has nothing to do with the fact that your flirting skills could use a major tune-up. And here’s a perfectly good learning tool, tossed right in your path. So what could it hurt to practice?”
“Oh, gee, I don’t know. Maybe because he’s a total stranger? Because for all I know he’s married? Because—” this had just come to her “—I haven’t got the time or energy right now to start from scratch?”
“Honey, if you’re waiting until they bring out the heat ’n’ serve variety, you’re outta luck.”
“Mother. Even discounting his questionable marital status or the fact that I’ve known him for, oh, five minutes, the man is nuts.”
“Why do you say that?”
Joanna showed her the check. Glynnie’s eyes shot to Joanna’s. “And this is for…?”
“Eight Santas.”
“Oh?” Glynnie frowned. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. What kind of crazy person gives a total stranger a check for twenty-four hundred dollars, with no paperwork, nothing, no assurances that I’ll even deliver? The man is not well. Or at least, not fiscally responsible.”
“Okay, maybe you have a point,” Glynnie said, her attention straying to Dale, helping the man who’d come in to pick out a computer learning game. “But come on, admit it…when was the last time you saw somebody that cute?”
“This morning,” Joanna said. Glynnie looked at her. “Your grandchildren’s father? Dark hair, dark eyes, charming smile? Totally clueless—”
“Okay, ladies, I’m back,” Dale said, making them both jump. “Now, which one of these would you like? I’ve got ’em all in stock.”
“That one,” Glynnie said before Jo could protest again, naturally pointing to the largest one in the batch. She whipped out her AmEx and smacked it down on the counter, dumping the hapless frog beside it. “And you said you can deliver it in time for their birthday?”
“Sure thing. If you’ll just fill this out—” he handed her a clipboard with a form of some kind on it “—we can get it all set up for you.” While her mother did as he asked, he turned his attention to Joanna. “So. You’ve got kids?”
Was it her, or did she detect just the slightest edge to that question? “Three,” she said. “The boys and an eleven-year-old girl.”
“Sounds like you’ve got your hands full.”
Before Joanna could answer, Glynnie said, “Oh, it’s not so bad.” She handed him back the clipboard. “They’re with their father every weekend. Are you married, Mr. McConnaughy?”
Dale dropped the clipboard, which clattered to the counter, while Joanna fumbled for her brain before it landed on the floor and rolled away. When he looked up, Joanna pointed to her mother behind her back, then mimed hanging herself.
Then he did this slow, lazy grinning thing, and Joanna felt her blood heat up a degree or two. “Why?” he said to her mother. “You fixin’ to ask me out?”
Nice save, she thought as her mother—or the alien that looked like her mother—merely smiled. “Oh, I wasn’t asking for myself. I’m happily married, thank you.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that, Ms. Swann. But you know…” Dale leaned forward, bracing his hands against the edge of the counter. Those nice, slender, sinewy hands. “Maybe you should be careful who you ask that question. Some folks might take it the wrong way. Especially from a woman as attractive as yourself.”
Glynnie laughed. “Boy, you really know how to lay it on thick, don’t you?”
“Just speaking the truth, Ms. Swann,” he said, ringing up the sale. “Just speakin’ the truth. As a matter of fact, when you two first came in—”
“Please don’t tell me you thought we were sisters.”
Again with the loopy grin. And a noncommittal shrug. “A man can’t help what he sees.” He bagged up the frog, then handed it to her, along with the charge slip and a copy of the order. “Somebody’ll give you a call before we come out, okay?” he said, and then a mini swarm of customers came in, affording Joanna the perfect opportunity to grab her mother’s arm and drag her out of there.
“What were you doing?”
“Just having some fun,” Glynnie said, wresting her arm out of Joanna’s grasp. “Remember fun?”
Joanna stomped around to the driver’s side of the van, unlocked the doors and climbed in. “Yeah,” she said, slamming shut her door as her mother got in. “I remember fun.” To her annoyance, her eyes burned. “I think.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake—you don’t think I really meant anything by that, did you?” her mother said. “I was just testing him. And you’re right. That smile, that attitude…He is like Bobby. And God knows you don’t need to go through that again.”
Joanna twisted the key in the ignition, backing the van out of the parking space the instant the engine growled to life. “God knows,” she echoed, probably shaving five years off her mother’s life by darting across four lanes of traffic to make a left turn.
Two weeks later the roof still leaked, Bobby still hadn’t reimbursed Joanna for his half of the plumbing bill and Gladys, Henry Shaw’s Great Dane, was still pregnant. On a brighter note, however—well, brighter for Joanna and the female canine population of Corrales—immediate and permanent sanctions had been imposed on Chester’s wild oats. The dog seemed to be resigned to his fate, even if, judging from his actions, he was still a little fuzzy on the ramifications of his visit to the vet. But then, as long as Joanna knew he was shooting blanks, she really didn’t care all that much what the dog knew.
So all in all—she steered the van into the pickup lane in front of the elementary school—things were about the same.
The bell rang. Joanna didn’t bother looking for the boys in the blur of shrieking children disgorged from the sprawling series of buildings. A minute later, however, she picked out their shrill little voices like a mama sheep recognizing her lambs’ bleats from all the others in the herd.
“I called shotgun!” Matt, the oldest twin by ten minutes and the image of his father with his dark eyes and straight hair, bellowed beside the van. The twins were fraternal, not identical, as different in temperament and personality as they were physically. Although they were extremely well matched when it came to fighting over something they both wanted.
“Nuh-uh, I did!” Ryder bellowed right back as somebody yanked open the passenger side door and a whirlwind of elbows and knees and backpacks flew into the front seat. “Mo-om! Tell him to get in the back!”
It never ceased to amaze her how they could have the same argument, day after day, over something neither one had ever won. “Both of you get in back and your seat belts on,” she said mildly. “We’re gumming up the works here.”
“Aw, Mom…it’s just to the house.”
“Now.”
With a lot of grumbling and shoving and one backpack smacking Joanna in the face, they crawled through the space between the front seats and plopped into the back. “Didja bring any snacks?” Matt asked. “I’m about to starve to death.”
“I imagine you’ll survive until we get home,” Jo said, pulling out into the single-file stream of minivans and SUVs and pickups leaving the parking lot. “Either of you got any homework?”
“Nope,” Matt said. “Did it all in school. An’ I got all my spelling words right on my pre-test, too, so I don’t have to take the test tomorrow!”
Joanna’s eyes darted to the rearview mirror to catch Ryder’s sinking expression. Damn. For the millionth time, she tried to gauge how to respond to Matt’s good news without further damaging her