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Nothing like performing under pressure, she thought, staring at Ben and praying for inspiration. Like a gift from heaven, it arrived.
She smiled, then bent over and swept everything off the right half of the coffee table. Books, magazines, the television remote control, three glasses that were, fortunately, empty and plastic, and a half-eaten sandwich. Ben looked startled. Good. Better to keep him off-balance.
She knelt in front of the coffee table and placed her elbow on the slick wooden surface. She flexed and released her hand. “You ready to back up that smart mouth with some action?” she asked, trying to sound confident and tough. This was all going to blow up in her face if he beat her.
“What are you talking about?”
“You and me. Right here. Right now.” She smiled. “Arm wrestling, Ben. If you win, you get to sit here and watch TV until you’re old and gray and your bones are dissolving. If I win, you do what I say. Starting with turning off the TV and coming with your brothers for a meeting.”
“Cool!” C.J. said. “You can beat him, Jill.”
Ben glared at his brother. “This is stupid,” he muttered.
But he wasn’t looking at the television anymore, Jill thought triumphantly. She shrugged. “Maybe. If you’re chicken.”
“I’m not chicken.”
Danny made a clucking noise.
“Shut up, brat.”
“I’m not a brat.”
“You’re a shrimpy brat.”
“Boys.” Jill spoke firmly. Both of them looked at her. She stared at Ben. “Put up or shut up, young man. Either you’re tough, or you’re not. Let’s find out.”
Those dark eyes stared at her. She tried to figure out what he was thinking, but along with his father’s good looks, Ben had inherited Craig’s ability to keep some of his thoughts to himself.
“If I win, I get to watch TV and I get five bucks.”
She thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. “If I win, you not only do what I say, but you give up TV for the weekend.”
Ben glanced at her right arm, then at her. “Deal.” He slid off the sofa and onto the carpet. After placing his elbow on the coffee table, he clasped her hand with his. C.J. and Danny moved closer.
“Come on, Jill, you can do it,” Danny said loudly. He ignored Ben’s glare.
Jill hoped the boy’s confidence in her was going to pay off. Since moving in with Kim, she’d started working out with light weights. She knew she was stronger than she had been, but was it enough? She knew very little about the strength of twelve-year-old boys. She could only hope that Ben’s inactive lifestyle gave her an advantage.
Her gaze locked with Ben’s. A flicker of uncertainty flashed through his eyes. She thought he might be a little afraid of winning. That would give him more power than most children would find comfortable. At least she liked to think so.
“C.J., you say go,” she said, and shifted on the carpet. Ben would probably go for the quick kill. If she could hold on during that, she might have a chance. If she could win, she would make it look hard, so Ben could save face.
Ah, the complications of dealing with a houseful of men, she thought. She leaned forward so she could have the maximum leverage and sucked in a breath.
“Go!” C.J. yelled.
Chapter Three (#ulink_610ad731-db14-5915-9a96-b2ae42ac4136)
Jill thought she’d prepared herself for the assault, but when it came, Ben nearly drove her hand into the table. She managed to keep him from slamming it down, but barely. She had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.
She didn’t look at him or either of the other boys. She focused all her attention on her arm, willing it to be strong.
She finally managed to get their hands back in an upright position. She pressed hard, and he gave. She risked glancing at him. She saw the panic on his face. He was about to be humiliated in front of his brothers.
Her heart went out to this stubborn, proud, overweight boy who probably endured the taunts of his classmates and the lack of confidence that went with not fitting in. She was torn between wanting to make him feel better and needing to establish a presence in the house. As she’d decided, if she could win, she would. But she wouldn’t make it look easy.
Her arm was shaking, but not as badly as Ben’s. They knelt there, with their arms perpendicular to the table.
“You gonna beat ‘im, Jill?” Danny asked, earning a glare from his oldest brother.
“I’m trying,” she said through gritted teeth. She moved slightly to the left, forcing his wrist down.
C.J. laughed. “Come on, Ben. She’s just a girl.”
“Then you try it,” Ben complained. “She’s stronger than she looks.”
“Lesson number one,” Jill said. “Never underestimate the power of a woman.”
With that she pressed the back of his hand down onto the wood. Both C.J. and Danny cheered. Ben released her fingers and rubbed his wrist as if it hurt.
“I thought I’d win for sure,” he said, then smiled sheepishly. In that moment, he looked exactly like his father. He was going to be a heartbreaker when he grew up, she thought. He leaned over, grabbed the remote control, turned off the television, then handed the clicker to her.
“Haynes men keep their word,” he said simply.
He sounded so serious. The words were those of a mature man, not a twelve-year-old boy. But the way he said them, she believed him.
“You’re being very gracious,” she said. She was surprised. She’d thought he would be a sore loser. One point for him, she thought, deciding that if he really cooperated with her today, she would let him watch a little TV tonight. She’d learned early on it paid to compromise.
“Okay, why don’t the three of you give me the nickel tour.”
Danny frowned. “We get a nickel if we give you a tour?”
“No, stupid. It’s just an expression.”
Apparently Ben’s magnanimous attitude didn’t extend to his brothers. “No name-calling, please.” She stood up and placed her hand on Danny’s shoulder. “But Ben is right. ‘Nickel tour’ is just an expression. It means to give someone a quick tour. Not a lot of details.”
“Oh, okay.”
C.J. looked at her and grinned. “Are you sure you want to see the rest of the house?”
She glanced at the piles of laundry by the door to the garage, then at the dishes in the kitchen. “Sure. How bad can it be?”
The three boys laughed together.
Fifteen minutes later, Jill didn’t feel like laughing. She wanted to turn tail and run. She didn’t understand how people could live under these conditions. It didn’t make sense. Didn’t anyone notice that virtually every possession was out of the cupboards, closets and drawers and on the floor?
She stood in the center of the upstairs hall, staring at C.J.’s room. “Doesn’t your dad make you pick up your stuff?” she asked.
“Oh, sure,” he told her. “All the time. He gets real mad if we don’t.”
“Then explain this.” She motioned to the toys, books, clothes and cassette tapes littering the room.
“He’s been gone.” C.J. gave her a charming smile. All three brothers were going to cut a swath through the female population when they got older. But for now they were just messy little boys.
There were four bedrooms upstairs. To the left was Craig’s. Not wanting to pry, she’d only peeked inside. She’d had a brief impression of large pieces of furniture and a bed that looked big enough to sleep six. Of course, she wasn’t even five foot two. To Craig the bed was probably just big enough. His room was relatively tidy, with only a few pieces of clothing tossed on the sofa facing the corner fireplace.
Next to his bedroom was a small alcove. There was a large desk with a computer and printer. Disks had been piled around the keyboard. On the wall was a bulletin board covered with computer-generated graphics.
Each boy had his own bedroom. First Danny’s, then C.J.’s, then Ben’s. The bathroom they shared was right next to the stairs. Jill glanced in each of the rooms and saw far more than she wanted to. Danny had toys piled everywhere, C.J. had tons of clothes scattered and Ben seemed to be storing half the plates and glasses on his floor. Aside from that, the three rooms were all identical, each with a twin bed, a dresser, a desk and a set of bookshelves attached to the wall.
“You’re all slobs,” she said, pausing outside their bathroom door. It was closed. She thought about opening it and looking inside, but then decided that some things were best left for professionals.
“We work hard at it,” C.J. said.
Danny moved next to her and touched her hand. “I’ll help you clean up.”
“Thanks, honey.”
Ben snorted. “The little shrimp’s already sucking up.”
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
“Excuse me,” Jill said loudly. “You’re all going to help me clean up. We’re going to do the laundry, pick up everything that doesn’t belong on the floor and do the dishes.”
There was a collective groan.
“I’m sorry,” Jill said. “But it’s your fault. If you’d chosen to live like civilized people instead of baboons—”
She knew the word was a mistake as soon as she said it. Instantly all three boys hunched over and started making monkey noises.
“Herds of the Serengeti, return to the family room,” she said over the din of their hooting.
They began the awkward shuffle down the stairs. Halfway there, the game changed and became a race. The in-line skates resting on the foyer floor created a hazard, but everyone avoided them.
“Where does the sports equipment go?” she asked.
“There’s a closet under the stairs,” C.J. told her.
She found the door and opened it. The storage space had a slanted ceiling, but the floor space of a small room. It was empty. “Ah, I see you like to keep it clean in here and not in the rest of the house. It makes perfect sense now. Why didn’t someone tell me?”
C.J. grinned, Danny giggled, even Ben forgot to scowl. Together, the four of them walked into the family room. Jill saw her suitcase sitting there. “Where do I sleep?” she asked, realizing she hadn’t seen a guest room.
“Here,” Danny said, pointing to a door at the far end of the family room.
She walked around him and stuck her head inside the cheerful bedroom. Big windows looked out onto the backyard. The white wicker furniture looked new. There was a bright yellow bedspread on the double bed, and she could see the entrance to her own private bath.
This was by far the cleanest part of the house.
“Dad says we’re not allowed in here,” Danny said. “Mrs. Miller lived here before she had to go away. Now you live here.”
Jill thought about pointing out the fact that her stay was temporary but figured the boys had been through enough today. Instead, she carried her suitcase into her room, then tried to figure out what should be done first.
“Danny and C.J., you two start sorting laundry.”
The boys stared at her blankly, identically confused expressions drawing their mouths into straight lines.
“Clothes,” she said, pointing to the piles around the laundry room and flowing into the hallway. “Sort them. By color. One pile for whites. One pile for darks, one for lights and another for jeans.”
A lock of medium brown hair fell across Danny’s forehead. He was the only one of the Haynes males she’d seen who didn’t have dark hair and eyes. “Those piles are going to be huge. They’re going to reach the ceiling.”
She looked at the mounds of clothing. “Oh, probably, but do the best you can. Ben, I’d like you to help me in the kitchen. We’re going to load the dishwasher and try to figure out what color the counters are.”
“I know what color they are,” C.J. said. “They’re white.”
She leaned over and wrapped an arm around his neck. Rubbing her knuckles against the top of his head, she said, “I know they’re white. I was just being funny.”
The boy giggled and wiggled, but didn’t move away. Her chest tightened in sympathy as she wondered when they had last been hugged by a woman. It couldn’t be easy growing up without a mom.
She released C.J. He and Danny went to work on the clothes. Ben followed her into the kitchen, and with only minor grumbling began loading the dishwasher. Jill sorted through cereal boxes, figuring out which were empty and which just needed to be put away. There were piles of food. Bread, chips, jars of salsa. A melted carton of ice cream had spilled on, then stuck to, the counter. She wet a cloth and set it over the mess. Maybe by that night it would have loosened up a little.
From the family room came muffled sounds of a battle being waged. C.J. and Danny were tossing more clothes than they were piling, but the work was getting done. Ben made the flatware dive-bomb the dishwasher. The childish sounds brought back memories of being with her two stepdaughters. She shoved the last box of cereal onto the top pantry shelf and wondered what they were doing now. Did they ever think of her or miss her? She still remembered how hard it had been to lose them. Even after her divorce from Aaron, she’d wanted to see the girls. She’d tried to call them, but their mother said to leave them alone. Jill had quickly found out she didn’t have any legal rights to visitation, and when she’d pushed the matter, Patti and Heather had phoned her directly and told her to stop bothering them. They had a mother, they didn’t need her.
The words still had the power to wound her. She hadn’t tried to take their mother’s place in their lives. She’d just wanted to love them. Was that so bad? It must be a horrible crime because they’d never forgiven her for it.
“You got a husband?” Ben asked.
She spun toward him. He was stacking plates in the bottom of the dishwasher and had his back to her. “No. I’m not married.”
“Got any kids?”
“No. Of course not. If I had children, I would be with them.”
He looked up at her. “Why?”
“I just would. I wouldn’t—” She had started to say, “leave my children,” but clamped her mouth shut. Craig had told her that the boys’ mother had left them.
Without thinking, she crossed the room to stand next to him. She reached out to touch him, then had second thoughts. Her hand hung awkwardly between them. At the same moment she moved closer, he started to straighten. A lock of dark hair fell onto his forehead. She reached up and brushed it back. Ben stiffened, but didn’t move away.
She smiled, then frowned. She was looking up. “My word, you are taller than me!”
He grinned. Once again, he reminded her of his father. If he could just lose a little weight, he would be a good-looking kid. She wondered what Craig would think if she tried to help Ben with his problem.
By the time Ben had filled the dishwasher and stacked up the dishes for the next load, she’d found out there was no fresh food in the house. Actually there was very little to eat at all. When she commented on the fact, Ben told her that his father had meant to go shopping that day, but he’d been called to work.
“He’s on some secret assignment,” he said. “He can’t talk about it.”
