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.”