Mr. Wonderful

by Carol Grace

  “I hear it’s your birthday,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “My brother-in-law’s been talking about you.” Her voice was charged with excitement. It must have been contagious, because I started to get excited too. Calm down, I told myself. Sure he’s been talking about you. He’s grateful for your help today, that’s all.

  My sister had turned off the wok and was listening with rapt attention, her eyes as big as saucers.

  “Are you free tomorrow?” Susan asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m trying to arrange something without his knowing. He’ll kill me if he finds out. We’re going hiking tomorrow up to Rider Ridge. Oops, I have to go now. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  She hung up.

  My sister was burning with curiosity, and I was a little bit curious myself, but there wasn’t much to tell. She didn’t see it that way. Between Steve asking about me and Susan getting so excited about it, it must mean something, was Sophie’s opinion.

  I tried not to think about it too much, but Steve was an intriguing man. Even though he said he hated shopping, he had seemed to be having a good time. And I could see that Shauna adored him. I knew from my years in the classroom that children are good judges of character.

  All, this was going through my head as I tossed and turned that night. But what should I do? How could 1just appear along Rider Ridge in my hiking clothes as if I hadn’t known that the O’Donnells were going hiking? I thought Steve O’Donnell would see right through any scheming, that’s why Susan had to arrange things without his knowing.

  It was Susan who came up with the plan. When she called the next morning, she had it all thought out. They were to shop at the supermarket to pick up food for a picnic on their way to the Ridge. I was to be there doing my shopping when they stopped, and what could be more natural than to suggest that I go with them? My instincts were not to set a trap because I thought it best to be honest about myself and other people, but I got carried away. I got into running clothes just to look as if I had something to do. Running shoes would be fine for hiking. I just had time to let the cat out and jump into my car to get to the market by ten o’clock. I didn’t have time to phone my sister, and I thought it was just as well. She’d get carried away and try to give me advice.

  Nervously I walked into the store. I went up and down the aisles, but didn’t see the O’Donnells. I walked slowly through the produce section, examining the lettuce and cucumbers with exaggerated care. I started filling a bag with apples, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  I turned, my heart thudding, and looked into those dark eyes set in the tanned, outdoors face.

  “Can I help you with your shopping today?” he asked. His eyes took in my empty cart, the bag half filled with apples, my flushed face, and the running suit. What did he think?

  Just then Susan and Shauna came up the aisle; saving me from saying anything.

  “Kristin, it’s so good to see you,” Susan said. “Shauna, look who’s here.” She looked over at Steve. “Have you two met? Kristin, this is my brother-in-law, Steve, who’s staying with us. Steve, I’m sure Shauna’s told you all about her teacher, Miss Kissinger.”

  “This is the lady who helped me pick out your present, Sue,” he told her. “The least we can do is to invite her to our picnic. She’s already got some apples to bring along.”

  I tried not to look at Susan. I just murmured, “I’d love to go.”

  I followed them in my car to the beginning of the trail. It was a lovely walk along a ridge with views over the hills on both sides. I walked with Susan at first, with Shauna and her father and uncle running on ahead. She briefly told me her brother-in-law’s story.

  Steve O’Donnell had married right out of college and settled in the small lumber town in the north where he still lived. He loved the outdoors and so did his wife, he thought. It turned out she didn’t want to live in the middle of the great beyond without neighbors or a shopping mall. Steve had taught shop at the high school, which is what led him to making furniture now. She had felt isolated and unhappy, while he settled easily into life there. It didn’t take her long to decide to leave for brighter lights, and she’d made a new life for herself long ago.

  “Steve vowed he’d never bring another woman up there,” Susan confided. “And there really isn’t anyone in that town that’s good enough for him.” She smiled. “That’s my opinion anyway. Steve’s a big part of our family. I knew there would be somebody special for him someday, even though he’s warned me not to fix him up with anybody. That’s why I’ve been so sneaky about this. I was just thrilled when he asked a few questions about you last night. It’s not like him at all.” With that she gave an excited hop along the trail, the kind of thing I would have expected more from her daughter than from her., She took off ahead of me on the trail to catch up with the others. I don’t know what she said when she reached them, but in a few minutes Steve was coming back toward me with a look on his face that made my heart race a little faster.

  I knew from reading advice columnists that you’re supposed to get men to talk about themselves, but Steve must have read the same articles for men, because he got me to talk about myself. I told him about teaching and how I felt every fall at the beginning of the school year. I couldn’t have imagined that he’d be interested in my ideas about teaching, but he asked all the right questions, so I talked on and on until we came to the picnic spot.

  The others had already spread out the cloth and piles of different meats and cheeses and salads were arranged with a Thermos of lemonade. Shauna’s face was shining with pride at having come so far on a hike, and her mouth was full of grapes. Susan gave me a look that said more than words how happy she was, and I smiled back at her. Kevin O’Donnell looked at his brother in surprise.

  “Steve, I’ve never seen you so slow on Rider Ridge. You used to be able to run circles around me on the way up here,” he said.

  Steve reached across the French bread and took my hand.

  “Kristin and I had some things to talk about. And we’ve only begun.” He laughed at the startled expression on his brother’s face. Then he suggested, “How would it be if you all went back ahead of us? Maybe I could talk Kristin into giving me a ride back home.”

  “What a good idea,” Susan said. “Shauna is too tired to go any farther.” She looked as happy as if she had suggested the idea herself. “We were going back after lunch, anyway.”

  I ate my lunch in a daze, listening to the good-natured bantering, trying to look relaxed while I was churning inside.

  We waved to the others and continued a little farther to a meadow covered with wild flowers. It was Steve’s turn to talk. He told me about his life and how content he’d been after he’d adjusted to his divorce. The tranquility of the small town had healed all the old wounds from his wife’s departure long ago. Meanwhile his life was changing. He and a group of friends, some of whom had been out of work for months because of the depressed lumber business, had formed this woodworking business. To their surprise, the well-made, handcrafted chairs and tables were selling well, and they were thinking of expanding.

  I loved hearing Steve talk, watching the expressions change on his face. It was clear he had found his niche and his place in the world and was quite happy with his lot. It’s not everyone who can say that.

  We walked back to the car down the long path. When I tripped on a rock, he took my hand and then held it the rest of the way. It seemed so natural yet so thrilling to feel his hand in mine. What had happened to my neat, well-ordered little life in the space of two days? I had fallen in love for the first time in my life. That was the only reasonable answer.

  I drove him home, but begged off when he invited me in for dinner. I was beginning to feel emotionally drained, and I had to sort out my feelings and ask myself how far I was willing to let myself go. This had never happened to me before.

  Steve was to be off in his van loaded with furniture in the morning to show his samples up and down the stat
e. He would be gone a week. He told me he’d see me when he got back, and he kissed me in the car, a warm kiss that promised much more that I didn’t know how to respond to. Not yet. I was shaking as I started my car.

  My dreams that night reflected my confused, excited, and bewildered mind. I saw a woman in a strange town packing her suitcase. Was it me or was it his first wife? I couldn’t tell. But the woman was crying. I saw his face bent over me, kissing me passionately in the dream the way we could have kissed in the car but didn’t. Too soon, I told myself. Way too soon.

  I woke up feeling as though I’d been awake all night, and the week ahead loomed before me. Even though it was the week before school started, and I had to work like a demon to get my room in shape, the days dragged by.

  Fortunately I had the novelty and the challenge of the first week of school to keep me occupied and the parents’ open house to plan for. I did wear my new peach suit that night, and the classroom looked great with samples of every student’s work on the walls. Even though Shauna wasn’t in my class that year, I thought the O’Donnells would stop by my room after they’d seen her first-grade teacher. And just as I was explaining our goals in the early-reading program to a parent, I saw a tall figure come through the door.

  Luckily the parent was just leaving because I really couldn’t think of anything to say about reading and writing anymore. In a minute Steve was at my side.

  “Kristin, I’ve missed you,” he said.

  “How was your trip?” was all I could say, but my eyes must have said more. I’d never been so happy to see anyone in my life.

  “It was wonderful, but I thought about you all the time. Well, maybe not all the time,” he said with a teasing look in his eyes. “Sometimes I thought about designs, veneers, and stains and how I’m going to change the design of furniture.”

  The room was empty now and he took my hands in his.

  “When can you leave?” he asked. “I have so much to say. We have so much to talk about.”

  We got away shortly, and at my house, which he didn’t seem to find old fashioned like Sophie did, we talked about us and the future. He was convinced I was the right woman for him. He said he’d been waiting for me for years, but his big worry was that I wouldn’t be happy in his town, and he’d thought of an answer to that too. We would live here in the suburbs, a compromise.

  But I knew deep down he wouldn’t be happy there, and I was perfectly happy to try life in a small town. After all, they have schools there, don’t they? With kindergartens?

  This time I was ready for his kisses. He was in my big reclining chair by the fireplace when he pulled me into his lap and kissed me with all warmth and passion he’d been saving up. I think he was surprised at the fires he’d kindled deep in me. His hands were in my hair and his lips covered my face. I returned his kisses and then some. We must have stayed in that chair for an hour.

  My sister was matron of honor at our garden wedding that spring, and Shauna was the flower girl. Even though it was a small wedding, it was very merry.

  We have a good life, the best, in our small town. I found my niche in the community, first by teaching that first year and getting to know people on my own. And guess what? I became famous for my Chinese dinners. Of course it helped that there was no Chinese restaurant around to compete with me. When I quit teaching to have our first child, I was known on my own in town as the Number One kindergarten teacher and not just as Steve’s wife. Steve’s business is flourishing, and allows us to travel around too, showing his latest designs for furniture.

  Of course, my sister takes full credit for my getting married. She says it was only because she dragged me out that day to the shopping center that I met Steve at all, and I guess she’s right. Susan, too, thinks she’s the one who’s responsible for getting us together. We let them both think so, if it makes them happy. But no one is as happy as we are.

  THE END

  Here are some full-length romance novels by Carol Grace you might like.

  Welcome to Paradise

  The day was hot, the trail was long and her suitcase was so heavy she almost regretted packing her portable espresso machine. But a summer without good coffee? Unthinkable. Especially a summer where the days are warm but the nights are cool. Chloe rested her fanny against a pine tree to catch her breath and unfolded a piece of tattered, yellowed paper that she took from her pocket.

  Paradise Hot Springs, where the Ute Indians once wintered near warm thermal waters, invites tourists to enjoy warm days and cool nights in the mountains of Colorado. Mineral waters known to cure gout, obesity, broken hearts and old gunshot wounds. Guests will be met by stagecoach. El. 7500 ft. Your genial host and proprietor: Horatio W. Hudson. Est. April 1912.

  "Where is the stagecoach?" she muttered. "And where is the genial host?" She knew the answer to that one. Great-Grandpa Horatio Hudson was dead at age ninety-seven. And Paradise Springs was hers now. If she could find it. There had been one hand-carved wooden sign that pointed the way, and then nothing. Just a narrow trail overgrown with blackberry thorns and nettles.

  Nobody told her she'd have to leave her car at the entrance. Nobody told her she'd be walking miles uphill in suede chukka boots.

  "Buy boots," they'd said. They didn't say what kind.

  "Take your camera." It was hanging around her neck like an albatross.

  "Have a great vacation." She sighed. Maybe once she got there.

  After another two hours of wading through a shallow creek, spanning fallen trees and climbing at least another thousand feet in altitude, Chloe was dripping with perspiration and gasping for breath. For two cents she would have thrown her suitcase over a cliff, coffeemaker and all.

  But then she saw it in the distance. Steam rising in the clear blue sky. With one last burst of energy she dragged herself forward to the end of the trail. And there it was: Paradise Hot Springs in all its glory.

  A group of dilapidated log cabins at the edge of a clearing.

  A huge, empty pool, cracked and stained with orange.

  An abandoned wooden bathhouse.

  The pungent smell of minerals in the air.

  She set her suitcase in the clearing, left her camera on top of it, and walked to the bathhouse. From the looks of the place, this was the end of the road. And the end of her dream.

  She pushed and the door swung open on rusty hinges. She gasped. In her bathhouse, in her old enameled bathtub, was a cowboy. He was up to his neck in hot thermal water, wearing only a hat tilted low over his forehead. Shafts of sunlight poured through the cracks in the roof, illuminating his broad shoulders and large feet. The rest she could only imagine.

  He turned his head. Electric blue eyes met hers and gave her a long appreciative look.

  "Hello, darlin'," he said with a lazy grin. "What can I do for you?"

  She swallowed hard. "You can get out of my bathtub."

  Obligingly he braced his hands on the edge of the tub and stood.

  She should have closed her eyes.

  She should have looked away.

  She should have run for her life.

  But she didn't. She stood there and stared at the lean, hard body of a magnificent man in all his naked splendor. Her face flamed. Her knees wobbled.

  He came to his senses first and planted his hat against his muscular thighs. "Have a seat," he said, waving his other hand in the direction of a wooden bench along the wall.

  "Who—who do you think you are?" she sputtered.

  "Who do you think I am?" he inquired. Tiny drops of water slid down his chest, caught in the damp blond hair there and caused her heart to pound erratically.

  "I think you're an intruder and you're trespassing on my property," she said stiffly.

  "Your property..." A whole series of emotions— including shock and surprise—crossed his craggy face. But he recovered quickly. "Then you must be..."

  "Chloe Hudson."

  "Zebulon Bowie," he said extending his hand to grasp hers. "My friends call me Zeb.
"

  "Mr. Bowie," Chloe said, trying to ignore the large callused hand that held hers and didn't let go. "What are you doing here?"

  "What does it look like?" he said with a mocking smile.

  "It looks like you're taking a bath in my tub, and I would appreciate it if you, if you... if you..."

  What was wrong with her, allowing the presence of a naked stranger to cause her mind to go blank and her body to hum like a live wire? She was a nurse, for heaven's sake. She'd seen naked bodies before. But not like this one.

  "If I would make room for you? No problem," he assured her. "You look like you could use some hot water."

  Again the frankly sexual gaze raked her body and caused an instant and unwanted reaction. Her nipples peaked against the damp silk shirt that was pasted to her body.

  "And a cold beer," he added.

  "I don't drink beer," she said primly while her face burned and her parched throat ached for something cool, anything. But accepting a drink would make it look like he was the host and she was the guest. And make it all the more difficult to kick him off her property.

  "Too bad," he said, letting her hand go and reaching behind him to grab a pair of clean jeans and a shirt from a shelf above the tub. "Made it myself. Won second prize last fall at the county fair."

  She exhaled slowly. Her mouth was as dry as a cotton swab. "Well, maybe just a sip," she said weakly.

  He nodded and brushed past her on his way out the door, causing her to tremble uncontrollably for no reason at all. Except that she'd had a long, hard day. And it wasn't over yet.

  Zeb stood in the shade of an evergreen tree and pulled his jeans on over muscled calves and thighs. Then a clean, though wrinkled, shirt went over his damp head of hair. His skin cooled rapidly in the dry air. But his body was hot and buzzing with awareness.

  So this was Chloe Hudson. If he'd known she had long gorgeous legs that didn't quit, spectacular breasts clearly outlined by a clingy damp silk shirt, and a face the angels would envy, he would have... What? Given up his plan to buy her property and resell it at a huge profit? Not a chance. Not even if she'd jumped in that tub with him and he'd watched the water bead on her smooth skin, traced its path with his tongue as it trickled down her neck.... What did she need an old hot-springs resort for? He, on the other hand, had a desperate need for cash. Now. And no need for sexual gratification. Not from little Miz Hot-Springs Heiress.