Husband in Training Page 6

  "'Night, Mom."

  "'Night, Mrs. Brown."

  Jenny turned for the hall, then couldn't resist a motherly admonition. "As soon as that one's over, turn it off and go to bed."

  "We will…"

  "Okay…"

  In her room, Jenny took off her beautiful dress, put it carefully away and then changed to her flannelette pajamas. She cleaned her teeth and washed her face. In bed, with the lights off, she wondered if she'd ever get to sleep. She kept thinking of the night just passed, of herself and Nick. Dancing.

  Of her foolishness at the front door, when she'd let herself imagine that he intended to kiss her.

  Of Clarice Hunter, who wished Nick wanted her.

  Of the mysterious Sasha Overfield, whom Nick did want, but who apparently didn't want him back.

  Of how truly confusing and frustrating male-female relationships could be.

  When dawn came, she was still lying there, staring at nothing, telling herself to relax and go to sleep.

  Monday night, Nick and Polly argued about Wuthering Heights all through dinner. Nick thought that both Heathcliffe and Cathy were "a couple of pigheaded fools, who should have gotten married to each other, because they deserved each other."

  When he made that announcement, Polly dropped her fork to her plate, tossed her head and let out a great sigh. "Nick. On the deepest level, Wuthering Heights isn't really even about a man named Heathcliffe and a woman called Cathy. On the deepest level, it's about the man and the woman in all of us, the male and female forces, which battle each other constantly, but which must be reconciled, if we ever hope to have a prayer for happiness."

  At that point, Nick grunted in thoroughly masculine disgust. "Look. Who wants to read a book about people like that? She's a spoiled brat and he's got a chip the size of a backhoe on his shoulder. Somebody should have given her a spanking—and he should have gone ahead and bumped himself off when she died and saved everyone else in the damn book a half a lifetime of suffering." He sawed off a bite of pot roast and stuck it into his mouth.

  "Cathy is a passionate person, Nick. And Heathcliffe has been through a living hell."

  "Cathy is a spoiled twit. And lots of people go through hell. Not all of them decide to systematically wreck the lives of everyone else in sight." Nick cut more meat. "All I'm saying is, give me someone I can root for, at least." He winked at Jenny. "This is one terrific pot roast, Jen."

  She gave him a smile.

  Polly huffed, "Someone you can root for? This isn't entertainment reading you're doing here, Nick."

  "Oh, hey. I got that. And, now you mention it, maybe we ought to stick to the self-help articles and the romantic movies on video. The poems and the hundred-year-old English novels are just plain over my head."

  "They are not. You have to work a little to understand them, that's all."

  "Yeah, and I work all day long. I don't need to be up all night trying to plow through some book about two people I don't even like."

  Polly's face was flushed. She argued with real fervor, "But you said that Sasha was a reader. I'm sure she's read the books and poems we've been discussing. It's important that you read and understand them, too. That way, when you get back together again, you'll be able to talk about the things that matter to her."

  Nick impaled a carrot on his fork, paused with it halfway to his mouth—and allowed that, okay, maybe Polly was right.

  "Of course I'm right." And she launched into further elucidations of the deeper meanings of the novel in question.

  Naturally Nick took issue with just about every point she made. Jenny quietly ate her own pot roast and vegetables and then got up and carried her plate to the sink. Still arguing, Nick and Polly cleared off the rest of the meal and continued the discussion in the kitchen, as the three of them worked like the cleanup team they'd somehow become to rinse the dishes, load the dishwasher and wash and dry the pots and pans.

  Jenny left them to their debate. She had a few math fact study sheets to draw up and the usual stack of papers to correct.

  But when she sat down at her desk, she found herself alternately doodling on her deskpad and staring off into space—not getting down to what needed doing at all.

  She could hear the murmur of voices in the main part of the house—Nick and Polly, still going at it. She smiled. In spite of the contentious nature of all of their discussions, Jenny knew that both of them were having a great time.

  Just as she had, on Saturday night.

  Jenny's smile faded to a frown.

  She kept thinking of Saturday night. Of how much fun it had been. Of the way they had danced. How much they had laughed.

  Also since Saturday, she kept thinking about other things. Things she had no business pondering.

  For instance, how handsome Nick seemed lately.

  More handsome than before—though Jenny had always thought of him as a good-looking man. Maybe a little too overwhelmingly male. A complete guy's guy, with that devilish smile of his, his tendency toward wolf whistles, his preference for a cold one in a can over a nice glass of white wine.

  Yes, a complete guy's guy. And too handsome by half. Tonight, when he had come up the front walk, Jenny had been turning from the stove. She'd glanced out the kitchen window and spotted him, strolling toward the front door, wearing good slacks and a dress shirt, his jacket slung over his shoulder, probably fresh from some meeting or other concerning one of his current projects.

  Her heart had actually lurched inside her chest—and then started beating way, way too fast. She'd thought, Oh my, there he is: Nick!

  Such reactions were extremely unnerving.

  And a little bit embarrassing.

  Why, Saturday night, after the party, as she was lying there in bed unable to sleep, she had really gone too far.

  Her mind had kept circling the events of the evening, around thoughts of Nick and the things that Clarice Hunter had said. Around the subject of Sasha Overfield and the baffling nature of male-female relationships.

  As dawn had crept up on her, she had actually let herself wonder about that little remark Nick had made when he showed up on her doorstep at two a.m. on the anniversary of Andrew's death. That remark about the "hot sex" he and Sasha had shared.

  She knew Nick pretty well, after all. And she had met a number of his girlfriends over the years. He'd always preferred the offbeat when it came to women: artists and musicians, women who went their own way and made their own rules, women who tended to have interests totally separate from his own. There'd been that flugel player and that performance artist. Also, he'd dated a lady biker and a woman who directed some underground theater group downtown. They'd all seemed just as ill-suited to him in the long run as Sasha probably was.

  But the long run, until now, had never been Nick's concern. He'd honestly admitted that he just wanted a good time—a few drinks and a few laughs. Nick had always worked hard, building his construction business and then expanding into property development. He wanted someone to party with at the end of a hard working week.

  And Jenny had no doubt he'd gotten just that.

  Really, there had always been a certain aura, between Nick and whatever woman he was seeing at any given moment. An atmosphere that could only be called sexual. Nick's women always looked at him with shining, dreamy eyes. They looked extremely satisfied, those women. As if they were getting just what they wanted, and plenty of it, too.

  As she lay there, thinking about Nick's old girlfriends and the hot sex they must have enjoyed with him, Jenny had actually let herself wonder about what it might be like to have a little hot sex with Nick herself. To feel his big, warm hands on her skin, to turn into his arms and have it be more than dancing they were doing. To have him there, under the covers with her, kissing her and caressing her. Pulling her against his big, powerful body. Making her sigh and moan…

  Now, at her desk in the spare room, Jenny shut her eyes and put her head down on the blank sheet of paper that should, by then, have been fi
lled with times tables in her neatly rounded schoolteacher's hand. Her face burned with mortification.

  Oh, there was no excuse for thoughts like that. No excuse at all.

  Jenny lifted her head and stared rather blankly at the little cubbyholes and shelves in the top half of her desk. Right then, out in the other room, Nick laughed—a deep, rumbling, very masculine sound. A warm, delicious shiver started at Jenny's solar plexus and moved outward, along her arms and her legs, just beneath the surface of her skin, to the very tips of her toes and the ends of each finger.

  Out in the other room, Nick laughed again.

  Jenny rose from her desk, rushed across the room and shut the door—carefully, so neither Nick nor Polly would hear her do it.

  There. Now she could hardly hear him at all. She returned to her desk, sat down again—and felt like a total fool.

  Honestly. Closing the door just to keep his voice from reaching her.

  Pitiful. That's what it was.

  Maybe she needed to get out more. Maybe Saturday night—and Nick himself—had assumed so much importance suddenly because she never went out. Maybe having Nick underfoot all the time, the way he seemed to be lately, made her focus too much on the lack of a man in her life.

  She hadn't dated at all since Andrew had died. She'd seen no reason to. She had Polly and her students. And once the stunning pain of her grief had faded a little, her daughter and her work had always seemed like enough. No other man could ever take Andrew's place. She'd come to accept that, felt quite comfortable with it.

  Until just recently.

  But now that she really started giving the whole issue some thought, maybe enjoying a man's company every once in a while would be a good thing for her. She'd had a few offers of dinner and a show. What harm could it do to say yes when the next offer came her way?

  She wouldn't have to get married again, or become intimate with anyone. She could just … have a nice time. Enjoy adult conversation and a little companionship.

  There was certainly nothing at all wrong with that.

  In fact, only last week, Roger Bayliss, who taught fifth grade at her school, had asked her if she'd seen the latest Jack Nicholson film. She'd murmured something vague about waiting for it to come out on video, and left it at that.

  But now that she thought about it, Roger did seem to like her. He'd been divorced from his wife, Sally, for a little over a year now. And in the past few months, he always seemed to end up sitting next to her in the teacher's lounge, during breaks. He would joke with her and pay her compliments—and drop hints that sometime they ought to get together for dinner or something.

  He also knew all about what had happened to Andrew. He'd been kind and supportive during that awful time right afterward, just like everyone else at her school. They were friends, she and Roger, in the casual way that colleagues often are. Dating him wouldn't be like going out with a stranger. They shared the common ground of their work, and a basic knowledge of each other's lives.

  Nick laughed again, in the other room. Even through the closed door, Jenny could hear it: deep and rich and full. Her whole body suddenly felt heavy and weak. Her breathing changed, grew shallow and slow…

  Ridiculous.

  Before she could think of a reason to stop herself, Jenny bent and picked up her briefcase. In it, she kept a photocopied list of the phone numbers and addresses of everyone who worked at her school.

  Roger Bayliss was the second name on the list. She picked up the phone and punched up the numbers—quickly, with authority, as if she knew what she was doing, as if she called a man and asked him out every other day.

  It rang twice, and then she heard his voice. "This is Roger."

  "Hi. It's Jenny. Jenny Brown?"

  "Jenny? Well. Hello, there." He sounded really pleased.

  "Yes. Hello."

  A silence. He was waiting for her to say why she'd called. She made herself begin. "I … well, I was just thinking. About that Jack Nicholson movie you mentioned last week? Um, you see, I was wondering if maybe…" Oh, she was making a mess of it. She gulped in a breath and sent the words out in a rush. "Roger, tell me, what are you doing this Friday night?"

  He laughed. Not as deep or rich a laugh as Nick's laugh, but a fine laugh. A very nice laugh. "Jenny. I don't believe it. I think you're asking me out."

  She didn't let herself waver. "I am, Roger. I'm asking you out for Friday night. To go to that Jack Nicholson movie you mentioned. What do you say?"

  "I say yes, Jenny Brown. I'd like that very much."

  As soon as she hung up, unreality assailed Jenny.

  She couldn't believe it. She'd called a man and asked him on a date.

  Once again, she sat for several minutes, just staring at the cubbyholes in the top of her desk. Maybe it hadn't been a very good idea. Maybe she shouldn't have done it.

  But she had. And she would go through with it. Yes, she would.

  She would go out with Roger Bayliss on Friday night.

  And she would have a lovely time.

  And just maybe the experience would help her to get all those obsessive thoughts of last Saturday night—and her dear friend, Nick—out of her mind.

  She picked up the phone again and gave her mother a call. Kirsten said she'd be glad to come over on Friday and keep Polly company, then she added, "Though I really do think Polly's getting old enough to stay home alone."

  "I know," Jenny told her, idly swiveling her chair around away from her desk. "I think the time's coming. Very soon now."

  "But not quite yet?"

  Jenny agreed, "Not quite yet."

  Kirsten chuckled. "You're so protective."

  Jenny frowned at the phone. "Too protective, you mean?"

  "Oh, maybe a little. But it's all right. Being too protective is certainly better than not protective enough—and I do like to see you getting out a little. Is this … someone special?"

  Jenny thought of Roger, of his friendly smile and his pleasant laugh. "No, not really. He's nice, though."

  "I'm sure you'll have a lovely time."

  "Yes. Me, too." Jenny stared at the door she'd shut, thinking again of Nick on the other side of it, of last Saturday night…

  Her mother asked, "Should I bring those two felt boards you wanted to use in your class when I come on Friday, then?"

  Jenny went on staring at the door, seeing Nick in her mind, the way his dark eyes could shine, the threads of silver in his black hair, the muscular breadth of his shoulders, the strength in his big hands…

  "Jennifer? The felt boards?"

  Jenny closed her eyes, let out a breath and turned back to her desk. "You know, I planned to use them on Friday, so Friday night will be too late. Could I drop by before then and pick them up?"

  Kirsten said she'd have them ready.

  A few minutes later, Jenny said goodbye to her mother. Then she took pen in hand and resolutely concentrated on getting those math fact sheets done. By the time she finished them and the stack of papers that needed grading, Nick had gone for the night.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  « ^ »

  On Tuesday, Nick reached Jenny's house at his usual time, his favorite time—about dinnertime. He parked in the driveway and started up the walk, his hands stuffed in his pockets to ward off the evening chill. Overhead, the sky was clear, the stars growing brighter as the night came on. A pale, almost-full moon hovered above the budding branches of the huge old mulberry tree in the middle of Jenny's lawn.

  He was almost to the front step when he heard the rustling sound. Nick paused on the walk and peered through the gathering gloom at the bed of big-leaf ivy that grew close to the house.

  There. He saw it. A ball of orange fuzz. Orange fuzz with wide golden eyes, peeking out at him from under the canopy of large, heart-shaped leaves.

  A damn kitten.

  "Rreow?" It was a tiny, pitiful sound from a puny-looking animal. Right then, a little orange head, topped by a pair of pointy ears, rose above
the tangle of leaves. "Rreow?" it asked again.

  Nick stomped his boot on the walk, thinking to chase it away, back to wherever it belonged. "Git. Scoot."

  The kitten didn't scoot. The orange head dipped back beneath the ivy, but that was all. Those golden eyes, gone even wider, kept right on looking at him.

  With a shrug, Nick turned from those eyes and went up the step to the front door.

  Warm light spilled out from between the open blinds of the kitchen window. He could see Jenny in there, the brightness catching on her pale blond hair, making it gleam. She saw him, too, and smiled.

  The door was open so he went in, the warmth and the mouthwatering smells of Jenny's house at dinnertime enveloping him. He went straight to the kitchen and leaned in the doorway.

  Jen was tearing lettuce into a big wooden bowl. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at him again. "Hey."

  "Hey. Where's Polly?"

  "On the phone with Amelia." Jenny rinsed a big red tomato and shook it dry. "They're making plans for this Saturday night."

  "Plans?"

  She turned toward him, still holding the tomato. "Amelia's been invited to a party, by some kids from her new school over there in Greenhaven. There will actually be boys at that party."

  "Whoa. Boys. Scary."

  "Right. Amelia asked Polly to go, too—and then to stay overnight. They're working out all the details. The really important stuff. Like what to wear."

  "Working out the details. That could take a while, right?"

  "Exactly." Jenny's expression said it all. It was a mother's expression, patient and knowing, affectionate and amused. "You may end up setting the table all by yourself."

  "I think I can handle it. I'll do anything for a free meal."

  "I noticed." She grinned, then turned back to her work, picking up a knife and starting in on that tomato, cutting it in wedges.

  Nick lingered there, in the open entrance from the dining room, watching her, thinking that when he married Sasha it would be just like this every evening. He'd come home and the house would smell like dinner. He'd lean in the kitchen doorway, watching as she cut up the salad. And he would feel just generally terrific about the world and his place in it.