Darling obstacles (8 page)

4 'Bye, Maggie," called Max. "Will you pick me up at school and bring me here on Monday?"

"I don't know, Max," she replied truthfully. "We'll see." Greg said nothing at all and she wondered if her baby-sitting days for the Wilders were over. It wasn't the first time she had disciplined one of the children, but it was the first time Greg had observed it. And he

had made it quite plain that he didn't like the way she had handled the situation.

Max's small face clouded. "It's all your fault, Josh," he accused his brother. "You made Maggie mad and now she doesn't like us anymore."

"That's not true, Max," Maggie said quickly.

"Are you mad at me, Mrs. May?" Josh surprised her by asking.

"No, Josh. But I think you owe your sister an apology."

"I'm sorry, Wendy," he mumbled.

Greg looked as if he'd been poleaxed.

"Will you baby-sit us on Monday after school, Maggie?" asked Wendy in that tiny, little voice of hers.

"That's up to your father, Wendy," Maggie replied.

"Yes," Greg said quickly. He was still reeling from the shock of Joshua's apology to Wendy. When was the last time, if ever, he'd heard that? He turned to Maggie. "Yes, I was just going to ask her, Wendy." Maggie was looking at him, her eyes as cold as green ice. She was going to refuse! he thought. The panic which filled him was way out of proportion to the loss of a baby-sitter. "Please, Maggie?" he added.

She really ought to say no, Maggie thought, and she let Greg read that message in her eyes. But she was terribly fond of the Wilder children and she could certainly use the extra income that caring for them provided. Why disrupt them all simply to get back at Greg? She was neither petty nor vengeful, she told herself loftily. "I'd be happy to keep the kids on Monday," she said. "Ill bring the three of them here after school as usual. Is that all right, Dr. Wilder?"

"Fine," he answered tightly. "I'll pick them up around six-thirty. Don't bother to give them dinner. I'll take them out to eat on our way home."

Maggie nodded briskly and closed the car door. The children called good-bye to her and she waved to

them. Then she turned and walked to her front door where Kevin and Karl awaited her.

"Boy, are they ever in for a night tonight!" Kevin said with a gleeful grin. "The Smith ton twins! They're awful! Kari and I saw them get thrown out of the library for tearing up the books and spitting on the library lady. She said they can never come back. They aren't allowed in the Community Center either."

"They don't go to Woodland School, do they?" Maggie asked. She couldn't recall seeing their names on the school roster. And such a pair would definitely be well known to the office personnel who had to usher young offenders into the principal's office. The Smithton twins sounded like they'd be regulars.

"Nope, they go to some special school for wild maniacs," Kevin told her with relish.

"The Eastern Hills School?" Maggie had heard of the private school in Baltimore for children with severe behavioral problems. Many of its students had been kicked out of the public school system for disciplinary reasons. It was rumored that the Eastern Hills teachers were given combat pay.

"The library lady said they're the worst boys in town," Kari said. "Maybe in the whole world," she added dramatically. "Poor Wendy!"

"Poor Josh," chimed in Kevin. "And poor Max and poor Dr. Wilder."

"Yes." Maggie smiled with pure malice. "Poor, poor Dr. Wilder."

house the day of the funeral. In the end, she'd taken Josh and Wendy too. Greg had given them the option of attending the funeral and they had opted out.

The memory of that day was hazy, yet he remembered parts of it with crystal clarity. One part he clearly remembered was driving to 909 Woodland Courts late that night to pick up his three younger children. The children were fine, Maggie had assured him. They'd spent the day playing. Little Max had napped and all three had eaten well. She thought it was wise of him not to have forced Josh and Wendy to attend the funeral services. She hadn't taken her Kristin to Johnny's funeral either. Greg had been grateful for the supporting words. Alicia's parents and most of her friends had told him that Josh and Wendy ought to have been present. No, Maggie had said, not if they didn't want to go. He had been right and should pay no attention to what other people said.

He had offered to pay her and she'd refused, insisting that her services were those of a friend for a friend, Kevin's mother for Joshua's father. But if he ever needed a baby-sitter for the children in the future, she would be happy to take the job and let him pay her for it, she'd informed him with a soft smile.

The arrangements made for the children's care had been rather chaotic in the following months, and Maggie May had been one of many sitters he'd used. But within the past year he had used her almost exclusively. Paula was developing an active social life and wasn't always available to stay with her younger sister and brothers. And the combination of his demanding profession and his own frenzied social life required many hours of baby-sitting services. It was convenient and easy to call Maggie. She was extremely competent and never refused and he knew she needed the money. The kids liked her and were happy with her; her children were their best friends. She was always smiling and pleasant when she greeted him at the door, always had some humorous

little story or joke that made him smile. He'd found himself looking forward to seeing her at the end of his working day. She always managed to give his spirits a lift.

It had only been within the last few months that he'd realized he had never been inside her home. Each time he arrived to pick up the children, he wondered if this would be the day he would make it inside. It had become sort of a private joke, but on Friday night the joke had abruptly ceased to be funny.

Had it begun that night, this urgency, this need to be with her? When Francine had dropped her facade of sexy compliance to reveal the shrew within, he hadn't been able to help comparing her appalling behavior toward Max with Maggie's kindness and caring. And yesterday morning when he had seen Maggie in her nightgown, looking tousled and sleepy and incredibly appealing, he had instantly imagined her waking in his bed, looking like that. He'd pictured himself reaching for her, taking her . . . And he had seen in her eyes, those beautiful green eyes, that she was aware of him too. She was finally seeing him as a man and not as the Wilder children's daddy. Greg could never remember wanting to touch a woman as badly as he had wanted to touch her on that narrow staircase. She'd managed to wipe all thoughts of Alicia from his mind, something that had never happened before. It was Maggie, only Maggie, who he'd wanted, and nothing could have stopped him from taking her in his arms. Her explosive reaction to his kiss had fired a passion within him that he had thought long dead. For the first time since Alicia's death his emotions as well as his physical urges had been involved. He had wanted to make love to Maggie until they were both exhausted and insensible, and then to make love to her again. But of course that hadn't happened. Reality, in the form of their children, had intervened.

A relationship with Maggie could only be fraught with complications, frustrations, and irritations.

They had seven children between them, an awesome thought! It was best that he overcome this infatuation, or whatever it was, very soon. He could have— and did have—physical relations with women who were just as attractive as Mary Magdalene May. More attractive! And without those pint-sized confusions and interruptions. But here he was, sitting in his car in front of her house like a nervous teenager on a first date, impossibly eager to see her, to touch her, again.

"Mom! It's for you!" Kevin bellowed into the mouthpiece of the phone. Whoever was on the other end of the line would have a nasty case of reverberating eardrums.

Maggie handed eighteen-month-old Nicole Chiarelli to Kristin and took the phone, glancing at the clock on the wall. Kevin spoke up, as if on cue. "I'm hungry, Mom. When's lunch?"

"You can fix yourself a bologna and cheese sandwich now, if you want," she said to him, then turned her attention to the caller on the phone. "Hello?"

"Maggie? This is Rich Cassidy. From school."

"Of course. How are you, Rich?" Rich Cassidy was the music director at Woodland, in charge of both the elementary and junior high school bands. She'd met him when he had come into the school office and had talked with him several times.

They exchanged the usual, general pleasantries, then Rich said, "I've located a used trumpet, Maggie. I wondered if you were still interested in it for your son? I start giving the fourth-graders lessons on their instruments next month."

Maggie vaguely recalled discussing instruments and Kevin and music lessons with Rich Cassidy one day in the office. Had she actually told him that Kevin wanted to play the trumpet? She grimaced. She was just being polite, if not entirely truthful, during that conversation. Kevin had never mentioned wanting to play an instrument to her.

"The previous owner is willing to sell the trumpet for forty dollars, which anyone familiar with instruments will tell you is an absolute steed. It's in mint condition. And, of course, the music lessons at school are free. Are you interested, Maggie?"

"Just a minute, Rich." She put her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered to Kevin, "Do you want to play the trumpet?"

Kevin amazed her by replying enthusiastically, "Oh, boy, yeah!"

She smiled weakly. "We 11 take the trumpet, Rich." Mentally calculating the cost, she decided they could afford the forty dollars. She had little Nicole today from six to six and that would net over thirty dollars at her fee of three dollars per hour. And tomorrow, Monday, she had the Wilder children for several hours.

"Great!" Rich said. "And, uh, Maggie ... I was wondering if you would like to go to a concert with me this coming Saturday?"

He sounded so unsure of himself, yet so hopeful. Had he tracked down the used trumpet as an excuse to call her in the first place? Maggie wondered. She felt a pang of empathy for the man. One of her brothers had been quite shy and she understood the effort it must have taken to make this call. "This coming Saturday?" she repeated. He'd called nearly a full week in advance. How flattering, she thought warmly.

"Yes. The concert begins at seven-thirty," Rich said hopefully.

"I'd like to go," Maggie heard herself saying. And then the facts dawned. He'd asked her for a date and she had accepted. It would be the first date she'd had since she'd been widowed six years ago.

"Great!" Rich said again. They talked about the weather for a few minutes before hanging up.

Maggie pondered the situation as she made lunch for the children. Little Nicole sat in Kari's old

high chair, entrancing the girls with her toddler's antics.

"I wish we had a baby sister," Kari said, sighing longingly as Nicole overturned a bowl and put it on her head.

"Me too," Kristin echoed. "I'd even settle for a baby brother. H

"You need a dad for that," Kevin informed them with nine-year-old wisdom. "And we don't have one."

"If Mommy got married again we would," Kristin said, "And maybe they'd have a new baby. Wouldn't that be great?"

"I'd rather have the new dad than the new baby," Kevin decided.

Maggie smiled absently, not really listening, lost in her own thoughts. She was still surprised that she'd accepted Rich Cassidy's invitation without a moment's hesitation. In the past she'd turned down the occasional offer of a date quickly and firmly, slightly scandalized that anyone had dared to ask. She was a mother, not a date! And she had felt very much married to Johnny for a long time after his death. But gradually she had begun to accept her widowed status. Today's yes to Rich seemed to signify the completion of the process.

Inevitably, her thoughts turned to Greg and their hot kisses on the staircase the day before. Perhaps that was the episode that had signified her acknowledgment of her single woman status. She hadn't thought of Johnny or the children then! Her whole body felt warm at the memory.

She still had trouble believing it had actually happened. She had been baby-sitting for his children steadily for the past two years, but Greg had never before touched her or even indicated that he wanted to. She doubted that he'd even thought of her as a woman. Oh, she knew he liked her as a person. When they chatted together in the doorway, his eyes were warm and friendly and he always laughed at her jokes. But yesterday he had looked at her in a whole

new way. He had kissed her and touched her. . . intimately. Maggie felt a tightening in her midsection and recognized the sensation as one long-forgotten but unexpectedly revived by Greg. It was sexual arousal.

Had she unconsciously given some sort of signal to indicate that she was no longer strictly a mother but a woman as well? Had Rich Cassidy picked up on that message too? Maggie remembered reading that a woman's body came into its sexual prime in the years past thirty, and the implications scared her. She wasn't about to start in on a mad sexual whirl, sleeping her way from Baltimore to Washington with any man who came along, no matter what her body thought it craved! She had three children and a stable family life and old-fashioned morals, and she would have to get that message across to Rich Cassidy . . . and Greg Wilder. She reminded herself that he'd had a date last night and that Taffy had plans for him while the children were tucked away in front of the video recorder.

Maggie sliced the dill pickle with unaccustomed zeal. She hoped the Smithton twins had reached new lows in terrorist behavior. She recalled her frozen parting with Greg the previous afternoon and slashed the pickle harder.

"Mommy, you cut it into a zillion pieces," Karl said, pointing at the hacked-up pickle. "It looks yucky. I don't want any."

"You don't have to have any, honey," Maggie said sweetly. "Kevin will eat it." Kevin ate anything.

"Kids, how would you feel about me going to a concert on Saturday with Mr. Cassidy?" she asked. She decided it was only fair to solicit the children's opinions. If they were adamantly opposed to her going out, she would of course change her plans. The kids came first in her life. If they didn't want her to leave them . . .