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That particular Saturday morning Reilly arrived early bearing a box of warm donuts for their breakfast and whistling off-key. Ryan took one look at the devilish twinkle in his brother’s eyes and raised a sardonic brow.
“You’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning. Don’t tell me you actually got a decent night’s sleep for a change. What’s the matter? Get stood up?”
Reilly grinned. “Hardly. If you want to know, I spent last evening with a dynamite gal. You ought to try it sometime, Hoss. Does wonders for your outlook. As a matter of fact, I know a fantastic lady I could fix you up with.”
“Forget it. When I want a woman I know where to find one. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with my outlook.”
“Wanna bet,” Reilly muttered, trailing his brother into the kitchen.
Between the three of them, the McCall men quickly devoured the whole box of donuts. A short time later they clattered down the stairs and headed for the parking lot amid laughter and good-natured jibes.
Just as they reached Ryan’s Jeep Cherokee, an older economy car towing a rental trailer pulled into the parking lot and sputtered to a stop a few feet away. Mike’s face lit up.
“Hey, look! It’s Mrs. Benson!”
Ryan groaned and tried to stop him but he was too late. His son rushed over to the car and leaned down beside the driver’s window before the woman could kill the engine.
“Hi, Mrs. Benson. Ms. Sutherland,” Mike added, sparing the woman in the passenger seat a quick glance. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.” Grinning, he glanced over his shoulder and motioned eagerly to his father and uncle. “C’mere’n meet Mrs. Benson, Dad. You too, Uncle Reilly.”
Ryan gritted his teeth, but he had no choice. Reilly, who needed no second urging where women were concerned, was already sauntering toward the car. Ryan followed him reluctantly.
Beaming, Mike made the introductions.
“I’m delighted to meet you,” the woman behind the wheel said, smiling up at Ryan. “And please, do call me Tess. We’re neighbors now, after all.”
Ignoring her outstretched hand, Ryan responded with a curt nod, then deliberately looked away, his expression stony.
Whatever his greeting lacked in courtesy, his brother’s more than made up for in charm. With a hand braced on the car door Reilly leaned down and flashed his most devastating smile. “Morning, ladies.” His gaze slid back and forth between the two women, and he sighed dramatically. “I swear, it just isn’t fair. This brother of mine has always had the devil’s own luck. Imagine having two beauties like you move in right next door. Nothing like that ever happens to me.”
“Oh, brother.” Rolling her eyes, Amanda gave a disgusted snort and scooted down in her seat. Arms crossed tightly beneath her breasts, she stared straight ahead.
Tess’s uncertain gaze flickered from Ryan’s rigid face to his brother’s smiling one. “Uh…I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Mr. McCall—”
“Reilly,” he insisted with an affable grin.
“Uh…Reilly. You see, I’m the only one who’ll be living here. Amanda is merely giving me a hand.”
“Really. Hey, in that case, perhaps I can talk your friend into moving into my building?”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Amanda muttered, but she didn’t deign to look at him.
Reilly grinned. His eyes twinkled as they roved over Amanda’s stiff profile. “Say aren’t you…Of course! Amanda Sutherland. I thought you looked familiar. You’re a roving reporter for Channel Five, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m a big fan. Maybe we can get together sometime so I can tell you how much I admire your work. Say…over dinner tonight?”
Amanda cut her eyes around, giving him a look that would have shriveled most men. Reilly McCall’s grin widened.
“I’m busy.”
“How about tomorrow night?”
“No.”
“The night after that?”
Amanda shook her head.
Ryan shifted impatiently and made a point of checking his watch. “The woman’s not interested, Reilly, so count yourself lucky and come on. We have to get to the park.” He gave Tess another curt nod and turned and walked back to his own car without another word.
“It was nice meeting you,” Tess called after him, but his only response was to yell to his son to shake a leg.
Crestfallen, Mike gazed after his father. He sent Tess an apologetic look. “Gee, I’m sorry, Mrs. Benson. Dad doesn’t really mean to be rude. He’s got a lot on his mind, is all.”
“That’s all right, Mike. I understand.”
His father hollered again, and Mike darted away toward the Cherokee. “Don’t forget,” he called back over his shoulder. “I’ll be over as soon as the game ends.”
He had barely tumbled into the back seat when his father reversed out of the parking space and sent the utility vehicle shooting out of the lot.
Ryan’s expression did not encourage conversation, but Mike was too upset to care.
“Shoot, Dad. Why’d you have to go and act that way to Tess?” he demanded glumly.
“Yeah, Hoss.” Reilly’s eyes twinkled with devilment. “I’d like to know that, too. You were a real jerk back there. If a looker like Tess Benson moved into my building I sure wouldn’t bite her head off. I’d woo her with soft words and flowers.” He waggled his eyebrows. “You’d be surprised how far a little sweet talk can get you.”
“Ah, knock it off, Uncle Reilly,” Mike snapped, surprising both men. “Tess isn’t that kind of woman.”
“Hey, Mike…buddy. What gives? I didn’t mean any—”
“Oh, just forget it.” Flouncing back in the seat, Mike stared out the window, his young face sulky.
The two brothers exchanged a baffled look and fell silent.
Mike didn’t say a word all the way to the ball park, but he was never able to stay angry for long. When they arrived and he spotted his teammates he let out a whoop and rushed off to greet them, his pique forgotten.
“Now, what do you suppose that was all about?” Reilly mused.
Ryan stared after his son, a worried frown drawing his thick eyebrows together. “Beats me.”
For several seconds the two women sat in Tess’s car, staring after the McCalls’ departing vehicle.
“Well,” Amanda huffed. “He certainly won’t win the good neighbor award. That man’s about as warm and friendly as a coiled rattlesnake. Who would’ve guessed that a sweet boy like Mike would have a father like that.”
“He was rather abrupt.”
“Abrupt! The man was downright rude.”
“Yes…well…maybe we shouldn’t be too quick to judge him. It could be that he’s just having a bad day or something.”
Amanda groaned and rolled her eyes. “I swear, Tess Benson, you are the most tolerant, good-natured, incurably optimistic person I’ve ever known. It’s disgusting. The man is mannerless and abrasive. He’s got the personality of coarse-grit sandpaper, for heaven’s sake.”
Tess laughed. “Maybe. Or maybe he’s simply got problems right now. Or maybe he’s just in a bad mood. We all have days when we’re mad at the world and would just as soon people stayed away. Since I’m going to be living next door to the man I’d prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“You would,” Amanda muttered.
The rumble of a diesel engine and the squeal and hiss of air brakes announced the arrival of the moving van. The long tractor-trailer rig lumbered into the parking lot and rolled to a stop beside the car.
Tess looked up at the apartment building, and drew a deep breath. “I guess it’s time to get started. This stuff won’t get unloaded by itself.” With a determined sigh, she reached for the door handle and slowly, awkwardly, hauled her very pregnant body out of the car.
Four hours later, Tess stood in the kitchen of her new apartment, knee-deep in boxes, wadded newspaper and bubble pack, wearily rubbing her aching back.
“Where ya want me to put this one, Mrs. Benson?”
She looked around in time to see Mike come through the front door, staggering under the weight of the carton he carried. The thirteen-year-old was sweating profusely, and the tendons in his neck and underdeveloped arms were corded and straining.
“Mike! You shouldn’t carry something that heavy up the stairs all by yourself! Here, let me help.”
From the look of horror on his young face you would have thought Tess had suggested she bench-press five hundred pounds. He clutched the carton tighter and held it out of her reach when she came around the end of the bar. “No! You can’t do that!”
“The kid’s right.” Amanda sauntered in through the open doorway carrying a half dozen clothes-filled hangers hooked over each shoulder. “In your condition, you haven’t any business trying to manage something that heavy.”
“But—”
“I can handle it, Mrs. Benson. Honest. Just tell me where you want it.”
“C’mon, sweetie, follow me. I’ll show you.” With a don’t you-dare-say-a-word look for Tess, Amanda maneuvered through the maze of boxes and jumbled furniture with her unhurried, hip-swaying walk and led the boy out of the room.
Tess watched them go, feeling properly chastised and more than a little useless.
“How about it, Mike? Whaddaya say we take a lemonade break,” Amanda suggested a minute later, when she and Mike returned.
“No thanks, Ms. Sutherland. But you go ahead. There’re just a few more boxes left in the trailer. I’ll get ’em while you rest. They’re too heavy for you to carry anyway.”
“Now there goes one heck of a nice kid,” Amanda drawled, hitching herself up onto a stool beside the bar.
“Yes, he is. But I’m afraid we’re taking advantage of him.”
“Are you kidding! He’s having a ball. Look, Tess, trust me on this. If there is one thing I know, it’s the male animal. The early teens are tough on a boy. Their hormones are just beginning to bubble and they’re filled with all kinds of doubt and anxiety about their budding masculinity. Believe me, lending a hand to two women makes Mike feel manly and strong.”
“Still…I could have helped. I’m not an invalid you know.”
“No. But you’re too far along to be doing any lifting and toting. And remember, when I let you talk me into this, our agreement was that you would leave all that to me. With Mike helping there is even less reason for you to concern yourself. We can take care of the heavy stuff. You just unpack boxes.”
Tess made a face, but she didn’t argue—not when Amanda used that tone.
As her friend drank her lemonade, Tess studied her, bemused. Amanda wore a pink tank top and skimpy white shorts that showed off her spectacular leggy figure. Her lioness mane of streaked blond hair was piled atop her head and twisted into a loose knot. Her appearance today was not quite that of the sharp sophisticate seen daily on television reporting local news events, but despite the heat and humidity and hours spent in sweaty, back-breaking work, Amanda still managed to look elegant. She made Tess feel like a beached whale. An exhausted, washed-out beached whale.
They had been best friends since grade school. Even then Amanda had been a beauty, exuding an innate female magnetism that not even obnoxious six-year-old boys had been able to resist. With the passage of time her allure had merely grown stronger. The combination of keen intelligence, stunning looks and an aura of sultry sensuality continued to draw males like flies to honey.
For the same reasons, most females felt threatened by Amanda. For Tess, however, her friend’s looks and appeal had never been a problem. Tess had been the only child of adoring parents who had showered her with love and attention and made her feel special and confident of her own worth.
Not that she wasn’t aware of her shortcomings. Tess knew full well that she was at best attractive, in a girl-next-door sort of way. Her shoulder-length hair was carroty, that aggravating shade between red and blond that was both, yet neither. Unfortunately, she had the fair skin that went with it, the kind that never tanned but turned lobster red when exposed to the sun for even a modest period of time.
Even now, at twenty-nine, Tess had a splattering of freckles across the bridge of her short, slightly turned-up nose. Her mouth was just a little too wide, her chin just a bit too firm for her heart-shaped face. Her only claim to real beauty was her eyes. Big and wide set, they were the color of mellow whiskey and surrounded by long, dark brown lashes, which Tess considered a minor miracle, considering her fair coloring.
Though far from being a drop-dead gorgeous femme fatale, Tess had long ago discovered that there were plenty of men around who preferred the wholesome type. Certainly, she had never lacked for male attention, not even when out with Amanda.
Amanda fished an ice cube out of her glass and popped it into her mouth, crunching it with her teeth. “I still don’t like the idea of you living here alone, you know,” she muttered around the icy chunks. “I don’t see why you don’t just come and live with me.”
“Amanda, we’ve been all through this. I appreciate the offer. Truly I do. But surely you can see it would never work. You’re not accustomed to children. I don’t think you have any idea of how completely a baby takes over your life. And anyway, you know you like living alone, not having to accommodate anyone else. As much as I love you, you have to admit, we have completely different life-styles. Believe me, for the sake of our friendship, it’s much better this way.”
Besides, not in her wildest dreams could Tess imagine raising a baby in Amanda’s chic mauve and gray condo among all that modern chrome-and-glass furniture. Her own tastes tended toward old-fashioned patchwork quilts, needlepoint pillows and homey antiques.
“Maybe you’re right,” Amanda conceded grudgingly. Pulverizing another ice cube, she sniffed the air. “What smells so good?”
“A casserole. I knew by the time we finished unloading we’d be too tired to cook or go out to eat so I prepared it last night. There’s a salad and a jug of iced tea in the fridge to go with it.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Gawd, but you’re domestic. If ever a woman was meant to be a wife and mother it’s you.”
Pain stabbed at Tess.
Seeing her stricken expression, Amanda grimaced. “Oh, Lord, Tess, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. That was a stupid, thoughtless thing to say. Me and my big mouth. When will I ever learn to think before I speak? I should have—”
“It’s all right, Amanda. Really. I don’t expect you to tiptoe around me forever. I have to accept that Tom is gone. Anyway…” She patted the rounded mound beneath her oversize shirt. “I may not be a wife anymore but at least I am going to be a mommy soon.” With a determined smile, she opened another box and began unwrapping a set of hand-blown tumblers.
Mike came and went several more times, hauling in the last of the items from the trailer. When finished, he returned to the living room and looked at Tess over the bar, shifting from one foot to another. “I’m all done, Mrs. Benson. The trailer is empty. What do you want me to do now?”
“Oh, Mike, you’ve done more than enough already. You’ve been a tremendous help. I don’t know how we would have managed without you. But I certainly don’t expect you to do more.”
The boy flushed to the tips of his ears but looked enormously pleased. “That’s okay. I want to. Honest.”
“But won’t your parents be expecting you home for dinner soon?”
“Naw. Anyway, my folks are divorced, so it’s just me’n my dad. He decided since I was going to lend you a hand he’d catch up on some stuff at the job site tonight. When he works late, I usually just zap a frozen pizza in the microwave.”
“In that case, why don’t you join Ms. Sutherland and me for dinner? There’s plenty, and it’s the least I can do after all your hard work.”
Mike’s face lit up. “Hey, that’d be great!”
A short while later when they sat down to eat he nearly tripped over his own feet in his rush to hold out Tess’s chair for her.
She bit back a smile. It had been the same all day. Mike treated her as though she were made of fine china. Since introducing himself the evening before and volunteering to help, he had insisted on doing all the heavy work and had fetched and carried and hovered over her like a mother hen. Tess found his awkward attempts at gallantry sweet and endearing.
She wondered, though, if he had ever been around a pregnant woman before. He seemed fascinated by her condition. Several times she had caught him watching her, the look in his eyes a mixture of awe, curiosity and terror.
Mike devoured his food, eating with more gusto and appreciation than the simple meal merited. “Man, this is super,” he exclaimed, digging into a third plateful. “You’re a terrific cook, Mrs. Benson. I haven’t eaten anything this good since the last time I visited my Grandma McCall in Crockett.”
