Carolyn McSparren - Over His Head

“He’s coming around,” Big whispered. “You go on home, Miss Nancy.”

She smiled. “Thanks. How’s the mastiff?”

Big shrugged his massive shoulders. “He ain’t dead. That’s something.”

She was halfway down the hallway that led to the front reception area when she stopped. “I hope I’ve got a ride home.”

NANCY TOOK LANCELOT out in her backyard on a leash at about eleven that evening to do his business. He kept pulling her toward her front yard and the lane, grumbling with annoyance. “Lancelot,” she commanded. “I know you want to go home, but Helen and Bill don’t live across the street any longer. You’re staying with me for the foreseeable future.”

He peered up at her in the light from her porch as though he didn’t believe her for one minute.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re smarter than I am?”

Eventually he finished, waddled up her back stairs, waited at the refrigerator until she gave him a bite of cheese—his evening treat was important to him, Helen had said—and settled into his basket. As she climbed into bed, she realized Poddy and Otto weren’t waiting for her. She peered around the corner of her bedroom door and saw them curled up against Lancelot’s belly. “Deserters,” she said, then grabbed her pillow, beat it into submission and propped it under her head.

As tired as she was, she should have slept instantly. No such luck. She felt guilty, as she always did when she was bad-tempered.

Tim Wainwright must think she was the world’s biggest bitch. She’d certainly snarled at him like a junkyard dog. She rolled over on her stomach and pulled her pillow over the back of her head. Then she rolled over on her other side. She couldn’t get comfortable. Finally she lay on her back, stared up at the ceiling and let herself actually contemplate Tim Wainwright as a male being, something she’d been consciously avoiding.

She still carried the scent of him in her nostrils. She hadn’t been that close to a sweaty male in much too long. Time was when she and Peter used to shower together every night after the horses had been bedded down. She could still remember the feel of his strong hands kneading the kinks out of her shoulders, sliding down her body…

She hit her pillow with a couple of vicious blows. Peter was long gone out of her life. Lord knew how many other women he’d scrubbed since she’d divorced him. She still read about him in the horse magazines as his newly developed riders won trophies and awards.

“I have to thank my trainer, Peter Lombardi, for finding—insert horse’s name—for me and training us. We owe this win to him.” Or variations on that theme. The riders in question were always young, frequently blonde, invariably rich, occasionally talented. She still felt smug that he’d never found another rider who was as talented and fearless as she’d been, who could ride his green horses over fences and make them look like champions. Someone who could ride his crazy jumpers over fences that made the average rider sick with fear.

He’d never married any of the rest of them, either. Well, not so far.

She sat up and leaned against her headboard. She wasn’t the least bit sleepy. She crawled out of bed, padded into the kitchen and pulled out the milk jug. Even in summer, a cup of hot chocolate was a guaranteed soporific. After all, she lived in an air-conditioned cottage.

She mixed herself a mug and slid it into the microwave. Two percent milk, nonfat chocolate powder. Unfortunately she’d never discovered a nonfat, nonsugar marshmallow. As she took out her steaming cup, she turned and saw Lancelot’s little eyes watching her. “Oh, nuts,” she said and poured a little chocolate into a saucer, blew on it, then set it down in front of him. The cats weren’t allowed to have chocolate, but they didn’t like it anyway, and Lancelot wouldn’t be caught dead sharing. He set to with pleasure.

She took the hot chocolate out onto her front porch, sat in one of the old white cane rockers and pulled her feet up under her. The temperature had dropped to a respectable eighty degrees, and there was a fresh breeze blowing through the leaves of the big oak that shaded her roof. She blessed her mother’s genes that kept the mosquitoes from biting her.

The house across the street was dark. She wondered where Tim slept. She hoped he didn’t wear pajamas. She’d always thought men who slept in both top and bottoms were kind of wimpy and old-fashioned, but then she thought of male teachers as pretty wimpy on the whole. Hers certainly had been. Teaching high school must be a real comedown for somebody like that. She wondered if he was running away from some sort of scandal.

The kind of strong muscles she’d felt when he’d wrapped his arms around her didn’t come from sitting behind a desk all day talking about Shakespeare and Tennyson. He must run, swim, lift weights—something to keep in shape. That kind of man probably slept nude.

The rocking chair seemed to have increased its speed. She shuddered and throttled it back. When the vision of an attractive man laying naked in bed brought her nipples to full attention and darned near tossed her out of the rocking chair on her nose, she knew she’d been alone in her own bed far too long.

One of the few good memories from her marriage was sleeping curled against Peter’s naked back. Peter only wore pajamas to bed when Poppy, her stepdaughter from hell, or as Nancy called her, “The Worst Seed,” stayed over.

Tim Wainwright apparently was raising at least two bad seeds of his own. Maybe three if Eddy was as weird as he seemed.

More reason to avoid the entire family. “If you’re lousy at something,” Dr. Mac always said, “quit doing it and take up something you’re good at.”

She felt incompetent to deal with other people’s children, and was absolutely, positively the world’s worst stepmother. She hoped she hadn’t scarred Poppy for life, although Poppy had inflicted some deep wounds of her own. Nancy swore she’d never give anyone a chance to slice and dice her again, nor did she intend to be responsible for even partially rearing anyone else’s kids.

She just had to arm her libido against Tim Wainwright and the heady way his touch had made her feel.

She’d slept alone too long. She’d almost forgotten how it felt to have a man inside her, driving both of them higher until the explosion of pleasure took them over the top.

Hoo, boy. Enough of that.

She sighed and went to open the front door. Before she could get inside, she felt a sharp little foot on her instep.

“No! Lancelot.” She shoved him back, slipped in and shut the door. “You’re staying here, understand? Helen and Bill will come over to visit, and you’ll be going to your new home with them before you realize it.” She set her cup down in the sink, picked up his dish and put it to soak, then went and climbed back into bed. This time she absolutely, positively must get some sleep. Tomorrow looked like it was going to be one god-awful day.

SHE WOKE UP AT DAWN as always, even on Saturday. When she started to sit, she realized her neck was giving her fits. She’d been too tense the day before. Now she’d pay for it. She pulled on a sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of threadbare low-rider cutoffs and padded into the kitchen barefoot to take Lancelot out for his morning potty break.

Poddy and Otto slept curled together in the pet bed, but Lancelot wasn’t in the kitchen. “Lancelot, if you’re in the living room making a mess, I swear I’ll barbecue you,” she called. The cats each opened one eye, then went back to sleep. She rounded the corner and saw at once that the front door was ajar. She must not have latched it properly when she’d come back in. “Oh, no,” she whispered. She grabbed Lancelot’s leash and harness and ran out onto the front porch. He was nowhere in sight.