But it made no sense, to trek a sick kid on freeways and through rush hours. Finding a closer doctor was the more logical option.

  It finally stopped raining after lunch, but the sky was still drizzling. The trees looked waxed-wet and shiny, but humidity hung in the air like a blanket. He parked, noting the expensive landscaping at the doctors’ complex, took the stairs up two at a time.

  And paused.

  Amanda had just pushed through the door and was bolting down the steps. She’d have barreled straight into him if he hadn’t put out a hand.

  The simple touch made her head shoot up. She sucked in a breath before she found a wry smile. “Pretty unbelievable, huh? Two places in a row?”

  And then, “Don’t waste your time. This one’s a no vote.”

  “Really?”

  She listed her concerns. “Four crying kids in the waiting room. The receptionist was frazzled and out of patience. Dust in the corners. Just…no.”

  “The doctor had hefty credentials.”

  “I thought so, too. And maybe she’s brilliant. But it’s just not a well-run place.”

  “You have more on your pediatrician list?”

  She nodded. “Oh, yeah. Dr. Alan Rivers is the next on mine-”

  “He was at the top of my choices, but I was doing a circle, hitting the geographically closest ones first.”

  “Well…”

  “Well…”

  Since they both had cars, it seemed a foolish idea to leave one, but they both liked the idea of checking out “Dr. Alan” together. Two sets of eyes were always better than one. The office was just five blocks from the first doctor-but a major difference in worlds.

  Mike stalled in the waiting room. The setting was a kid’s dream. A big-screen TV carried a whole selection of programs, from reading shows to movies like Free Willy. An aquarium took almost a whole width of wall, with all sorts of colorful fish darting around, the setup no higher than his knees. There was a lot for a kid to do besides wait and worry, he thought.

  Amanda tracked down Dr. Alan for both of them. The doctor emerged from the exam rooms as soon as he was free. The guy was almost as little as his patients, big glasses, floppy hair, a bright blue stethoscope. Amanda remarked on the bins near the doorway-a child could pick out a pair of slippers, if he or she wanted to wear them in the office. And another bin held small, washable stuffed animals. A sign read Pick a Friend to Take in the Room with You.

  The doctor gave them a full ten minutes. Neither needed more. On the way out, Amanda said, “For me, this is a cut-and-dried. He’s my guy.”

  “Because the place was so kid-friendly?”

  “Yeah. That mattered. And it was spotless. And no one was in uniform.”

  “And nobody looked scared.”

  She smiled at him. “Yeah. That was the biggie. I don’t doubt kids cry when they’re getting a vaccine, but I liked it, that none of the kids looked afraid, even though they were at the doctor’s.”

  His truck was parked next to her car, where both of them hesitated again. “So we’ve got two things marked off the parenting list for the day?” he asked.

  “Yup. And I’m exhausted.”

  He laughed. “You think there’s a chance we can refrain from running into each other for a few hours?”

  She stopped smiling, cocked her head. Something passed between them-something that muted the sounds of traffic and voices, that intensified the rustle of wet leaves and hint of lilac in the air. Something that made her eyes look mesmerizingly honest. That made him want to look and never stop looking.

  “I’m not sure we’re going to manage it,” she said suddenly, softly.

  “Manage what?”

  “Staying out of trouble.”

  She turned around, ducked in her car. He stood there even after
she’d backed out of the parking lot and zoomed down the street.

  He was about eighty-eight percent sure that she’d just given him a dare. She hadn’t said, “I want trouble.” But her tone had a whispery dare in it. Her eyes had a fever-bright dare for damn sure. Her body, her smiles… Oh, yeah. She was all about danger and dares.

  It wasn’t a good idea to dare a guy who was at the end of his hormonal tether. He’d been good as gold. But like his four-year-old said-his male four-year-old-nobody could be good all the time.

  Amanda arrived at Warren White’s house at ten to seven. As she’d expected, the White decorating scheme was beige. As in, beige, period. No bright color had seen a surface in the White house. The setup for the Home Owners’ Association meeting was a gathering in Warren’s great room…which opened onto a deck, where teenagers were supposed to watch over the little kids who came with their parents. Amanda wasn’t about to trust strangers with Molly, but she could see there were a ton of kids there, all having fun.

  Still, she sat next to the door, with an eye on the yard outside. The older kids started a game of Mother, May I…and Molly, being the competitive tiny overachiever that she was, instantly joined in.

  Amanda relaxed-a little-and scoped the room, trying to pick up names, friendly faces, who had which kids of what ages. She’d worn a scoop-neck top with white slacks, sandals, just a scrunchie pulling her hair back…while she knew the dress code for a city job with her hands tied behind her back, she wasn’t so sure of the rules in the suburbs. Most seemed to take her in as “one of them” from the start-a relief.

  At least until Mike walked in.

  Warren took center stage in front of his fireplace precisely at 7:00 p.m. He even had a little gavel. Cute, she thought. Pompous and silly, but still kind of cute.

  Mike wasn’t. The women all silenced when he walked in-Amanda suspected they hadn’t seen that much testosterone in one package in a long time. He’d brushed and showered, done the whole cleanup thing, but he still had that look-the cross between ruffian and quarterback. He was a bad boy with charm. They could all smell it.

  He spotted her in less than a millisecond. And there it was again. The Dare. Just like this afternoon. She’d been a perfect lady, hadn’t done a thing to entice or invite him, had been keeping to her celibacy pledge like a damned saint.

  But at the preschool, then the pediatricians’ offices…well. He’d been daring her, Amanda thought darkly. And he was still daring her. She’d tried to be honest with him. She’d tried to stay out of his way, to avoid temptation, to just be a good neighbor and a good friend. But he had to quit looking at her that way. Had to quit sending out those hungry, hungry vibes…as if he wanted to eat her up, and to spend a whole long night doing it.

  He was sending out dares.

  As if she’d sucker into that childish double-dog-dare kind of thing. Well, she was smarter than that. She smiled at him, crossed her legs at the ankles, went for the ladylike posture. She wasn’t the one who was asking for trouble. It was him. Every time he looked at her. Every time he came close. Every time he breathed.

  “Calling the meeting of the Home Owners’ Association to order. Lucy, would you read the minutes from the May meeting?”

  Warren started the meeting in a voice that resembled the drone of flies in the summer. Lucy-a woman with cotton-candy hair and a girl’s swim-team logo-dutifully read the minutes.

  Mike quietly crossed the room to sit next to her. Since Teddy wasn’t with him, she glanced outside-and yeah, there he was, already teamed up next to Molly in the crowd of kids in the big backyard. The game had changed to “Simon Says.” The kids looked happy.

  She wasn’t.

  For a man who had almost no hips and no butt, somehow he took up a huge amount of room. He smelled like fresh soap and vanilla ice cream. And yearning. He definitely smelled like yearning. He carried a folder.

  “New business,” Warren announced.

  Mike raised his hand.

  “Well. It’s nice to have a newcomer so willing to participate in our group. Welcome, Mr. Conroy.”

  “Mike,” he said as he stood up.

  There followed a gasper.

  She knew the neighbor who raised worms for his kid, who dug in mud, who neglected to shave for days at a time. But she didn’t know the lawyer. She’d never have guessed Mike could turn into a powerhouse who tapped into authority and command the minute he opened his mouth.

  He was wearing sandals, for Pete’s sake.

  He didn’t talk for long, just said he wanted to respond to issues raised by his putting in a water garden in his backyard…and a proposed electric fence he wanted to install. He handed a legal-looking document to Warren, but to the group of home owners, he laid out the gist of it more simply.

  “I didn’t realize the Home Owners’ Association had ‘rules’ until Warren expressed them to me. My response is that document. I guarantee that I’ll return the property to its original condition, if or when I sell the place. I also guarantee that the water garden I’ve been putting in will exceed any standard of good landscaping set by your association…”

  There was quite a bit more. When he finally sat down again, Warren had the expression of a major suck-up. “Mike, Mike, Mike. None of us were objecting to the water garden. We think it’s a wonderful idea. We just wanted you-and anyone else who’s new to the neighborhood-to ask first.”

  When the meeting was over, the group of neighborhood women swarmed Mike. Amanda might have gotten a cup of lemonade with the rest…except that her mom’s ear, the left one, picked up the sound of crying.

  Not her Molly’s crying.

  But Teddy.

  Chapter Nine

  Mike would have chosen to stay a few more minutes at the infamous Home Owners’ Association, partly to shake hands with a few more neighbors-but mostly to walk home with Amanda. But Teddy’s brouhaha forced an immediate exit.

  Teddy held his hand on the short walk home. He didn’t talk. Couldn’t. There were no tears now, but his eyes were still blotchy, his mood still stormy. Teddy didn’t want to cry in public. Mike understood that guy kind of pride.

  Once at home, though, Mike lifted him to the kitchen counter, plucked ice cream from the freezer, got them both spoons. “So just say. What happened.”

  “There was this stupid girl.”

  “Yeah, when I was your age, a lot of stories started that way.” There were more ice cream cartons in the freezer than meat. Mike pulled the cover off the Cherry Vanilla. One spoonful for Teddy. Two for him.

  “We were doing Simon Says. And I took four steps like I was supposed to, only that meant I sort of ran into this stupid girl. So she turned around and slugged me.”

  Mike did the next round of ice cream, this time with a wet dishcloth ready for the spill he knew was coming.

  “I didn’t do anything, Dad. I was just playing the game like I was supposed to. Only, I won the last one and I think she didn’t like that. When she punched me, I really, really, really, really wanted to punch her back. But I didn’t. You tole me a million times. You never hit a girl.”

  “You did the right thing,” Mike assured him. “So then what?”

  “So Molly hit her.”

  “Molly?”

  “That was the thing. I told her I couldn’t hit a girl. She said fine, but nobody ever said she couldn’t. So she hit her. But, Dad. It’s a bad thing. A very bad thing. When a girl has to do your hitting for you. I was so mad I started crying. It wasn’t fair.”

  Mike put away the ice cream, hooked his arms to make a seat for his big guy, and they moved into the bathroom, then the bedroom. Slugger and Cat both knew Teddy was upset. The critters climbed on the bed first, so there was almost no room for Teddy.

  Mike was still trying to figure out what had upset Teddy more-that a strange girl had hit him, or that Molly had been his hero instead of his having the chance to be one himself.

  Apparently his stress level wasn’t all that great, because he zonked out befo
re Mike could pull up the covers or turn out the light. “Cat. Slugger,” he called, thinking that the critters needed one more let-out that night…but neither acknowledged him in any way.

  They weren’t leaving the kid.

  Abruptly the house turned silent…and Mike turned restless. He cleaned up in the kitchen, because he’d learned early on that ice cream spills were easier to deal with when they happened, rather than waiting for the next day. After that…well, there was always stuff to do. Start a load of wash. Hit the mail, go through bills.

  Instead, he just…sort of aimlessly paced. Overall, he wasn’t unhappy at how the Home Owners’ meeting had gone. He’d gotten what he wanted. He just had a real bug about other people imposing rules on him…but most of the neighbors were nice enough. A bunch of the guys invited him to a Wednesday-night poker game. A few moms had clustered around him, talking about preschools.

  But the only one he’d wanted to be with was Amanda. He wanted to know what she thought of the group. He wanted to tease her-she was supposed to be as afraid of suburbia as he was-yet she’d fit in so easily; both men and women warmed to her right away. Not that he was surprised. She gave off a quiet friendliness, an honesty and warmth.

  His prowling around eventually led him to his front window, where he just stood there, staring at the windows in her place. Her household looked shut down. Molly had undoubtedly been put to bed by now. He saw no movement in any of the rooms, nothing but some distant light.

  She definitely wasn’t finishing her evening on the deck tonight. The firefly-night rolled through his mind on slow replay. The fireflies, the dancing in the grass, the moonlight, her soft silver laugher… He remembered every minute of that crazy evening.

  Abruptly realizing how long he’d been standing there, staring at empty windows next door like a complete fool, he pivoted around. Kicked off his shoes. Headed for the shower.