Cara Colter - Propositioned by the Playboy

She, Beth Maple, who really should have had so much more sense, had allowed their lives to tangle together! Given him her address, for God’s sake. Allowed him into her yard. Baked him cookies. Fed him milk and lemonade.

She had shamelessly watched him take off his shirt and allowed him to put his big mitt prints in her concrete! Which would be a constant and irritating reminder of the fact that, given a chance, she could make a greater fool of herself for this man than she had for Rock aka Ralph!

She closed the inside door firmly, and locked it with as much noise as she could manage, too. But it wasn’t until she was slamming dishes into the dishwasher that she realized he had gotten exactly what he wanted, after all, and it had never really been about a kiss.

He had been feeling something when he had told her his sister was going to die.

Sadness. Vulnerability. Maybe even trust in Beth.

And whether with a kiss or by starting an argument, he had managed to distance himself from his discomfort, move on.

No sense feeling a little soft spot for him because of that. It was a warning. There was no future with a man who was so shut off from his emotional self, who was so frightened of it.

When exactly had some sneaky little part of herself started contemplating some kind of future with that man?

“Never,” she told herself later, as she watched him load up his tools and his nephew and drive away without saying goodbye, without even glancing at her windows. “I hope he never comes back,” she told herself.

But when she wandered out in the yard and saw that the framework for the staircase was nearly completed, she knew he was coming back. If he was a quitter, he would have left right after the argument, and he hadn’t.

The argument. She’d had her first argument with Ben Anderson.

And as silly as it seemed, she knew that real people disagreed. They had arguments. It was not like her relationship with Rock, which had unfolded like the fantasy it had turned out to be. Full of love notes and tender promises, not a cross word or a disagreement, only the gentlest of chiding on her part when Rock had been compelled to cancel yet one more rendezvous with his myriad of creative excuses.

“I’m probably not ready for real,” she decided out loud, peering up through the thick leaves to where the platform would be.

But it was like being ready to be kissed by him. He didn’t care if she was ready. If she wasn’t very careful, he was just going to take her by storm whether she was ready or not.

And just like a storm, her life would be left in a wreckage after he was done blowing through. That’s why storms of consequence had names. Hurricane Ben. Batten the hatches or evacuate?

“You’re overreacting,” she scolded herself. But she bet a lot of people said that when there was a storm brewing on the horizon.

To their peril.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Top Secret Diary of Kyle O. Anderson

I THINK Miss Maple and Uncle Ben had a fight. After she brought us out cookies and drinks—lemonade and milk—she went in the house and didn’t come back out. My uncle didn’t say goodbye to her when we left. He was pretty quiet on the drive home, but when I asked him if anything was wrong, he looked surprised and said, no everything was great, and how did I enjoy work today.

The truth? I really like working with my uncle. I love Miss Maple’s tree house. I never, ever thought about the future before. I’m not one of those kids who always dreamed about being a fireman when I grew up.

Getting through each day seemed like a big enough undertaking to me.

But working with my uncle made me realize I like building things. And he says I’m good at it, too. When I suggested a way to change the steps so that they would work better, he said I was a genius. And one thing about my uncle, you can trust that when he says something like that, he means it.

If he did have a fight with Miss Maple, I’m really glad he didn’t tell me about it. My mom always told me everything that was going on in her life, and if you think it feels good knowing all about grown-up problems, think again. Still, it’s kind of funny, because I thought I wanted Uncle Ben and Miss Maple not to get along, but now that they aren’t I feel worried about that.

When we got home, the phone was ringing and my uncle picked it up and gave it to me. The only person I could think of who would call me is my mom, so I nearly dropped the phone when it was Mary Kay Narsunchuk. She said that the planetarium was having a special show called Constellation Prize and would I like to go with her?

At first I thought it was a joke, like if I listened hard enough I would hear her girlfriends laughing in the background, but I didn’t hear a sound.

“Why are you asking me?” I said, trying to sound cool and not too suspicious.

“Because you are the smartest person I know,” she said, and I liked her saying that, even though we don’t really know each other. And then she said she liked it that I protected the frog against Casper, even though she doesn’t really like frogs.

She told me she hates Casper, which means we have something in common already.

Her mom picked me up at Uncle Ben’s house and drove us to the planetarium, which was kind of dorky. I’ve been taking public transit by myself since I was six, and I don’t really think the planetarium is in a rough neighborhood, so I thought the warnings to stand right outside the door when she came back to pick us up were hilarious, though I didn’t laugh, just said yes, ma’am.

On the way in, I noticed Mary Kay is at least three inches taller than me, and had on really nice clothes, and that bad feeling started, like I’m not good enough. Then I told myself it wasn’t like it was a date or anything, and when she asked what I had done today I told her about building the tree house for Miss Maple, and she thought that was the coolest thing she had ever heard.

The weirdest thing happened when we took our seats. The lights went out and she took my hand.

That was all. But the stars came on in the pitch-blackness, like lighted diamonds piercing black velvet, and I thought, All of this is because of Kermit . The tree house, and being with Mary Kay right now, and her thinking I was smart, and not even seeming to notice I was way shorter than her, and not dressed so good, either.

The stars above us made the universe look so immense. That’s when I had the weird feeling. That good could come from bad, and that maybe I was being looked after by the same thing that put the stars in the sky, and that maybe everything was going to be okay.

It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt that way. Like I didn’t have to look after anything at all.

And all that was nothing compared to what happened later. Believe me, my uncle Ben and Miss Maple were about the furthest thing from my mind.

It was the first time Ben Anderson had had an evening to himself since Kyle had become a permanent part of his life. At first, watching his nephew go down the walk in front of the house and get into an upscale SUV, Ben felt heady with freedom.

He cocked his head and listened. No steady thump of the bass beat from down the hall.

“I could rent a movie, with bad language and violence,” he said out loud, contemplating his options. “Man stuff.” He beat his chest to get in the mood for man stuff, something he’d refrained from doing to avoid being scoffed at by his roomie.

Strangely, he discovered he could feel ridiculous all by himself. It was the influence of the annoying Miss Maple. Somehow, even though he was all alone, he could just picture her eyebrows shooting up at chest beating.

“I’ll show her,” he decided. “I’ll call Samantha.” But before he got to the phone he found his steps slowing at the thought of an evening with Samantha, pretty as she was. He’d given up on her even before Miss Maple, so imagine how dumb he’d find her now that he had someone to compare her to. Someone who could quote Aristotle, no less!