Of course, there was the little matter of the wrench she was wielding. She looked prepared to use it if he took one step closer to her.
And there was the little matter of why he was here, which he felt suddenly a whole lot less certain about.
Obviously she was not making prank calls at midnight.
His mind seemed to be moving sluggishly, caught in the current of her eyes.
“I’m Bowen Reeve,” he said, finally, and offered his hand. It occurred to him this had not been in his script, either. Not even close. “I teach at the high school. And coach football.”
She hesitated, and as he had hoped, took his teaching position as proof he was not a door-to-door salesman, or worse. She juggled her wrench to her other hand, and accepted his proffered hand.
He saw immediately that it had been a mistake to take her hand. It was soft and delicate, not the hand of a woman who made it a habit to work on tiny motorbikes. He let it go abruptly, but not quickly enough to escape the little shiver of awareness he felt.
“Ashton Burnadette,” she offered. “What can I do for you, Mr. Reeve?”
“Make it Bowen.” What was he doing? He wasn’t here to make friends! “Have you got a child?” he asked, forcing himself to be all business.
She looked suddenly wary, as if Oprah had been coaching her not to talk to strangers and she suddenly realized she had not demanded proof that he worked at the high school.
“Not old enough for you to be scouting for the Mountain Lions,” she said.
She knew the name of his team. Before his ego lapped that up too eagerly, he said, “Actually, I’m here about some phone calls I’ve been getting.”
“Phone calls?”
“Prank calls. At midnight.”
“That’s impossible. Justin goes to bed at eight thirty. Besides he isn’t that kind of boy.”
Bowen had heard that line a few thousand times since he had started teaching. It was never their kid.
He should make his point and leave. But somehow making his point had become secondary to finding out if she was a single mom, or if a husband shared this cute little house with her and her prank-calling kid.
“Maybe I should come back when your husband is home,” he said.
“I’m a widow,” she said with stiff pride.
“I’m sorry.” There, he’d said it twice, and this time he didn’t mean it at all. He was glad she was single, which did not bode well for his mission here.
He might as well admit he had totally lost control of the script and leave. He tried to salvage something. “Look, if you could just talk to your kid about it. I need to get some sleep.”
“Mom!” A little boy came whipping around the corner into the garage and screeched to a halt. He looked from Bowen to his mother and back again, his chocolate hair falling over his eyes.
Bowen stared at him. The child’s eyes were huge. And green. The pure, undiluted green of an Irish meadow.
Bowen had seen eyes like that before. He saw them every morning when he looked in the mirror.
Chapter Two
“Justin, this is Mr. Reeve. He teaches at the high school,” said Ashton.
Her son came forward and politely extended his hand. “How do you do, Mr. Reeve?” he enquired solemnly.
Bowen listened carefully, trying to decide if this was the voice that haunted him at midnight. He took the small extended hand and shook it. Could such a well-mannered child really turn into Captain of the Telephone Terrorists at the stroke of midnight?
“Fine, thanks,” Bowen said gruffly. This was the problem with being technologically impaired. Could the new-fangled device sitting on his bedside table supplying him with the phone numbers of all who called lie? Could it make a mistake?
He was going to have to ask Barkley. Meanwhile, he felt himself trying to judge the kid’s age, and no matter how he looked at it, Justin Burnadette looked like he was about eight years old.
Bowen told himself sternly that it just wasn’t possible that this was the child he had held in his arms, so briefly, eight years ago. How could it be? How could a mere child track down his natural father?
Was it some kind of wishful thinking on his own part?
“Mr. Reeve says he’s been getting strange telephone calls, Justin. For some reason-” Ashton sent Bowen a dirty look from under lashes that were as thick and sooty as a chimney brush “-he thought you might be involved.”
Bowen focused very intently on the child now. He’d been teaching long enough to spot discomfort.
The boy seemed to shrivel before him, and he looked down and scuffed the garage floor with the toe of a worn sneaker.
“Not me,” he said, without an ounce of conviction.
Bowen would be willing to place odds that this was the boy who belonged to the voice on the other end of the midnight calls. But he suddenly knew, in the boy’s mind, it was not a game, not a trick, not a prank.
He glanced at Ashton. She was looking at her son with alarm and puzzlement.
And suddenly, Bowen’s desire to be vindicated died completely.
“This is 2218 Birchwood, isn’t it?” he asked. He hoped Ashton was as technologically impaired as he was, and that she would accept Bowen had traced his tormentor by address and not by name.
Her face melted into lines of relief. “Oh, no,” she said, and smiled. “It’s not. That’s two blocks over. This is 2218 Lodgepole.”
The smile was devastating to Bowen. It brought a light to her face that transformed her from pretty to beautiful.
He reminded himself, firmly, that he was a man who disliked complications. Women, generally speaking, were complicated. Ask one out for a beer and a pizza and before you knew it they were expecting a diamond ring and a wedding date.
And Ashton Burnadette came with more complications than most-namely the boy beside her who had Bowen’s own green eyes and had been calling in the middle of the night making daddy enquiries.
This was a situation a sane man would not touch.
“Well,” he said, “sorry to have bothered you. Two blocks which way?”
She pointed, not even trying to hide the fact that his departure filled her with relief. Apparently she was not one of the ones in search of a diamond ring and a wedding date. Bowen was amazed to find himself slightly miffed at this rare display of immunity to his masculine charm.
In a moment of insanity, he thought of staying, making small talk, getting around to the pizza and beer thing.
Sanity
