Love Gone to the Dogs (5 page)

Shane blinked, his hand stopping in midair. Then he glanced back at Leah, as though not sure what to say to her youngest. She shrugged, realizing that before the evening was finished she would have to explain her son to Shane, a sure way to discourage any further contact with the man. She should be utterly pleased, but she wasn't and that surprised her.

"I'm just experimenting with flying because I've wanted to fly ever since I was two. I will, too, one day, when I convince Mom it's perfectly safe, that I know what I'm doing. I've studied the mechanics of flying—"

One of Shane's eyebrows quirked. "Safe? You have a nasty cut on your leg, and I suspect several bruises will develop before morning. I'm not sure I'd call that safe."

"These abrasions are nothing. I just had the wind knocked out of me." Joey patted the ground around him until he found his glasses and put them on. They sat crookedly on his face because the frame was bent.

"Shane, remember Betsy. The boy is fine. My daughter isn't, especially after he came swooping down from the roof and landed on her. She may be scarred for life." Ned towered over the foursome, his fists on his bulging hips, his foot tapping impatiently.

"As I told you earlier, I'll be with you in a moment, Ned." Shane ran his hands over Joey's legs, checking for broken bones.

"I'm perfectly all right. I would know if I had broken a bone." Joey tried to right his glasses, but they remained lopsided on his nose.

"Still I'm sure your mother would like a second opinion on that. Let's humor her," Shane whispered, winking at Joey as though they were coconspirators.

"You're probably right. She gets concerned about those kind of things."

"Yeah, mothers are like that"

Her youngest son relaxed while Shane completed his examination, even though Joey hated doctors about as much as her grandfather. Leah watched while she listened to Ned continuing to tap an impatient beat that was quickly becoming a form of mental torture. There was still a chance she might follow in Betsy's footsteps after all, and run screaming down the street.

"Well, aren't you through yet?" Ned's whiny voice filled the hot air with a grating sound that was matching his tapping.

"I believe, Joey, your prognosis is correct. You're fine." Shane snapped his black bag closed.

Leah's heart melted as she listened to Shane talk to her son as though they were equals. Her earlier assessment of Shane O'Grady began to change.

"Excuse me. I'm still here, Shane." Ned shifted his bulky weight from one foot to the other.

As if anyone could forget that, Leah thought as she stepped in to take over for Shane.

"I think it's time for bed, young man. What happened to you reading in your room tonight?" Joey's sheepish look told her all she needed to know. "How long did you wait until after I cleared the driveway?"

"Fifteen minutes. Sometimes you come back because Gramps forgets something."

"We will discuss this tomorrow morning after I've had time to cool off. Right now I'm thinking of ways to freeze you until you turn eighteen. Then maybe I might not age before my time."

"You know, Mom, cryonics is—"

"Joey, not now. I believe I've had enough science for the night." Leah hoisted her son to his feet while Ned nabbed Shane to go over to his house.

She watched the two men leave, Ned practically dragging Shane behind him. She fought a grin at the picture of them, and was amazed she could smile under the circumstances. Turning back to her son, she was about to say something when the ambulance pulled up with its lights flashing. There was already a crowd forming, but the sight of the ambulance was sure to bring anyone still in his house outside. This was not the way to be introduced to the townspeople, Leah thought as she started to walk over to the paramedics to tell them they weren't needed. Before Leah took a step, Shane's mother moved to the two paramedics and said something to them.

As the ambulance left, her grandfather rushed up to her youngest. "Way to go. Sam told me you actually were in the air for a minute." He gave Joey a high five, beaming from ear to ear.

"Gramps, I don't think we need to encourage him any more."

"Nonsense, girl. He'll have this figured out in no time. A chip off the old block, if I may say so myself." Her grandfather's chest puffed out as though what Joey had done was something to be proud of. Obviously plunging from a second story building was nothing to her grandfather.

"No, he won't figure it out Gramps. He will not try to fly again." The pounding in her head intensified as she pronounced each word slowly, to try and get both of them to understand.

"He'll be fine. I'll supervise."

"That's supposed to reassure me after what happened to you today?" She rubbed her temples, and again drew in deep breaths that weren't doing the trick. She wasn't calm. Her nerves had taken an extra beating today—two accidents in one day. Even for her family that was unusual.

"Harold, why don't you show me your lab while Leah gets Joey to bed? With all this excitement, I'm sure the boy needs his rest." Margaret placed her hand on Harold's arm, effectively turning his attention to her.

Leah could have kissed the woman in that moment, and would have if her grandfather hadn't ushered her away faster than she had seen him move in twenty years. She knew Gramps was in heaven showing an attractive woman around his lab.

"Mom, I'm not ready to go to bed. It's only eight o'clock. It's not even dark yet."

Leah grasped Joey's hand and started marching him toward the steps that led to the porch. "You're going to bed. If you're smart, which I know you are, you won't argue this point with me. I need the rest."

"But Sam helped me. Why does he get to stay up?"

"He did?" Halting at the front door, Leah glanced back at her eldest. "You, too?"

When Sam trudged up the steps, he stared at his feet, his chin resting on his chest. "I can't believe you allowed your little brother to do something like that. You have more sense than that."

"He told me I could try it after he did. Besides, Betsy was being a pain in the bu—"

"Samuel Franklin Taylor, don't use that language in my presence. I'll talk to you both tomorrow morning." Leah thrust open the door and pointed toward the stairs. "Now go up and get ready for bed."

The boys walked slowly into the house, their shoulders slumped. Sam's whispered words floated back to her, "She must really be mad. She used all three of my names."

"And after getting ready for bed, you two, get into bed and go to sleep. I'll be up to check on you when I'm calmer." Leah knew if she didn't spell out exactly what she wanted them to do they would do only what she said. Both of them could be quite literal when it suited them.

She listened to them moving around upstairs for a few minutes before she went back out on the porch to sit on the swing, thankful the crowd of neighbors had dispersed. Dusk settled into shadows of night while the summer air encased her in a heat that warmed her chilled body. What was she going to do with her children? It took all her energy lately to keep up with them. She hadn't even had time to set up her computer. She wasn't going to make her deadline if many more things distracted her.

Just at that moment, Shane appeared out of the shadows and sat down next to her on the swing. Scratch that. She wouldn't get her children's book to her publisher if too many more people distracted her, she thought as the heat of the night soared. She felt the man next to her, her every sense, every nerve, attuned to him. Shane O'Grady could definitely become a distraction if she didn't keep her distance, and she knew how to get rid of the man. It had worked quite well before.

"Joey is a genius. His IQ is one-hundred and sixty-five, and sometimes I wonder if it isn't higher." There. She had told him what he must have suspected. It always made the men who had shown any interest in her flee.

Shane lounged back. "That must make your life interesting."

She slanted a look at him. Her youngest son intimidated most adults. "That's an understatement."

He slid his arm along the back of the porch swing and settled himself into a comfortable position. "It's probably hard to keep a step ahead of him even at his young age."

"I'm lucky if I can keep a step behind him." Leah wished she could relax, but every alarm was sounding in her mind at Shane's nearness. His male scent permeated the heat-drenched night, making her acutely aware of the man beside her and the fact he was still beside her. "Of course, the worst problem is he doesn't relate to children. He likes to be around adults, and even that can be a problem at times. Most adults aren't comfortable around him."

"Yeah, that could be a problem, especially with the Neds of this world."

Leah had a sudden vision of Ned standing before Joey in his bathrobe and flip-flops, trying to have a conversation with the child. She could see the man running down the street like his silly teenage daughter, screaming the sky was falling. Leah laughed. "He takes some getting used to."

"Who? Ned or your son?"

"Actually, both."

"I'd better warn you now. Ned is our neighborhood snoop. His wife Madge is almost as bad. But Ned went so far as to take a correspondence course on how to be a detective about a year ago. Our lives on Willow Street haven't been the same since. Poor Betsy. I think she dresses the way she does to separate herself from her parents."

"Since you're here, I assume Betsy is okay."

"Popping her gum and trying to decide where to put another earring. The only bad thing that happened to her was that she swallowed her gum, which, knowing Betsy was probably a huge wad. She's lucky she didn't choke. Of course, that hasn't stopped her from continuing to chew several pieces at once."

"When I saw Betsy, I had my doubts about her babysitting my sons. I wish I had listened to my instincts and not gone to your mother's tonight."

His arm slipped farther along the back of the swing, his hand touching her shoulder. "I'm glad you didn't. We wouldn't be sitting here like this if you hadn't come over to my mother's."

The feel of his fingers seared through the thin material of her blouse. She felt branded, and couldn't understand her reaction to a mere touch.

"It's not often I get this much excitement in one evening. If you haven't already noticed, Shady Oaks is a quiet town."

"That's one of the reasons I picked Shady Oaks to live in. Quiet is good." Quiet could be heaven, she thought, realizing how very little of that she had had in her life.

"As mayor, I'm glad not too much has happened to require my time. I didn't want the job, but no one else would run against Ned last spring. It's a thankless job, one better suited to a mediator. All I've had to do is arbitrate squabbles."

Leah closed her eyes and relished the rare quiet of the evening and the caressing motion of his hand as he drew lazy circles on her upper arm and talked about some of the more interesting fights he had settled. Not surprisingly, Ned and Madge were at the center of at least half of them.

"When does the man have time to work?" Leah asked, her body relaxing completely, her head dropping back against Shane's arm.

"Ned is independently wealthy. He inherited some money a few years back from an uncle, and has made our lives miserable ever since. Too much idle time on his hands."

Every muscle in her body seemed to liquefy. The warm night air wrapped her in a cocoon, and Shane's masculine voice lured her into a sense of peace. "He needs to get a hobby."

"He has one. Causing trouble in Shady Oaks."

Leah laughed and found she snuggling farther into the arc his arm formed along the back of the swing. She hadn't felt this comfortable in a long time. "I suspect his next hobby will be evicting the Taylors from Shady Oaks," she let slip out.

"Oh, he'll forget about the incident with Betsy. He'll find a new crusade tomorrow. In fact, when I left their house, Ned was already sitting in front of the TV and watching a rerun of
Murder, She Wrote
. No doubt picking up pointers."

Leah straightened, part of her hating to break the connection between them, part of her aware that she had better do so, and quickly. She was becoming much too comfortable plastered against his length with his arm around her. "It wouldn't surprise me if his new crusade involved one of us. We aren't a very conventional family."

"Do you think the Shiplocks are conventional? Heaven forbid, if they are. We're all in trouble if so."

Leah twisted around to look him in the eye. However, in the shadows she couldn't read his expression. "Why are you still here? You're supposed to have left right after I told you about Joey."

"Why?"

She sighed. "He's certifiably brilliant, and he's not shy about his abilities. Some people—I mean, some men, don't like a little boy with that kind of attitude."

"Maybe I'm not like most men."

Leah heard the challenge in his voice, but didn't dare rise to the bait. In the end Shane would flee like all the others. It might take longer, but she had no doubt about the outcome. She knew enough to cut her losses now, before she invested too much in Shane O'Grady.

She stood. "I'd better check on the boys to make sure they followed my orders. Goodnight."