An Accidental Mom

by Loree Lough

  Georgia pursed her lips, chin resting on a bent forefinger, considering the idea. “Y’know, I think you’re right.” She met Lily’s eyes. “There’s plenty of space in my apartment, even for a dog Missy’s size. It’s just the three of us, after all, rattling around in six big rooms.” She nodded. “I think it’s a terrific idea. That poor li’l guy hasn’t had it easy, being alone with Max since his mama died.”

  The mere mention of Max’s wife made Lily bristle, waking feelings of jealousy. She felt petty and silly, too, because Max had never so much as given her the time of day. “If I’m not being too personal, how did his…” She struggled to get the word out. “How did his wife die?”

  “Killed herself. Pills.”

  Georgia said it so matter-of-factly, Lily didn’t know how to react. “Suicide? But, why?” With a man like Max for a husband, and a son as great as Nate, why would any woman in her right mind—

  “She never was wrapped too tight,” Georgia said as if she’d read Lily’s mind. “A bubble off plumb, as my daddy used to say.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “I told Max she’d be trouble, but would he listen? Nooo. He had to be the big brave hero, try and rescue her.”

  “From what?”

  “That’s just it. The girl was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Her mama took her to New York every summer, to outfit her for school. She’d do just about anything to be the center of attention. Guess when li’l Nate came along and stole her thunder, she just plain couldn’t handle it.” Crossing both arms over her chest, Georgia shook her head. “Spoiled brat, if you ask me.”

  “Did she…did she leave a note?”

  “But, of course.” Sarcasm rang loud in Georgia’s voice. “How better to command center stage again, even if it had to be from the grave! She made good and sure Max would spend the rest of his life blaming himself for her death. And so far, she’s succeeded.”

  “What do you mean, she succeeded?”

  “First, he hasn’t been out on a date since before he met her. And second, he won’t go anywhere or do anything that might even hint at having fun. As if that’s not bad enough, he’s totally given up on God.”

  Well, that explained the ever-so-serious expression on his handsome face. Explained his stern attitude toward Nate, too. “Sad,” Lily said. “He used to be so goofy, such fun, the life of every party.”

  “Which is exactly why I think you had a doggone good idea, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

  Lily forced herself to grin. “You really think Max will go for it?”

  “You ’n’ me will see that he does!”

  “Just so he doesn’t see it as interfering…”

  “How could he see you matching his son up with a great dog like Missy as interference?” Georgia laughed. “You add my leg to your prayer list, I’ll add Max’s answer to mine.”

  “Deal!” Lily said, shaking the woman’s hand.

  Neither of them noticed the three-foot tall shadow standing near the bottom of the stairs….

  Nate’s dad had scolded him enough times for thundering down the steps. This time, he was determined to get to the first floor as quietly as possible. So he pretended to be an Indian brave, stalking a deer in the forest. “Heap big bunch of meat,” he whispered, remembering the Daniel Boone movie he’d seen earlier. “Take home to squaw.” He raised the plastic shovel-turned-tomahawk just as he reached the bottom step…just in time to hear Lily and his grandmother talking about getting a dog!

  He snuck back up to the second floor and slipped into his room. A dog! he thought as his sneakered foot hit the top step. A dog named Missy. Nate didn’t give a thought to the color of her fur, her age, the loudness of her bark. His only thought was a dog that he would soon have of his very own!

  Flopping onto his back on the twin bed that was his here in Amarillo, he kicked both feet into the air and punched the mattress. “Yippee!” he whispered.

  “Gramma, how old does a person have to be to use the telephone?”

  “Old enough to talk, I guess,” she said distractedly.

  Nate watched as she filed her fingernails. “What if a person wants to talk to somebody, but he doesn’t know their number?”

  “He could look the number up in the phone book….”

  Slapping a hand to his forehead, Nate did his best not to appear impatient. “But what if the person can’t read?”

  “Then, I guess he’d have to call Information.”

  “Information?”

  His grandmother nodded. “He’d have to dial four-one-one and tell the nice lady what city and state the person he wants to call lives in.”

  “We’re in Amarillo, Texas, right?”

  “Right.”

  Now he watched as Georgia shook a tiny bottle of fingernail polish. “You gonna paint your nails, Gramma?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Why? ’Cause that nice man is coming over again tonight?” Nate thought she looked right pretty, not at all like a grandmother, when she smiled like that.

  He was about to tell her so, when she said, “He’s going to load me into his car and take me out to eat. And then we’re going to the movies.”

  “Cool. Whatcha gonna see?”

  “Who knows? Something funny, I expect. Robert loves comedies.”

  Nate nodded, mirroring Georgia’s frown as she concentrated on layering each fingernail with a coat of pearly white polish. “So Gramma…”

  “Hmm?”

  “After this person tells the nice lady what city and state, then what?”

  “Then he tells her the name of the person who lives in that city and state, and she recites the phone number. Unless it’s unlisted.”

  “‘Recites’?”

  “Tells,” Georgia clarified. “She tells him the person’s phone number.”

  Nate could read better than most four-year-olds, but not nearly well enough, he knew, to look someone up in the telephone directory. He could write his numbers, though, because his dad had started teaching him as soon as he could hold on to a colored marker.

  He was thankful that his grandmother’s focus was still on her hand. And his dad was down the street, buying washers to repair the leaking kitchen faucet. If God had been listening when he’d asked for assistance, Nate could make the call before either of them could say their favorite word: Whippersnapper.

  “What’s for supper, Gramma?” he asked, heading for the stairs.

  “I think your dad said something about fixing chicken fingers for the two of you.” Suddenly, she tucked her tongue between her top and bottom lip. “What do you expect,” she muttered to herself, “when you’ve only used nail polish twice in your entire life!”

  “I love chicken fingers. ’Specially with honey-and-mustard dippin’ sauce.”

  “Mmm-hmm…”

  “God?” Nate whispered as he climbed the stairs. “Help me remember everything Gramma just said, okay?”

  Closing the apartment door quietly behind him, the boy sat on the end of the couch nearest the telephone. Holding the handset to his head, he pressed four-one-one.

  “And, God?” he continued, waiting for the numbers to connect him to the nice lady. “Let Dad say yes about Missy the dog!”

  Lily rather liked the way Missy followed her around. The dog sat quietly as Lily fed milk to a baby squirrel. And while she cleaned the eagle’s cage, Missy lay quietly, head resting on her forepaws, cinnamon-brown eyes watching every move. It was as though the retriever understood that the barn was both shelter and hospital for birds with broken wings, for orphaned bunnies…for dogs who’d been separated from their families.

  “You’re a pretty cool mutt,” she said, ruffling the golden fur. “Even Obnoxious thinks so!” Missy got along well with her dad’s dog. Surprising in itself, because while Obnoxious had never been vicious, he’d never before befriended one of Lily’s visiting canines.

  Missy sat on her haunches and sent Lily a happy-doggy grin. She was about to admit that if Max said Nate couldn’t have a
dog, she’d keep Missy for herself—but the phone rang, forestalling her speech.

  “Miss Lily?”

  Nate? But why would he be phoning her? “Yes.”

  “It’s me, Nathan Maxwell Sheridan. We met at my gramma’s diner?”

  Lily grinned. “Yes, I remember.” How could she forget, when he’d plied her with compliments and practically asked her to be his mother! “How nice to hear from you, Nate.”

  “I just called to say thanks for saving that dog today. You’re not just pretty, you’re brave, too.”

  He was his father’s son, all right, adept at flirting, even at the tender age of four. Max had made an art form of it in high school. Surely he’d only improved since—

  Lily remembered what Georgia had said—that Max hadn’t dated, had practically refused to do anything that involved a good time since his wife’s death.

  “I heard you, a little while ago, telling Gramma that you want me to have the dog. So I’m calling to make sure you know I’ll take very good care of her. I’ll be nice to her and I’ll keep her clean and I’ll feed her on time every day and I’ll take her for walks. I promise.”

  If it was possible to hug a person through the phone, Lily would have hugged Nate, just for being his adorable, sincere self. “I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful master for Missy,” Lily said. She was about to explain that the dog could only be his with his dad’s approval, when Nate spoke.

  “I’m very gentle, you know. I don’t pull dogs’ ears or tails, like some kids do. I don’t tease them, either, because, well, teasing isn’t nice! Oh, and I’ll make sure she gets plenty of water, ’cause I know how ’portant it is—for a dog to drink plenty of water, I mean.”

  Lily repressed a giggle; she couldn’t have Nate thinking she wasn’t taking him seriously. “I’m sure you’d make a wonderful master,” she said again, “but—”

  “Who do you think you are,” a deep male voice interrupted, “making decisions regarding my son without discussing them with me first?”

  Blinking, Lily sat in stunned silence for a second. “Max, I—”

  “If and when Nate gets a dog, I’ll be the one who gives the go-ahead, not you!”

  “I—I never intended to—”

  “How do you expect me to deal with his disappointment, now that you’ve got his hopes up that he’ll get a dog?”

  “Max, if you’ll just calm down for a minute, I can explai—”

  “There’s nothing to explain. Your ‘find the mutt a home’ scheme may have worked in the past, but it isn’t going to work this time.”

  It was pretty obvious by the tone of his voice, by the heat in his words, that Max had no intention of listening to reason. She didn’t understand the level of his anger. Especially with little Nate within earshot.

  As Lily saw it, she had two choices: sit quietly as Max continued his tirade, or hang up.

  If she hung up, Nate wouldn’t have a chance in a million of adopting Missy. But if she stayed on the line, maybe she could slip a word in edgewise…if she was patient until Max spent the last of his wrath. Lord, she prayed, give me the strength to know when to speak…and what to say when I do.

  “I’ve had it up to here,” Max was saying, “with people who think they know better than I what’s good for my boy. Especially people like you, who don’t even have kids of their own!”

  That hurt, Lily admitted silently. And it was unfair, to boot. Because she might have kids of her own, if loving Max hadn’t made every man look so sad by comparison.

  “Stick to what you know, Lily—animals. And let me raise my son in peace.”

  He seemed to have run out of steam. In the moment of silence that followed his last stinging remark, Lily debated whether or not to stand up for Nate. The boy clearly wanted—and as Georgia had pointed out, needed—something to occupy his lonely hours. Seemed to Lily he needed something to love, too—something that would love him in return, unconditionally.

  “Are you finished?” she asked.

  He cleared his throat. “Yes.”

  “May I have a moment, then, to explain?”

  “There’s nothing to explain,” he shot back. “I’m—”

  “I’m sure you don’t mean to sound like an unreasonable bully, but…” She paused.

  She listened to the silence and prayed he hadn’t hung up. Then he coughed, and she added, “If you’ll just be quiet for a minute, I’ll be happy to tell you what’s really going on here.”

  “Go on,” Max said, his voice tight.

  She sighed heavily. “Nate called just now to—”

  “He called you?”

  “Yes, he did, to thank me for rescuing Missy at—”

  “I heard all about it on the news. ‘Lily, the hero of Texas wildlife.’”

  Lily ignored his caustic tone and continued. “He called to tell me he’d overheard Georgia and me talking earlier, in the diner. I’d stopped by to ask her if she’d mind having a dog underfoot…if you gave Nate permission to have a dog, that is.” Not the whole truth, but not exactly a lie, either. But what was she to do, faced with his irrational ire? It didn’t seem fair for Nate to suffer because his father was a loud-mouthed know-it-all! “Mind you, I’m no expert when it comes to what’s good for kids, but it isn’t Nate’s fault that he jumped to conclusions based on the small portion of the conversation he overheard, because, after all—” she narrowed her eyes and accentuated each word “—he’s only…four…years…old!”

  This time, Lily didn’t much care if he hung up or not. Then again, if he actually was the stodgy old grouch he’d sounded like, he might make Nate pay for the scolding she’d just given him.

  “Max,” she began, tempering her voice, “I know it’s been a long time since you’ve spent any time in my company.” Long time, she laughed to herself. What a joke! Max never had spent any time in her company, because he’d always preferred short-skirted cheerleader and prom-queen types—a far cry from what Lily had been—and from what she’d become! “But you need to know, I would never do anything so underhanded as to get Nate’s hopes up about getting a dog—not without making sure it was okay with you first.” This time, thankfully, the whole truth and nothing but.

  When he didn’t respond, she added, “So here’s the lowdown. The dog is a golden retriever, one of the gentlest breeds God created. She’s smart, well-trained and quiet. She’d make an excellent companion for Nate. Georgia says there’s room for her in the apartment. I’m sorry the little guy overheard the conversation, but now that the cat’s out of the bag, the ball’s in your court.” Lily groaned inwardly at the back-to-back clichés. “Think about it for a couple of days. I’ll hold off finding a home for Missy ’til I hear from you.”

  And with that, she banged the receiver into its cradle.

  “Take that, you bossy, swaggering—!”

  “My, what was that all about!”

  Lily turned toward the sound of the friendly voice. “Hey, Cammi.” She slumped onto the nearest hay bale. Immediately, Missy curled up at her feet. “That was Max.”

  “Uh-oh,” her older sister said. “I’d heard he was back in town, but I was hoping you could avoid a collision.”

  Lily only shrugged.

  “So tell me, how’s he look?” She wiggled her eyebrows and winked. “Handsome as ever?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Cammi ruffled Missy’s thick golden fur. “Still stuck on the big galoot, eh?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” she said again.

  “Didn’t sound much like it when I walked in.”

  Lily filled Cammi in on what had happened, from their sister Violet’s call to her hanging up on Max.

  “Wow. Somebody put some starch into your spine, I think. Never thought I’d see the day you’d stand up to him, not knowing how you’ve always felt, anyway.”

  Cammi was the only person on earth who knew that Lily loved Max—that she’d loved him when she was twelve and he eighteen, that nothing had changed, not a whit, in the years sin
ce. She sighed.

  “You really ought to see other guys,” Cammi suggested. “Who knows? Maybe God has put your Mr. Right out there someplace, and He’s just waiting for you two to bump into one another.” She sat beside Lily, draped an arm over her shoulder. “How you gonna find your knight on a white steed if you never leave this barn?”

  “I’m content, right here, doing what I do.”

  “Baloney. You were born to be a wife and mother. This—” Cammi waved a hand, indicating the cages and the critters in them “—this stuff you do is proof you’re filled to overflowing with natural nurturing tendencies.” She held up both hands to stall Lily’s retort. “You’re doing great work here, nobody could quibble with that. But be honest with yourself, kiddo. Wouldn’t you rather be spending all that love and care on children of your own? On a husband?”

  Yes, Lily thought. But only if Max were her husband and the father of those children.

  “Well, I didn’t come here to lecture you, so how ’bout we talk about the reason I did come?”

  Lily forced a grin. “The wedding?”

  “Yup. Did you get your dress yet?”

  On a sigh, she said, “No. Not yet.”

  Cammi frowned. “What’s the matter? You don’t like the style?”

  “It’s fine. Gorgeous, in fact. We’ll all look like fashion models. It’s just…I haven’t had time.”

  Her sister stood, put both hands on her hips. “You have three weeks to pick up that dress and have it altered. It isn’t like you have a choice. You’re the maid of honor, don’t forget. How can I get married without you there by my side?”

  Lily got to her feet and hugged Cammi. “I know. I’m sorry. You have enough on your mind with all the last-minute plans. I’ll do it first thing tomorrow. I promise.” She brightened to add, “Did you get all the presents put away yet?”

  Cammi groaned. “Not yet. There were about a hundred women crowded into the living room. Must have taken you weeks to get the shower organized.”

  “Took longer to recuperate, once it was over!”

  The sisters laughed, and Missy barked happily.