Yours, Mine & Ours (12 page)

“Hey. You were the one who dared me!”

His shaggy eyebrows arched. “Huh? You were the one doing all the daring. The way you walked. The way you looked at me. The way you smiled. The whole thing.”

“I never did
anything.
It was you. Sending me those looks all the time.”

“Hmm. So…is that what suddenly made you…come over here to climb in my shower out of the complete blue tonight?”

She looked at him, through wet hair and a smile that refused to stop coming. “No, Mike,” she said softly. “I came over because…”

Startling both of them, Molly's voice suddenly crackled from the monitor on the counter. “Mom! Mommy! There's a lizard in the door! He's coming in here!”

Amanda sucked in a breath, but Mike was already shaking his head. “Don't worry about it for a minute. Of course you have to go. But I'd like to finish that conversation.”

“Breakfast. My deck.” But that was all she had time to say. Still wearing his towel, she plucked up her clothes, sprinted through his house and out the back door. Outside, it was darn near freezing on her bare feet and wet hair—but she ran like lightning, pelted into her own house.

“Mommy!”

She'd forgotten to bring the monitor back, but it
didn't matter. She could hear Molly's voice for herself now.

“I'm coming, honey!” She traded Mike's gray towel for a butterfly one from the downstairs bathroom, and scooted up the stairs. Out of breath, she paused in Molly's doorway. “I was taking a shower, honey. I need to put on a nightgown and I'll be right in.”

“It's a horrible lizard. Purple and orange. With glasses. And pointy feet.
I'm
not afraid. But he was going to hurt you, Mommy. So I have to come sleep with you.”

It wasn't how she hoped to end the evening, snuggled in a narrow twin bed with a four-year-old, Princess and Darling. Yet her daughter and the dog and kitten all slept as soundly as zombies.

She didn't. Her heart was still racing, her mind spinning, Mike's name humming in every beat of her pulse. Maybe she'd done the wrong thing. Maybe she'd done the right.

She was frighteningly unsure how this could possibly turn out well for both of them.

But she didn't regret what happened. Didn't, wouldn't, couldn't.

 

Amanda woke up in a tantalizingly high mood…until she glanced at the clock. Molly, Princess and Darling were already out and about somewhere, but the princess clock beside her daughter's bed claimed
it was eight. Which meant she could have company from next door for breakfast before she'd had a chance to brush her teeth, much less to make anything to feed the four of them.

She flew out of bed, hurtled through drawers to find the appropriate dress-for-success attire—a frayed sweatshirt, old yoga pants. In the bathroom, she did the wash-face, brush-teeth thing, then swiped on two splashes of blush, braided her hair with a long scarf, loose, not tight, and didn't bother with shoes because there was no time. She hoped she looked like he usually did. Casual. Honest. Natural. Definitely not overly put together.

Molly, Princess and Darling all crowded her in the kitchen. She whipped up eggs, added a dab of cream cheese and cheddar, fresh chives…dropped a fork, then the spatula. Princess leaped on the counter in a cloud of white fur; both pets wanted to be fed and loved; Molly wanted a change in hairstyle
right now.
She started the toaster, pulled out the marmalade, poured OJ into a glass pitcher…chased outside to wipe down the glass table on the deck…chased back in to find Molly sampling the marmalade with a spoon.

Panic didn't set in. Not then. At least not totally. It was just that during all that frenzy of activity, a few teensy needling thoughts squeezed into her mind.

Such as…Mike had given her serious reasons why
he'd voted for the celibacy route. Her showing up in his shower wasn't exactly fair.

Such as…last night, it seemed terribly important that she not sit back, not be the kind of princess who needed a man to take charge. But by light of day, courage didn't look like courage anymore. It sort of looked brazen. It sort of looked like a pushy, brazen woman had shown up in his shower, specifically when he'd said he didn't want to be involved.

The more she thought…the more she wondered whether it was too late to hide under the nearest bed with heaps of blankets over her head.

She ran silverware and napkins and place settings out to the deck, ran back inside, cracked a nail on the door, shook it, turned the eggs, popped the first round of toast, heard the knock on the door.

Then
panic set in.

“I know we're late,” Mike said.

“That's okay, we're running just a tad late here, too.” She smiled brilliantly, hoping he couldn't see that there was a gulp in her throat bigger than the state of Nevada.

He and Teddy were cleaned up, spiffed up. Teddy had a tucked-in shirt. Mike had a white polo that set off his tanned skin and a totally naked chin. He not only looked handsome beyond belief; he'd shaved. For her. And here she looked scruffier than his dog. He had to think she'd made no effort, where he so clearly had.

Their eyes met, and she almost dropped the eggs. Would have, if he hadn't swooped in and taken the bowl. “Let's help, guys,” he told the kids, which was an outstanding idea.

He not only looked jumpable; the look of him brought on more nerves, because she was afraid she would. Jump him. At the earliest opportunity. Apparently now that the Brazen Gene had been let out of her closet, it was going to be tough locking it back in.

Mike and the kids carted everything outside. She brought up the rear with the OJ pitcher and glasses—which Mike took out of her hands before she could drop them. The morning still had a sting of a chill, but the grass was diamond-studded with dew, the sun soaking-bright.

The kids dove in as if no one had ever fed them…but that didn't last long. They started making faces at each other. Molly, ever the lady, exposed a mouthful of scrambled eggs. Teddy pulled his eyes apart with his fingers. Both of them pulled out their lips.

“It's hard to believe they're going to be part of civilized society in another twenty years, isn't it?” she asked Mike.

He laughed. Not a loud laugh. But a throaty, sexy laugh. Turned her on all over again. “You promise it'll only take twenty years?”

A forkful of egg arced in the air, landed in the
lilies. “Hey, guys. That's over the top. Who did it?” Amanda demanded.

“Not me,” Molly said.

“Not me,” Teddy said.

She pretended to buy into that bologna, turning a stern expression on Mike. “Mr. Mike, if you throw food again, you're going to get a time-out, and I'm not kidding.”

That set the kids to giggling again. It was a lot easier, entertaining the four-year-olds than facing Mike alone. But eventually they got too squirmy to sit still, and Amanda gave them permission to go inside and play a game.

Unfortunately, once the kids deserted ship, the insanely messy table was the only thing between her and Mike. She'd felt his eyes on her, his smile on her, all through the picnic breakfast…but it was the first time she could really look back at him. At least in that naked way. That raw-nerves honest way.

“Did you sleep okay?” he asked her.

“Slept good. Just not long enough. You?”

“Like a log. Although I wish you hadn't had to run home. Was Molly all right?”

“Yes. It was just her lizard nightmare. But I still needed to be there.”

“Of course you did.”

Conversation stalled like a dead battery. Mike's eyes never left hers. Finally he put his elbows on the table, hunching forward. “My guess is the kids'll
interrupt us in two minutes or less. So either we dive into talking about last night. Or let it be. You have a vote?”

“Better talk.”

“Ok. The last thing I expected was a naked woman in my shower last night. Was there maybe something that triggered that happening? That I should know about?”

“Well…” How could she explain something that just all clicked in her head all at once? “It was because of Molly. In the fight yesterday with the second-grader.”

Mike frowned. “I saw the shiner. But somehow it's hard for me to imagine how the two issues could be connected.”

“Because. When I was talking to Molly—about fighting and violence never being a good answer—she got her back up. Some days she is
such
a redhead. And even though I'm not condoning her hitting anyone…later, it just kept occurring to me. Molly's viewpoint was right. Sometimes it's the girl who has to take charge.”

“Amanda. Try to concentrate. Because I'm getting more lost instead of less.”

Why did she have to be such an incoherent mess this morning? When it mattered? When everybody told her she was articulate in a crisis, how come she had such a hard time with Mike?

She clasped her hands together. “This is the thing.
We've had this…connection between us. Neither of us want our kids hurt. Neither of us want it to go too far. But I just kept thinking, Mike, we're
friends.
We're both smart. I think there's a level where we trust each other. So why couldn't we do something we both want—and maybe need—as long as we're both careful? But then…I thought…you really couldn't be the one to take the plunge.”

“And why would that be?”

“For the same reason my daughter hit that little girl. And your son didn't. Because you're raising your son to be a gentleman. The same way you are.”

Something cooled in his eyes. A ruler stiffened his spine. “Trust me, Amanda. I'm not.”

“You are. In every way.” Her voice was warm, sincere…but from his expression, she seemed to be hitting him totally the wrong way.

“So.” His voice turned softer than butter. “
You
made the first move, because you didn't think I had the guts to?”

“No. Good grief, Mike. No. That wasn't what I meant at all—”

“I think it's pretty clear. You and Molly think we're the kind of guys who can't do our own fighting.”

Now she was getting confused—as well as palm-cold anxious. “This wasn't about fighting. Neither of us want our kids to fight. Both of us are teaching our kids that violence is not a way to solve anything—”

“I'm not talking about the kids. I'm talking about
us. And if the only reason you showed up last night is because you didn't think I'd ever find the guts to—”

“Wait. Just wait. That's not what—”

Teddy and Molly barreled out of the house at the same time, shrieking and laughing…and soaking wet.

Amanda couldn't remember what they said they were going to play—fish? Candy Land? A marble game? So she wasn't sure which culprit had unearthed the squirt guns from the closet in the back room. Of course, it didn't matter who.

She shot an unhappy look at Mike—who didn't look back. He grabbed his kid. She grabbed hers.

There wasn't going to be any more private talking. Not now. Amanda felt a sinking sense of loss. She told herself that you couldn't lose what you never had.

But Mike's expression had become starched, his posture rigid.

She'd hurt him. Really hurt him.

She'd bumbled a moment that seriously mattered—and she had no idea how to make it right.

A
half hour later, Teddy didn't object to a ride in the truck, but he kept sneaking peeks at him. “Dad. Molly and I didn't break anything or hurt anything. We just got wet.”

“I know.”

“But you look so mad.”

“I'm not mad.”

“Then how come you keep looking mad, if you're not mad?”

Mike declenched his jaw, rolled the iron out of his shoulders, smiled at his son. “I think you and I have earned a big day off.”

“I think so, too!” Teddy agreed, and then added, “What does ‘a day off' mean?”

“It means you and I are going to have a guy day. We're going fishing. In a lake. In a boat. Where there are no phones and no doorbells and no one can reach us. You like that idea?”

“I love it! I love fishes! I've always loved fishes!”

The whole afternoon, Mike tried to get his head back on track. There were tons of places to snag a rental boat, buy some live bait, set Teddy up with a fun afternoon. The sun was blazing, the lake silvery-calm, the sky a pure blue canvas without a single cloud. Teddy caught a little bass that fought like the devil, then a bigger one, a catfish, one pretty pike.

The whole time, Mike felt lower than a skunk, although he did his damnedest to hide the clunky mood from his son.

But he was hurting.

From the day he'd met Amanda, he warned himself not to fall for her.

She was the wrong woman—the most contrary redhead he'd ever come across. And it was the wrong time—for all the reasons they both knew and had commiserated about.

But last night, when she'd shown up in his shower…he'd known.

He hadn't just fallen. He'd leaped straight off the cliff, so deep, so hard, there was no climbing back. She'd scraped past layers no one else ever had. She'd
touched
him…because she'd taken that kind of huge emotional risk. With him. For him. And for all their
play, he'd tried to lavish her with tenderness and care and skill. The best of who he was as a lover.

So when she'd pulled the “friends” on him this morning, it ripped. But the details—that she thought she'd had to seduce him—as if he weren't man enough to do the seducing…it just sent him into a crash funk.

He'd been
trying
to play by her rules by not touching her. He'd been
trying
to be a decent guy, for once.

Amanda was nothing like his ex, Mike knew, but suddenly it felt like new song, old refrain. Amanda was the cultured, classy type. She thought he was fine for a roll in the hay—but not good enough to fit in with her image of a long-term mate.

Teddy snoozed the whole way home, and Mike had the quiet sunset drive to put it all in perspective. That's it. He'd shut up from here on. Go back to the rules they'd agreed on to begin with.

He'd be a
friend.

Nothing else.

 

His resolve lasted a whole four days. When the phone rang, he had thick gloves on and was working in the basement with Teddy's worm farm—knee-deep in a project that didn't smell good, didn't look good and needed to be done.

He'd have let the machine pick up—Teddy was with him, and there was no other emergency that
couldn't wait five minutes that he could imagine. But when the machine clicked on, he heard Amanda's voice.

“Mike? I'm pretty sure you're there. You probably just can't come to the phone. But…I had a problem come up, and I was hoping—”

That's all that went down before he'd taken the stairs three at a time and grabbed the landline in the kitchen. “I'm here. I was just downstairs. What's up?”

He knew from the way she said his name, from everything in her voice, that she was stressed and strung tight.

“I hate to ask you. But I have to be in court at one. I didn't ask my parents to babysit, because frankly, I'd rather they didn't know until afterward. They get all upset, and this was something I didn't want spilling on Molly inadvertently. Anyway, I called an agency. They sent over a babysitter with fabulous credentials. She got here at ll:00 a.m. I kicked her out three minutes ago. There was just no way—”

“You need me to watch Molly.”

There. He heard her take a breath.
Breathe.
“Yes. If you could. It's too late for me to set up anything else. I have to be in the car before ll:30 a.m. And—”

“Hey. Molly'll be fine with me. You know that. Don't even think twice.”

The girls arrived five minutes later. Amanda was dressed like he'd never seen her, wearing judge-sober
navy, nothing like her usual put-together thing. Just a navy skirt, white blouse, all tidy and meticulous, makeup on the spare. Her hair was rolled up in some kind of coil in back; God knew how she'd tamed it, but it was pinned and straight within an inch of its life. She had a smile on. He didn't know whose smile it was, but it sure as hell wasn't Amanda's.

“Thanks, Mike,” was all she said.

“You need someone to go with you?” He couldn't take his eyes off her strained face.

“No. Everything's fine. I just needed help with Molly—” she shot a reassuring smile at her daughter “—because she would have been completly bored all afternoon, stuck sitting in a chair while I was at this little meeting.”

It wasn't a little meeting, but Mike got it. That was the story for Molly.

“Hey, she'll have a good time with us. Right, Mol? And don't worry about the time. We'll be here.”

She took a breath, thanked him again, gave him a house key in case he needed anything for Molly…then bent down to kiss her daughter and she was off.

He turned to Molly. It appeared to be a Cat Day. She wore a top with pastel cats, carried two stuffed cats and had a purse the size of a half dollar that looked like a cat. There were two jelly beans inside the purse. She gave one to Teddy right off, so she
could have the other, but so far she wasn't talking to him.

He hunkered more to her height. “Here's the deal. We're not doing something you're likely to have fun with, right this minute. We're bringing the worm farm up from the basement, because they're ready to live outside in the shed. And there are enough worms to start feeding the frogs in the water garden. But that's all pretty dirty work. Nothing you'd probably like.”

She nodded.

“But you could sit on the table in the yard and just watch us for a bit, okay? We'll get this done as soon as we can. And after that, Teddy and I'll get cleaned up. And then we could all go for an ice cream cone. Or to the library. Or watch a movie. Or go to the park. Or…”

“Go shopping,” Molly supplied.

That hadn't been on his list, would never have been on his list, but he nodded. “That's just what I was hoping you might like to do.”

“I really don't want to do anything. My mom did
not
want to go to this meeting. Something is
wrong
and I don't like it. But I guess I could sit here for a while.” She perched on the deck table, crossed her legs like her mother and motioned like a princess for the boys to proceed.

Mike hesitated, thinking maybe he should get her to talk if she was upset. But without knowing what Amanda was dealing with exactly, he figured he'd
better try a wait-see before trying to dive into Molly's little head. As it happened, he didn't have to worry about either choice, because she'd ambled down to the water garden, holding one of her stuffed cats, before two minutes had passed.

“Mr. Mike, your stones are all wrong.”

He'd framed the kidney-shaped water garden with stones, both to keep down the liner and to make the project look “done.” “What's wrong with them?”

“You just didn't put them in a pretty way. They don't look right.”

He looked at his brilliantly designed minipond, then raised an eyebrow at the pint-size diva. “So how do you think they should look?”

She showed him, and damned if she wasn't right. After she'd rearranged all the stupid stones, the whole setup looked better landscaped.

“You're pretty smart,” he told her.

“That's what my mom says. But grown-ups never listen to me. I don't know why.” She was ignoring Teddy as if he didn't exist, but that was possibly because his son had his hands full of worms and was dying to get her attention. “Only, now you need some lights.”

“What kind of lights?”

“You know. The kind of little lights that you put outside. They don't have cords. They have to get sun during the day to make them work. Then they'd make your pond look pretty at night.” She frowned.
“I think you need four.” She motioned where she wanted them.

She
was
a miniature of her mother. “I think you're right again.”

“I could give you more ideas, if you want.” Once she opened up, of course, she couldn't shut up. She supervised lunch, which included how to properly wash hands, how Mike should cut the bread crusts and how napkins were folded. Once they all sat down—including Slugger and Cat—she opened up about Amanda.

“I've been thinking about it,” she said, “and I think I know where my mom is. It's all about heat.”

“Heat,” Mike echoed.

“Yup. Heat. I'll bet her meeting is with the vet. Because when we took Darling to the vet a while ago—the new vet, the one we're going to now—he said it might be too late. And then my mom sent me out to the waiting room. And when we got home, that's when we had to start locking Darling up in the laundry room. Or she had to wear a diaper when she was walking around. It's all about in heat.”

“I see.”

“Darling doesn't have to wear a diaper anymore. So I thought everything was okay. But then Mom had to go to this meeting. And that's the only thing I know she was worried about.”

Okay, he just couldn't completely let that go. “You know what? Your mom may be worried about
something, just like you're thinking. But you might want to remember, she's really strong and smart.”

“Yeah, she is,” Molly agreed.

“Being smart doesn't mean you'll never have a problem. Everybody has problems. But I think you can stop worrying about your mom. She's so strong and smart, that I'm positive she'll find a way to work it out.”

“I sort of know that.” Molly sighed. “I just don't like it when she doesn't tell me everything.”

Teddy, clearly tired of being cut out, interrupted to say, “If you get to talk to my dad, then I get to talk to your mom.”

“Yeah. So?”

“And if you get to come over here, then I should get to go over to your house sometimes.”

“Sure,” Molly said.

“And I worry about my dad, too. All the time.”

“Yeah? What about?”

Teddy had to think. “Just things. Like when my mom isn't nice to him. Things like that.”

The kids had a competitive argument over who was the best kid/who worried most/who took best care of their mom or dad. Mike felt like a humorous fly on the wall; they battled back and forth as if he weren't even there. The afternoon filled up. He took the kids for ice cream, then had to find a potty. A trip to Target thankfully solved Molly's shopping need, where he bought exactly the lights she told him to—that
required another potty break. By three o'clock in the afternoon, he brought out cards on the deck and played fish forever. At least twenty minutes.

About then he started glancing at his watch. It might be too soon to start watching for Amanda, but he figured whatever had gone right—or wrong—about the custody hearing had already happened. She was either hugely relieved…or hugely upset.

His mother called. She wanted them over for dinner on Sunday. The phone rang again. It was a headhunter who specialized in attorney positions and wanted Mike as a client. The kids settled on the rug with the dog in front of a Disney flick.

Mike told himself to get the mail, get some bills paid, use the quiet time to tackle some chores.

But it was four-thirty by then, and Amanda still wasn't home.

He knew how courts worked. How custody hearings went. Amanda had no way of knowing how long she'd be gone, and she'd have called him if she expected to be crazy late, or if anything had happened. She'd never have left her daughter hanging.

So there was no reason for him to worry.

And he wasn't worried exactly.

He was just glued to the window.

At ten to five, her white SUV zoomed into the driveway. The sound of the car sent Slugger baying and Cat snarling at the dog door to confront the arrival. Molly and Teddy didn't budge—they were near
the end of the movie—but when Mike said, “Your mom's just pulling in, Mol,” the little one bounced to her feet.

Slugger and Cat beat everyone else out the door to greet her, then came kids, with Mike bringing up the rear. By the time he got a look, she was bending down to give Molly a giant hug and kiss, so he couldn't see her face.

Teddy got in there, to start explaining that he thought he should have time at her house, too, and Amanda was agreeing with him. “I was thinking of something we could do that would be fun for you. You like getting your hands dirty, don't you?”

“Yeah, I do,” Teddy confirmed.

“In fact, Teddy, I was thinking…maybe you could come over when we have a baking afternoon. Lots of flour all over the place. Lots of messes. Lots of squishing butter between your fingers. We could make pies or cookies or something. That sound okay to you?”

“That sounds like something I've wanted to do my whole life. And nobody ever let me before.”

After Teddy's turn, his hound had to be petted, and Molly was still talking to her mom nonstop…but finally, finally, she lifted her head. “Hey, neighbor.

Did you survive?”

“We had a blast.”

“Uh-huh. What do I owe you? A day in a padded
cell? Brownies? Cookies for the rest of your life? Slave labor cleaning floors? Pizza?”