Mothers of the Year Page 7

  The temperature was already climbing. By tomorrow the snow would be well on its way to water.

  “What first, ladies? Snowman or snow fort?”

  A snowball hit him in the head.

  He tilted his chin toward his chest and stared at a wide-eyed Dani over the tops of his glasses.

  “Oops,” she said, and then she ran.

  The snowball fight involved many shrieks and giggles, Kelly proving that she could still hit that extra decibel, particularly when Scott closed in with a handful of snow.

  She was also sneaky, and she could wind up and pitch a snowball nearly as well as Scott could. Within half an hour, Kelly was declared the winner.

  By then the yard was trampled so badly it seemed as if a herd of whitetail had wintered there. They opted to build a snowman instead of a snow fort, since most of the snow had been tossed through the air, with a good portion of it exploding in the street and on the roof.

  “Are you cold?” Scott asked, taking in Dani’s red nose.

  She shook her head, then bit her lip as she tried to roll the base of the snowman evenly as Kelly had shown her. Wherever the great, white ball rolled, Dani left a track of wet, green grass behind. The snow was melting fast.

  Scott watched Dani and Kelly. The two of them chattered and laughed. They consulted on the best way to lift the body of the snowman onto the base, then argued about how big the head should be. Their voices rose and fell, their giggles blended. People walking by on the sidewalk waved, greeting them all by name and smiling fondly. Scott looked at the town, the house and his daughter.

  The only thing missing was a wife.

  DANI HAD WANTED to see snow. Now that she had, she loved it. Although she could understand where a whole winter of white might get boring.

  But today the piles and piles had been nothing but fun. By the time they went inside, they’d had a snowball fight, and they’d built a snow family—a dad, a mom and a kid. Dani had wanted a snow dog, too, but Kelly had put her foot down about that.

  “I’m not that talented, girlie-Q.” Then she’d kissed Dani on her ice-cold nose and said, “Who wants hot chocolate?”

  After Dani had taken a warm bath, she sipped hot chocolate while Dad made their first fire in the fireplace. He wasn’t very good at it. Kelly had to help him.

  At first they’d laughed together, then they got kind of quiet. Then they kept looking at each other for a long time without talking, then they’d look away and both would talk at once. It was strange.

  The three of them spent the rest of the day playing games and watching movies. Outside, the snow melted off the roof with a steady drip-drip. When the sun went down, their snow family was leaning so far to the right that by morning they’d topple over.

  Dani fell asleep with her head on Kelly’s leg about halfway through the Brewers game. The Milwaukee-based team had no problem playing baseball during the snowstorm since they’d put in a retractable dome the last time they’d built a stadium. The announcer did say, though, that the stands were nearly empty, the locals opting to stay off the roads or maybe just too busy shoveling.

  “Bed for you.” The world tilted as her dad lifted Dani into his arms and took her upstairs.

  She’d always loved being carried to bed. Sometimes, when she was little, she would pretend to be asleep just so Dad would have to hold her.

  They reached her room, and he bent to place her on the bed. Dani clung to his neck.

  “Hey.” He sat on the mattress. “Thought you were out for the count.”

  “I woke up.” She pressed her cheek to his.

  “You upset because I have to leave tomorrow?” His arms tightened, and he pulled Dani into his lap. “I’ll be back at the end of the week.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Of course you will. You can call me anytime you want.”

  Dani hesitated. There was something she wanted to ask, but she wasn’t sure how.

  “Dad?” she began, and he tilted his head, waiting. “I like Kelly.”

  “Me, too,” he said.

  “Can we keep her?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE DAYS SCOTT SPENT away brought Dani and Kelly closer together. Kelly had suspected it would, but she hadn’t been prepared for just how much she would come to love the girl, the community, the life that wasn’t really hers.

  Ever since she and Scott had kissed, she’d been pretending it hadn’t happened. She wasn’t sure what else to do. Kissing her employer. Sheesh, what had she been thinking?

  She hadn’t been. She’d only been feeling—for the first time in years.

  Scott left late Sunday morning, and because of her confusion, Kelly wasn’t sorry to see him go. She threw herself into the job and pushed the feelings, the memories, ever deeper.

  Sunday afternoon, she went grocery shopping for the week; Sunday night, she helped Dani plan her outfit for the next day. More ribbons, another pink T-shirt, jeans and her new sandals. The snow was gone. High temperature for Monday would be in the low seventies.

  “Kelly, will you come and watch my softball practice tomorrow?”

  “Of course, pumpkin. Can’t wait. You like softball?”

  “Sure. Although it’s dumb that girls have to play softball instead of baseball. But it’s fun enough.”

  At practice, held in the same park that would host the Mother’s Day picnic, the sun shone so brightly it seemed to mock the few piles of snow still lurking beneath bushes and on the curbs lining the parking lot.

  Kelly sat with the other mothers and enjoyed the warm spring breeze and the companionship. She’d spent the past five years with only Paige for a friend. Not that there was anything wrong with that.

  Dani wound up and pitched the huge white ball over the plate. The batter swung and missed. Dani appeared as comfortable covered in mud as she did in a leotard, and she was fitting into Kiwanee better every day. Despite Scott’s fears that the other girls would corrupt his daughter, she seemed to be the one doing the corrupting.

  At ballet, several of the girls wore multicolored ribbons as bracelets. At softball practice, two of the ballerinas showed up in the outfield and another occupied second base.

  Dani’s circle of friends grew. The night before Scott was scheduled to return from his trip, she was invited to a slumber party at Ashley’s house.

  Kelly dropped her off, choking up when Dani hugged her, then kissed her on the lips, before shouting “See ya!” and running for the house.

  Kelly made a detour past the park. She had most of the picnic planned. This year there’d be a pig roast instead of a brat fry or a chicken grill. Paige knew a guy, who knew a guy, who had a pig farm and managed a roasting business on the side. Still, she needed to come up with something…

  “Special,” Kelly whispered, staring through the window at the spring-green park. She still had nothing and time was running short.

  Kelly returned to the house and tried to watch television. Then she tried to read a book, but she was restless, so she dialed Paige.

  “I was just going to call you,” her friend said. “I found a nanny.”

  “I didn’t ask you to.”

  “That’s why I’m so good at this job. Before you’ve even asked, I’ve already done it.”

  The thought of turning Dani, of turning Scott, over to a stranger made Kelly a little sick to her stomach.

  “You’re embarrassing me with all that sloppy gratitude,” Paige said.

  “Sorry,” Kelly muttered. “Thanks.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Paige demanded. “You didn’t want to go there. You didn’t want to stay. I thought you’d be jumping and dancing.”

  Mention of dancing made Kelly want to cry.

  “I am,” she lied. “I’ll tell Sc—” She paused, then tried again. “I’ll tell Mr. Delgado about the nanny, see when he can do an interview.”

  “Great. Did you talk to the pig farmer?”

  For a second, Kelly’s mind blanked. Why on earth
would she talk to a pig farmer? Then she remembered the picnic, the pig roast.

  “Yes. Everything’s set. It was the perfect idea for this project.”

  “I knew it would be. So, what did you think of the guy?”

  “What guy?”

  Paige’s long-suffering sigh came over the wire. “What guy do you think? The pig farmer.”

  “He seemed to know his business.”

  “He’s hot.”

  Kelly had an image of a sweaty man in striped coveralls next to a blazing fire pit full of pig. Who wouldn’t be hot?

  “The farmer,” Paige said, when Kelly didn’t answer. “He is a grade A, choice cutie. And he’s single. Want him?”

  “Me?” Kelly squeaked. “No thanks. Hey, if he’s so great, why don’t you take him?”

  “Not my type.”

  “But he’s mine?”

  Just because she’d been married to a farmer once didn’t mean she wanted to be married to one again. Hell, she didn’t want to be married at all.

  Liar, her mind whispered.

  Her mind was right. Despite everything, deep in the most secret part of her, she wanted to be married with children as much now as she’d wanted it then. That it wasn’t going to happen only made her want it all the more.

  “It’s time you started dating, Kelly.”

  Kelly doubted it would ever be time. She just couldn’t open herself to the disappointment, the inevitable pain. Besides, lately, thoughts of dating, of men, of sex all led to one thing.

  Scott.

  Kelly rubbed her forehead.

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Paige.” She hung up even though her friend was still talking.

  The house was clean, no child to watch. Television sucked, and her book was boring. She might as well go to bed.

  Kelly wandered through the house, turning off the few remaining lights. She stood in the living room for several minutes, letting the quiet wash over her. Just as she headed upstairs, a thump sounded on the back porch. It was long past the time for visitors.

  “Probably a cat,” she murmured, even as she inched closer to the kitchen.

  A shadow drifted beyond the window—tall, hulking, man shaped—and Kelly began to back toward the portable phone she’d set on the coffee table.

  Before she could get there and dial 9-1-1, the doorknob turned. Kelly’s breath caught.

  She’d locked that. She was certain of it.

  Frantically she glanced around for a place to hide. Her gaze landed on Dani’s softball bat. She snatched it up just as the click of the latch was followed by the muted thud of footsteps on the kitchen tile.

  Her gaze went to the front door. No time to run, no time to hide. Only time to—

  Kelly wrapped both hands around the bat and waited.

  SCOTT HAD MISSED Dani. He’d missed Kiwanee, his house, his office. If he were honest, he’d missed Kelly, too.

  So he’d hopped an earlier plane out of Omaha. Some of his team had came back with him, and some opted to stay one more night in the hotel and return as planned in the morning.

  Of course, the flight was late leaving Nebraska, even later landing at Dane County Regional Airport. By the time he’d retrieved his bag and his car, then driven to Kiwanee, all the lights in his house were off. Well, at least he’d see Dani first thing in the morning.

  The trip had been a good one. The Warhawks had only lost one game out of five. For a road trip, heck for a home stand, that was impressive.

  Scott paused to dig out his house key, then opened the kitchen door. The place was eerily silent.

  He stepped inside and crossed the room, planning to go upstairs and check on his girls. The thought made him pause. When had he begun to think of Kelly as his?

  Had it been when he’d kissed her? Or maybe when he’d dreamed of doing more.

  He heard a muffled screech, like a bare foot on hardwood. He stepped from the kitchen into the hall, saw movement, felt a whoosh of air and ducked.

  The bat smacked into the wall behind him.

  “Scott!” Kelly’s voice was horrified. “I thought—I’m sorry.”

  The tremor in her voice made him panic. “Where’s Dani?” he demanded.

  “She’s—”

  Terrified, he snatched the bat from her limp hands and tossed it onto the carpet. Then he grabbed her wrist and yanked her against him. “What happened?” He tightened his grip. “What’s wrong?”

  All sorts of horrors ran through his head in hideous, living color. Were there murderers, kidnappers, bank robbers on the loose? Drug dealers? Zombies? Aliens? What could possibly have happened to make his cool, calm rental mommy flip out?

  “N-nothing,” she managed.

  “Where’s Dani?” he asked again.

  “At a slumber party.”

  He searched her face. The house was dark, the only light that of the full moon shining in through the front windows. Still he could see her expression fairly well, and she seemed to be telling the truth.

  “You’re alone?”

  She nodded. “I got spooked. The back door, it was locked and then—” She stopped. “What are you doing here, Scott?”

  “I—” He took a breath, released her and leaned against the wall, trying to calm his racing heart. She’d scared the crap out of him.

  “Scott?” Kelly moved forward.

  “I’m okay.” He lifted a hand to ward her off. Instead, she took his in hers, holding on as if he were a single slim rope in a wild and stormy sea.

  Reaching out, she touched his cheek. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe again.

  She felt it, too, the strange connection between them. The certain and yet bizarre knowledge born in the solitude and the darkness of this night, that they’d been destined to meet, to love Dani, perhaps to love each other. The surety that they were meant to kiss—right now, right here, like this.

  CHAPTER TEN

  KELLY HAD TO kiss Scott. She had to touch him to make certain he was real. She had to press her mouth to his and make everything all right.

  They’d scared each other badly. Foolishly, true. But foolishness didn’t make her legs tremble any less or her heart pump any slower. The only thing that could was him.

  She still held his hand, their fingers linked together, palm to palm. He still leaned against the wall as if he needed its sturdiness at his back just to remain standing. Kelly moved in, trapping him there—he didn’t seem to mind—his eyes fluttering closed as her body skimmed the surface of his.

  The taste of him was familiar, his scent one she already knew. His free hand found the curve of her waist, pulling her more firmly against him.

  Her arm looped his neck; her head tilted just so and he opened to her, his tongue sliding along the fullness of her bottom lip before he tugged at it with his teeth. The sensation shot straight to her toes, stopping at key points along the way, making parts of her tingle that hadn’t tingled in years.

  She’d always been tall, been mortified by it as a teen, not wild about it as an adult, but now, being tall was great. Because it meant she could press against him without even rising onto her toes and multiply those tingles where it mattered the most.

  He disentangled their hands, and she moaned a protest into his mouth, one that turned into a moan of pleasure when he grasped her hips and yanked her more tightly against him. She leaned into his body, pressing him into the wall, increasing the pressure until they both gasped.

  Scott dragged his lips away, stilling her with a gentle hand. “Whoa,” he muttered, then leaned his forehead into hers. “Hold on, or we’ll be done before we start.”

  Her gaze met his, so close his eyes looked black in the shadows of the night. “Are we going to start?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  “It’s been a long time for me.”

  “Me, too.”

  She straightened, capturing his hand again. “Let’s not wait any longer.”

  Together they climbed the stairs, and he drew her into his ro
om. She was both nervous and excited. She wanted him, and then again, she didn’t. What if—?

  She cut that thought off before it could form. If she kept thinking about the future, that would lead to thoughts of the past—a definite mood killer.

  Before her mind could run away with her resolve, she began to unbutton her blouse.

  “Let me,” he murmured, nudging her fingers aside.

  Slowly her shirt opened. He watched her emerge, inch by inch, his face reflecting a fascination that called to her own. When his dark head lowered, and his lips followed the path of his fingers, goose bumps rippled across her skin, and she shuddered with delicious abandon.

  He popped the catch on her jeans, holding her gaze as he lowered the zipper, then slipped his hand inside and stroked her just once through the satiny slip of her panties. She arched into him, and he kissed her, hard, mouth open, tongue searching for hers.

  Clothes flew after that, each of them helping the other. They fell onto the bed in a tangle of arms and legs, touching, exploring, tasting.

  Fascinated with the sleek expanse of his skin over the rippling muscles in his chest and abdomen, she memorized the feel of his body with her fingertips, the curve of his hip with her tongue.

  When he rolled away, rustling in his bedside table, then muttering and tossing things to the floor, at first she didn’t know what he was searching for. She’d never been with anyone but her husband, and they’d had no use for condoms.

  The rasp of the packet made her flinch. She bit her lip to keep from saying he didn’t need one, because he did. She knew that. She might have been sheltered once, but she wasn’t stupid. Just because there was no possibility of pregnancy didn’t mean there wasn’t a possibility of something else.

  He came back murmuring her name, nuzzling her breasts, and she welcomed him into her with a gasp of surprise and joy. She’d needed this; she’d needed him, and he was there.

  Slow and deep, they rocked together. When the climax came over them, their lips met, and they held each other until every last sensation fell away.

  Face against her neck, body still buried in hers, he whispered, “I never thought I’d feel like this again.”