“I’m going. I promise. In just a second. I just want to show you the auger… See? On one end, it has a corkscrew. So you push that end down into the hole…then you turn the handle-clockwise-until the entire spring has been fed into the pipe as far as it’ll go. The idea is to reach the obstruction…”
She tried. The first time she didn’t quite get it, and shot him a look filled with venom. Probably snake venom.
“I won’t offer to do it, I swear,” he promised, hands in the air. “It’s just…you could try it again. In fact, you could try it a couple of times. If you wanted to. And when this is all over, you might want to put some ice on that elbow.”
“I’m not hurt.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say anything nice. It just slipped out…and yeah, you’ve got it now. That’s the how of it. So when the auger’s all the way in, you could try-only if you want to!-to slowly, slowly pull the spring back. If that doesn’t free up the doll’s shoe, you could try it a second time.”
Thank God it worked. Out came a little white shoe. Amazing how much trouble a shoe less than two inches long could cause a person in life.
She started breathing a little better. Not a lot better. But definitely an improvement over the hyperventilating, crying, fire-breathing dragon she’d been a half hour ago.
“Okay now. I’m leaving. I’m going to take a wild guess that you don’t have an indoor-outdoor vac-why would you? So I’ll just bring mine over, leave it on your deck. It should suck up this water in no time. But before I leave…maybe you might want to turn on the water again. Remember? The shutoff valve? This time you turn it the other way.”
“I hear patronizing in your voice.”
“I swear. There isn’t a patronizing thought in my head.” His tone probably sounded virtuous because he was telling the complete truth. There was nothing on his mind but fear. He just wanted to get out of the house alive.
When she did the shutoff-valve thing and the crisis was finally completely over-except for the cleanup-she started crying again.
This time, he just backed away. There was a time to hold a woman. And a time when a man knew he’d sure as hell better get out of Dodge.
He was in bare feet by then, but he picked up his sandals by the back door, went searching for Teddy and Molly. The two were lying on the floor, leaned up on their elbows, watching TV. Only not cartoons. They were watching a mother give live birth. Apparently the event had just happened.
“Holy mother of…” Mike got calm, fast. In three long strides, he grabbed the remote, clicked off the TV and set it high on the mantel. “Molly. Do yourself a big favor and don’t tell your mother what you were just watching. You can tell her another day. Just not today.”
“I won’t, Mr. Mike. Princess and Darling and me are going stay out of Mommy’s way for a while.”
“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 lawnmower 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.
Chapter Eight
When 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!”