The minute the door closed he uttered, “Yes!” and did a victory dance that included jumping and waving his hands about wildly. All the fatigue and the depression brought on by Paula’s phone call to Kevin vanished. He had a date with the beautiful and accomplished Amanda Huntington! What’s more she had asked him! She might have started this relationship because of the children, but now he had a chance to show her what he had to offer.
Fly and soar, he thought, or crash and burn. The moment of truth is fast approaching.
Doubts and questions followed quickly on the heels of his elation, but for tonight he shoved them to the back of his mind. Another interesting idea was forming in his head. He suddenly had a plan to pay Amanda back for watching the children, and Kerrianne might just be able to help him pull it off.
Chapter Fifteen
Amanda lay in bed that night, inundated by thoughts of Blake and his reaction to her dancing invitation. Yes, there was a rather strange look in his eyes when she’d asked, but he’d agreed to go. He’d also flashed her the engaging grin that made her want to laugh.
She had done okay, all things considered, especially since she hadn’t had much practice asking guys out. Of course, maybe she shouldn’t have gone to sleep on his couch, but that wasn’t entirely her fault. That dratted timer!
What had he thought when he’d found her asleep? I hope I didn’t snore, she worried. Or have my mouth open. Yuck. Probably—that was just her luck.
And where had he been, anyway?
None of my business.
She sighed and shut her eyes tight, willing sleep to come.
The next day Amanda felt sluggish from lack of sleep. To make matters worse, a freezing rain had poured intermittently throughout the day, keeping the children in for recess. By the end of school, she felt so drained that she could barely muster a feeling of relief when the last of her fourth-graders left the class room. Though it was a Friday and in the old days she had usually been the first one with a date, she found that today she was actually looking forward to an evening alone. All she wanted was to go home and crash without excuses to anyone.
Visions of a hot bubble bath lured her through the soggy streets to her house. After her bath she would heat up the spaghetti from last night and curl up with a blanket and eat in the family room while she watched Pride and Prejudice. She might even fall asleep.
Hey, she thought to herself, I might even fall asleep here in the car if I’m not careful. The heater was hot now, and she was a little too comfortable.
Then she saw the blue truck parked outside her house, and all her sleepiness faded.
Blake!
Oddly, the truck was empty.
The rain had turned to snow, and she was glad that tomorrow she didn’t have to teach. Scraping snow and ice off her car in the mornings was not something she enjoyed. She really needed to think about building on a garage—or a carport at the very least.
What is Blake’s truck doing here?
Amanda entered the side door of her house with her key. She spied Blake immediately across the room in the kitchen. He wore jeans and a blue work shirt, his face unshaven.
“Hey, you’re in my house,” she said, more curious than annoyed. “Alone.”
He grinned. “Yeah, like you were in my house alone.”
“I was baby-sitting.”
“I was fixing your stove.” He held up his tool box. “Didn’t take much to fix your alarm. It was only a loose wire—fortunately. Not like the stove I had to completely rewire yesterday.”
She couldn’t believe it. “You fixed my stove? You mean, no more being jolted from a sound sleep? No waking up thinking it’s the smoke alarm and that I’m going to burn in my bed?”
He arched a brow. “That bad, huh? Nope, no more. At least it appears to be all right. Let me know if you have any more problems.” He started for the door.
“Where’re you going?”
“Back to work.”
“But how did you get in?”
“Kerrianne opened the door. She was here a minute ago, but one of the kids had dance or something so she had to leave. I told her I’d lock up.”
“Oh.” Amanda didn’t know what to say. “Uh, thanks. What do I owe you?”
He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Nothing. It was no problem. I had a break between two of my appointments, I called Kerrianne, and we stopped by, that’s all.” He frowned briefly. “Only you weren’t supposed to come home yet. It was supposed to be a surprise. I left a card.”
Amanda strode to the counter and picked it up. “Surprise!” she read aloud. “The timer on your stove should be all right now. Thanks for watching the kids on such short notice last night. From Blake.” She looked up from his masculine script. “You didn’t need to do this.”
He smiled at her. “Yes, I did. I wanted to.”
“Thank you.”
He didn’t reply for a minute. The tension between them was back, and Amanda imagined sparks leaping the gap between them.
“Well, I’d better go,” he said. “I only do half days on Fridays, but I started late today, so I still have a couple hours left to work.”
Amanda walked him to the front door and watched him speed away, all thoughts of a quiet evening gone from her head.
* * *
After his last service visit, Blake returned to the repair shop. Only Doug and Rhonda were there, and Doug was talking with a customer near the dryers. Rhonda smiled at him as he entered, her frizzy hair looking more wild than usual. “All through?”
“Yeah.” He yawned as he went around the counter and sat down in the chair next to her. Glancing at his watch, he realized he still had a few minutes before he could leave work and head over to Kerrianne’s for the kids.
“I missed watching them this morning while you were at school,” Rhonda said, correctly interpreting his gesture. “After a week of having them underfoot, it seems weird them not being here at the shop, though I know Doug’s glad to have everything back to normal. How’re they liking their new baby-sitter?”
Blake leaned back in his chair, stretching out his legs and placing his hands in back of his head. “They adore her. In fact, there’s probably only one person they like more.”
“You?”
He looked at her, surprised. “Oh, yeah, I guess, but I was actually thinking of someone else.”
Rhonda’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, spill the beans, Blakey boy. You’re looking way too happy for someone I know for sure spent half of last night studying and the other half comforting Kevin from a kidnapper nightmare. Who is she? And when did you have time to meet anyone? I know that every second you weren’t working or studying this week you were changing diapers and hanging out with two certain children. Come on, tell me everything.”
Blake couldn’t help grinning. “Well, there is this one woman I sort of like.”
“Ah-hah! More. Tell me more.”
“What’s to tell?” Blake shrugged.
“Duh. Like who is she, where you met. Did you ask her out? How many times have you seen her? And did you kiss her? Details. I need details.” Rhonda’s eyes gleamed.
Blake shook his head at his sister-in-law’s exuberance, though his own emotions were flying high. “Her name is Amanda Huntington. I met her last week when I fixed her oven, and then she came into the shop the next day—last Thursday. The kids and I stopped by her school on Friday—she’s a teacher, by the way—and she was with us when the social worker came over. Then we sort of had a date on Saturday, and Kevin insisted on taking her soup on Sunday. Last night she watched the kids while I went to school.”
“And?” Rhonda’s thin face was eager.
“No, I didn’t kiss her.”
“Oh.” Rhonda gave a disappointed sigh.
“But she did ask me out for tomorrow night.” Blake looked at Rhonda, both of them grinning like a couple of children. “That reminds me. Can you watch the kids while I go?”
“Yeah, I can do that. Be glad to.” She paused, studying his face
. “You really like her, don’t you?”
Blake nodded. “She’s beautiful, intelligent, creative—everything I ever wanted. Except . . .” His smile faded. He pulled in his legs and put his arms on his lap.
“She sounds perfect. So what’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure she’s interested in me.”
“Why on earth not?” Rhonda was outraged. “Is it because of the kids?”
He shook his head. “Actually, I think she may like me because of the kids.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
He shrugged. “She may just want to be friends. I mean, there seem to be sparks between us, but sometimes she gets this really strange look in her eyes . . . I don’t know what it is. I think I’m not good enough for her.”
“What do you mean not good enough? You’re smart, you’ve almost finished school, you earn a good living. You’re handsome, funny—everything she could want!”
Blake managed a smile at her impassioned defense. “I think she might feel she’s above me. In station, I mean. She’s got a degree. I don’t.”
“Are you sure you’re being fair?” Rhonda said. “She’s not Laurie.”
The name shot through Blake’s body, seeming to touch every part of him with a sense of remorse, of remembered pain.
Laurie. No one had mentioned her name for years.
He’d met Laurie a year after his mission, during the time he had still believed he could make a lifetime career at the repair shop. Laurie hadn’t agreed. In the end she had left their six-month relationship, taunting him for his lack of ambition. No way would she spend the rest of her life trying to stretch each penny. His dreams of their future had been shattered that day, and for a long time he thought he would never recover. Yet, in a way, she had caused him to look inside himself and see what he really wanted instead of what Doug had always planned for him. When the pain of losing her had dimmed enough, Blake decided that maybe she was right. Doug had been his hero far too long; maybe it was time he made his own choices. He decided to go to college and find his own dreams. Laurie never knew—would never know.
Later, when Kevin had come to stay with him, Blake no longer thought of Laurie every day. That was when he realized that she couldn’t be the love of his life or he would still miss her. He began to hope for someone better. Still, the memories seared into his heart weren’t happy.
“I know she’s not Laurie,” he said, taking a deep breath. “But she comes from a family that really values education. Her father has several degrees and is an executive at some big PR firm, her mother recently graduated with a family science degree, Amanda herself has a degree in education, and her brother is going to be a wildlife biologist. The only one who doesn’t have a degree—besides her younger brother who’s on a mission—is her older sister who married young. That’s Kerrianne, the woman who’s watching Kevin and Mara. She may not have a degree, but her husband is talking about going back for his doctorate.”
“So?” Rhonda lifted her shoulders. “You fit right in. You’re almost finished with your degree.”
Blake stared at his hands—rough and scarred from years of repairs. “I didn’t tell her about school.”
“What?” Rhonda’s voice rose to a screech. Across the room Doug and the customer looked over at them, and she immediately lowered her voice. “What do you mean you haven’t told her about school?”
“I wanted her to like me for who I am.” Even as he said the words, Blake knew they sounded feeble. But he also knew he needed a real relationship, not one based on his education level. If Laurie had truly loved him, she would have seen past everything else. She would have seen that he would eventually find his way. Moreover, his happiness would have been more important to her than money.
“Isn’t going to school a part of who you are?” Rhonda asked fiercely. “And your desire for a better financial future? Though repairmen can earn a very good living, thank you very much.” She gave a disgusted shake of her head.
Blake opened his mouth to explain, but Rhonda was too worked up to listen.
“Not telling her your plans for the future is like her not telling you she’s a teacher and letting you think she works as an exotic dancer or something. You certainly wouldn’t be interested in her then.”
“It’s not the same thing. Repair work is a respectable career.”
Rhonda rolled her eyes. “Yes, but your plans for the future are also a part of who you are. Didn’t I just say that? Aren’t you listening? She deserves to know what she’s in for.”
Blake knew Rhonda had no idea how it felt to be rejected in the way he’d been rejected. Still, some of what she said made sense. “I’ll tell her,” he promised, “but only after I’m sure she really likes me, that she’s not just sticking around because she likes children.”
Rhonda sighed. “I guess you’ll do what you have to do.” She mumbled something under her breath.
“What?” he asked.
“I said, ‘If you’d kissed her, you’d know whether or not she likes you.’ A kiss doesn’t lie.”
“Rhonda,” he moaned.
“It’s the truth.” With that Rhonda stood up and went into the office.
Blake stared after her.
Chapter Sixteen
On Saturday afternoon, Blake sat in the truck outside the address Paula had given Amanda. He’d already been to the door three times, but Paula had not yet shown up. Her friends inside assured him there was going to be a party and that it would start any minute. They invited him to wait with them. Taking several breaths of the thick secondhand smoke in the air—some of which he suspected didn’t come from tobacco—he declined. Since then he’d been driving around the neighborhood, checking back periodically. It was cold outside, but at least it wasn’t raining or snowing.
“I’ll be right back,” he told the kids. He sprinted to the door of the run-down house, only to learn that Paula had still not arrived.
“What do you say to a hamburger and fries?” he asked Kevin when he was back in the truck. Mara was getting fussy, and Blake knew he needed to do something to distract her.
“With a shake?” Kevin asked, not showing any surprise or concern at his mother’s continued absence.
“Sure.”
Blake drove to the nearest McDonald’s and took them inside, inwardly fuming at Paula’s negligence. Over the years he’d missed work, school, and even church waiting for her. Today was the last day. He was finished with waiting. Now that he was officially Kevin and Mara’s foster parent, he was in this for the long haul. He was determined to make life as normal as possible for the children. He had to! And normal did not include waiting for a woman who always put herself first.
He ordered their food, still fuming inwardly about his cousin. She drove while drunk, left her children with drug addicts, couldn’t hold down a job, and didn’t stick around to be a mother. She said things to her son on the phone that caused him to have nightmares about kidnappers.
It stops now, he told himself. After today, if she wants to see the children, it will be on my terms, not on hers.
When they’d finished eating, they drove back to the address one last time to leave Paula a message. To Blake’s disappointment, his cousin had arrived. She helped him take the children inside the house, blithe excuses tumbling from her lips. Her jittery movements made him nervous.
“Oh, Mommy’s so glad to see you,” she gushed to Kevin. “I see Uncle Blake cut your hair. Did you have to make it so short, Blake? Well, no matter, you’re a cute boy, no matter how short your hair is. You take after me.” She giggled at that. “Come on over here, everybody. Look at my darlings. Aren’t they just the most beautiful kids you ever saw? Somebody get that sack I brought. Get out the peanut butter crackers for my son. He loves them, you know.”
On and on she talked. Her friends gathered around as Blake stood near the wall, watching. Smoke curled from cigarettes up to the ceiling, alcohol flowed freely, the music was too loud. Lunch consisted of chips and cooki
es. A man sat on the couch showing Kevin how he could touch his nose with his tongue. There was a lot of bare skin, as though some of the party-goers thought it was summer. A woman was telling about a fight she got into at the grocery store where she worked. An older man talked about losing his welfare check on a game of cards. Every other word on the air made Blake wince. A girl who looked about fourteen was making eyes at both him and the old man who’d lost his welfare check.
Blake’s heart felt like lead. Couldn’t Paula see that this environment wasn’t healthy for the children? He imagined Kevin and Mara growing up smoking and doing drugs. He imagined them learning about life from people who would never teach them how to work but rather would instill in them the self-important philosophy that society owed them a living.
He couldn’t let that happen. He would have to make Paula see.
“Okay,” he said over the noise. “It’s time to go.”
Paula’s sleepy eyes opened wide. “What? But you just got here.”
“No, you just got here. We’ve been here since one.” Blake picked up Mara from the floor where Paula had placed her moments after entering the house.
“I—uh—but—” Paula stuttered. “Uh—you haven’t eaten!”
“We ate at McDonald’s after we waited two hours for you.” Blake looked at Kevin. “Get your coat.” Holding his nearly empty package of peanut butter crackers, the child obeyed without protest or expression.
“Blake, come on,” Paula cajoled, casting an amused glance at her friends. “Don’t be mad. Be a sport.”
He shook his head. “I’m finished being your sport.”
Paula’s heart-shaped face turned crimson. She opened her mouth to speak, but seeing the interested stares of her friends, she opted to save face. Smashing her cigarette in a dish, she jumped to her feet. “I’ll walk you out.”
Once alone, she started in on him again. “I can’t believe you, Blake! The state takes away my children, and you can’t even let me spend any time with them!”
“You were the one who was late,” Blake said calmly.
“My car broke down!” she screeched. “That wasn’t my fault. And I slept in a bit.”
Huntington Family Series Page 17