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“I know better than that.” Steve experienced a twinge of guilt. He hadn’t intentionally asked his nine-year-old if his mother was dating. Kenny had been talking about joining a softball team in the spring, all excited about playing shortstop. He’d wanted his mother to toss him a few balls, he’d told Steve, but she couldn’t because she was getting ready for a date. The kid had Steve’s full attention at that point. It hadn’t taken much to get Kenny to tell him Mary Lynn was seeing Kip somebody or other.
What the hell kind of name was Kip, anyway? Sounded like a guy who traipsed around in ballet slippers.
“So, what’d you find out?”
Steve ignored the question. He didn’t like thinking about Mary Lynn dating another man, let alone talking about it. What had happened between them was painful even now, a full year after their divorce. An idea struck him suddenly, and he marveled at the genius of it. “I wonder if Mary Lynn might consider filling in here at the office until I can hire another secretary.”
“She hates it here,” Todd muttered. He sipped his coffee, seeming to savor every drop. “You know that.”
What his friend said was true, but Steve welcomed the opportunity to spend time with her. She might even tell him about Kip. “It couldn’t hurt to ask,” he returned, sorry now that he’d said anything to Todd.
“You’re divorced.”
“Thanks, I guess I must’ve forgotten.” Steve glared at him, hoping his sarcasm hit its mark.
“It’s time to move on, old buddy. Mary Lynn has.”
Steve rose abruptly from his chair. “Shouldn’t you get to work?”
“All right, so I touched a raw nerve. No reason to bite my head off.” Todd hurried back to the shop, and Steve swallowed his irritation. Damn it, he still loved Mary Lynn. No one had told him how painful this divorce business would be.
They’d been married twelve years and fool that he was, Steve had assumed they were happy. Then, one day out of the blue, Mary Lynn had started crying. When he’d tried to find out what was wrong, she couldn’t say—except that she was unhappy. They’d married too young, she’d missed out on all the fun, all the carefree years, and now here she was, stuck with a husband, kids, responsibilities. Steve tried to understand her concerns, but everything he said and did only made matters worse. The thing that really got him was her claim that she’d never had her own bedroom. As it turned out, that was more important than he’d realized, because she asked him to move out of theirs shortly afterward.
Steve had called her bluff, firmly believing it was a bluff. He’d voluntarily moved out of the house, thinking that would help her “find herself,” something she apparently couldn’t do with him there. She needed to make contact with her “inner child,” become “empowered” or some other such garbage. Okay, maybe he wasn’t the most sensitive man in the world. She became incensed when he suggested she was watching too many of those daytime talk shows. Then, a month or so after he’d left, Mary Lynn shocked him by asking for a divorce. Before he could fully comprehend what was happening, they’d each hired lawyers and were soon standing in front of a judge.
By that time, with attorneys involved, things had gotten heated, and he and Mary Lynn were more at odds than ever. It’d taken over a year to even start repairing the damage the attorneys and courts had done. He was sick of living apart from his family. He wanted his wife back.
Never mind what Todd had said—he would ask Mary Lynn to fill in for Danielle. Just until he could hire another secretary. Just until he could convince her that being apart was pure insanity.
Feeling pleased with himself, he reached for the phone. Mary Lynn answered on the third ring. “Hello,” she murmured groggily.
She never had been much of a morning person. “Hi. It’s Steve.”
“Steve. Good grief, what time is it?”
“Nine.”
“Already?”
He could hear her rustling the sheets in an effort to sit up. During their marriage, he’d loved waking her, having her cuddle against him all soft and warm and feminine, smelling of some exotic flower. Their best loving had been in the mornings.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, and yawned loudly.
“Nothing. Well, my secretary quit.”
She went very quiet, and he could almost hear her resentment over the telephone line. “I don’t type, Steve, you know that.”
After all those years together, Mary Lynn could read him like a book. He took a certain perverse pride in that. “I need someone to fill in for a few days until I can hire a new secretary.”
“What about getting a temporary?”
“Sure, I could call an agency and they’d send someone out, but I’d rather give you the money.”
“I’ve got school. It isn’t easy for me attending classes all afternoon plus keeping up with the kids and the house, you know.”
“I realize that, but it’d help me out considerably if you came in for a couple of days, just in the mornings. That’s all I’m asking.” Since paying for her education had been part of the settlement, he was well aware of her schedule.
“You always say that!” she snapped.
“What?” This conversation was quickly taking on the same tone as their arguments before the divorce. He’d say or do something that irritated her, and for the life of him, he wouldn’t understand what he’d done.
“You say you realize how difficult my schedule is. You don’t.”
“I do, honest.”
“If you did, you’d never ask me to pitch in while you take your own sweet time finding a new secretary. I know you, Steve Marris. Two days’ll become two weeks and I won’t be able to keep up with my classes. That’s what you really want, whether you know it or not. You’re trying to sabotage my schoolwork.”
Steve choked back an argument. “I understand how important your classes are,” he said. And he did. What he failed to understand was why her getting an education precluded being married to him. Not only that, he wondered what she intended to do with a major in art history. Get a job in some museum, he supposed—if there were any jobs to be had. But he certainly couldn’t say that to her.
“Do you really, Steve?”
“Yes,” he said, still struggling to show his respect for her efforts. “It’s just that I thought since your classes don’t start until one, you might be willing to help out, but if you can’t, you can’t.”
She hesitated and he closed in for the kill.
“All I need is a couple of hours in the morning. And like I said, if you can’t do it, that’s fine. No hard feelings.”
“Do you realize how much reading I have, how many assignments?”
“You’re right, I never should have asked. I guess that’s been the problem all along, hasn’t it?”
“Yes,” she agreed sharply. Then there was a pause. And a sigh. “I guess I could fill in for a couple of days, but no longer. I want to make that perfectly clear. Two days and not a minute longer, understand?”
“Perfectly.” Steve wanted to leap up and click his heels in the air. Calling Mary Lynn had been one of his better ideas. He was confident it wouldn’t take long to make her forget all about this other guy.
“I hope you don’t want me there before eight?”
He let the question slide. “You’re wearing the pink nightie, aren’t you?”
“Steve!”
“Aren’t you?” His voice grew husky despite his attempts to keep it even. Some of their best sex had come after the divorce. It was so crazy. Mary Lynn wanted him out of the house but continued to welcome him in her bed. Not that he was complaining.
“Yes, I’m wearing your favorite nightie,” she whispered, her voice low and sexy.
Slowly his eyes drifted shut. “I’m coming over.”
“Steve, no. I can’t. We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because we shouldn’t.”
Steve was instantly suspicious, convinced her decision had something to do with what Kenny had told him. “Why?”
“We’re divorced, remember?”
“It hasn’t stopped us before. I could be at the house in fifteen minutes. You want me there, otherwise you’d never have told me about the pink nightie.”
Mary Lynn giggled, then altered her tone. “Steve, no, I mean it,” she said solemnly. “We’ve been divorced for a year now. We shouldn’t be sleeping together anymore.”
His jaw tightened. “When did you make that decision?”
“Since the last time.”
He exhaled, his patience fading fast. He did a quick review of their last rendezvous. It’d been late morning, before her classes and while the kids were in school. He’d invented some excuse to stop over. Mary Lynn knew what he wanted, and from the gleam in her eye and the eager way she’d led him into the bedroom, she’d wanted the same thing.
He couldn’t imagine what had changed, other than her dating this Kip character. Unfortunately he couldn’t ask her about it or let on that he knew. The last thing he wanted was to put his children in the middle, between two squabbling parents, something he’d seen other divorced couples do all too often. The divorce had been hard enough on Meagan and Kenny without complicating the situation. So their private lives, his and Mary Lynn’s, would stay that way—private. At least as far as the kids were concerned.
“What happened to change your mind about us sleeping together?” he asked, instead.
Mary Lynn sighed. “Nothing. Everything. We have to break this off. It’s over for us, Steve.”
Steve didn’t say anything. He knew his wife—ex-wife—well enough not to argue. Something else he knew about Mary Lynn—she possessed a healthy sexual appetite. As strong as his own.
“You’ll be here in the morning, then?” he said, just to be sure.
“I suppose. But remember I agreed to two days, and two days only.”
“Bring along the pink nightie.”
“Steve!”
“Sorry,” he murmured, but he wasn’t.
He hung up the phone a few moments later, his mood greatly improved.
The rest of his day was relatively smooth. The transport company located the lost shipment in Albuquerque. The parts were guaranteed to be delivered within the next forty-eight hours. The majority of his orders came from a major aircraft builder in the area, for whom he supplied engine mounts, but he also did lathe work, blanchard grinding and other steel-fabrication work for a number of customers. His company was growing, taking on larger and larger orders, and he employed almost a dozen people now.
On the drive home that afternoon, Steve’s gaze fell on his hands—clean hands—gripping the steering wheel. He used to have grease under his fingernails, and that had always bothered Mary Lynn. The irony didn’t escape him. The last year and a half, he’d spent the majority of his time in the office and rarely dirtied his hands. She’d always wanted him to have a white-collar job; when he was finally able to grant her wish, she wanted him out of her life. Damn it all, the machine shop had been good to them—it had bought her house, supported the kids, paid for her education. A little grime around his fingernails seemed a small inconvenience.
The January drizzle grew heavier, and the truck’s windshield wipers beat against the glass, slapping the rain from side to side with annoying regularity. He exited the freeway and headed down the west hill toward Kent. He hadn’t been keen to buy the condominium. If he’d had a choice, he’d be moving back in with his family, but it was going to take longer than he’d first thought for that to happen.
He probably wouldn’t have moved into this complex if he hadn’t grown tired of apartment living. A small apartment was no place for kids, and Meagan and Kenny spent almost every weekend with him.
He would have preferred a real house but living on his own, he didn’t want the bother that went along with it. The condo was a decent compromise. A friend who sold real estate had convinced him it was a good investment. In addition, the builders were offering an attractive buyer-incentive program. The condo was just as nice as the house Mary Lynn and the kids lived in. Not quite as big, but that was okay. The kids liked it, and they’d managed to make friends with his next-door neighbor in short order too, he mused, as he switched off his windshield wipers. The rain had tapered off to almost nothing.
Steve hadn’t met Hallie yet—Meagan had told him her name. From what he’d seen of her, she was an exercise freak. His kitchen window overlooked her living room, and she had a treadmill set up there, alongside one of those stair-stepping machines. Every time he caught a glimpse of her she was working out. She didn’t seem to be enjoying herself, either.
Steve turned into the Willow Woods complex and stopped in front of the two rows of mailboxes aligned at the entrance. It wasn’t until he climbed out of the truck that he saw her. Hallie stood in front of her mailbox studying a large envelope as if she wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“Howdy, neighbor,” he greeted her, inserting the key into his mailbox.
Startled, she looked up. “Hello.”
“Steve Marris.” He thrust out his hand. “I moved in next door this past weekend.”
She blinked a couple of times. “You’re Meagan and Kenny’s dad.”
“That’s me.”
“Hallie McCarthy.” She placed her hand in his. “Nice to meet you.”
“Same here.”
“You’ve got two terrific kids.”
“Thanks,” he said, and smiled. He felt that way, too.
With a nervous motion, Hallie glanced down at the envelope she still held, then shoved it into her purse. “Well, uh, Steve, I have to go. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again.”
Steve had caught the logo on the envelope. Dateline. He’d heard plenty about the pricey exclusive dating service. Shortly after the divorce, a well-meaning friend had tried to talk him into signing up, but he’d recoiled at the idea of paying two thousand bucks for a date. He’d have to be a whole lot more desperate than he was now before he’d even consider it.
Hallie raised her head just then. “I…A friend suggested I write for information,” she blurted. Her cheeks had turned a bright shade of pink. “I’d never…” She paused, squared her shoulders and gave him a smile that was decidedly forced. “I want you to know I don’t need any help finding a man.” Head high, with a dignity Princess Diana would have envied, Hallie McCarthy walked to her car. However, the speed with which she drove off kind of spoiled the effect.
Watching her leave, Steve slowly shook his head. Maybe he should steer the kids away from her. She seemed nice enough, but a little on the weird side.
Three
Seven Down, Three To Go
A rare burst of February sunshine showered Puget Sound, and after weeks of being cooped up inside for her daily exercise routine, Hallie decided to take advantage of this respite from the rain. She donned one of the three coordinated running outfits she’d purchased; it was a lovely teal green with a hot pink racing stripe up the outside of the legs and a geometrical design decorating the zippered jacket. If nothing else, Hallie knew she looked great—and she felt great. Seven of those ten unwanted pounds had vanished. Not without considerable effort, however.
She wasn’t entirely confident that those pounds were gone for good. Were they hiding around the corner, waiting for her to lower her guard? One day away from the treadmill or succumbing to the temptation of a chocolate-chip cookie and they’d be back. Which was why she’d been so rigorous about her diet and exercise regimen. Three pounds to go, and she’d weigh the same as she had at her high-school graduation, more years ago than she cared to remember.
Goal weight. What perfectly lovely words they were.
She hoped she’d manage to achieve it before Valentine’s Day. She’d set the target date back in January, giving herself ample time to reach her physical best. Already she’d let a few select friends—the ones who’d wanted to line her up with their single brothers, unattached male acquaintances and recently divorced colleagues—know she was in the market for a meaningful long-term relationship. She hadn’t heard back yet, but it was still early.
She opened the front door and stepped into the welcome sunshine. It didn’t take long to realize she wasn’t the only one outside enjoying the warmth.
Her next-door neighbor and his son were playing catch in the front yard. She was afraid she’d started off on the wrong foot with Steve Marris, but wasn’t sure how to correct that. Of all the rotten luck for him to see the envelope from Dateline! Her mistake had been not keeping her mouth shut. Oh, no, that would have been too easy. She had to go and blurt out some stupid, embarrassing remark. She wanted to groan every time she thought of it.
“Hi, Hallie.”
Steve’s daughter raced over to her. With no other kids around her age, Hallie thought, Meagan must get restless spending weekends with her father.
“Howdy, kiddo. What’re you up to?”
