Smitten

  Jason bit into his lower lip. “Can I bring my bear?”

  Paul looked to Lizabeth. “His bear?”

  “You remember, the fuzzy brown teddy bear he takes to bed. Woobie.”

  “You won’t be needing Woobie,” Paul said to Jason. “You’ll have better things to occupy your mind.”

  Jason pressed his lips together and scowled. “I’m not going without Woobie.”

  Paul shot Lizabeth a look that said his suspicions had been confirmed. She was a total failure as a mother.

  “Of course you can take Woobie,” Elsie said. “And I’ll take care of him for you when you go off to them fancy tennis lessons.”

  Kane raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Elsie said. “I’m not charging Lizabeth anything for being nursemaid, and I won’t charge you neither.”

  “I don’t need a nursemaid…”

  “Of course you need a nursemaid. An eight-year-old needs constant supervision. You gonna watch him twenty-four hours a day so he don’t nail your shoes to the floor? And more than that, you’re not taking these kids out of the house without me. I agreed to take care of them for the summer, and that’s what I aim to do.”

  “Suppose I refuse to take you.”

  Elsie narrowed her eyes. “Then I get in my Caddy, and I drive to that ritzy house you got in Virginia, and I sit on the lawn until the police come to take me away. I imagine that’ll be pretty newsworthy. If I sit on that lawn long enough I might make Good Morning America.”

  Kane considered it for a moment. “I suppose a live-in babysitter wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  Elsie plunked a fresh-baked apple pie on the table. “You help yourself to some pie, and I’ll get us all packed up.”

  Chapter 7

  Lizabeth sat on her front porch and watched the sun set behind Noogie Newsome’s house. She cast a disparaging glance at the tent caterpillars in the Newsomes’ crab apple tree and clucked her tongue at the rusted antenna that halfheartedly clung to the Newsomes’ chimney.

  “Sunsets aren’t what they used to be,” she said with a sigh.

  Matt cocked an eyebrow. “What did they used to be?”

  “Pretty. They used to be pretty.” She hunched forward, elbows on knees, chin resting on her hands. “Who wants to see the sun setting behind the Newsomes’ ugly old TV antenna?”

  “Honey, the sun always sets behind the Newsomes’ TV antenna.”

  “Yes, but I never had time to watch it set before. I never realized how ugly it is.”

  Matt patted her on the knee and continued to scratch the top of Ferguson’s head.

  “And it’s boring in this neighborhood. People grow grass as an intellectual pursuit,” Lizabeth said.

  “It’s not such a bad neighborhood.”

  “Sure, it’s fine if you have kids and they keep you busy. Then you don’t have time to be grossed out by lawn fungus.”

  “Lizabeth, the kids have only been gone for a half hour.”

  “You think they’ll be okay?”

  It was the four hundredth time she’d asked that since Paul had left with Jason and Billy. Matt answered it just as he always did. “They’ll be fine. Elsie’s with them.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said morosely. She stared at the Newsomes’ chimney, and a tear squeezed out of her eye and trickled down her cheek. “I hate that damn TV antenna.”

  Matt wiped the tear away and gathered her to him. “We need to take your mind off this antenna stuff. We need recreation.”

  “I don’t want to leave the house,” Lizabeth said softly. “Elsie said she’d call when they got to Richmond.”

  “Your answering machine will take the message.”

  “I don’t have an answering machine.”

  “Oh. Well then, how about if we rent a DVD?”

  “I don’t have a DVD player.”

  Ferguson sank his teeth into Matt’s shirtsleeve and gave it a yank. Matt stuck his finger through the hole Ferguson had made and scowled. “Forget it. I’m not scratching your head anymore.”

  “It’s my fault,” Lizabeth said. “He always gets grumpy when I get grumpy. He’s very sensitive.”

  Matt thought Ferguson was about as sensitive as a brick. “All right, you and Ferguson stay here, and I’ll see what I can do about the evening’s entertainment.”

  “No mud wrestlers, please.”

  He left on the motorcycle, but he returned in the truck. Lizabeth looked at the boxes and quilted bundles in the back of the pickup. “What is all this? It looks like laundry.”

  “It’s stuff from my house. I figure it’ll get more use over here.”

  She grabbed a box and trailed after him. He’d brought a DVD player, a telephone answering machine, his popcorn popper, two boxes of movies, a box full of junk food, a Monopoly game that looked like it had been run over by a semi, a huge jug of red wine, and a small paper bag that Lizabeth discovered contained three packages of condoms—thirty-six in all.

  Matt looked at his cache of goodies. “This should keep us busy.”

  Lizabeth held the little bag between thumb and forefinger. “Thirty-six?”

  “You think I underestimated?”

  “You weren’t planning on using them all tonight, were you?”

  “I must look like Super Stud. The check-out lady asked me the same thing.” He carried the DVD player into the living room and hooked it up to Lizabeth’s television. “I brought some movies I had at home. One box is blood and guts, and the other is general entertainment.”

  Lizabeth noticed the general-entertainment box was much smaller than the blood-and-guts box. She hated violence, and, as a mother, felt a strong obligation to discourage its glorification. She didn’t want murder and mayhem to seem like everyday events to her children.

  “Matt, suppose we eventually got married, and Jason wanted to watch something from the blood-and-guts box?”

  “I’d say no. Then he’d probably whine and cry and say Noogie Newsome got to watch blood-and-guts movies, and if blood-and-guts movies were so bad, then why did I have a whole big box of them?”

  “Would that change your mind about letting him watch blood and guts?”

  “No, but I’d feel like a real crumb.”

  “Suppose Jason wanted a tattoo?”

  “No tattoos. Tattoos are dumb. I don’t want my son having pierced ears either.” He carted the popcorn maker into the kitchen and took a jar of popcorn out of the junk-food box.

  Lizabeth smiled to herself. She’d been worried about nothing. He had answered all the questions correctly. “And motorcycles! What if your son wanted a motorcycle?”

  “Man, that would be great! We could go biking together.”

  She dropped a chunk of butter into a saucepan and put the pan on the stove. There were lots worse things than motorcycles, she told herself. Drugs, rabid bats, cholera. And it wasn’t as if she and Matt were getting married tomorrow. They were merely lovers, and lovers were allowed some eccentricities.

  What a bunch of baloney! Her feelings for Matt were strong and deep. The thought of having a brief romance with him held absolutely no appeal. They weren’t merely lovers. They were in love, and they were tiptoeing around marriage. At least she was tiptoeing, Lizabeth thought. Matt was stomping straight ahead. Matt could afford to stomp straight ahead. He didn’t have two children to consider.

  A lump suddenly formed in her throat, and her vision blurred. She missed Jason and Billy. They’d been the focal point of her life for ten years, and she felt bereft without them. Boy, was this ever dumb, she thought. She was really being a dope. The lump got larger.

  Matt recognized the look of utter despair and guessed at its origin. He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her forehead. “They’re going to be fine,” he murmured, praying she didn’t burst into tears, because he’d probably cry right along with her.

  He didn’t completely understand this business of motherhood, but he was beginning to feel the pow
er of it. And he was relieved to discover his own capacity for love. There had been a lot of years when he wondered if he had the emotional makeup to be a father and husband. There’d been a lot of years when he’d worried about duplicating his own childhood. He now knew it had been nonsense. He was his own person. Different from his parents. His mistakes would be different, he thought ruefully. “Motherhood is hell, isn’t it?”

  She sniffed and tried to smile. “I’m being silly.”

  He hugged her closer. “I don’t think you’re silly. You love your kids. I think that’s terrific.”

  “It’s more than that.” She took the melted butter from the stove and set it on a hot pad. “My kids will survive two weeks with Paul. Elsie will shore up their trampled egos. They’ll learn how to swim and play tennis. The problem is me. I don’t know how to stop being a mother. My children are gone, and I don’t know how to entertain myself. This is a terrific opportunity for us to be alone and have some fun together, and all I can do is complain about the Newsomes’ TV antenna.”

  Matt poured the butter over the popcorn. “You’re being too hard on yourself. You just need some time to adjust. We’re going to sit down and watch a movie, and I bet by the time the movie’s over we’ll be having fun together.”

  He was right. By the time the movie was over they’d reduced the number of items in the little drugstore bag to thirty-four.

  Lizabeth came awake slowly, at first knowing only that she was hot and uncomfortable. Her bedroom window was wide-open, but the curtains hung sentinel-straight in the still air. Her hair stuck to the nape of her neck and perspiration pooled between her breasts. Matt was sprawled on top of her, a heavy leg thrown over hers, a possessive arm pinning her to the damp sheet. She tried to wriggle free, but the arm tightened. This would be wonderful at twenty degrees below zero, she thought, but tonight it was oppressive. Not only was he sweating on her, but something was poking into her side. She quickly identified the offending object. “Omigod.” She giggled. “Not again!”

  He mumbled in his sleep and half opened his eyes. “Hot.”

  Lizabeth gasped as his large hand roamed across her breast in exploration. Was he kidding? It had to be a hundred and forty degrees in the bedroom. It was the middle of the night, and she wasn’t even sure if he was awake.

  He pressed himself hard against her hip and groaned. “Is this a dream?” Then he answered himself. “No. Dreams don’t perspire.” He kissed her shoulder and moved his hand down her rib cage, across her belly, and lower.

  A minute ago she didn’t think she could get any warmer, but she’d been wrong! She swore at him for waking her up with his overheated body, and she swore at him for having such clever fingers.

  “Do you like it?” he asked.

  Yes, she liked it. She liked the way he took possession of her, and she liked her newfound capacity for passion. He knew the rhythm she liked. Knew how to drive her wild. And he knew how to satisfy her.

  They clung to each other for a long time afterward, too sated, too exhausted to care about damp sheets and record-breaking temperatures. A stone flicked at the window, but they didn’t hear it over their own heartbeats. Another stone hit, and Lizabeth opened her eyes.

  Maybe it was her imagination, she thought. He couldn’t possibly be back. Not after last night!

  The flashlight beam swept across her empty window. It was followed by several more stones.

  “Ignore him,” Matt said. “Elsie and the boys are gone. For all I care, he can stand naked in your backyard until he drops dead from starvation.”

  There was a period of silence, then another flurry of stones.

  Lizabeth sighed. “He’s persistent.”

  “An admirable quality, but he’ll have to flash himself tonight. I’m not getting out of this bed, and neither are you.”

  The light made a second pass over, followed by scuffling sounds. Lizabeth and Matt lay perfectly still, pretending a lack of interest, but listening intently. They heard the flasher give a small grunt right before a size ten Docksider came crashing through the top half of the bedroom window.

  Matt bolted out of bed. “That’s it! That’s the end of the line. No more Mister Nice Guy.” He flew out of the room and thundered down the stairs.

  Lizabeth followed after him, realized she was naked, and ran back for her robe. From the upstairs hall window she caught a glimpse of a naked man streaking across her lawn. Suddenly there was a lot of shouting. Red-and-blue flashing lights reflected off the stand of pine trees. And lights blinked on all over the neighborhood. Lizabeth raced through the house and out the back door. The police had a man on the ground, and neighbors were converging on her yard from all directions.

  “We’ve got him,” Officer Schmidt said. “We didn’t have anything better to do tonight, so we thought we’d stake out your yard, and it paid off!” The naked man was facedown in the dirt, and Schmidt’s knee was square in the middle of the man’s bare back.

  It was pitch-black, without so much as a sliver of a moon, but Lizabeth had enough light to recognize the long, muscular legs stretched out behind Schmidt. “You’ve done it again, you numskull!” she shouted at Schmidt. “That’s not the flasher. That’s Matt!”

  “Listen, lady, this guy was running through your yard in his birthday suit!”

  “Mmmm. Well, I could see where you might make a mistake, but this is Matt. He was chasing the flasher.”

  Schmidt removed his knee. “Sorry.” He looked around nervously. “Where’s the old lady? She isn’t running around in the buff, too, is she?”

  Matt stood and dusted himself off, and Lucille Wainstock gasped, and Emma Newsome giggled. Marvin Miller loaned Matt his robe, and Kathy White called Marvin a spoilsport.

  “Excuse me,” Bette Sliwicky said, “but I don’t understand about this second naked man. Not that I’m complaining, but if he isn’t a flasher, why doesn’t he have any clothes on?”

  Emma Newsome lapsed into a coughing fit.

  Just great, Lizabeth thought. Here she was recently divorced with two young children, and she had a naked man spending the night with her. This would do wonderful things for her reputation. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about being asked to run for president of the PTA.

  “I don’t have any clothes on because that’s the way I sleep…without clothes,” Matt said.

  “He ran out without thinking,” Lizabeth added. “The real flasher threw a shoe and broke my bedroom window, and so Matt jumped out of bed and um…”

  Did she just say that? Did she actually just tell these people Matt was sleeping naked in her bed?

  She imagined she heard the sound of several eyebrows being raised and gave herself a mental kick. Billy and Jason would pay for this. Word was going to get back to them that their mother was a loose woman. She tilted her nose up a fraction of an inch and pasted a smile on her face.

  “It just occurred to me that, with the possible exception of Officer Schmidt and Officer Dooley, none of you has been introduced to Matt. I’d like you all to meet Matt Hallahan, my husband.”

  There was a collective moment of silence. “Is this a new husband?” Emma Newsome finally asked.

  Matt put his arm around Lizabeth and hauled her to his side. “Yup,” he said, “I’m brand-new. We just got married yesterday.”

  “Is that the reason for the barbecue Saturday?” Emma Newsome asked. “It’s sort of a wedding reception. How nice!” She hugged Lizabeth. “I’m so happy for you.”

  Lucille Wainstock hugged Lizabeth, and so did Bette Sliwicky. Marvin Miller slapped Matt on the back. “You need an extra grill Saturday? I can drag mine over.”

  “Congratulations,” Officer Schmidt said to Matt. “You aren’t gonna have to live with Lead Foot, are you?”

  “She’s just here for the summer.”

  “If you’ll all excuse us,” Lizabeth said, “there are things I have to discuss with my husband.”

  Matt followed her into the house. He closed and locked the kitchen do
or and tried not to look too pleased over the fact that he was suddenly married. He knew Lizabeth well enough by now to recognize the slight tremor of fury in her voice. Her back was ramrod straight, and her eyes snapped at him in the dark kitchen. He had placed her in an awkward situation. He should probably apologize. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry? Sorry? That’s all you have to say? Sorry? Of all the stupid, moronic, thoughtless—”

  “Yeah, those cops are really dumb, aren’t they?”

  “Not the cops. You! You went charging out of the house with no clothes on. And then, as if that isn’t bad enough, you just stood there in front of the whole neighborhood, dusting yourself off.”

  “Well, what did you expect me to do? Go jumping around like an embarrassed teenager? I didn’t see that I had a whole lot of options. And anyway, how come I’m not getting any sympathy for being tackled by the Keystone Kops? Don’t you want to know if I skinned my…knee?”

  The borrowed robe was open, exposing a good six inches of his most vital parts from neck to knees. It was apparent he hadn’t skinned anything important, and she was finding it increasingly difficult to remember exactly why she was so angry.

  “You wouldn’t have gotten tackled if you hadn’t gone berserk. What about ‘ignore him and he’ll go away’?”

  “The man is a lunatic. He threw a shoe through your window.” Damned if women weren’t confusing. He’d risked life and limb to protect her from some yuppie pervert, and she was mad at him! He yanked the refrigerator door open and angrily peered inside. He found a small container of leftover potato salad and went in search of a fork.

  Lizabeth clenched her fists. “Stop clattering in the silverware when we’re having a discussion!”

  “I’m hungry. Let me tell you something: Being married to you leaves a lot to be desired.”

  Lizabeth stepped back as if she’d been slapped. He wasn’t the first man to tell her that. Paul had made her constantly aware of her inadequacies as a wife, and years of hurt and insecurity suddenly welled to the surface. She blinked back tears, thankful for the darkness.