“I DON’T GET IT,” Tom Bland said over the speaker phone. His voice had the quality of stale beer—flat, tepid and flavorless. “Why do you need to know this?”
Dennis sighed and closed his eyes. Why did he need to know every damn thing there was to know about Gail Saunders? Because he was obsessed with her, that was why. Because for a few torrid moments he’d held her in his arms. Because he’d felt her body beneath his, her breasts rising against his chest, her nipples swollen with arousal. Because he’d seen her eyes grow misty and heard her eager sighs, and smelled the faint raspberry scent of her. Because even now, four hours later, just remembering what it was like to kiss her made him hard.
“Do you suspect her of something?” the private investigator asked.
Dennis scowled at the speaker box. “I told you,” he said evenly, “she’s on the opposite side of a tricky law suit. I like to know everything I can about the opposing side’s attorney. So what else did you find out about her?”
“Besides her educational background? She’s a native of Arlington. Her sister’s a preschool teacher in town.”
“I know that.” Dennis closed his eyes again and recalled the two hours he’d spent with Gail in her sister’s preschool. He recalled the dot of clay on her full lower lip, the unexpected mischief in her eyes when she’d smashed her first attempt at a vase into his nose, and then her quick retreat, as if her own aggressiveness had shocked her. He recalled how reticent she’d been afterward, how much distance she’d maintained between them.
Under her desk a few hours ago, she hadn’t maintained any distance. The lack of distance between him and her, between their mouths, between their hips... The memory made him sigh.
“No husband. No ex-husband,” Tom reported. “No boyfriend for quite some time, if the courthouse scuttlebutt is true.”
Dennis’s smile faltered. What was that comment she’d tossed off, about getting flowers from women? She’d only been joking, hadn’t she? “Is she a lesbian?” he asked.
Tom, bless his heart, didn’t snicker or snort. “Does it matter?”
“With this woman—this lawyer—everything matters.”
“Well, again, this is just based on gossip among the courthouse cops and such, but no, she’s not a lesbian.”
Dennis sank in his chair, overcome with relief.
“Which isn’t to say she’s not a tough broad. She’s won some challenging cases for the P.D.’s office. Two acquittals for murder in the past three years. It’s not like we get all that many murder cases in Arlington,” Tom pointed out. “I think maybe the P.D. assigns them to her because she can handle them.”
“Great,” Dennis muttered, pretending to be dismayed. Actually, he was delighted. He would hate to be going insane over a woman who wasn’t worthy, a woman who wasn’t the best lawyer in the P.D.’s office, a woman who didn’t go after the most challenging cases but instead wasted her talents on people like the Body-Odor Maniac. “What else?”
“Well...” Tom hesitated. “Around police headquarters, she’s known as passionate to a fault.”
“Yeah?” How could anyone—particularly a woman Dennis had every intention of bedding in the near future—be too passionate? Passionate to a fault sounded just about right to him.
“Yeah. Like every perp is a noble cause to her. Every guy charged with a crime is automatically innocent in her eyes, and she’ll fight to the death for him. Or if he’s guilty, she’ll find a million mitigating factors to rationalize what he did. She’s a crusader. With a chip on her shoulder.”
“That’s just attitude,” Dennis remarked. “It’s a mind set a good lawyer gets into when she’s got to defend the scum of the earth—which I believe would be an accurate description of her clients. She isn’t dealing with executives who might have played with the company’s books, or some righteous entity with deep pockets who’s stuck being the target of every nuisance suit that comes down the pike.” Like the Arlington Gazette, he thought, contemplating Gail’s current scum-of-the-earth client. “She doesn’t get to pick and choose. She’s obligated to take on whoever needs her representation. And if she’s going to fight for those losers, she’s got to keep a chip on her shoulder.” Not when she’s making love, though, he added silently. Then she can remove that chip—and everything else she’s wearing.
“You sound like you admire her,” Tom hazarded.
“I do admire her.”
“But she’s your opponent in that Gazette libel suit. Whose side are you on, anyway?”
Dennis winced. Had Tom detected infatuation in his voice? “It pays not to underestimate your opponent,” he said. “If I’m going to beat her in court, I’d better admire her. Admiration will make me work harder.” A buzz signaled that Velda was trying to reach him. He appreciated her timing; he really didn’t want to subject himself to more questioning from Tom. “I’ve got another call coming in.”
“You want me to stay on this lady?”
“Don’t make a career out of it,” Dennis told him. “But if you happen to hear anything about her, let me know.”
“All right.” Tom hung up the phone.
Dennis pressed another button on his console. “Murphy here,” he identified himself.
“I’m sorry, Dennis,” Velda said, “but your son Sean is on the phone. He says it’s urgent.”
Dennis smiled indulgently. He’d been running in overdrive ever since he’d left Gail’s office—filing a motion in an extortion case, then spending most of the afternoon taking a deposition in a product liability case. The deposition had ended ten minutes ago and his office was empty, so he didn’t mind being interrupted by his children now. However urgent Sean’s business was, Dennis knew the new nanny was with the children, so it couldn’t be an emergency. Probably it was just some squabble that only a father could mediate.
“Line two?” he asked Velda, glancing at the flashing light on his console.
“Yes.”
“I’ve got it.” He punched the button next to the light. “Hi, Sean. What’s up?”
“Daddy?” Sean’s voice emerged through the speaker box. “We can’t find our iPods.”
“Both iPods?” Dennis frowned. “Erin can’t find hers, either?”
“Are you talking on the speaker phone, Daddy? You sound funny. Like you’re sitting inside a soup can.”
“Yes, I’m on the speaker phone. Where was your iPod the last time you used it?”
“I don’t remember, Daddy. I can’t find mine anywhere, and Erin can’t find hers, either. Erin?” he shouted away from the phone. “You can’t find yours, either, right?”
“Hello, Daddy?” Erin’s voice chirped over the line on a separate phone extension. “This is Erin.”
“I know.” Dennis heard a tap on his door, and then it cracked open. Velda entered, carrying a stack of papers for him to review. He beckoned her over to his desk, smiled and nodded as she left the papers on his desk. Idly, he leafed through them while his children’s voices squawked through the speaker box.
“Daddy, neither of us can find our iPods. We looked everywhere,” Erin said.
“We even looked in your room,” Sean reported. “We found this thing in one of your drawers—”
“What thing?” He sat up straight, the documents forgotten. “What drawer?”
“With your underwear. It had these elastic straps on it—”
“Kind of like what you’d put on a dog’s face to keep him from biting,” Erin elaborated.
“Like over his snout,” Sean explained. “Only it’s cloth.”
“It’s white.”
Dennis rolled his eyes. “That’s called a jock strap,” he said carefully. “And you guys have no business going through my drawers.” It could have been worse, he supposed. They could have snooped inside his night table drawer and found his supply of condoms.
“A jock strap?” Erin asked. “What’s it for?”
“You strap it on a jock,” Sean said knowingly. “You know? Like if you meet a soccer player, you strap it on him. Right, Daddy?”
“Something like that.” Dennis hurried back to the previous subject. “Okay, so you can’t find your iPods?”
“Also our Xbox,” Sean said.
“Your Xbox, too? Well, they’re probably all together in one place. Your mom must have packed them all in one carton.”
“Which one?” Erin asked. “We went through all the cartons.”
“They could be in a carton and you just didn’t see them. Or maybe they’re in a carton we forgot to unpack.”
“Daddy,” Erin clucked scornfully. “We unpacked every carton. You know that.”
“You still have cartons in your bedroom with junk in them.”
“We unpacked those,” Erin reminded him. “We just put stuff back in them.”
“So, maybe you put the Xbox in one.”
“Don’t be silly, Daddy!” Sean objected. “Why would we do that?”
Why would they look for their iPods in his underwear drawer? he wondered. Why would they do any of the bizarre things they did? “Your mom’s going to phone you tonight,” he said. “Why don’t you ask her where she packed them?”
“Can we call her now?” Erin asked. “Please, Daddy?”
“Sure. I don’t know if she’ll be home—it’s three hours earlier in Seattle—but you can give her a try. Remember, it’s number one on the automatic dial.” He and his ex-wife had agreed that the children should feel free to telephone her whenever they wanted. Long-distance phone bills were not going to keep Dennis’s kids from their mother. As it turned out, she called them more often than they called her. Maybe she missed them more than they missed her.
“Can we listen to your stereo?” Sean asked.
Dennis considered. His sound system resembled the cockpit of the space shuttle, with buttons and dials and gauges so sophisticated that they measured sounds outside the range of human hearing. He wasn’t sure why he’d bought such a ponderous system, except that it had looked cool and he liked feeling like an astronaut when he put on a CD.
He wasn’t sure he trusted the kids to fly that baby, though. “What did you want to listen to?” he asked.
“Weird Al,” Erin said.
“Green Day,” Sean said.
“You own a Green Day CD?” Dennis scowled.
“Well, Mr. Potato-Head had a CD,” Sean said. “He burned a copy of it for me so I could load it onto my iPod. But now our iPods are gone.”
“I’m sure they’re somewhere,” Dennis said. “Why don’t you look around a little more? Ask Ms. Prescott to help you look for it.”
“She doesn’t want to,” Erin told him. “She said if we’re done with our homework and can’t think of anything better to do, we can pick all the stuff up off the floor in our bedroom.”
Dennis really liked this new nanny. “Why don’t you do that?” he suggested. “Maybe your iPods are underneath all the junk.”
“Oh, right,” Sean snorted, his tone withering. “And our Xbox is gonna be there, too?”
“You never know.” Dennis wouldn’t be surprised if a tribe of Pygmies lived under the clutter. “Listen, guys, I’ve got about a half-hour more work here, and then I’ll come home, all right?” He eyed the stack of documents Velda had left on his desk for him to review.
“And then you’ll help us look for the iPods?” Erin asked.
“Yes, I’ll help.”
“Can you rent a video on your way home?” Sean asked.
“It’s a school night. I’m not sure you’ll have time for a video tonight.”
“But I have to see it. It’s required. Ms. Rackey said.” Ms. Rackey was Sean’s teacher.
Sean sighed. Why did Sean always wait until the last minute? He’d had plenty of time to watch an assigned video over the weekend. “What movie?”
“Pulp Fiction.”
“Ms. Rackey told you you had to watch Pulp Fiction?” Dennis would have been furious, ready to sue the school—except that he didn’t believe his son.
“Well, she kinda said...well, actually, it was Scott Warnick who said we had to see it. He said it was way cool.”
“One of your classmates saw that? I can’t believe a second-grader would have seen that movie. It’s very violent.”
“Well, he said his twenty-year-old cousin saw it, and it was wicked cool.”
“And when you’re twenty years old, you can see it, too. Good-bye, guys. Let me finish my work.”
He pressed the disconnect button before the twins could come up with anything else to bug him about. The pile on his desk was neat, the papers in order, notated with clear reminders from Velda listing due dates and filing dates for each sheet. He loved his children, he’d die for them, he’d kill for them—but it was awfully nice to have a little order in his life, and he found that order nowhere but in his office. Not at home, where two iPods and an Xbox could disappear within the flotsam and jetsam cast off by his two young children. Not at the courthouse, where so much of what occurred depended on the whims of a judge, the convolutions of the bureaucracy or the mood of the opposing attorney. And definitely not in his imagination, which had been taken hostage by a cool blond lawyer with a chip on one of her two graceful, lovely shoulders and a mouth that could sap a man of the ability to reason.
What he was feeling toward Gail Saunders wasn’t the least bit orderly.
***
“WE’RE GOING TO GET MESSAY AGAIN,” Molly announced Saturday morning.
Gail had dressed to get messy, in a dark blue T-shirt and, given the unseasonably warm morning, a pair of faded denim shorts. But she still wasn’t thrilled. The last time she’d gotten messy, Murphy had brushed his thumb over her lip. And she still hadn’t recovered.
The past three days of rain had failed to wash away her memories of what had occurred the last time she’d been with Murphy. Nothing could have made her forget the sensation of his weight upon her, his mouth bearing down on her. Kissing had never been a problem for her—but it had never been such a huge pleasure for her, either.
She didn’t trust him. Or, more accurately, she didn’t trust herself with him. She much preferred knowing what was coming before it came, and knowing how she would react once it did come. When a man was going to kiss her, she neither expected nor wanted to get so caught up in it that she could lose track of where she was, who she was, and whose files she was lying on top of.
If she lost track, she would not be able to win Leo’s libel suit. Murphy knew that—and that was why he’d kissed her.
He was standing near Molly, eager and alert, as if he considered her every word a priceless jewel. Teacher’s pet, Gail thought churlishly. Maybe he’d made a bigger mess of himself than she did last week, but that didn’t mean he’d won the bet. Kissing up to Molly wasn’t going to win the bet, either. No matter how messy Molly wanted the students to get, Gail knew she’d win. Who, after all, had gotten Murphy’s daughter to gargle?
Not Murphy.
“But today,” Molly continued, “we’re going to apply last week’s lesson and get messy with our children. The point of last week’s lesson was that adults sometimes need to discard their inhibitions with children—at least, when it comes to things like getting your clothes dirty. Sometimes you have to think on a child’s level to really appreciate the child. So today, you’re going to appreciate your children. I’ve got art equipment set up the way I did last week—clay, finger paint, easels, glue—so you can work with your children on a craft project if you’d like. Or, if you’d like, you can go outside. We’ve finally got some sunshine. But don’t forget, it’s muddy out there.”
Gail decided to brave the muddy outdoors rather than remain inside with Murphy. The clay class hadn’t gone well last week, not because she objected to getting dirty but because she had actually liked crafting those little ceramic vases. If she went to the playground outside, she wouldn’t be distracted by her own creativity. She would simply accumulate grass stains—which ought to win her the damned bet.
She nearly tripped over a couple of toddlers on her way toward the back door. Fathers and children swarmed in all directions—to the easels in one section of the room, to the finger-paints in another. She didn’t even check to see where Murphy and his kids were going, but simply bee-lined for the door, determined to prove her courage in the face of mud.
She was the first person into the play yard, but not the last. Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, she was trailed by a group of children. That anyone shorter than four feet tall should follow her anywhere was unnerving. She wasn’t used to being around kids, or having kids want to be around her.
The children dispersed as soon as they reached the fenced-in yard. They raced each other across the spongy, swampy grass to the swings, the sand-box and the elaborate jungle-gym that stood at the center of a damp bed of sand. Some wet sand and grass clippings stuck to Gail’s sneakers. She resisted the urge to bend over and wipe them clean.
“Hi,” a piping voice reached her from behind. “‘Member me?”
Gail turned and directed her gaze downward. Murphy’s daughter stood peering up at her.
“I’m Erin.”
“Yes, I remember.” Gail wished she could forget the child who’d explained Barbie’s double-jointedness to her, but she couldn’t. And for the sake of her bet with Murphy, perhaps it was just as well. “How’s your tooth?”
“Which one?”
“The one that fell out.”
“How should I know?” Erin shrugged. “It fell out. You wanna play in the sand box with me?”
“Okay.” Wet sand wouldn’t be as messy as muddy grass, Gail reasoned. If she could play comfortably with Murphy’s daughter without getting overly messy, it shouldn’t count against her.
“What’s your name?” Erin asked as they strolled together toward the sand box. “I don’t remember, except you’re a lawyer.”
Gail pondered giving a false name, then decided such a tactic might backfire. “I’m Gail Saunders,” she said.
“My dad thinks you’re a hot babe,” Erin announced, plunking herself down on the bench that rimmed the sand box, yanking off her sneakers and socks, and plunging her bare feet into the sand.
Gail swallowed. “Your father said that?” she asked in the mildest voice she could manage.
“Nope. I just know. Better take your shoes off, or you’ll get wet sand in your socks and that’s really yucky. Did you ever see Pulp Fiction? Sean says it’s cool, but I think he’s just making that up.”
Gail didn’t answer, since she was too dumbfounded by the absurd thought that anyone in the world would consider her a hot babe. She recalled Erin’s brother commenting, a couple of weeks ago, that his father thought Gail was cute. Maybe Murphy’s kids had wild imaginations.
No, they didn’t. The way Murphy had kissed her last Monday indicated that he did indeed believe she was a hot babe. The way she’d responded to his kiss was almost enough to convince her she was.
Putting the entire notion out of her mind, she took a deep breath, pulled off her sneakers and socks and climbed into the sand box with Erin. The sand was warm and sticky, reminding her of the beach in late summer, when the tide receded and left sun-soaked puddles along the water’s edge.
“It’s got that guy in it,” Erin babbled, scampering across the sand and gathering various digging tools and pails. “Pulp Fiction, I mean. It’s got the disco guy.”
“John Travolta.”
“Yeah. He’s got wings. I saw them in another movie. Here.” She presented a child-size plastic shovel to Gail. “Let’s build a castle. It can be my castle. I’ll be Queen Erin.”
For some reason, Gail wasn’t surprised. Both of Murphy’s kids behaved as if the world was their empire. They were as arrogant and full of themselves as their father was. Gail and her sister had had happy childhoods, but she couldn’t recall ever thinking of herself as a queen. On one or two occasions a princess, perhaps, but never any position more exalted than that.
“What kind of castle do you want to build?” she asked, trying to inject some enthusiasm into her voice.
“A sand castle,” Erin said, as if addressing an idiot. “With towers and a draw bridge. I’m the queen, so I get to design it.”
“Fine.” Gail had no architectural aspirations. Her only aspiration was not to get too much sand on her—and then she quickly revised that plan. She had to get sand on her if she was going to win her bet with Murphy.
“You’re gonna have to get off the bench,” Erin ordered her, moving to the center of the square sand box. “The castle is gonna be over here.”
“Fine.” She moved toward Erin and knelt in the sand. Warm and pliant, it caked along her shins and wedged between her toes.
“You know what I hate?” Erin said, using a toy shovel to fill a bucket with sand. “Having to live with guys. When we lived with my mom, at least I had her. I mean, she was always with Mr. Potato-Head, but—”
“Mr. Potato-Head?” Gail busied herself filling another bucket so Erin wouldn’t notice how confused she was.
“That’s her new husband. He’s kind of a jerk, but Daddy says we have to be nice to him because Mommy loves him. But—I mean, when she wasn’t doing stuff with him? She used to braid my hair and stuff. Sometimes we’d go shopping together, just her and me, and we’d try on hats and then we’d buy frozen mocha drinks at the coffee place. She used to call it ladies day out.”
“That sounds like fun,” Gail said, meaning it. She and Molly and her mother used to have days like that. Or days at home when they’d all polish their nails the same pink color and give each other facials. When Molly was around seven and Gail nine—long before gourmet coffee boutiques existed—their mother would take them to the Arlington Hotel’s dining room for tea and pastries. Gail and Molly would bravely drink their tea—after stirring in many spoonfuls of sugar—and gorge on pastries, and feel quite mature and sophisticated.
“I guess you must miss your mother,” she hazarded.
“Not really. Just sometimes. It’s mostly just that Sean and Daddy are guys, and guys are so stupid.” She packed the sand in her bucket, then flipped it over and eased the bucket away, leaving behind a perfectly shaped tower. “I mean, they’re so...well, you know. They belch and stuff.”
“Your father belches?” This could be useful to know.
“No. But Sean does. Daddy does other things.”
Gail carefully overturned her bucket next to the tower Erin had made. “What things?” she asked, trying to sound uninterested.
“Well, like sports. I mean, you’d think anyone really cared about sports.”
“I guess guys do,” Gail allowed. “Some women do, too.”
“They’re fun to play,” Erin agreed. “I’m on a soccer team and I’m really good. But that’s playing. Watching is boring. Daddy can sit and watch games on the tube all day long, and he isn’t bored. And another thing he does is, he uses paper towels instead of napkins.”
“Does he?”
“And sometimes he uses toilet paper to blow his nose.”
Gail grinned.
“Let’s make the drawbridge over here,” Erin suggested, digging a ravine around the two towers. “You make some more towers while I dig the moat. Make a double high tower, okay? That can be my bedroom. I’m the queen, so I get a bedroom all my own and it’s gonna be the biggest room in the castle. And I’ll have my own TV.”
“That sounds nice.” Gail got to work shoveling more sand into her bucket. “So what other weird things does your dad do?” she asked casually.
“You want to hear something really silly? He shakes baby powder into his socks.”
“Why?”
“So his feet don’t smell.”
That didn’t sound silly to Gail at all. It sounded kind of charming, actually. “I’ll bet the women in his life appreciate that his feet don’t smell,” she said, subtly fishing for information.
Erin came through for her. “I’m the only woman in his life, and I’m just a girl. He used to date this lady last fall, but he isn’t seeing her anymore. He said she was nice but he just didn’t love her, so he stopped seeing her. I think—” Erin raised her round hazel eyes to Gail “—he wants to fall in love.”
Don’t look at me! Gail almost blurted out. Her life satisfied her very well without a man swooping in and screwing everything up.
Erin stared at her for a long beat, then turned away. “Another thing he does, he puts salt on spaghetti.”
“Now that’s sick,” Gail said with a laugh.
“But he’s the best lawyer in the universe. He knows famous people. He’s met the governor.”
Gail had met the governor, too. During the last campaign, he’d swept through Arlington and made a point of shaking hands with as many municipal employees as he could. But to mention it would be to detract from Erin’s pride in her father. So instead, she said, “Would you like me to braid your hair?”
Erin shot her another bright-eyed look. “Now?”
It took Gail a minute to realize what she’d offered. Why on earth would she want to braid Erin’s hair?
For Erin’s sake, that was why. The way her face broke into a dimpled smile, Gail realized that Erin was desperate for a woman to play with her hair.
Gail held up her sand-encrusted hands. “Not right this minute. I’d get sand all over you. But some other time, maybe.”
“When? This afternoon?”
“We’ll see.” Gail cringed inside. She’d been young once; she knew what we’ll see meant: No.
Erin seemed to know what it meant, too. She looked crestfallen, her smile vanishing in a blink.
“Your father would have to say it’s okay,” Gail said, finding refuge in Murphy. He’d never say it was okay. It was one thing to kiss a woman crazy under her desk, but quite another to let her toy with his daughter’s hair. She doubted that Murphy would want her performing such intimacies on his daughter.
Yet the thought that she might not get to braid Erin’s hair depressed Gail. She actually wanted to do it, to weave her fingers through the tawny silk of Erin’s tresses, to run a brush through it, to lift it away from the child’s neck and pile it on her head, and let her gaze at her reflection in a mirror and feel unbearably glamorous. Murphy would never let Gail do it...but it would be fun.
“I think I need leaves to decorate Queen Erin’s castle with,” Erin announced, standing and climbing out of the sand box. Gail could have used the queen’s absence to slack off, but she kept working, using the edge of her toy shovel to carve steps up the side of one of the towers.
Without Erin chattering at her, she became aware of the shrieks and laughter of other children and their fathers playing in the yard. She didn’t bother to turn and look; she was too engrossed in carving another flight of stairs along another slope. And the towers needed turrets. Somebody had to notch turrets into the sand, and that somebody was Gail.
“It looks great,” a familiar voice murmured behind her.
She glanced over her shoulder. Murphy cast a long shadow across the sand. In his jeans, a baggy beige T-shirt and a pair of stained canvas sneakers, he stood with his hands on his hips and his eyes squinting in the sun. His face glistened with perspiration. Lowering her gaze, she noticed that he was wearing no socks.
She considered pointing out that except for the beads of sweat shimmering on his brow and chin, he looked much too clean. But she thought better of it. If she was going to win the bet...
The hell with the bet. The sand clinging to her knees and catching in her cuticles wasn’t what this was all about. She was building a castle for Queen Erin, and it had to be perfect. She had a feeling that if it wasn’t, the queen would throw a hissy fit. “Erin’s collecting some leaves to decorate it with.”
“I didn’t know you had such talent,” he remarked.
“I’ve got lots of talent,” she boasted, then turned back to her work.
“I figured you must have some,” he teased. “I had a feeling it lay in another direction.”
“You mean my legal acumen?” She scooped a bit of sand out of the moat.
“Actually, that wasn’t what I was thinking of, either.”
Don’t mention the kiss, she pleaded silently. Daddy School was neither the time nor the place to talk about the kiss. To be sure, Gail couldn’t imagine a right time or a place to talk about it. Merely thinking about it made her uncomfortably warm. Her own upper lip sprouted a few beads of sweat.
She shoved a lock of hair back from her forehead with her wrist. “Uh-oh,” Murphy warned. “You’ve got some sand near your eye.”
“Do I?” She reached up to flick it off.
“No—don’t. You’ll knock it into your eye.” He beckoned her over to the side of the sand box, close to him, and gently brushed his pinkie from the outer corner of her eye to her cheek. She tried to ignore the texture of his finger, the tender care with which he rescued her eye from the threat of sand. Even though nothing entered her eye, it filled with tears.
“Thanks,” she said, wishing she could sound unmoved.
“I’ve got some leaves,” Erin shouted as she ran toward the sand box. “Also some dandy-lions. We can make a garden for the queen.”
“Absolutely,” Gail agreed. “Every queen needs a garden.”
“She’s the queen?” Murphy asked, angling his head toward his daughter, who had vaulted back into the sand box, her cupped hands full of weeds.
“Of course she’s the queen.”
“And you’re—what? The jester?”
Startled that after he’d ministered to her eye so thoughtfully he could taunt her, she scowled. “What makes you think I’m the jester?”
“The dirt on your face,” he answered, then opened his hands to reveal that they were smeared with mud. Before Gail could jump back, he clapped his hands playfully against her cheeks, leaving muddy streaks.
“You son of a—”
“Don’t swear,” Erin scolded. “I hate it when people swear.”
Gail ignored her, leaping out of the sand box and chasing Murphy, whose long legs carried him gracefully past the jungle-gym to a stretch of wet grass that sloped downhill. In his sneakers, he easily navigated the decline, but Gail started to slide as soon as she hit the grass. She skidded downward on her heels, screaming and struggling not to fall—but she’d left her balance at the top of the slope. Lurching forward, she stumbled against Murphy, knocking him down into the mud at the bottom of the hill.
She quickly tried to push herself off him, but he grabbed her wrists and refused to release her. “You son of a—”
“Don’t swear,” he recited, mimicking Erin’s sing-song.
“I’ll call you any damned swear word I want,” she roared, trying to decide whether she was angry or exhilarated, whether she feared the feel of him under her, so long and strong and lean, or whether she liked it. Mud streaked his angular chin, mud darkened his fingers, and mud stained her wrists where he held them.
“Go ahead,” he goaded. “What swear word would you like to call me?”
“I’d like to call you a—”
Unexpectedly, he sat up, tossing her off himself and onto the ground. Her rear end grew damp and her feet sloshed in a puddle as she tried to plant them firmly enough to stand. But he wouldn’t give her the chance. Another of his quick moves had her sprawled out on her back, her hair soaking into the puddle and her shirt growing soggy as he kneeled above her.
“You pig!” she bellowed.
“Takes one to know one, mud-face.”
She reached up and rubbed her muddy hands on his shirt. Through the thin cotton she felt his chest, the sleek muscles and arched ribs. She let her hands fall away before she could reflect on the fact that under the now-filthy shirt was Murphy. Solid, undiluted Murphy.
A chorus of giggles distracted her. Glancing away, she noticed a pair of toddlers careering down the slope. “Mud!” one of them hooted. “Let’s play in the mud!”
Another father came skiing down the slope after the children. Gail ought to have felt safer, now that she and Murphy were no longer alone. Yet when she gazed up at him and saw the sudden, sharp hunger in his eyes, she felt strangely imperiled.
Was he hungry for her? If he was, he could damned well starve.
She tried to sit up, but her hands slid on the wet grass. He rubbed his fingers into the mud and daubed it on her neck in warm, wet stripes. She shoved his hand, and it slid down, dipping under the neckline of her shirt to settle in the hollow between her collar bones.
He still looked hungry. Gail suddenly felt hungry.
Not for him, though. Not for this man with his slimy fingers, leaving marks all over her skin. Hot, dark marks.
“Stop,” she whispered.
He dipped his fingers into the mud again and painted a line on one of her cheeks, and then another. “Stop what?”
She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t say. All she knew was that she didn’t want to feel whatever it was she was feeling.
He stroked a line of mud across her chin, and a shiver raced through her. Whatever she was feeling, she was feeling it too much. She could hardly breathe, hardly think. She could only gaze up into his sun-glazed face, his sun-streaked hair, and see her own keen yearning mirrored in his eyes.
More children were spilling down the slope and into the mud—and one of them was Sean. He leaped onto his father’s back, wrapped his grimy arms around Murphy’s neck and shouted, “Giddy-up, Daddy! Gimme a ride!”
At last Gail was able to breathe again. Sean had broken whatever spell Murphy had woven with his muddy fingers.
“Gimme a ride, Daddy!”
“I can’t,” Murphy protested. “You’re too dirty.”
“You’re dirtier’n me. And she’s dirty, too!” Sean wagged a muddy finger at Gail. “You’re so dirty, you look like a primordial.”
“A primordial what?” Gail asked, glad to hear her voice emerging normally. She pushed up to sit and plucked her soaked shirt away from her chest. Her skin felt crusty where the mud dried on it, but despite the grime caking her, she was definitely feeling more like her old self.
She glanced up at Murphy, prepared to resent him for having hijacked her good sense. But he looked even better with his son clambering over his back than he’d looked when he’d been sprawled out on the soggy ground with her, when his body was cushioning her, when she’d felt the damp denim of his jeans against her bare legs and the supple wall of his chest beneath her fingertips. How could a man with a loud-mouth seven-year-old on his back look so damnably sexy?
“Soup,” Sean told her. “You look like primordial soup. Or ooze. I forget. Gimme a ride, Daddy!”
“Okay. One quick ride for the monkey on my back.” Murphy staggered to his feet and rearranged Sean so he was centered between Murphy’s shoulders. Then he winked at Gail and galloped away, accompanied by Sean’s raucous laughter.
Gail remained seated in the puddle for a minute, regaining her composure. She was sodden and bedraggled. Her hair dripped down her back, her feet were filthy, her shirt was a wash-day nightmare and her neck itched where Murphy had plastered it with muck.
And inside, she felt warmer than she’d ever felt before.