Love and War Page 15

  As Drew drove out to Jake and Britt’s later, he told himself his grandfather might, after all, be skirting the edges of senility. He honestly seemed to believe that what had happened between him and Magdalena Murphy was destined to happen all over again between Drew and Sandy.

  The two situations were entirely different, of course. Why was it Drew seemed to be the only one who could see that?

  When he pulled up at the farmhouse, the only other car in sight was Sandy Murphy’s sedan. Frowning, he went in through the kitchen door, as he always did. Ten-year-old Renee sat at the table, working a jigsaw puzzle with Sandy, who bounced Jacob on her knee.

  “What are you doing here?”

  They spoke as one. Probably the only time they’d ever reached consensus, Drew thought.

  “Jake asked if I could stay with the kids,” he said.

  Sandy gave him a suspicious glance. “Britt asked me to stay.”

  Drew wondered if there was more to this mix-up than met the eye. In all the time he’d known Jake and Britt, they’d never asked him to baby-sit. He had never changed a diaper in his life, for one thing. Tonight, Jake had explained, both Christy and Matt had plans. Renee and twelve-year-old David were still too young to stay alone all evening, though they could help out taking care of the baby.

  “Maybe I ought to go, then,” Drew said, at which point Jacob scrambled down from Sandy’s lap and hurled himself at Drew’s knees.

  “Dwew don’t go! Dwew stay!”

  Renee grinned at him. Sandy didn’t.

  “Maybe I should go,” she said.

  “No!” Renee protested. “You can’t go! And leave me all alone in a house full of guys? Yuck!”

  Drew watched Sandy squirm. Without her usual corporate attire, she almost looked in need of a baby-sitter herself tonight. She wore a pair of red wool leggings and a fleecy red-and-purple striped tunic. Her hair was still up, but had lost some of its severity in the process of her changing clothes or working out before coming over. Strands feathered around her face and the bun itself was slightly askew. Her cheeks were scrubbed and her boots had been kicked off under the table, revealing a pair of thick purple socks. Her gaze never left his face. He smiled as he leaned over to pick up Jacob.

  “Sure, kiddo,” Sandy said at last. “You and I will finish our puzzle and Drew can go do guy stuff with David.”

  Renee shook her head and tried to find the right spot for a corner piece of the puzzle. “He’s doing his biology report. He said he’d put a dissected frog in my bed if I bothered him. I’d leave him alone if I were you.”

  Drew debated the pros and cons of dissected frogs versus the forbidding look in Sandy’s brown eyes and said, “Come on, Jacob. Let’s make sure David doesn’t need a hand with his biology.”

  Renee, as it turned out, had given excellent advice. David had barricaded himself in his room. His only reply to Drew’s knock was to turn up his music and to shove under the door a sheet of notebook paper carrying the felt-tipped message Top Secret, Keep Out! In fine print was the further disclaimer: This Applies to All Grown-ups and Especially Kid Sisters.

  Uncertain how a sitter should handle such a situation, Drew identified himself in a voice loud enough to carry over the music. The sound level came down and the twelve-year-old’s face appeared in the doorway.

  “I’m studying, man. Be cool, okay?”

  Drew cocked his head to one side to peer inside the room. “Yeah, but I’m the sitter. Gotta make sure there’s nothing illegal going on. Know what I mean?”

  David grinned. “Yeah. Like I might be having on-line sex with cartoon characters all over the world. Right?”

  Drew couldn’t help himself. He grinned in return. “Yeah, something like that. I’d never work as a baby-sitter in this town again.”

  “You’ve got my pledge, man. No on-line sex. Just poking around in frog guts, okay?”

  “No sex. Fwog guts,” Jacob repeated, as usual picking up on the most provocative part of the conversation to memorize and repeat at day care.

  Drew wandered back downstairs. What now? His thoughts strayed to the kitchen. To Sandy. He had promised not to drag any personal stuff through the doors of Yes! Yogurt. He hadn’t promised not to remind her of it elsewhere.

  It was, however, the gentlemanly thing to do. She’d said she wasn’t interested. He should leave it at that.

  Even when I know she doesn’t mean it?

  And he did know. She had given herself away in the heat of her response when they’d kissed. He’d felt the hunger in her lips. He’d seen the longing in her eyes. And he’d noted the way she shied away ever since, as if afraid to trust herself around him.

  Drew supposed he could be fooling himself on this, but he thought not. If the in-control Ms. Murphy wasn’t interested, she would have no trouble whatsoever giving him the brush-off. But if he affected her enough to rob her of her cool...

  He and Jacob played with the plastic train in the living room for a while. They watched a Winnie the Pooh video for fourteen minutes, until Jacob grew tired of sitting still. They discussed the merits of leaving the clean laundry where they’d found it, neatly folded in a basket at the foot of the steps; that was not Jacob’s preference.

  The only alternative Jacob would accept to strewing laundry around was helping Renee and Sandy with the jigsaw puzzle.

  “Good thinking, my man,” Drew said, picking up the toddler and swinging him overhead.

  “We’ve done all the guy stuff we can think of,” he said, dropping into the kitchen chair next to Sandy.

  “Did David show you his frogs?” Renee asked.

  “Fwog guts,” Jacob replied.

  Renee crinkled her face. “I knew it. That is so gross. I’m going to be a conscientious objector when I get to seventh-grade biology.”

  “Biology’s not so bad,” Drew said, studying Sandy’s long, lithe fingers as she searched out a home for her puzzle piece. She wore her nails short and rounded, and they gleamed pale against her dark skin. He wanted to feel the touch of those fingers, wondered if she lost her famous control easily under certain circumstances. “You might like it by the time you get to the seventh grade.”

  Renee didn’t seem to notice the tension Drew felt in the room. She chatted almost without stopping about her best friend’s CD-ROM, which she coveted, and her growing prowess with a basketball and a dozen other things. Drew and Sandy alternated inserting a comment when the little girl paused to take a breath. Mostly, however, Drew’s attention was on Sandy. And hers, he thought, was on studiously avoiding notice of him.

  He’d read in novels about women with lilting voices, and he decided Sandy’s qualified. Listening to her and being anything but happy would be no easy task. Combine that with her infectious smile and it would be easier to stop the earth in its orbit than it would be to feel grumpy around her.

  He liked the way she handled herself with Renee, too. She didn’t talk down to her, which was something he’d noticed and admired about Britt when he first got to know her. Sandy asked questions and listened to the answers and never once lapsed into anything that sounded like a lecture. And when it came time to put Jacob to bed for the night, she asked for Renee’s help and let the little girl take the lead.

  Drew sat at the kitchen table and waited for them to return. He liked the way this felt, being here in this rambling, lived-in farmhouse littered with kids’ toys and pets and other remnants of family life. Wet galoshes by the back door and a broken cereal bowl on the counter and a stack of clothes hangers on the edge of the table. He liked the creak and thump of feet overhead, the flash of a little girl’s giggle.

  And he liked knowing that Sandy would walk back down the stairs and warm the room again.

  “You’re getting in deep, Stirling,” he muttered, jumping up and checking the coffeepot. It was cold. That was okay
. He should go now. No reason to stay, with Jacob tucked in bed.

  He wondered what real parents did when the kids went to sleep. Did they curl up on the couch and watch an old black-and-white movie? Did they smooch? Did they go to bed early themselves sometimes?

  He went back to the table, picked up a puzzle piece and absently toyed with it. He heard footsteps on the stairs. He forced himself not to look up, to pretend he wasn’t standing there holding his breath until she returned.

  She stood on the opposite side of the table and spoke softly. “Renee decided to read for a while.”

  He looked up. “I didn’t know kids still did that.”

  Her smile looked uncertain, as did her eyes.

  He should give her a reprieve. “I might as well go.” He hoped she would discourage him.

  “That’s probably a good idea.”

  Damn! “You could at least pretend you hate to see me go.” He dropped the puzzle piece.

  She quit attempting to smile. “Don’t start.”

  She looked down and picked up another puzzle piece, turning it over and over. Drew headed for the door, but changed his mind. He walked back to where she stood, put his hand on hers and guided the puzzle piece into place. He felt the tremble of her fingers but didn’t let go. He stood there until she turned toward him.

  “It’s too late not to start,” he whispered.

  Her eyes pleaded with him for the one thing he was not willing to do.

  “Don’t ask me to play games,” he said. “I’ve been trying. It’s not working.”

  “This won’t work, either,” she said, quiet desperation in her voice.

  “Ha! Just watch.”

  He lowered his lips to hers. She didn’t back away, didn’t flinch. Her lips softened against his, warm and pliant and damp. He slid his arms around her and pressed her to him, as he had wanted to before, savoring the way her gentle curves melted into him. Her arms crept up; those long fingers buried themselves in his hair. The movement lifted her breasts, and he knew he was dangerously close to taking this one step further. Here and now, however, was not the right time.

  “This must be it,” he murmured against her lips.

  Her response was a gentle moan. “What?”

  “The black magic my grandfather warned me about.”

  Her chuckle was breathless as she pulled away. “So you got the warning, too?” Her hands trailed down his chest as she backed up, then broke the connection.

  “I think we should show them they’re wrong.”

  “Didn’t you hear what happened to Romeo and Juliet?”

  “Ah, but their problem was they tried to sneak around,” he said, feeling regret as she moved to place the table between them again. “If they’d been up-front about things, old Will Shakespeare would’ve had an entirely different story to tell.”

  But Drew saw from the look in her eyes that he was wasting his breath.

  “Maybe I’d better go,” he said.

  She nodded.

  The January wind had never felt so cold.

  * * *

  RENEE HUDDLED HALFWAY down the stairs, ear strained toward the kitchen. The things they said didn’t make much sense, but she knew exactly what to make of the long silence. She hugged her knees and grinned.

  Sandy and Drew were kissing. Falling in love. Right here in her very own kitchen.

  It was working. First, she’d suggested that her mom ask Sandy to baby-sit tonight. Then she’d suggested that her stepdad ask Drew. By the time everybody realized the mix-up, which was smack in the middle of the chaos of people leaving the house tonight, well, everybody had been grateful when Renee offered to call Drew and Sandy and straighten everything out. Since Matt was the one assigned to stay home until the baby-sitter arrived and he had been oblivious to the earlier confusion, pulling it off had turned out to be easier than Renee had ever imagined.

  Content that she was the first to know about this fairy-tale ending brewing right here under everyone’s nose, Renee started to creep back up the stairs. Then she heard them talking again, heard the change in their voices. They weren’t fighting, exactly. But they weren’t going to kiss anymore.

  She heard the back door closing and dashed up the stairs.

  From her window, she watched Drew walk toward his car, head down. He looked back toward the house before he got in the car, and Renee held her breath. Maybe Sandy would change her mind, would run after him and fling herself into his arms.

  Drew gave up on that hope before Renee did.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ANOTHER MONDAY-MORNING staff meeting, another confrontation. That was the way Sandy was beginning to view the start of each week.

  This morning she could still taste Drew’s lips on hers, still feel the heat of his lean body pressed against hers, when he tossed the fact sheet on Food World, an international food show in Chicago, onto the conference table.

  “Will you be ready?” he asked without preamble.

  She picked up the flyer, avoiding his eyes. He was doing his best to look impersonal and unemotional. His best wasn’t good enough. What he looked was miserable. Sandy felt a corresponding tug on her own heart. What sense did it make for both of them to feel this way, when the apparent solution seemed so simple?

  Pushing aside her reactions to him, Sandy studied the information about the food show, the largest and most prestigious trade show in the industry. This convention could make or break new products, and regularly did both. It was the place where restaurants and grocery stores decided what foods to serve or sell to the American public during the next year.

  It was just weeks away.

  Sandy needed Food World. If her efforts to revamp Yes! Yogurt’s marketing strategies were to show quick results, she needed to launch them at this show. Otherwise, any major impact her work might have was easily a year away. But three weeks to prepare was an impossible deadline, especially with the grand opening of the outlet store just two weeks away.

  She swallowed hard and looked around the table at Britt’s expectant smile, Jake’s encouraging nod. Drew’s challenging frown.

  “I’ll be ready.”

  Britt settled back in her chair, relaxed. Jake looked surprised but pleased. Drew leaned forward and forced Sandy to look him squarely in the eye.

  “You’ll be ready? With the new logo? New packaging? Signage? An entire campaign? Everything?”

  Heart racing uncomfortably, Sandy felt herself drawn into his intense gaze. His kisses were like that, an irresistible force, sweeping her into a maelstrom of emotion. Her own gaze flickered to his lips. She stopped the direction of her thoughts. The show. That’s where her focus had to be, day and night, for the next few weeks.

  “I said I’d be ready. You can count on it.”

  She could panic later.

  * * *

  MAG SWIRLED TO give Emma Finklebaum the full effect of her cherry red circle skirt.

  “My ankles are still trim for an old dame, don’t you think?” she asked, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

  “You certainly are going all out today,” Emma commented.

  Mag noticed that her old friend hadn’t bothered to give her the compliment she’d been fishing for, but she decided to let it pass. Today was too important for trifles. Besides, she knew her legs were dynamite. It would be natural for Emma to resent that. Emma had always been plain, even when she was young. Why, from her first day as the social columnist, she had worn those wire-rimmed glasses on that horsey face of hers, not to mention that flat, mousy-colored page-boy and those suits with the football-pad shoulders, the ones she thought gave her a Joan Crawford look. In her dreams.

  “Well, it’s not every day my youngest granddaughter has a grand opening,” Mag said, feeling charitable today toward this woman who’d p
robably never heard a wolf whistle in her life. “She’s worked like a fiend these past few weeks, getting this outlet store ready.”

  “Working with Drew Stirling, I hear.”

  Leaning toward the mirror, Mag checked her makeup. At her age, she had to make sure her mascara didn’t smudge against her upper eyelids. She should’ve had that surgery when Annabelle Scanlon suggested it. If she had, she could pass for fifty-five. Wouldn’t that scoundrel Clarence Stirling chew nails over that?

  Blast it! There I go again, thinking about that man! But not today, she told herself.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said to Emma. “This is entirely Sandy’s baby. And she’s getting ready for a big worldwide show in Chicago in—” she paused to calculate “—about a week, I believe. The dear girl has worn herself to a frazzle.”

  “Well, you’ll wow ‘em, Mag. No doubt about it.”

  Mag smiled at her friend. “Thanks, Emma. Now, come on, let’s shake a leg. I told Sandy I’d be waiting at the door.”

  Mag’s heels clicked as they started down the hall. It had been weeks since she’d worn high heels. Her friends told her it was foolish at her age—broken hips and all that. Mag told them all she’d rather break her neck in a pair of come-kiss-me pumps than live to be a hundred wearing rubber-soled lace-ups and support hose.

  Her stockings today were red, too. Her earrings were bright red plastic ribbons and her blouse was black with red ice-cream cones. Emma had called her crazy for buying the silly thing out of a catalog three months ago, but Mag had known as soon as she saw it that sometime or another it would be the perfect thing to wear. And she had been right, of course. She even had a red chiffon sash wrapped around her head, with curls spilling out the top. She looked like a movie star today and she knew it. A glamorous movie star, from the old days, back when stars really knew how to make an entrance.

  Sandy made a fuss, of course, telling her as they drove over to the new store how good she looked.