“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.
Chapter Ten
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 lclass="underline" 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 lclass="underline" 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.