Jennifer Greene: Bachelor Mom

“There aren’t any monsters in your bed, Dad. And just in case one comes, then I won’t have to walk all the way down the hall to your room. It’s dark and scary in the hall.”

He gave April another kiss and then tucked the stuffed two-foot-high yellow rabbit under the covers with her. “There’s a night light in the hall now, remember? It’s not dark anymore. And I’m pretty sure we killed off all the monsters a couple nights ago. Haven’t seen one since.”

“But what if one comes?”

“Then you yell at the top of your lungs for Dad.” He illustrated, mimicking her child’s soprano in such a campy fashion that she started giggling. “I’ll come running lickety-split and we’ll save each other. But right now I want you to close your eyes and think about marshmallows.”

“Marshmallows?”

“Yup. Close your eyes, lovebug, and concentrate real, real hard on marshmallows.” It was the newest theory he was trying. So far he hadn’t found a sure cure for night terrors, no matter how many child-rearing books he’d read. Instead of picturing monsters just before she went to sleep, he was trying to get her to think about something safe and soft and fun.

So far, it worked some of the time. The chances were about “even-steven” he’d wake up in the morning with a six-year-old hogging the covers. Early in the night, though, April’s sleep patterns were as predictable as the sunrise. If he could just get her to close her eyes, she’d be snoozing deep and heavy twenty minutes from now.

For the next twenty minutes he stood in the kitchen, sipping an iced tea, staring out the west window at the sweep of lawn that bordered his place and Gwen’s.

Mary Margaret, his housekeeper, made fine iced tea. She was addicted to Pine Sol, though. Seemed there was no limit to the gallons she could go through, and the smell pervaded the kitchen. So did the chicken cacciatore she’d made for dinner. Mary Margaret was chunky, built like a barrel, with long, wiry gray hair always pulled back in the same merciless bun. She broke something once a week, covered up any experimental cooking with an overdose of cayenne, and she looked tougher than old nails ... but she’d about die for his daughter. Spence never cared about the rest.

He’d been a little uneasy about dads and daughters and whether it was okay for April to climb in bed with him in the middle of the night. Mary Margaret, in typical tactful fashion, told him he was being stupid. When a child was scared, you did whatever you had to do to help them get unscared. She also told him to burn all the silly child-rearing books and listen to her. She’d raised five children. She knew everything.

Should he ever fail to obey her sage advice, the threat of habanero-and-cayenne-laced chicken cacciatore was always there.

The only terrorizing females he’d allowed in his life in several years now were April and Mary Margaret.

But he was considering adding another.

Across the yard, past the shadow-dipped fence and moonlit swing set, a light went out in one of the back rooms. Gwen was putting her sons to bed. Like him, she probably couldn’t really rest and relax for a few minutes yet, not until she knew for sure the kids were asleep.

Light glowed from the jalousie window in her bathroom, then flicked off again. After that she headed for the kitchen. Living across the way from her for the past two years, he knew her patterns fairly well by now. She flew around the kitchen doing little cleanups right after the boys went to bed. A few minutes later she’d check on them. She didn’t let down her hair—so to speak—until she was sure her sons were asleep. Then, often enough, she’d slip off her shoes and wander outside barefoot for a few minutes, closing her eyes, breathing in the night.

It was her way of letting out the day’s stresses, Spence guessed. But he’d seen her lift her face, seen the moonlight wash over her delicate profile and soft skin. Sometimes a night breeze would pucker off the ocean, cupping the blouse fabric intimately to her high, full breasts, fingering light and shine into her cap of nutmeg brown curls. Sometimes she’d sway in the breeze as if she were hearing music, not dancing, but as if there were a song or dream in her head that she couldn’t stop thinking about.

During the day, it was almost impossible to catch Gwen when she wasn’t herding kids—hers and half the neighborhood’s. She always had a smile. Was always dressed in practical cotton or denim. Always had time to give a neighbor a helping hand or a listening ear—including him—but he’d never seen any guy around the place except for her good-looking, cold-eyed ex.

If Spence hadn’t seen her, all those moonlit nights, he would never have guessed there was more to the package than the practical single mom and commonsense neighbor. But he’d seen the sensual beauty in Gwen, the dreamer side to her... and the loneliness.

From the beginning she’d never given him more than the friendly time of day. Spence sensed she needed healing time to get over her divorce. He understood that. He had scars left over from the breakup of his marriage to May, and there was no fast recovery from certain kinds of emotional wounds.

Two years had passed, though. Two years of watching her and thinking about her and using their mutual single-parent problems to naturally create excuses to talk with her. Spence had never tried a serious move. It pushed his black humor buttons, though, that an embarrassing number of women in his business life seemed willing to chase him, given no encouragement at all, yet Gwen had never given him the first sign that she noticed he was a male human being. Maybe she didn’t like brown hair and brown eyes. Maybe tall men didn’t turn her on. Maybe she liked big brawny guys instead of lean. Spence had a sister who’d never treated him as sisterly as Gwen did.

She hadn’t kissed him last night like a sister, though.

With his gaze still on the window view, Spence set his iced tea glass in the sink. He considered whether he was up for a knife-in-the-gut rejection. He considered how many clear no-touch signals she’d given him over the past two years. He considered that he hadn’t taken a serious risk with a woman since May, and having his heart torn out had been as much fun to recover from as a ballet wound.

Spence rubbed the back of his neck, then abruptly pivoted around. He checked first on April, to make sure she was dead-to-the-world asleep, then inhaled a lungful of courage and strode determinedly for the back door.

The problem—the really nasty, unsolvable problem—was that the only way to figure out what Gwen Stanford. felt—or could feel for him—was to go over there and find out.

But taking the risk sure felt like diving into the ocean with no life buoy or rescue raft in sight.

Three

“You give me fever... when you kiss me ...” It was tough to belt out rock and roll when you couldn’t carry a tune to save your life and had to whisper because the boys were sleeping—but brownie making wouldn’t be the same without a song. Gwen cracked two eggs and plopped them in the bowl.

“I know you’re gonna treat me ri-i-i-ight...” She checked the recipe for the amount of sugar. One cup. That struck her as a little stingy, so she heaped in some extra. “Louie, Louie...” Oops, she was pretty sure those were lyrics to some other oldie, but no matter. There was still a hip-swinging beat to that one, too. Only drat, she’d forgotten to preheat the oven.

Holding a wooden spoon dripping sugar and chocolate, she swiftly pivoted around ... and almost had a heart attack when she saw Spence in her screen doorway. “Eek,” she said weakly.

Even in the muzzy darkness beyond the screen, she could see his effort to control a smile. “Sorry, I really didn’t mean to scare you. I was just about to knock—but then I decided you looked too busy for company and maybe I’d better head back home.”