by Lisa Plumley
“I thought that was you!” came Mrs. Kowalczyk’s voice.
The door slammed. The footsteps came closer. As a car drove past on the mostly deserted morning street, Reno held up a gloved hand in hello. Then he went on working. Only a few more shovelfuls, then he’d salt the icy walk and be done.
A jangle alerted him to a nearby presence—Mrs. Kowalczyk’s bichon frise, Crackers, with her dog-tagged and bell-embellished collar ringing. Wearing a doggie sweater with a Christmas ornament pattern, she trotted up, then squatted and—
“Crackers, no!” Sounding horrified, Mrs. Kowalczyk hurried over. She wore an old coat, a buffalo-checked hat with sheepskin earflaps, and mittens. Plus lipstick. Mrs. Kowalczyk never went anyplace without lipstick. “I’m so sorry, Reno. She just can’t control herself first thing in the morning. Mr. Kowalczyk was the same way.” She crossed herself. “God rest his soul.”
“That’s all right.” Reno scooped away the mess, cutting deeply with the shovel edge, then moved down the row he’d made.
“Here.” Beaming, Mrs. Kowalczyk followed, then thrust a maple cruller at him. “Something to keep up your strength.”
The scent of sugary maple wafted to him. With a smile and a thank-you, Reno accepted the cruller. He bit off half and then chewed, momentarily resting one elbow on the shovel handle.
“I knew you’d come through with the shoveling.”
“It’s not a problem, Mrs. Kowalczyk.”
“I saw that you did Mrs. Bender’s driveway yesterday.”
“Mrs. Bender threatened to snowmobile over to my store and boycott The Wright Stuff from now till Christmas,” Reno fibbed as he chomped on the remaining half cruller. “I had to do it.”
“Oh dear.” A tsk-tsk. “That woman will resort to anything, won’t she?”
With a shrug, Reno grabbed his shovel to clear the last few feet, watching out for a scampering Crackers. The dog was determined to get in his way.
“I’d do the shoveling myself, only my arthritis acts up in the cold weather. Would you like another maple cruller?”
“Thanks, but I have to get to the store. Jimmy Gurche is working with me now, but he’s only part-time. My other part-timer is on vacation, so I can’t stay away for long.”
“I’m not surprised you can’t keep help. People don’t want to sell subpar hockey equipment.” Breezily, Mrs. Kowalczyk waved to Mrs. Bender. “Hussy,” she muttered. “Look at that outfit!”
“Uh…” Without really wanting to, Reno glanced next door. On the porch, Mrs. Bender grabbed her newspaper, then waved. She was dressed in a sheer red negligee and shortie red velvet robe that must have really thrilled Mr. Caplan, the retiree next door. Whoa. With an involuntary grimace, Reno pulled his knit cap down over his eyebrows for warmth. He grabbed the bag of rock salt. “What’s wrong with my hockey equipment?”
“Those old-fashioned wooden sticks? Nothing, if you don’t mind playing the game like Howie Morenz in the twenties.”
Reno frowned.
“Most of the stuff you have in there is fine, Reno. Honestly.” Mrs. Kowalczyk patted his shoulder as he scattered the rock salt to deice the walkway, narrowly missing Crackers. “You’ve got your Wilson Conform mitts like the golden glovers use, and your viscoelastic polymer football pads…all the usual goods. But you ought to have some quality Kevlar and carbon fiber one-piece hockey sticks. Whoever talked you into stocking those antique, bargain-basement models did a number on you.”
Startled to hear words like viscoelastic polymer coming from his kindly elderly neighbor’s lips, Reno glanced at her. “Mrs. Kowalczyk, tell me the truth. You’ve been living a double life as a SportsCenter special correspondent, haven’t you?”
She only laughed. “You don’t spend fifty years married to a sports fan without picking up a thing or two. Hockey was Mr. Kowalczyk’s favorite.” She nodded approvingly at his rock salt work. “If you keep this up, you’ll be earning twenty dollars a pop someday, young man. I’ll get you another maple cruller. Growing boy like you needs to keep up his strength for sure.”
Mrs. Kowalczyk vanished into her house, leaving Reno on the salt-crunchy walkway, staring after her in thought. If the postcollegiate slackers he usually hired as part-time staff had half of Mrs. Kowalczyk’s knowledge of sports equipment, it occurred to him, he’d have a much easier time running The Wright Stuff.
People spent a lifetime accumulating knowledge, then just when they were chock full of it, they retired. It figured.
Jangle. Jangle. Brought to attention by the familiar sound of that dog collar, Reno glanced sideways. “Crackers, no!”
Merrily, the dog squatted and peed against the bag of rock salt Reno had brought. Then the little sweater-wearing troublemaker looked straight at Reno—he’d swear the dog actually stuck out her tongue at him—and trotted off toward the street.
“Oh no! Crackers!” Mrs. Kowalczyk emerged from inside the house with another cruller. “Come back here!”
Reno glanced from her to her bichon frise. The dog glanced up, snow and dirt caked on its white muzzle, then went on digging up Hal’s front-yard Three Wise Men display.
Reno knew from the reconnaissance he’d done last night that not only did the whole gimmicky ensemble light up, but it also played “We Three Kings” in sync with its LEDs and emitted pseudo scents of frankincense and myrrh. Aside from being a cheater in the holiday lights competition, Hal was also a show-off.
“Reno.” Mrs. Kowalczyk lowered her hands to her hips in a helpless gesture. “Please, won’t you rescue Crackers?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Kowalczyk.” Reno gazed at Hal’s yard, sorely tempted to let the little monster dog demolish his sneaky neighbor’s entire unsportsmanlike display. “From here, it looks as if the three wise men need rescuing from Crackers.”
“Don’t be a wiseacre. Hurry up. She’s chewing it now.”
“Hang tight. I’ll get her.” Setting aside his shovel and rock salt, Reno stepped into the calf-deep snow. He waded along the same hippy, skippy, sweatered path Crackers had taken. Snow caked his jeans and froze his ankles, but this was the way it had to be. He neared the dog. “I’ve almost got her.”
“I knew you would!” hollered a relieved Mrs. Kowalczyk.
Reno Wright had to do what he’d always done. Help people.
No matter, he realized as an irate Hal emerged from his house and started ranting about Reno’s “willful destruction” of his holiday lights display, what it cost him in the end.
After a few terse words with Hal, Reno scooped up the dog. Cradling Crackers’ wriggly body against his chest, he trekked across the snow to deposit the miscreant with Mrs. Kowalczyk.
“Ooh, you little ruffian!” She ruffled Crackers’ ears, then planted a lipsticked kiss on the dog’s furry head. “You’re lucky Reno was around to get you out of trouble.” She glanced up. “Thank you. For shoveling the snow and for saving Crackers.”
“No problem.” It’s what he did—come to the rescue. When he’d been in the NFL, Reno had especially relished the times he’d come in to save the day with a perfectly timed field goal. These days, what he did wasn’t much different. It simply didn’t come with applause. Now he regarded Mrs. Kowalczyk with new interest. “Mrs. Kowalczyk, I know you’re busy with your bridge club and the Kismet holiday decorating committee, but…how would you like a part-time job at The Wright Stuff?”
After all, if he wanted to map out a plan for Nate to woo Rachel Porter, he’d need a little more spare time than usual…
A long, low, school’s-out-for-the-day whistle brought Angela out of her predate primping. Sitting at her desk, she froze with her face dimly reflected in her turned-off computer monitor. She didn’t even have time to unscrew the wand of her new lip gloss before heavy footsteps crossed from the doorway into her domain—the now-deserted snugness of room 224.
“Woo-hoo. Hot stuff!” a male voice said.
Patrick? That voice sounded rough. Tough. A little sexy.
It sounded�
�familiar. Too familiar. Darn it!
“Nate! You scared me half to death.” Delivering him her best censorious glare, Angela watched her self-appointed date guardian merrily prop his hip on her desk. “I thought you were Patrick. He’s supposed to meet me here any minute.”
A snort. “Then he’s late. The bastard.”
“No, he’s not. We moved up our coffee date, because Kayla’s babysitter will be out of town next week during winter break.”
Already dating as a single mother was turning out to be more complicated than she’d bargained for. But Angela was optimistic. Everything worth having required some work.
As she went back to primping, Nate didn’t say anything. What could he say? Angela reasoned as fresh excitement shook her. He wasn’t Perfect Patrick, most desirable teacher at KHS.
Feeling self-conscious under her friend’s scrutiny, Angela pursed her lips. She concentrated, then guided the wand of glossy pink around her mouth. Smacking her lips together, she sealed the tube and tossed it in her catchall purse.
When she glanced up, Nate was staring at her mouth.
Uh-oh. “Did I color outside the lines?” Sheesh. She really was out of practice, if the weird look on Nate’s face was any indication of her makeup prowess. “The turned-off monitor trick works in a pinch”—at least it did with old CRT monitors, like KHS had—“but it’s hard to see without a real mirror.”
Worriedly, she lifted her face to Nate’s for examination.
“Uhhh.” His gaze remained fixed on her mouth. His eyes turned heavy-lidded, his features growing indistinct as he brought his face closer for better scrutiny. “It looks…”
Something about his husky tone made her heart beat faster.
“…kind of…”
Questioningly, Angela raised her gaze to his. His eyes were still focused on her lips…which suddenly felt kind of tingly. Almost as if she wanted to be kissed. By Nate! Which was alarming enough in itself, but when combined with the merest flutter of his minty breath across her mouth, a gentle precursor to the contact that might come next, Angela could scarcely—
“…like it’s getting melted. And your lips look all kinds of freaky, too.” With a deft move, Nate thumbed away a bit of lip gloss from the corner of her mouth. “That’s better.”
Freaky lips? Freaky? Mortified at her own fanciful interpretation of his intentions, Angela leaned back. Tingly lips. Hmmph. She was way too practical for that. Although…
“Ouch. My lips are burning!”
Wide-eyed, she snatched a handful of tissues from her desk.
Nate peered closer. “It’s sticking. It’s not coming off.”
“I know. It’s a special long-wearing, lip-plumping formula.” Frantically, Angela wiped her mouth again. “Ow. It’s supposed to give you lush, full, kissable lips within minutes.”
Nate raised his eyebrows. “What you’ve got looks like those wax lips that Kayla gets at the miniature golf place sometimes.”
“Great. Thanks.” She was grateful to Nate for his occasional Saturday outings with Kayla—a routine he traded on and off with Reno, to give Angela a break and provide Kayla with male role models. But she didn’t need his playtime-fueled analysis of her appearance right now. “Patrick will be here any second!” After another vigorous scrub, she lifted the tissues. Warily, she leaned forward to show him. “How bad is it now?”
“Not bad.”
“Really?” Hope fluttered to life inside her.
“Nah, it’s pretty bad. But I’d still do you.”
“What?”
“I mean, if baboon lips bother The Prick, he’s not the guy for you, that’s all.” Cheerfully, Nate regarded her. “Don’t worry. You’ll probably be able to distract him. You look nice.” He nodded. “I like that top. Makes your rack look fantastic.”
She slapped her hand over her modest cleavage. “Nate!”
He grinned. “Gotcha. You’re not worried about your lips anymore, are you?”
“You are a pig.” Laughing, Angela stood and wrapped her arms around Nate’s big, broad shoulders. “But I love you.”
From just above her head, Nate said, “Whatever you do, don’t do this to Patrick. That skeeve will get the wrong idea. Next thing you know, his hands will be right here.”
Without warning, Nate’s home ec/industrial arts trained palms cupped her derrière. He gave a squeeze, then a mmmmmm-mmm of approval.
Shocked to her core, Angela couldn’t move.
No man had ever grabbed her butt. She’d never been that kind of girl. Straight-A student, Honor Society member, French club geek, and an animal shelter volunteer, yes. Hot-to-trot naughty girl, no. She’d been a virgin far longer than most of her friends—until she’d met Kayla’s father, Bryce, during her third year of college. If not for her infatuation with Bryce, she might never have experienced the carnal side of life at all.
But now, with Nate’s hands cupping her backside, all Angela could think, through her sensation-fogged brain, was get closer. Make the most of this! After all, Nate was ridiculously fit, very sweet, and she’d known him all her life. What would be the harm in trailing her fingers from his shoulders—currently bunched manfully under her hands—and exploring the rest of him?
Nate leaned back and gazed into her eyes. “You know,” he said seriously, “if you want, I can help you out with that, uh, issue you were telling me about. Nobody has to know.”
Angela frowned. “What issue?”
“Your…” Incredibly, Nate blushed. “Horniness problem.”
For a split second, she actually considered it.
“Of course not!” Indignantly, she swatted away his hands from her backside. With a thud, she landed in her chair again. “What makes you think I would even consider such a thing?”
Nate glanced to the classroom door. “Well, you are dating.”
“So?”
“So if you’re not going out with The Prick to get laid, what is it? Because I’ve got to tell you, you deserve better.”
“What? I deserve a two-fisted grope and a pity proposition?” Angela lifted her chin to stare him down. “No thanks.”
Now it wasn’t only her lips that were hot—her whole body felt overheated, filled with emotions she hadn’t dared express for…who knew how long? How dare Nate? How dare he?
“You deserve someone who doesn’t need you to have fake fat lips. Someone who doesn’t need you to wear a Wonderbra.”
Angela gasped, crossing her arms over her chest.
Unperturbed, Nate just kept going.
“Yep, I could tell. Nobody grows a pair of D-cups in a single afternoon. But that’s beside the point.” His voice was unusually soft, his gaze fixed on the overflowing pencil cup on her desk. He fiddled with a pair of number twos, then glanced up at her. “You deserve someone who can see how incredible you are. When that someone comes along, they’re going to have to get past me first, because I’ll be running interference.”
Stunned, Angela looked away. Her eyes swam with sudden tears—tears she didn’t understand and was embarrassed by.
“Is…is that all you came to say?” she asked with dignity.
“No, I came to ask you to help me impress Rachel Porter.” A grin flashed over Nate’s face, then he pulled a wry expression. “But I guess that’s probably out of the question now.”
Of course it was. She opened her fiery mouth to say so.
What emerged was, “I’d be happy to help you. Let me call up Patrick to reschedule our date, then we’ll get started.”
Good grief. The Wright helpfulness gene—usually manifested in Reno’s overprotective, interfering ways—was part of her, too!
Guiltily, Angela glanced up. Nate’s grin made her finally understand. It felt good to come to someone’s rescue. Even if that particular someone had just groped her, propositioned her, flattered her, and made her contemplate a casual, torrid, almost certainly ill-advised fling, all in the space of ten minutes.
Briskly, she hung up her phone after callin
g Patrick, feeling a twinge at postponing her date with the most sought-after, most eligible male on the Kismet High School faculty. What if this opportunity never came her way again? What if she was stuck drawing from a shallow pool of men who played with miniature dragons and considered a ballpark hot dog a fine meal?
“Playing hard to get, huh? Good going.” Nate winked. “Now Patrick will be twice as eager to go out with you.”
Hey, maybe things would work out after all, Angela decided.
On the other hand, there was still the worrisome thrill she felt when Nate winked at her. That had never happened before….
“Okay,” she said in businesslike tones. “Let’s start by assessing your dating demeanor and decorum.”
Chapter Fifteen
At half past-four, Rachel sat knee-deep in the ripped apart castoff clothes she’d liberated from the guest room closet (with her mother’s blessing) with one hand on the blindstitch hem-presser foot of her mother’s Singer Inspiration 4220 and the other hand wiping sweat from her brow. Actual sweat. Here in Michigan, where it was colder than the coldest L.A. day.
“You look just like your mom used to.”
At the sound of her dad’s voice, Rachel snapped her head around. She smiled. Her father stood in the doorway, wearing one of his Detroit Lions jerseys with a white turtleneck underneath (what was it with these people and their turtlenecks?) and a pair of what appeared to be grown-up Tough-skins jeans.
“This is just like old times. Your mom used to get obsessed with sewing stuff, too.” Raising his eyebrows in silent query, her dad waited for her nod. He picked his way past the discarded clothing items she’d hurled on the floor after ripping their seams—all the better to repurpose their fabrics for her new creation. “Whenever something was bothering her, that is.”
He sat on the bed, giving Rachel a pointed look from beneath his silvery hair. At sixty-eight, her father was still a handsome man, with a demeanor that suggested integrity and a pair of hands that could repair malfunctioning electronics as easily as they could whip up his trademark buttermilk pancakes. A die-hard computer geek, Gerry Porter had gone from Radio Shack radios to state-of-the-art PCs with the same enthusiasm most men applied to riding lawnmowers and to pricey barbecue grills.
