"We're competing against the Columbia Community Center's team," Kristin was telling Greg. She seemed pleased by his interest. "A bus will take us over there and bring us back. Columbia is very good. They really beat us last year, but we've been practicing all summer and we've won our last two meets. I hope we beat them this time."
"I hope so too, Kristin," Greg said heartily. "And I wish you the best of luck."
Kristin blushed. "Thanks, Dr. Wilder."
"Kristin!" chorused three similarly attired young gymnasts who had arrived at the screen door. "Are you ready to go?"
Greg unlocked his hands and Maggie rushed to the door where Kristin had already admitted her friends. Maggie couldn't remember ever being so glad to see them. "Hi Jen, Hi Jenny, Hi Jennifer," she greeted them.
"Hi, Mrs. May," the girls answered in unison.
"Do you have time for a quick snack?" Maggie asked hopefully.
"Not now, Mom," replied Kristin.
"Well take you up on it later, Mrs. May," one of the Jennifers added.
Kristin gave her mother a quick kiss on the cheek and the little group departed, calling their good-byes.
And leaving Maggie alone with Greg. "I hope they win today, they try so hard," she said, staring out the screen door.
"I hope they win too," Greg said. "I never realized how much Kristin looks like you, Maggie. The same wide-set green eyes, the same nose turned up with a smattering of freckles. And almost the same hair color. You—" He broke off and Maggie glanced over at him, only to find his gaze riveted to her body.
A quick glance down at herself revealed why. She was standing in the sunlight and every curve of her body was visible through her now translucent robe and nightgown. Her nipples pointed boldly outward and Greg stared at them. Maggie's mouth was dry and she wanted to sink with mortification. Darting from the revealing shaft of sunlight, she sought refuge in the shadow of the staircase.
Greg followed her to stand at the foot of the stairs as Maggie backed up a step. His gaze had shifted and she drew a shaky breath of relief. It was time to remind them both of their proper roles of mother and father. Their safe roles. "Can you believe that Kristin's three best friends are all named Jennifer?" she said. "We call two of them Jen and Jenny just to keep them straight."
Greg smiled and said nothing and Maggie felt compelled to rattle on. "Jennifer was the number one girls name in America the year that Kristin was born. We, Johnny and I, briefly considered it ourselves, but when four couples we knew and my brother and his wife had baby girls that year and named them Jennifer, we switched to Kristin. Kristin Jennifer." She was talking too much and too fast. When she
lifted her eyes from the third button on his rugby shirt and stole a look at his face, she found Greg smiling in a reminiscent way.
"Jennifer was the number one name the year Paula was born too. And I must confess, Alicia and I also considered it. But, like you, we knew too many couples with Jennifers born that year so we went with Paula Jennifer."
They both laughed at that. She liked the way Greg's eyes sparkled when he laughed, Maggie realized, staring into the warm aquamarine depths. And the way he smiled was incredibly appealing. Swallowing, she took another step backward. "If you 11 excuse me a moment, Greg—uh, Dr. Wilder—I'll just run upstairs and get dressed." She was already slowly backing up the stairs as she spoke. She had to escape from the overwhelming potency of his attraction, to regain her already shattered composure.
"The boys aren't going to want to wait for their pancakes," Greg warned.
"Oh, this will only take a minute." She backed up another step, putting her halfway to the top, and carefully folded her arms in front of her chest to cover herself.
He put one foot on the bottom stair. "I make you nervous, don't I, Maggie?"
She was floored by his bluntness. "N-no! Of course not!" Her voice was too shrill, too high.
He went up another step. "Then why are you running away? You've been backing up those stairs the way one would back away from a cobra."
Her face was scarlet. "I—I told you that I want to get dressed. I don't like schlepping around in my robe all day, that's all."
"I'd hardly say you were guilty of that. It's not quite nine o'clock. A lot of people aren't even out of bed at this hour on a Saturday morning."
"I'm surprised that you are," she blurted out, and was promptly horrified with herself. She couldn't really have said that!
Greg picked up instantly on her allusion. "You thought Td take advantage of my children's absence and spend the morning in bed with Francine Gallier?"
Maggie was flustered by his accurate guess. "You have every right to do what you want, Dr. Wilder, M she said hastily. She didn't want him to think her a condemning prude! "You are both consenting adults and—"
"Not after last night," he interrupted grimly. "I wouldn't consent to a damn thing with that coldblooded bitch."
Maggie stared at him, nonplussed. "You . . . didn't have a good time last night?" Her curiosity momentarily overrode her embarrassment, modesty, and inhibitions. She unconsciously took one step down, forgetting to keep her arms crossed in front of her.
"A good time? Ha! The evening went downhill from the moment we left here."
If the evening had deteriorated from blaring horns and Greg's tight-lipped fury, Maggie thought, they must have hit new depths of rancor. The pits, as Kristin would say, and Maggie wasn't altogether displeased by the notion.
"What happened?" she dared to ask, wondering if she was being presumptuous or nosy and deciding that she was definitely being both.
"First of all, I didn't appreciate her leaning on the car horn while I made arrangements for my children's care," Greg said with a self-righteous sniff that made Maggie smile. "Then, as we were both fuming along Route 8,1 started to think about Max jumping her the way he did. Now, I realize that Max may be a pain at times"—Greg took another step up and Maggie took one down, both seemingly unaware of their actions— "but he has never attacked anyone without some sort of provocation. So I asked Francine what she'd said to Max to make him react so violently."
"Did she tell you?"
"She became so defensive that I knew shed said something terrible to him. When I finally got it out of her, I was so furious, I could scarcely speak." He clenched his fists, his eyes darkening at the memory. "I took her back to her place and told her to get out of the car, that I was going home. I think she got my message."
"I should think so," Maggie said dryly.
"Do you know what she said to Max?"
She nodded tentatively. She well understood his parental rage.
"She threatened to throw his teddy bear into the Potomac!" Greg's voice was indignant with anger. "What kind of a woman talks that way to a small child? It was a cruel and sadistic threat, particularly knowing how attached he is to that bear, and I told her so. I have no intention of ever seeing that woman again."
Was he sorry about that? Maggie wondered. Perhaps he wasn't now, in the heat of his anger, but later on, would he come to miss the sexy Francine? "You might change your mind and make up with her again," she heard herself say and wondered why on earth she had said it. She knew why the moment she heard his reply.
"Make up with her? Why would I want to do that? I haven't been dating her long and certainly not exclusively. And I have no intention of wasting a minute of my time on a woman heartless enough to terrorize a child. My child!" he added vehemently.
She'd wanted to hear him say that, Maggie realized with dawning awareness. Hearing Greg reject the beautiful Francine was music to her ears. She gave him a beatific smile.
"After I rid myself of Francine, I drove home and took Paula to her girlfriend's house to spend the night," he continued. "Then I went back hoirje, switched on the answering machine, and went to bed."
"I got your machine when I tried to call Paula for
you last night/' Maggie said. "I left a message on it for her."
"I know. I heard it this morning."
Somehow they were only standing one step apart, Maggie above and Greg below. But because of his height, she still had to look up to him. Their eyes met and held for a long moment. A sharp pang of sensual awareness sent hot sparks shooting through her body. For that moment, neither spoke or moved. It was as if the two of them were waiting, waiting for something to happen.
Greg was first to break the strange silence. "I believe we were talking about why I make you so nervous. Before we were sidetracked, that is." He gave her a thoughtful look. "Did you do it deliberately, Maggie? Turn the subject to Francine to divert my attention from you?"
"Of course not!" She hadn't, had she?
"Then you don't mind my attentions?"
Her eyes widened at the unexpected huskiness of his voice. Before she could move or utter a sound, she was in his arms. "Dr. Wilder!" she managed to gasp.
He laughed softly. "Greg. I'm not your doctor."
"Greg, you—"
"That's right. Greg. It isn't so hard to say, is it?"
"Let me g—"
He silenced her by lightly covering her lips with his fingers, all the while holding her firmly against his long, hard frame. Maggie's first shocked instinct was to break away, but his grip was far too secure to permit it. Next came the reflexive urge to fight, to hit out at him, but her hands were caught between her chest and his, rendering them useless.
"Relax," he murmured, removing his fingers as he lowered his head. His lips hovered an inch above her own. "I'm not going to hurt you, Maggie."
"The children," she protested weakly. Her breathing was so shallow and erratic that she was perilously close to hyperventilating.
"Yes, the children. You're perfectly safe with a
DARLING OBSTACLES • 39
houseful of kids/' he said huskily, feathering kisses along the sensitive curve of her neck. His lips teased at the corner of her mouth and his big hands moved up to cup the rounded fullness of her breasts. A nervous little whimper escaped her throat.
"Don't be afraid of me, Maggie." His voice was gentle. It was the way he said her name that melted all traces of resistance within her. So softly, so sexily. She gazed up at him and was lost in the warmth of his gaze.
"I want to kiss you, Maggie. IVe wanted to from the moment I saw you this morning, all tousled and sleepy-eyed."
"I'm a wreck in the morning," she said, her voice unconsciously throaty. She felt strangely suspended from reality, as if her real self were watching a scene involving some other woman, her look-alike alter ego, in the arms of Greg Wilder.
"You look incredibly sexy in the morning," he disagreed. "I wanted to carry you right back to bed. And crawl in with you." Maggie shivered at his evocative words. His hands smoothed the curve of her hips, molding her to his taut thighs. "You don't have a damn thing on under this," he growled, cupping her buttocks and kneading them with long, sensuous fingers. He buried his face in the curve of her neck.
"You smell so good, Maggie." His voice was low and intimate. "Like soap and talc and woman." Maggie felt herself go weak and soft as a seductive lethargy spread slowly through her body.
He raised his head to look down at her and her gaze flew to his face. She was captivated by his strong masculine features, the straight nose, the sensual mouth, the firm set of his jaw. He exuded a compelling virility of which she was excitingly aware. His eyes met hers and she found herself unable to look away. Those eyes, large and clear and the color of aquamarines, held her captive as steadfastly as his hands on her body. Those eyes regarded her with an unmistakable passion, traveling over the curvaceous
lines of her figure, devouring the full breasts and the womanly curves of her hips and thighs.
Now holding her eyes with his, he slipped his hand between the buttons of her robe and under her nightgown. The touch of his fingers on the soft flesh of her breast jolted her as stunningly as a bolt of electricity. He caught her aching nipple between his thumb and forefinger and massaged it with a slow, sensual rhythm.
"When I saw your nipples so tight, so aroused, I wanted to touch them like this," he said raspingly. "And like this . . ."He replaced his fingers with his mouth, dampening the cloth with his tongue.
Maggie moaned as a wild excitement churned within her. She felt the sharp nip of his teeth and gasped at the erotic mixture of pleasure and pain. Tangling her fingers in the thickness of his hair, she pulled his head closer.
"You re very sensitive there, sweet Maggie." Greg lifted his head to stare down at her half-closed lids and parted lips. "I want to know all your most sensitive places." His hand ran smoothly down her belly and rested on the material covering the downy softness of tangled curls. "I want to touch you everywhere, to feel you throb and ache for me."
She arched herself closer, a small, sensuous sound escaping from her. She wanted him to touch her there, without the restricting barrier of cotton. "You are so wonderfully responsive," he whispered against her ear, his tongue tracing its soft pink shape.
He thrust his knee between her thighs and a heated urgency swept through her. Maggie's mind reeled, her body coming alive with sensations and emotions she had thought long dead. A wildfire seemed to blaze through her veins, awakening needs that had lain dormant and suppressed for so very long. Greg's mouth closed over hers and she sighed, opening her own mouth to deepen the kiss, welcoming his tongue with her own. Her body was gov-
erned by a will of its own; as if of their own volition, her arms went around his neck to hold him closer. Her breasts strained against the broad warmth of his chest and she provocatively rubbed against him. The deep, drugging kiss went on and on, rendering her pliant and mindless. When Greg lifted her off her feet and carried her to the top of the stairs, she sighed and clung to him.
"Mommy!"
The sound of a child's voice brought them both back to earth with a heartstopping thud. Maggie's eyes flew open to meet Greg's.
"Mommy!'' It was Kevin and he sounded angry. His voice grew nearer and Maggie became frantically aware of her position—in Greg's arms and a perilous few feet from her bedroom.
"Put me down,'' she said in a choked voice, and Greg obliged, setting her gently on her feet. He reached for her, but she jerked wildly away from him and started down the stairs. She was so shaken and off-balance that she stumbled and would have fallen the rest of the way down if Greg hadn't grabbed her.
"Careful, honey." His mouth was at her ear, his warm breath fanning her neck.
"Don't!" Her voice was little more than a hoarse squeak. She tried to shrug off his hands, but they remained firmly affixed to her shoulders.
Kevin appeared at the foot of the stairs, his arms folded across his chest, his dark blue eyes blazing. "Where's my breakfast?" he demanded, all traces of his usual amiability gone. "You said you were going to fix it right away."
"I don't think that's any way to talk to your mother, Kevin," Greg said. His voice was pleasant enough, but the edge of steel in it was unmistakable.
Maggie was still dizzy from the stunning shock of her and Greg's passionate encounter. She had to fight against an almost overwhelming urge to close her eyes and lean back into his inviting strength. She
took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the little scene before her.
Kevin had been momentarily taken aback by Greg's mild reprimand. His arms dropped and his eyes widened. "I—I'm hungry," he said defensively.
"Then why not try, 'May I have my breakfast, please?' " suggested Greg. Kevin swallowed and said nothing.
"Kevin turns into the Incredible Hulk when he's hungry," Maggie said. She made it to the foot of the stairs and put her arm around her son's shoulders. "He's very good-natured almost all of the time, but if he's hungry and doesn't get his food on time, he starts snarling and stomping. He falls apart. He's been that way since he was a tiny baby." She was aware that she was being dreadfully talkative but she couldn't seem to stop. Nor could she look at Greg. What must he think of her? she thought with horror. What had happened to her? He h
ad touched her and she had simply gone up in flames, losing all sense of time and place and moralsl She'd been about to let him carry her to bed and make love to her with five small children downstairs!
"Mom, may I have my breakfast, please?" Kevin asked politely, glancing up at Greg. He gave the boy an approving smile which Kevin returned.
"Of course, darling." Maggie stumbled blindly toward the kitchen, still holding onto her son. The child was a comforting anchor of reality to her—and his presence kept her torturous thoughts at bay. "I'll fix you and Josh some pancakes right now."
"Me and Wendy," Kevin corrected her. "Josh isn't hungry anymore. He ate all Wendy's pancakes. But Kari wouldn't give me hers," he added with an injured air. "Sometimes I wish I could trade sisters."
Greg chuckled, making Maggie aware that he had followed them into the kitchen. She wished he hadn't. She wished he would disappear. What was she going to say to him? Worse, her body was still
DARLING OBSTACLES • 43
throbbing with the excitement of his caresses. His voice sent a pleasurable tingle down her spine.
"We'll bring your pancakes into you in a few minutes, Kevin," he said. "Why don't you watch your program while you're waiting? We won't be long."
"Okay," Kevin said, pacified for the moment. He raced off and Maggie almost called after him and begged him to stay. She did not want to be alone with Greg Wilder.
"Maggie." She ignored the sexy, intimate drawl and began tossing ingredients into the bowl, haphazardly guessing at the correct amounts. "Maggie, turn around and look at me."
She couldn't. She simply couldn't.
"Mary Magdalene!" His voice, though amused, held a commanding note.
"Don't call me that!" she said in a sudden flash of anger.
He was beside her now and she was shatteringly aware of his nearness, of the strength and virility emanating from him. "You wouldn't answer to Maggie. I had to get your attention somehow."
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