Single in Suburbia

by Wendy Wax

  Her shoulder was embedded in Hunter James’s bare chest where tiny droplets of water glistened in a fine mat of blond hair. She swallowed. His hand still rested lightly on hers. Despite the dampness of his skin, his body threw off an unbelievable amount of heat. Everything about him, including the green eyes, was warm and inviting.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She didn’t think about whether she was reacting as Solange or Amanda. It didn’t matter who she was at all. What mattered was that Hunter James was one of the most attractive men she’d ever met and his body was a Disneyland of hard angles and lightly sculpted muscles. And there seemed to be some sort of magnetic device implanted in it.

  chapter 16

  T he tug of that magnet was powerful and almost impossible to resist. It pulled at her, teasing her senses, urging her to throw caution to the wind.

  Kind of like Rob had probably felt when he first succumbed to Tiffany.

  Abruptly her compass stopped straining north. One minute it was pointing toward the prize, urging her closer; the next it was spinning madly as if she’d just sailed into the Bermuda Triangle.

  “Oh!” She jumped back, scalded by her own stupidity. Lowering her gaze, she took in the washboard stomach and silky blond hair that arrowed downward to…Relief and disappointment washed through her as her gaze encountered not a towel or bare skin, but blue jeans.

  Her gaze flew upward. He was dressed!

  She wasn’t Catholic or French, but she made the sign of the cross anyway. Thank you, God!

  “Are you OK?” He spoke softly and he was looking at her in a way that made her wonder just how deeply inside he could see.

  “Oui, monsieur. I’m sorree. Mon Dieu, tu me coupe le souffle.” My God, you take my breath away.

  Surprise settled on his face, and she thought how much more surprised he’d be if he could understand her.

  “My fault,” he apologized. “I’ve been expecting a business call and when I heard the phone I didn’t realize…” His voice trailed off. “I’m sorry if I frightened you.” He took a step away to demonstrate his good intentions.

  Amanda wanted to know what kind of business he was in now that he no longer played pro ball, how he felt about being a single parent, and whether his kiss would be as potent as she imagined. Solange just wanted to kiss him until he was as breathless as she was.

  Both of them needed to get out of this room and back to work before she gave herself away completely.

  “Ees not a problem, monsieur,” she said backing her way out of the bedroom, the sheets once again clutched against her chest. “Really, I believe that eet was my mistake.”

  And this, of course, was completely true. She’d mistaken a perfectly clothed male for a naked one; mistaken a customer for a stud muffin; and come perilously close to launching herself into the arms of a man who’d done nothing more provocative than answer his phone.

  If she was going to clean Hunter James’s house on a regular basis, she and Solange were going to have to have a little talk. It was absolutely imperative that they get their respective shit together.

  “Are you telling me he wasn’t actually naked?”

  It was Saturday afternoon and Amanda and Brooke sat around the glass-top table in Candace’s sunroom. The table was littered with the remains of the appetizers Candace had put out. They were on their second bottle of Chardonnay.

  “Nope.” Amanda helped herself to a cracker slathered with cheddar. “But it took me a while to figure that out. All the blood had rushed to my head and I wasn’t thinking too clearly.”

  Candace and Brooke laughed. “I can understand that,” Brooke said. “From what you’ve said, Hunter James is really something.”

  “Well, he certainly brings out the Solange in me.” Amanda sipped her wine. “If I don’t watch out she’s going to be jumping into his bed instead of making it.”

  Not at all liking how appealing that little scenario sounded, Amanda looked for a new topic. “This house is fabulous, Candace. How long have you been in it?”

  “Two years. One with Nathan and one on my own.” She ran a hand over the tabletop and glanced out toward the courtyard. “I objected like crazy when he told me that we were going to live out here in what I thought of as the boonies. My mother was even more horrified. But this house was completely custom-built. I put a lot of time and energy into it, and I didn’t have the heart to start all over again. Again.”

  “You don’t miss Buckhead?” Brooke referred to the prestigious area closer in to town that encompassed many of Atlanta’s poshest neighborhoods.

  “Every once in a while I have to go in for a shopping or restaurant fix. Or to visit some old friends. Or at a royal summons from my mother.” Candace shrugged as if it hardly mattered, but Amanda was learning to read beneath Candace’s flip tone. “Anyway, I’m starting to get used to life in the suburbs; I’m even coming to terms with the ballpark now that I have you two stooges to hang out with.”

  Amanda let her gaze roam around the magnificent room. Afternoon sunshine poured in through expanses of plate glass and the bursts of color in the perfectly manicured courtyard garden were like candy for the eye. “Well, this stooge needs to earn more money. Right now, I’ve got the Menkowskis on Mondays, Hunter James on Tuesdays, Sylvia Hardaway on Wednesdays, and Susie Simmons on Fridays.” She ran the math in her head—something she did almost hourly—and deducted the percentage she insisted on paying Candace. “I’m not even bringing home nineteen hundred dollars a month. That’s not enough to pay the mortgage, which I’m responsible for as of this month, let alone our expenses. I’m afraid to think about what will happen if there’s an emergency of any kind.”

  “Could you handle more houses?” Brooke asked.

  “Absolutely.” Amanda turned to Candace. “I’m getting more efficient and if I pick up the pace a bit, I should be able to do two houses a day, at least five days a week. And maybe I could fit in a Saturday morning job. If we cut back far enough, we could squeak by.”

  “I could book you for all of that and more, Amanda,” Candace said. “But I don’t see how you’re going to pull it off. Not alone anyway. Solange’s attitude can only go so far. You’ve got to have time to do the jobs. And have some kind of life too.”

  “I can handle it,” Amanda insisted. “I will handle it.”

  “It’s not that easy.” Brooke shook her head. “I have some money put aside for, well, just in case. Why don’t you let me loan it to you to take a little of the pressure off? You can pay me back when things turn around. It’s just sitting in the bank. I’d rather see it doing some good.”

  “Same here, Amanda.” Candace’s expression communicated her concern. “Or if you don’t want a loan, why don’t you let me invest in you? We could come up with some catchy business name and you could use the seed money to look for help that you could train to work with you. It would allow you to take your time and really build something.”

  Touched by their eagerness to help, Amanda considered the two women who not long ago had been total strangers. “You guys are great,” she said. “And I appreciate your support more than I can say, but I can’t take your money. I have to prove that I can do this. I need to know I can stand on my own two feet and take care of my family.”

  Amanda took a long sip of wine. It warmed her from the inside out, just as Brooke and Candace did. “Just book me, Candace. I’ll do the rest. And whatever happens, I want you to know that I’ll never forget the way you’ve been there for me.”

  Late that night, Brooke tiptoed into the bedroom and undressed in the dark. Naked she slipped into bed beside Hap and laid her head on his shoulder. She wished she were asleep like he was and not wrestling with her conscience, unable to shake her guilt for only offering Amanda money, when what she should have offered was herself.

  Hap’s breathing was loud, a heavy in and out with an occasional exhaled whistle that was surprisingly rhythmic. Other women complained about their husband’s snoring, but Brook
e welcomed the noise even when it kept her up. It was proof of all that she’d achieved; an audible affirmation of her place in the world.

  Between snores and whistles, the sounds of the house settling reached her. Its creakings and shiftings provided harmony to Hap’s melody. It, too, was a symphony of her success and she treasured each note.

  She had a husband and a home, neither of which her mother had ever attained. And not just any man or home either. She was living the life she’d seen in magazines and watched on television—when they’d had one—as a child. She, Brooke Mackenzie, was living in the very sort of house her mother had spent her life cleaning.

  She liked Amanda and valued their growing friendship. She’d always been too busy escaping her past to let anyone get too close; Candace and Amanda were the first people she’d shared her secrets with.

  But how could she risk exposure of all that she’d worked so hard to bury? If she cleaned houses with Amanda and was found out, her whole sordid past could come tumbling down around her; it could be the end of everything. She didn’t see how Hap could possibly love the real her, when he’d so readily accepted the self she’d manufactured.

  Chilled, Brooke snuggled closer to Hap. Nuzzling her face into the crook of his shoulder, she rested her hand on his chest and pressed her breasts into his side. Maybe one day she’d feel secure enough to tell him about her mother. But the longer she waited, the harder it became. At the rate she was going, she’d be saving it for a surprise on their twentieth anniversary.

  Hap stirred and pulled her closer. His face turned toward hers and without opening his eyes, he pressed a kiss against her forehead. “Why are you awake?” he murmured.

  “Just thinking.” She ran her fingers up Hap’s bare chest and made a lazy circle around his ear. “I miss you when you’re away. Everything feels so empty.”

  With one arm he lifted her on top of him and wrapped his arms around her back. “Well, I’m here now.” He settled her more firmly on top of him. “Can you feel how glad I am?”

  She cupped his erection between her thighs and rubbed gently against it. “I think I’m getting the idea,” she whispered as she guided him inside her.

  “Ah, that’s good.” He rocked against her, filling her as he moved, a great strong bear of a man who’d given her everything she’d ever wanted.

  “Hold on, darlin’,” he murmured from beneath her. “I’m going to give you a nice little ride.”

  “Oh, I’m holding on,” Brooke said as he kicked things up a notch. “It would take an army to shake me loose.”

  Amanda attempted to pry Meghan out of bed at noon on Sunday. The extraction did not go well.

  “Come on, sleepyhead.” Amanda stood next to the bed and spoke softly. “It’s time to get up. You don’t want to sleep the whole day away.”

  “Yes, I do.” The words were muffled by the layer of sheets and blanket under which Meghan burrowed.

  Walking to the bank of windows opposite the bed, Amanda opened the drapes. May sunshine spilled in, illuminating the piles of discarded clothing that covered the floor. “Well, I need you to pick up your room and help me with the laundry. Then we’ll straighten the rest of the house. It’s a beautiful day. If we get everything done inside, we can plant the annuals I bought.” Amanda kept her tone purposefully cheerful, but she was starting to feel impatient.

  There was a groan from the bed. “Sorry. Can’t do it.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “I’m sleeping!”

  Amanda crossed to the bed and stared down at the talking lump under the covers.

  “And when I’m done sleeping, I’m meeting Sandy and Angie at the mall.”

  “No, you’re not.” Amanda reached over to grasp the covers. With a decisive pull, she yanked them off exposing Meghan curled in a knot, her eyes tightly shut.

  Meghan didn’t reach for the covers, but she didn’t open her eyes either. “Yes, I am.”

  “I need your help, Meghan. Now.”

  The sad truth was that the more houses she cleaned, the less time and energy she had for her own. Like the shoemaker’s children who went barefoot, hers were going to have to pitch in around the house.

  Amanda sat down on the side of the bed and waited for Meghan to open her eyes, but vision evidently wasn’t a prerequisite to whining.

  “I’m not going to waste my day off cleaning and…planting!” Meghan uttered the last as if it were some sort of unnatural act.

  “Yes, you are.” Amanda felt her own anger build. She was turning herself inside out to try to make things OK for her children. It wouldn’t kill either of them to help.

  Meghan opened her eyes. Still clouded with sleep, they were nonetheless hostile and belligerent. “Why?”

  “Because now that I’m working I need your help.” Amanda stared down into Meghan’s face. She’d told them that she was working on a consulting project with Candace and neither of her children had pressed for details. “And because I thought it would be nice to spend the afternoon together.”

  Her daughter looked at her like she was a magazine salesman who’d unexpectedly materialized at her front door.

  “Well I already have plans.” Meghan sat up and huffed her back against her pillows then pulled the covers up to her chin like a shield.

  A flash of the conversation she’d overheard between Candace and her mother slipped into Amanda’s head, but she shook it off.

  “Then you’ll have to change them.”

  Meghan’s face darkened. Amanda was extremely sorry she’d come in at all, but it was clear she could not back down now.

  “Why do I have to do laundry? Why can’t Consuela do it?” Meghan named the maid who hadn’t set foot in their home since the day her father left. “Everyone else I know has a maid. Lucy Simmons and Samantha James have a French one. Why do I have to spend my Sunday cleaning?”

  “Because we can’t afford a maid right now. And because I asked you.” Amanda tried to keep her voice calm. “Surely you’re old enough to understand what’s going on.”

  “I don’t want to understand what’s going on!” Meghan jumped out of bed, all too awake now. “I hate what’s going on.” She squared off in front of Amanda, her dark eyes blazing with pain and fury. “I hate that Daddy doesn’t live here and that he’s with that stupid Tiffany.” Her voice rose with every word. “And I absolutely hate that we don’t have money.”

  She stomped past Amanda and stormed toward her bathroom. “And I hate you most of all for screwing everything up!” She slammed the bathroom door behind her.

  Amanda stood alone and shaken while the words Meghan had shouted at her reverberated off the walls and echoed in her head. Then she did some stomping of her own. She stomped to Meghan’s bedroom door and yanked it open with all her might.

  Wyatt stood in the hallway, already dressed in his practice clothes, a look of horror frozen on his face.

  Amanda felt the anger and hurt drain out of her. She closed her eyes and attempted to regroup, searching for words that would somehow make things OK, but it was her son who spoke.

  “I’ll help you with the flowers when I get home, Mom,” Wyatt said so softly it made her want to cry. “And I’ll help Meghan, too, if she wants. I bet if we all work together, it won’t take any time at all.”

  chapter 17

  C lose your eyes and don’t look.” Candace took hold of Amanda’s arm and led her through the back hallway of her home toward the garage.

  It was eight thirty on Tuesday morning and Amanda, already dressed as Solange, was afraid she was going to be late for Hunter James’s.

  They stepped down into the garage and Candace moved her into a final position. She pressed a button and the garage door went up, flooding the three-car garage with daylight. “OK, you can open them,” Candace said, real excitement in her voice.

  Amanda did as instructed then blinked and looked again, certain her eyes were playing tricks on her.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Solange
’s new ride.”

  Amanda stared at the car. It was a shiny new yellow Volkswagen Beetle, the paint job so bright she could see their reflections in it.

  The words Maid for You with a phone number beneath them had been painted on both sides. The pièce de résistance was the huge cutout of a vacuum cleaner affixed to the roof.

  “It’s so…yellow.”

  “Yes, isn’t it a hoot?” Candace was positively glowing. “It’ll be fabulous advertising and perfect camouflage.”

  “Camouflage?” Amanda was having a hard time imagining getting behind the wheel of anything that…eye-catching. “How can you call something that shouts, ‘Look at me, I’ve got a vacuum on the roof of my car!’ camouflage?”

  “Well, I figure everybody will be looking at the car. They may feel sorry for the person driving it, but I can guarantee they’re not going to be paying much attention to her face.”

  Amanda took a step closer to the vehicle. “But Solange can’t afford a company car. Not even this lovely…vacuummobile.”

  “She doesn’t have to. I picked it up for next to nothing from a cleaning business that folded. All I had to do was change the phone number.”

  Amanda eyed the new vehicle. “It’s very…cute.” It just didn’t happen to be the Jaguar she had pictured for Solange.

  “I’ve started booking up, just like you wanted, and I was afraid I wouldn’t always be available to drive you where you needed to go.” Candace dropped the keys into Amanda’s hand and added a remote for the garage door. “Consider this your bat cave; you drive in with the van as Amanda Sheridan and zip out in the vacuummobile as Solange.”

  “I can’t just let you give me a car.” It was so hard to believe that a woman she hadn’t even known three months ago had become such an integral part of her life.

  “Yes, you can.” Candace smiled and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

  “Why are you doing all this? I know your life would be a lot simpler without my problems planted in the middle of it.”