by Amy Lamont
How many women could say they’d been lucky enough to have so many men who would happily give up their own lives to save her own?
Looking across the table at Doug as he perused the dessert menu, nothing sounded as unappetizing as playing it safe.
* * *
First on her to-do list the day after the date with Doug was a trip to the hardware store. Mandy hadn’t wanted to intrude on Hal and Joe the night before as they dealt with the news there might be a problem with the baby, but she was determined to check on her this morning.
Hal looked up from her spot on the floor sorting through several baskets of nuts and bolts as Mandy stepped through the door. Before Mandy could say a word, the young woman held up a hand. “Don’t say anything.”
“Oookay.” Mandy drew the word out, unsure of why Hal was asking for her silence. Instead of questioning her or offering any more comfort, Mandy plunked herself down on the floor opposite her friend and joined in on the sorting.
“We’re not talking about it.”
“Okay.”
“Joe and I spent all of last night crying and yelling and carrying on,” Hal said.
“Okay.” Mandy continued to sort, not looking up at Hal. She wanted to give her the opportunity to get everything off her chest in her own way and in her own time.
“At the end of it all, we realized until the next test, there’s not much we can do. Just sit and wait.” Hal weighed a few silver nails in her palm and then put them to the side. “We decided we’re not going to say anything to anyone. We’re not going to talk about it at all.”
Mandy understood all too well. When she first got the news of Will’s death, she slid into denial. Even as she walked up to the open casket at his wake, she refused to believe it was him. To her it was all a big mistake and she’d known when she looked in the casket, she’d have to try to hide her relief that it was someone else. Anyone but Will.
That denial was what got her through the days of waiting for Will’s body to be shipped home as she went through the motions of preparing for his funeral. Far be it for her to make her friend face reality before she was ready now.
“Want to hear about my date?”
Hal’s relieved smile squashed any feelings of guilt Mandy had over bringing up something so insignificant in light of what Hal was going through.
“I so want to hear about your date. Tell me everything,” Hal said.
“Not much to tell. Doug is a really nice guy.”
“Uh-huh.” Hal made a come-here motion with her fingers. “I want details. The juicier the better. Don’t forget, I’m an old married lady.”
Mandy laughed at the idea of Hal, who even at five months pregnant looked as if she’d just stepped off a runway, ever being described as an old married lady. “Seriously, there’s not one juicy detail to share. It was pleasant.”
“Pleasant?” Hal wrinkled her nose.
“Let’s put it this way, if they were making a movie about us, it would be in black and white.”
“So can I take it there was no good night kiss?”
“No! Thank goodness.” Mandy’s hand flew to her mouth. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It wasn’t that it was a bad date. Doug is a really terrific guy. Just so….” She searched her brain for the right way to explain why Doug wasn’t the guy for her.
“Boring,” Hal said with a decisive nod.
Another laugh escaped Mandy, but she quickly brought herself under control. “I didn’t mean he’s boring. He’s just not for me.”
“Well, at least you’re out there dating again.”
“Yes, and most of us aren’t lucky enough to land the man of our dreams the first time out of the gate,” Mandy teased.
“Truer words were never spoken.” Hal sighed deeply, like a schoolgirl with her first crush. “Joe was it for me from the minute he moved in next door when I was in fourth grade.”
Mandy pushed down the twinge of envy twisting its way up from her stomach. “I guess I’ll just have to keep trying.”
“That’s the spirit. Next time try going for dark and dangerous instead of safe and nice.”
The words dark and dangerous immediately conjured an image of Mitch pinning her against the washing machine in her grandmother’s laundry room. She almost moaned out loud as she recalled the way his mouth had thoroughly explored hers.
“Hey, are you holding out on me?”
Startled out of her daydream, Mandy looked up guiltily at Hal.
“You are!” Hal pointed a finger at Mandy. “What are you not telling me? Was there a good night kiss?”
Mandy laughed. “No, there was most definitely not a good night kiss.” And then she couldn’t help but add fuel to Hal’s fire. “At least not one with Doug.”
“You went out with one man and ended up kissing another?” Hal screeched.
“No, no.” Mandy bit her bottom lip and shrugged her shoulders. “The kissing happened the night before the date. And definitely not with Doug.”
Mandy could practically see the wheels spinning in Hal’s head. After several seconds, Hal’s eyes grew big. “Mitch! You kissed Mitch Taylor!”
Mandy could feel the heat flooding her face and raised her hands to cover her cheeks.
“Oh my God, you did. You kissed Mitch.”
Mandy nodded.
“Oh, girl, you better peel those hands away from your face and start talking.”
And she did. Mandy spilled her guts about every last detail of her interactions with Mitch from the moment she’d first encountered him when she was standing on her grandmother’s doorstep right up to his parting shot as she walked out the door with Doug last night.
“Oh my God!” Hal’s squeal cut off suddenly as the bell over the door rang. “Hi, Mr. Hanson.”
The two women shared a look and Mandy pulled her bottom lip between her teeth to keep from giggling.
“What can I help you with today?” Hal started to push herself off the floor.
Mr. Hanson stayed her with a raised hand. “Don’t get up. Don’t get up. I can help myself. Just need some new roller covers and a can of paint thinner.”
The two women watched the older man shuffle down the aisle to the back of the store where the paint supplies were kept. The second he was out of sight, Hal leaned over and gripped Mandy’s wrist.
“Do you know how many women in Kismet Beach would kill to get that man anywhere near their pants?” What Hal’s whisper lacked in volume, she made up for in intensity.
“And let me tell you, the man could charge for it.” Mandy couldn’t stop herself from sharing.
Hal unsuccessfully tried to muffle another squeal.
“Everything all right up here?” Mr. Hanson stood at the end of one of the aisles, a can of paint thinner dangling from his fingers and some roller covers tucked under his arm.
“Just fine, Mr. Hanson.” Hal gestured to Mandy. “Have you met Mandy yet? She’s Mrs. Palmer’s granddaughter.”
They exchanged hellos while Mr. Hanson looked at the two of them with suspicion before he made his way out, reminding Hal to put his purchases on his tab. And then there was a suspicious mumble under his breath about what happens when a bunch of women take over a hardware store. The two women burst into giggles the moment the door shut behind him.
“Okay, Miss Mandy,” Hal said once she’d regained her composure a bit, “spill. If you were smooching Mitch a few days ago, what on earth were you doing accepting a date with Doug yesterday? And even more importantly, why didn’t you tell me everything about that kiss yesterday?”
The outrage in her friend’s voice at being kept out of the loop caused a brief smile to bloom, but then she looked down, scooping handfuls of bolts out of a basket and then letting them slide through her fingers once more. “That was the first time I kissed anyone since….”
“Since Will.” Hal’s soft voice was filled with compassion.
Mandy looked up at her and nodded. “I felt…I don’t know. Guilty, I guess. Like I
was being unfaithful to Will’s memory.”
Hal nodded in understanding without saying a word. Mandy smiled again, grateful the other woman wasn’t trying to convince her she shouldn’t feel that way. She knew it wasn’t logical. It just was what it was.
“The thing is,” Mandy said, “I think the guilt was in proportion to how much I enjoyed the kiss.”
A wicked smile curved Hal’s lips. “Do tell.”
“It was good.” At Hal’s indignant huff, Mandy went on. “Okay, okay. My toes curled, my knees got weak. I think for a minute I heard angels singing. Happy now?”
“Oh, yeah,” Hal sighed, closing her eyes for a second. But then her eyes popped open and she looked at Mandy with narrowed eyes. “And again I ask, if you were having sparks aplenty with Mitch, why on earth were you out to dinner with Mr. Pleasant last night?”
Mandy’s shoulders slumped. “He seemed the safer bet. I swore I wouldn’t get involved with another military man. After Will….”
“Oh, honey.” Hal reached over and rubbed a hand over Mandy’s shoulder. “If the choice is between safe and boring or risky and sizzling, go for the sizzle. You don’t get many chances like that in life.”
* * *
When Mandy arrived home hours later, Hal’s words played again and again in her head. Was she right? If she settled for someone like Doug, someone who didn’t make her heart start beating double time, whose simple touch didn’t set off tiny flairs of heat throughout her body, she might end up living the rest of her life in black and white.
With Will things had definitely been in full color. And if she were being honest, she’d felt like the world had come back into clear focus for the first time in three years when she went toe to toe with Mitch that first night.
She tried to picture having a knockdown, drag-out fight with Doug, but she just couldn’t see it. And no fighting meant no making up. She had a feeling Mitch would be really good at making up. She stood in the foyer, indulging herself in thoughts of all the ways she and Mitch could make up after a fight.
And as if her thoughts had summoned him, Mitch appeared in the hallway.
“Mitch! What are you doing here?”
He gave her a tight smile. “Checking to make sure the repair to the sink was going to stick this time. Don’t want another middle of the night flood.”
Mandy’s thoughts jumped to what had happened after their last middle of the night flood. The toe-curling, knee-weakening, angels singing kiss. She started to sweat in strange places, and then realized he was standing there expecting a response.
“Good, good.” Under the circumstances, that was the best she could do. She stood there feeling asinine, unable to do anything more than stare at him.
With her thoughts in such a tumult over her reactions to him, she didn’t know where to start. Apologize again for the way she acted after they kissed? She cringed, thinking of how he’d seen her walking out the door with Doug the day after they shared that kiss. Was it too late to take the risk?
“How was your date?”
Mandy’s eyes grew wide. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. This was definitely not the direction she planned on taking with him.
Then again, why not? Maybe this is the perfect opening.
“Terrible,” she said.
Mitch went perfectly still. Guess that wasn’t the answer he was expecting. “Did you react the same way to his kisses as you did mine?”
“No!” At the same time she answered, she wondered whether he was referring to her tears or to the way she’d responded so freely to him. She shook her head and sighed and decided to keep plowing on with the truth. “No, I didn’t react to his kiss because there was no kiss.”
Mitch leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen and folded his arms as a slow grin claimed his lips. “Loverboy didn’t try to put the moves on you?”
Mandy’s mind skimmed over the awkward good-bye she and Doug shared last night. He’d walked her to the door and leaned in a little at the same time she leaned back and stuck out a hand. She’d felt less awkward with her boyfriend when she was fourteen.
Of course, her boyfriend when she was fourteen had been Will, and if he leaned in for a kiss, she was for sure leaning in to meet him.
And with Mitch, well, there was none of that fourteen-year-old fumbling when Mitch kissed her. It was nothing but molten heat and….
And sizzle.
“No,” she finally managed to get out, “he didn’t try to put the moves on me.”
A snort of disbelief was his only response. He shook his head and stood up from the doorframe. “Guess I’ll finish up in here.”
Staring at his back, she bit her lip. Was it truly worth the risk? Her mind played over the date with Doug and tried to imagine pursuing something more with him. A vision of her life played out in her mind—all in black and white.
Then again, she didn’t know if Mitch was even interested in pursuing anything beyond the kiss they shared in the middle of the night. And if he was, what would he be interested in? A brief fling? Dating? And what if it didn’t go well? She was bound to keep running into him. Her grandmother thought of him as another grandchild.
Mandy squared her shoulders. She’d lived through the death of her fiancé. She could deal with some hurt feelings if things ended with Mitch. What was a bruised heart after what she’d been through?
That thought propelled her down the hall to the kitchen. She stopped short at the sight that met her eyes.
The plumbers of Kismet Beach had nothing on Mitch. She only wished his jeans would slip down a little. Her mouth went dry and it was her turn to lean against the doorframe. Only she needed it to support her because the sight of Mitch leaning under the sink, some of his best assets on display, was something to behold.
She didn’t know if it was the view that made her bold, the fact he wasn’t actually looking at her, or the reminder of how strong she’d had to be to survive the last three years, but she couldn’t help the whistle of appreciation that slid from between her lips.
Mitch sat up abruptly and a thud could be heard as he smacked his head on a pipe. “Damn it.”
She lifted a hand to her mouth in a sad attempt to stifle her giggles.
Mitch pulled himself out from under the sink and turned to glare at her, rubbing a spot on the middle of his head.
“Happy I can provide some entertainment for you,” he said sourly.
“I’m sorry.” She couldn’t get the laughter contained so it was probably not the most sincere of apologies.
“Sounds like it.”
His grumpiness only made her giggles start again. And then his lips twitched. He wasn’t quite as annoyed as he’d like her to think.
“Want me to kiss it and make it better?” Realizing what she just said to him killed the laughter immediately.
The hand massaging his sore scalp slowed and then stopped, but he didn’t remove it.
Mandy bit her lip as she tried to read his odd expression. Did he think she was the most obnoxious tease that ever lived or just a complete lunatic?
Well, she’d already decided to take the risk. Why not give it her all?
She walked over to him and pulled his hand from the top of his head. He remained perfectly still. She leaned down and placed a lingering kiss on the spot he’d banged, reveling in the way his close-cropped hair tickled her cheeks and inhaling his clean, male scent.
Before he could react and pull himself up from where he sat, legs stretched in front of him, she plopped down on the floor across from him, crossing her legs and placing a hand over his knee to keep him there. She was struck by how similar their positions were to the ones she and Hal had assumed in the hardware store that morning.
“I’m an idiot,” she said.
Mitch threw up his hands. “I give up. Every time I think I have you figured, you do something like this.”
“Something like what?” She didn’t know if she should be flattered or indignant.
“You cr
ied when I kissed you and now you’re whistling at me.”
“You’re very whistle-worthy.” She nodded earnestly, purposely widening her eyes and pouting to show off her best innocent look.
“And then you say things like that.” His voice got quiet, serious. Time to come clean.
“Did my grandmother tell you about Will?”
Mitch squinted his eyes and pursued his lips a little. “I don’t think so,” he said, after a minute.
Huh. Not the answer she expected.
“We were engaged.” Mandy pulled her knees up so she could wrap her arms around them. She perched her cheek on one so she could turn her head sideways to look at him.
Mitch looked down at the floor and again wore that look of deep concentration. After a minute he nodded. “When Miss Abigail first wrote me, she mentioned a granddaughter who was engaged. Army, right?”
Mandy nodded. “She never told you anything else about him?”
Mitch shook his head. “Not that I remember.”
Mandy hugged her knees even tighter. Why was this so hard? She should be used to talking about this by now. She pulled a deep breath into her lungs.
“He was killed in action three years ago.”
Mitch didn’t say a word. He looked away from her for a full minute and then just turned and put a hand on the top of her head, resting it there.
The warmth radiating from his palm took a soothing path, first tingling its way down her scalp and then moving through her body. She closed her eyes and accepted the comfort he offered.
She pulled in another shaky breath after a few minutes and opened her eyes. As good as it felt to sit there with him, that wasn’t her point in telling him about Will.
Mandy was surprised when she looked at him and found him staring straight ahead at the back door, blank face firmly in place. When he felt her move, he pulled his hand away and turned toward her, but the blankness remained.
She shouldn’t be surprised. Her father had always faced bad news with the same stoicism, but she knew the caring, good-humored man remained underneath. Hiding behind an emotionless expression was the way he dealt with the worst life and war had to offer.