Miss Maple and the Playboy

by Cara Colter

  “That sounds like way too much,” she said, but her protest was weak, overridden by the wonder in her eyes as she gazed at that tree, beginning to see the possibility.

  To see her at school, prim and tidy, a person would never guess how her eyes would light up at the thought of her own tree house. But Ben had always known, from the first moment, that she had a secret side to her. The tree in her classroom had held the seeds of this moment.

  He was not sure it was wise to uncover it. And he was also not sure if he could stop himself, which was an amazing thought in itself since he considered self-discipline one of his stronger traits.

  “We’ll take it one step at a time.” That way he could back off if he needed to. But then he heard himself committing to a little more, knowing he could not leave this project until he saw the light in her eyes reach full fruition. He did a rough calculation in his head. “We’ll come every day for two weeks after school. We’ll see if he’s learned what he needs to learn by then.”

  She turned her attention from the tree and he found himself under the gaze of those amazing eyes. He knew, suddenly, he was not the only one who saw things that others did not see.

  “There are a lot of ways to be a teacher, aren’t there, Ben?”

  She said it softly, as if she admired something about him. In anyone else, that would be the flirt, the invitation to start playing the game with a little more intensity, to pick up the tempo.

  But from her it was a compliment, straight from her heart. And it went like an arrow to his, and penetrated something he had thought was totally protected in armor.

  “Thanks,” he said, softly. “We’ll be here tomorrow, right after school.” He turned and called his nephew.

  They watched as he scrambled out of the tree.

  “We’re going to come, starting tomorrow after school,” Ben told him. “We’re going to build Miss Maple a tree house.”

  Kyle’s eyes went round. “A tree house?” For the first time since they had laughed together about Casper’s underwear, his defensive shield came down. “Awesome,” he breathed.

  “Awesome,” she agreed.

  Kyle actually smiled. A real smile. So genuine, and so revealing about who Kyle really was that it nearly hurt Ben’s eyes. But then Kyle caught himself and frowned, as if he realized he had revealed way too much about himself.

  Ben turned to go, thinking maybe way too much had been revealed about everybody today.

  There are lots of ways to be a teacher. As if she saw in him the man he could be, as if she saw the heart that he had kept invisible, unreachable, untouchable, behind its armor. He could teach her a thing or two, too. But he wasn’t going to.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BETH Maple stood at her kitchen counter and listened to the steady thump of hammers in her yard. She contemplated how it was that her neatly structured life had been wrested so totally from her control.

  “Uncle Ben, haven’t you ever heard of skin cancer, for cripe’s sake? The three Ss? Slam on a hat, slather on sunscreen and slip on a shirt.”

  For a moment it only registered how sweet it was that Kyle was so concerned about his uncle.

  But then she froze. Ben Anderson had taken off his shirt? In her backyard?

  “I’ll live dangerously,” Ben called to his nephew.

  Now there was a surprise, she thought dryly. Don’t peek, she told herself, but that was part of having things wrested out of her control. Despite the sternness of the order she had given herself, she peeked anyway.

  It was a gorgeous day. September sunshine filtering through yellow-edged leaves with surprising heat and bathing her yard in gold. Her yard actually looked worse than it had a few days ago, with spray-painted lines on her patches of grass, heaps of dirt, sawed-off branches and construction materials stacked up.

  But the pure potential shone through the mess and made her feel not just happy but elated. Maybe when a person gave up a bit of control, it left room for life to bring in some surprises, like the one that was unfolding in her yard.

  Of course, there was one place she had to keep her control absolute, and where she was failing, the order not to peek being a prime example. She had peeked anyway, and she felt a forbidden little thrill at what she was seeing.

  Was it possible that sense of elation that filled her over the past few days had little to do with the yard?

  Certainly the forbidden thrill had nothing to do with the landscaping progress in her yard.

  No, there was enough heat in that afternoon sun that Ben Anderson had removed his shirt.

  It was delicious to spy on him from the safety of her kitchen window, to look her fill, though she was not sure a woman could ever see enough of a sight like Ben Anderson, undressed.

  He looked like a poster boy for sexy, all lean, hard muscle, taut, flawless skin, a smudge of dirt across the ridged plane of his belly, sweat shining in the deep hollow of his throat, just above the deep, strong expanse of a smooth chest. His jeans, nearly white with age and washing, hung low on the jut of his hips. His stomach was so flat that the jeans were suspended from hip to hip, creating a lip-licking little gap where the waistband was not even touching his skin.

  Beth watched his easy swing of the hammer, the corresponding ripple of muscle. It made her feel almost dizzy. She had known from the start Ben Anderson needed a label. Contents too potent to handle. She had never gotten a thrill like this over the Internet, that was for sure!

  It was embarrassing to be this enamored with his physical being, but he was so real. No wonder she had found her Internet romance as delightful as she had. The presence of a real man was anything but; it was disturbing.

  It was disturbing to feel so tense around another human being, so aware of them, and so aware of unexplored parts of yourself.

  Beth felt she would have been quite content to go through life without knowing that she possessed this hunger.

  Now that she did know she possessed it, how did she go back to what she had been before? What did she do about it? Surrender? Fight it?

  Surely baking cookies was no kind of answer! But it bought her time. Which she should have used wisely. She could have done an Internet search for defenses against diabolically attractive men instead of spying from her kitchen window!

  This was the third time Ben and Kyle had been here, twice after school, short sessions where his shirt had stayed on. Though for Beth, seeing him deal with that fragile boy with just the right mix of sternness and affection had been attractive in and of itself. She could see that her initial assessment of Ben Anderson—that he could not be domesticated—had been inaccurate. When she saw his patience with Kyle, and the way he guided the child toward making his own decisions, she knew she was looking at a man who would be a wonderful daddy someday, who was growing in confidence in this role of mentor and guardian.

  Now it was Saturday and Ben had shown up this morning, way too early, announcing they would spend the whole day.

  Saturday was her sleep-in day, and her grocery day, and her laundry day, and her errand day, and she had canceled everything she normally would have done without a second thought. Groceries or hanging out with Ben Anderson. Duh.

  The buzzer on the oven rang, and Beth moved, reluctantly, from the window and removed the cookies, dripping with melted chocolate chips, from her oven. While she waited for them to cool, she debated, milk or lemonade? Milk would go better with the cookies, lemonade would go better with the day.

  That’s what having a man like that in your yard did to you. Every decision suddenly seemed momentous. It felt as if her choice would say something about her. To him.

  In the end she put milk and lemonade on the tray. To confuse him, just in case her choices were telling him anything about her.

  He set down his hammer when he saw her coming, smiled that lazy, sexy smile that was setting her world on edge. Kyle, who was hard at work digging something, set down the shovel eagerly.

  She had known Ben was a man with good instincts. This proj
ect was not just good for Kyle. The turn-around in his attitude seemed nothing short of spectacular. It was as if he had been uncertain he had any value in the world, and suddenly he saw what hard work—his hard work—could accomplish. He could see how the face of the world could be changed by him in small ways, like her yard. And the possibility of changing the world in big ways opened to him for the first time.

  When Ben had unfolded his drawing of the yard, he had included his nephew and consulted with him, listened to him, showed respect for his opinions. And Ben had done the same for her.

  The three of them were building something together, and in her most clear moments she was aware it was not just a tree house.

  The plan that Ben had drawn for her tree retreat filled some part of her that she did not know had been empty. It was deceptively simple. A staircase spiraled around the tree trunk, though it actually never touched it, because Ben had been concerned about keeping the tree healthy, by not driving nails into the trunk or branches.

  The staircase led to a simple railed platform that sat solidly in amongst the strongest branches, but was again supported mostly by the subtle use of posts and beams.

  Ben’s concern for the health of her tree had surprised her, showed her, again, that there was something more there than rugged appeal and rippling muscle. Ben had a thoughtfulness about him, though if she were to point it out, she was certain he would laugh and deny it.

  She soon found out executing such a vision was not that simple. There had been digging, digging and more digging. Then leveling and compacting. She had insisted on having a turn on the compactor, a machine that looked like a lawn mower, only it was heavier and had a mind of its own.

  Ben had turned it on, and while under his watchful eye she had tried to guide it around the base of the tree where there would be a concrete pad. The compactor was like handling a jackhammer. The shaking went up her whole body. She felt like a bobble-head doll being hijacked!

  “Whoa,” she called over and over, but the machine did not listen. Despite all Ben’s efforts to be kind to the tree, she banged into the trunk of it three times.

  Kyle finally yelled over the noise, begging her to stop, he was laughing so hard. And then she had dared to glance away from her work. Ben was laughing, too.

  And then she was laughing, which the unruly machine took advantage of by taking off across her lawn and ripping out a patch of it, until Ben grabbed it and shut it off and gently put her away from it.

  “Miss Maple?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re fired.”

  When had she last laughed like that? Until her sides hurt? Until everything bad that had ever happened to her was washed away in the golden light of that shared moment? The laughter had made her feel new and alive, and as though life held possibilities that she had never dreamed of.

  Possibilities as good as or even better than the tree sanctuary that was becoming a reality in her backyard.

  The world she had allowed herself to have suddenly seemed way too rigid, the dreams she had given up on beckoned again. Everything shimmered, but was it an illusion of an oasis or was it something real?

  Watching Ben work made it harder to see those distinctions, flustered her, and made her feel off balance. When a concrete truck had arrived, she had watched as Ben, so sure of himself, so in charge, so at ease, had directed that spout of creamy cement, pouring concrete footings, a pad for the staircase and a small patio.

  It was his world. He was in charge. Competent. Decisive. All business and no nonsense as he showed Kyle what needed to be done. The concrete work seemed so hard, and yet there was nothing in him that shirked from it, he seemed to enjoy using his strength to create such lasting structures. That alone was deeply attractive in ways she didn’t quite understand, but it was when the concrete was beginning to set that he added the shimmer.

  The stern expression of absolute concentration fell away. He set down the trowel he’d been using and showing Kyle how to use. “Come on over, Beth, let’s show them forever who did this.”

  Not a man you wanted to use your name in the same sentence that contained the word forever. Even if you did dream such things.

  And he bent over and put his hands in the setting concrete.

  And then he insisted she leave her prints there beside his. Kyle added his handprints happily, writing his name under his handprint, giving her a sideways look.

  “Can I write, it sucks to be you?”

  And then they had all laughed. Again. That beautiful from-the-belly laughter that felt as if it had the power to heal everything that was wrong in the world. Her world, anyway.

  “Did you know,” Ben asked her solemnly, “that your nose crinkles when you laugh?”

  She instinctively covered her nose, but he pulled her concrete-covered hand away.

  “You don’t want to get that stuff on your face,” he said, and then added, “It’s cute when your nose does that.”

  She had been blissfully unaware until very recently that there was anything in her world that was wrong, that needed to be healed.

  Beth had been convinced she was over all that nonsense with Rock/Ralph. Completely.

  But now, as her world got bigger and freshened with new experiences and with laughter, and with a man who noticed her nose crinkled when she laughed and thought it was cute, she saw how her hurt had made her world small. Safe, but small.

  Now it was as if something magic was unfolding in her yard, and the three of them were helpless against its enchantment. She had actually considered having Kyle put those words in there, it sucks to be you, because with those words this funny, unexpected miracle had been brought to her.

  Not just the tree house.

  Maybe the tree house was even the least of it. This feeling of working toward a common goal with other people, of being part of something. This feeling of the tiniest things, like washing the concrete off their hands with the hose, Ben reaching over and scrubbing a spec of stubborn grit off her hand, being washed in light, the ordinary becoming extraordinary.

  Who was she kidding? The feeling was of belonging. The feeling was of excitement. It was as if something was unfolding just below the surface, as if the excitement in her life had just begun. As that the yard took shape, her staircase beginning to wind around the tree, it was as if she saw possibility in a brand-new way.

  Now, as she came out the door with her tray of goodies and set them on the worn picnic table that once had been the pathetic centerpiece of her yard, she watched Ben stop what he was doing. He walked toward her, scooping up his T-shirt as he came, giving his face and chest a casual swipe with it, before pulling it over that incredible expanse of naked male beauty.

  “Milk and lemonade,” he said, grinning, eyeing the contents of the tray. “Interesting.”

  “Why?” she demanded. She had just known he would read something into whatever choice she made! She should have known not making a choice had a meaning, too.

  He laughed. “You’re trying to make everybody happy.”

  “No,” she said, and put the tray down, stood with her hands on her hips staring at the reality of the staircase starting to gracefully curve around the tree, “you are. And look at my yard.” But she wanted to say Look at me. Can’t you tell how happy I am? Instead she said, “Look at Kyle.”

  Kyle arrived at the picnic table, smudges of dirt on his face, glowing with something suspiciously like happiness even without the choice between lemonade and milk.

  “Look,” he crowed, and showed her his hand.

  A blister was red across the palm.

  “Oh,” she said, “that’s terrible. I’ll get some ointment.”

  But his uncle nudged her and shook his head. “It’s part of being a man,” he said.

  Just loud enough for Kyle to hear him.

  Kyle’s chest filled with air, and he grinned happily, dug into the cookies and didn’t look up until the plate was nearly emptied. He drank two glasses of milk and one of lemonade, and then l
eaped up and went back to what he’d been doing.

  “Okay, I admit it,” she said, watching the boy pick up his shovel. “Your plan is better than mine. He loves this. He is a different boy than he was a few days ago.”

  “Well, don’t say it too loud or he might feel driven to prove you wrong, but, yeah, it’s good for him.”

  “It’s really good of you to do this. I’m sure today should have been your day off.”

  “I don’t take much time off at this time of year. It gets slow when the weather changes, and then I take some time.”

  “And do what?” Was it too personal? Of course it was. She didn’t want to know what he did with his spare time. Yes, she did.

  “Usually I go back to Hawaii for a couple of weeks.” His eyes drifted to Kyle. “This year, I’m not sure.”

  “How is your sister?” She could tell right away that this was too personal, by the way his shoulders stiffened, how he swirled lemonade in the bottom of his glass like a fortune-teller looking for an answer.

  She could tell this was the part of himself that he didn’t want people to know about. It was easy for him to be charming and fun-loving. She almost held her breath waiting to see what he would show her.

  And then sighed with relief when he showed her what was real.

  He rolled his big shoulders, looked away from the lemonade and held her gaze for one long, hard moment. “She’s not going to make it.”

  Beth had known Kyle’s mother was seriously ill. There was no other reason that Ben would have been appointed his guardian. But she was still taken aback at this piece of news.

  She touched his arm. Nothing else. Just touched him. And it felt as if it was the most right thing in the world when his hand came and covered hers. Something connected them. Not sympathy, but something bigger, a culmination of something that had started happening in this yard from the first moment he had said he would build a tree house for her.

  She could have stayed in that wordless place of connection for a long time. But his reaction was almost the opposite of hers.