Yours, Mine & Ours (10 page)

“Good. Teddy. With me.”

“But, Dad. Did you see all that blood? Wasn't it gross? Can we watch it at our house?”

“Zip it, Theodore. Not one word until we're back in our own house. Not
one.
Not even a little one. You have no idea how serious I am.”

“Me, too, Dad,” his son assured him. “I'm
really
serious.”

Mike wanted to laugh…and then did. When a day started out this rough, it could only go up—because it sure couldn't get any worse.

 

The morning couldn't possibly get worse, Amanda was sure. But of course it did. The bathroom was still going to take hours to clean up, and Darling had an appointment with the vet at 10:00 a.m.

And then, out of the blue, her mother showed up. Gretchen regarded the whole plumbing mess, offered to hire a cleaning service to immediately come and take care of it, and that caused an argument. It wasn't a
bad
argument, or a mom-daughter sniping event, nothing like that. It was just that her mother couldn't hear a “No, thank you” with a megaphone.

Eventually Gretchen mentioned the reason for her visit—she wanted to take Molly swimming. That was totally a
good
thing, except that it took time to get gear together for an afternoon at a pool. And her mom was barely out the door before the phone rang.

It was her attorney, who wanted a meeting related to Thom's filing for joint custody. That wasn't exactly
bad.
She wanted to be prepared for the court date. It was just that any thought of Thom's sharing custody put a worried dent in her heart.

As if the morning didn't have enough complications, she'd barely finished with the floor and had
a first load of towels and rags in the washer when there was a knock at the front door. A large truck had backed into her driveway. All the heavy things she'd ordered were being delivered—from the bricks to the patio stones, to the shiny green riding lawn mower.

The delivery guys took nearly an hour—but Amanda's mood brightened immediately.

It was the lawn mower. She'd almost forgotten about it. Her parents hadn't moved to the suburbs until she was in college; she'd just never been exposed to lawn-care issues. But now, the machine immediately made her think of Mike.

Ever since he'd come over that morning—and damn him, been a hero for her yet
again
—she'd wanted to gallop over there and heartily apologize. Only, darn it, it wasn't that simple. It was probably a good thing that something happened to force distance between them.

He'd seen her at her worst. That was good. It'd stop him from looking at her with those…well, with those eyes. Those eyes that communicated that he thought her damned incredible. Not just attractive, but compelling. Interesting. That he valued being with her. That he went crazy when he touched her.

So. Possibly her behaving like the witch of the universe was a secret godsend. But the lawnmower was another godsend—because it would give her the chance to make up.

Once the delivery man left, she sat on the lawn
mower seat with a coffee mug and the instruction manual. Then turned her new baby on. A few stripped gears later, and she had the hang of it…or she would, once she got the speed thing under control.

Her mood moved from low to a reasonable soar. She didn't need a man to do work. Just because she wasn't mechanical didn't mean that she couldn't learn—or teach her daughter to learn.

She'd show Mike competence. She'd
be
competent. He didn't have to know what it was all about—how desperately she wanted to change, how much she never wanted to lean on a man again. Maybe plumbing crises were never going to be her thing, but this adorable riding mower was downright fun.

She finished her lawn, which she had to admit, represented a little learning curve. A few spots were higher than other spots. She'd sort of bumped a couple of trees. There was one small strip of grass in the front yard that she'd sort of missed. But she'd learned. And now she headed next door.

His yard was bigger than hers, but simpler. Naturally she wasn't going anywhere near the water-garden construction site, but he had a long, long backyard. For once, she was doing something for
him.
Not just making up for being a bitch this morning…but actually doing something nice. Decent. Something a friend would do.

Best yet, he was gone—so he'd come home
to a freshly mowed lawn—and not even know it was her.

She was within a few swipes of finishing in the front, when her brand-new baby started coughing. Then sputtering. Then gave out a death sigh and just plain stopped.

She'd run out of gas.

W
hen Mike pulled into the driveway around two o'clock, Teddy's mood shifted from cranky and whiny to ecstatic. His four-year-old hadn't appreciated his first visit to the dentist, even though they'd done a fast-food lunch and a romp in the park afterward.

“It still hurts, Dad,” Teddy whined, as he unsnapped his seat belt. But then he saw the tractor. That was the last Mike heard about the dentist. Now it was all, “Oh, wow, oh, wow, oh, wow!”

Mike may have climbed from the pickup more slowly, but his son's oh-wow opinion echoed his own. Certainly he'd never seen the behemoth of a lawn mower parked in his front yard before.

“We don't climb on equipment that isn't ours,
Teddy,” he admonished. But hey, he couldn't resist doing a leisurely stroll around the thing, giving it a thump and pat and an admiring general look-see. Slugger ambled out of the dog door to greet them—well, mostly to greet Teddy. The hound hadn't appreciated having his man parts clipped at the vet's, and he was still letting Mike know about it. Still, all three boys slowly circled the machine with equal reverence.

“Is it ours, Dad?”

“No.”

“Why not? If it's in our yard? Whose is it?”

“I don't know. But I'm pretty sure I can make a good guess.”

“Maybe I could just sit in the seat for a second.”

“Maybe we never do that without the permission of the owner.”

Mike wanted to shake his head. Not at his son. At the mower. It was a John Deere. A beauty. One of the X700 series. Forty-eight-inch mower deck. Color-coded buttons, cruise control, CD player, four-wheel steering.

It was the kind of riding mower that a landscaping company owned. Or maybe a golf course. Not that Mike knew much about tractors, but he was pretty sure this one checked in at several thousand. No one—that is, no one normal—would buy such a thing for a regular-size yard that he could imagine. So that was the first clue to its owner.

The second clue was that
his
yard had been mowed. It would recover, of course. Grass always grew back.

The third clue was when he figured out why it was sitting in his yard. It had run out of diesel.

Add it all up, and Mike glanced next door…only to see Amanda bouncing into her drive. She pelted out of the car, popped the lid on the trunk. “Hi, guys!” she called out. “I'll get the mower out of there! Would you believe it? I ran out of fuel! So I had to run to the gas station, but I've got it, I've got it—”

“Miss Amanda? Can I sit on it? Can I?”

“Yes, honey—but
only
if your dad or I'm there. Okay? No one else can give you permission but us.”

“Okay. I love you,” Teddy mentioned, and that was the end of his talking to her. Amanda kind of stopped dead when he said the word
love,
but instead of looking at his son, her eyes shot straight up to his.

Mike's response was identical. To make eye contact that instant. It was one of those rare mind-meld moments. As if they were the only two people in the universe who realized there was an avalanche big enough to destroy them all. Maybe no one else saw it. But they did. Maybe no one else had a clue. But they did.

All morning he'd tried to reassure himself that he wasn't falling. It should have helped that she'd been
as unreasonable as a shrew with PMS that morning. But it hadn't.

After a morning of major plumbing messes, apparently lawn mowing, then running out of diesel, Amanda was still Amanda. Her scoop-neck top had grass stains; her shorts looked almost wrinkled…but they matched. Pale blue and dark blue. Her hair hadn't seen a brush in a while, which meant it was like copper on fire in the sunlight, pretty wild…but she still had on lip gloss, cute sandals, earrings.

She almost fell under the weight of the diesel can, but she managed to pluck it out of the trunk, her smile fifty times more powerful than a kilowatt. “You don't have to thank me,” she chattered on. “I owed you, for all the stuff you've done for me. I was totally happy to find something I could do the other way around! I just didn't realize how much fuel it would take to mow both yards. Or how much fuel they put in to start with. And it took me a little while to figure out how to run it. I've never mowed grass before! Would you believe it?!”

He believed it. It just didn't seem wise to agree with her, much less while she was still struggling with the fuel container. “You want me to do that for you?”

“No, no sweat, I can do it!”

“Amanda.”

“Huh?”

He tried to make his voice sound light and con
versational and delicate—although possibly he was incapable of managing “delicate.” “Who sold you this mower?”

“Oh. The hardware store. The guy was wonderful. Seriously. Gave me exactly what I asked for.”

He aimed for the same ultralight tone. “And you asked for…?”

“I told him that I only wanted to buy one mower in a lifetime, so for sure I didn't want junk. And I wanted one with power, because I'm not particularly physically strong. I wanted quality, serious dependability, nothing that I'd have trouble servicing…”

Okay, he was beginning to see how she'd gotten in so much trouble. She'd asked good questions. She'd just asked the wrong salesperson. “Did he ask you what size yard you have?”

“Sure. But it's not as if I had the exact dimensions. I just told him straight.
Big.
” She shot him another grin, as she finished feeding diesel into the mower and screwed the top back on. Suddenly, though, her smile faded. “Why all the questions? Do you think I made a bad choice?”

She'd made a terrible choice. It wasn't just the money, but that it was way too much machine for what she needed. But suddenly that wasn't the point. Her breathtaking smile had completely disappeared now, and in its place was a look of uncertainty…fragility.

In a flash, he realized he'd seen that look of raw
uncertainty before. This morning. In between moments when she'd more or less been chewing him up, no matter what he said. Still. There'd been glimpses of That Look.

He remembered her saying more than once that she'd been raised as a spoiled, sheltered princess.

But he hadn't added it up before. How much she'd been life-crippled by her background, and how much that bothered her. The basic practical information most people knew, she just plain didn't. Common sense wasn't common, not the way she was raised. And she was trying. Watching her with the plunger and the “Dare To Repair” book that morning…watching her in the hardware store, picking out tools, painting on her own, and yeah, now, diving into the mechanics of lawn mowing and mowers.

“What?” she said impatiently. “You think I didn't pick the right machine?”

“I think you're brilliant. That you picked the best.”

The shoulders eased. The smile went back to being shiny and disarming…and sexy. “Well. I know I didn't know what I was doing. But I tried to ask the right questions—”

“You're going to be the envy of the neighborhood.”

“I don't care about that. But I can do this. My lawn. Your lawn. That kind of maintenance. There's no reason I should have to ask for help. Or hire it out.”

He didn't look back at the butcher job. And if anyone else made a remark to her, well, he'd just have to kill them.

As if suddenly realizing he wasn't the center of attention, Teddy edged forward and said to Amanda, “Guess what? I went to the dentist this morning. For the first time in my whole life. The dentist let me squirt the water. It was really cool.”

Mike stared at his son, astonished at Teddy's volunteering such a creative version of this morning's events. But then, men seemed genetically programmed to reinvent certain events or truths, if it meant impressing a female they cared about.

Damn. It was getting harder and harder to deny it. It wasn't just his son who cared. Mike was sinking in deeper and thicker than quicksand. He just didn't know what to do about it.

 

Clouds bunched in fists. Thunder grumbled, bringing on another session of wild, slashing rain. Amanda glanced next door as she raced to the car.

She'd barely seen Mike in the past two weeks, except in passing.

They waved when they saw each other. One morning, Teddy had popped in to ask for a couple of eggs. One afternoon, she'd sent Molly next door with a fresh strawberry-rhubarb pie.

She'd mowed his lawn. He'd sent over quotes for electric fences.

She'd sent a response to his fence quotes. One night, Thom had stopped by—to fight about custody, naturally—and she'd stepped out on the deck so Molly wouldn't hear the heated words. Across the way, she'd seen Mike choose that time to put a foot up on his deck—he was ostensibly holding a bottle of beer, but she had no doubt he'd have charged over if Thom had gotten out of hand.

She was invisibly watching over him, too. For instance, she'd bandaged Teddy's knee when she'd seen his son take a tumble on the concrete drive.

They were taking care of each other—and avoiding each other at the same time. That couldn't go on forever, obviously, but as far as Amanda could tell, they were both being smart. Why stroll in woods that was filled with poison ivy?

She turned the windshield wipers on full, glanced at her GPS, tried to take her mind off Mike. Her father had kidnapped Molly for a day at the Fields Museum, so storms or no storms, she needed to take advantage of the free time. June was sneaking into July. She'd already researched preschools and pediatricians, but she wanted to do an eyes-on before committing to either for sure.

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.