Loving Leah

“I’ve got it covered. Pay me back when you can,” she’d told him.

“Right, I will.”

He’d left then, the memory of the reproach he’d seen in Leah’s eyes staying with him not only all day, but also well into the night. He hadn’t been so busy that he’d had to go to the university quite so early that day, and he could have come home much sooner than he had, as well. Instead, he’d waited purposely until he’d been sure that Leah and Gracie had both gone to bed.

Tuesday morning had been a replay of Monday morning except that Leah’s homemaking efforts on Monday had made him feel even guiltier. Not only had there been leftover meat loaf in the refrigerator, but a chocolate layer cake on the counter. And the rest of the house, now as immaculate as the kitchen, had smelled of fresh air and lemon oil.

Instead of being duly contrite, though, he had allowed his irritation at himself to show and be misconstrued.

“I appreciate your efforts, Leah, but you don’t have to clean my house,” he’d said as he’d filled his mug at the counter. “I can hire a maid service to come in once a week.”

“But it was fun, Daddy,” Gracie had said. “Leah let me push the vacuum cleaner and spray the furniture polish on the tables. I helped her bake a cake, too, and we made cinnamon rolls for breakfast today. Wait’ll you taste them. They are so, so yummy.”

There had been a wary look in Leah’s lovely eyes again when he’d turned to meet her gaze. But there had been the barest hint of anger, as well, and it had echoed in her voice when she spoke.

“There’s no need to hire a maid service while I’m here, John,” she said. “I intend to earn my keep, you know. By the way, the receipt for the groceries I bought is on the windowsill. You can give me a check to cover the cost whenever you have a chance. Gracie requested spaghetti for dinner tonight, too, hoping you’d eat with us.”

“Sorry, I can’t be here,” he’d answered curtly, then had wanted to kick himself when he’d seen Gracie duck her head to hide her disappointment.

“You’re awfully busy for June, aren’t you?” Leah had asked, politely yet pointedly.

“I’ve just gotten funding for an important research project,” he’d answered, his tone more defensive than he’d intended. “I’d like to have it well under way before classes start again in the fall.”

“I see,” she’d said, her own tone making it evident that she didn’t really. Then she’d added with a killer smile that had made his breath catch, “Good thing I’m here, then, isn’t it?”

“I think so,” Gracie had said, reminding John of her presence. “Don’t you, Daddy?”

“Yes, of course. What would we do without your aunt Leah?” He’d allowed just enough sarcasm into his tone to wipe the smile off Leah’s face without upsetting Gracie, something he’d learned to do years ago with Caro.

He’d headed out again after that, feeling every bit the jerk Leah had accused him of being Sunday night. To make bad matters worse, his rude behavior toward her wasn’t even doing him any good. She was too strong-minded and stubborn to let him run her off.

In fact, he’d realized as he’d stood at the kitchen counter just after midnight eating cold spaghetti that he was making his own life more difficult—not to mention more miserable—by going to such great lengths to avoid Leah’s company. She’d put him on notice that she intended to dig in her heels for the duration of the summer, and what was so bad about that?

Nothing, he acknowledged as he got out of bed now. She’d made his home a clean and comfortable place to be again, although wisely she hadn’t gone into his study or his bedroom yet. He was the one staying away by choice simply because he didn’t want to admit to her, or to himself, how glad he was that she was there.

That would mean apologizing for his rudeness the night she’d arrived, and that, in turn, might very well lead her to expect further explanations he had no intention of giving. There were things about himself and Caro and their life together, especially during the last few months of their marriage, that he didn’t want Leah to ever know.

Showered and dressed, John headed downstairs, intending to go to his office at the university as he had the past couple of days. He was surprised to find neither Leah nor Gracie in the kitchen, though a fresh pot of coffee and his mug sat on the counter, along with a box of cereal, a bowl and a spoon.

Puzzled by Leah and Gracie’s absence, he reached for the coffeepot. Through the window over the sink, he glimpsed a flash of red, then froze, hand in the air just shy of the pot’s handle. Leah was dressed in a pair of faded denim shorts, very short shorts that showed off her long legs to advantage, and a red tank top under which she wore—from the way her full, firm breasts pushed against the fabric—nothing at all.

Looking about sixteen with her hair pulled back in a saucy ponytail, she was bent over the lawn mower, fiddling with the choke. Gracie, standing safely off to one side, chattered happily, apparently asking questions that Leah answered in ways that made the little girl giggle with delight.

Without really thinking, John moved to the kitchen door, pulled it open and strode out onto the patio.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, making no effort to hide his exasperation.

“Mowing the grass,” Leah replied in a mild tone, glancing back at him for an instant before she unscrewed the cap on the mower’s fuel tank. “Unless I have to go to the service station to buy a couple of gallons of gas. Then I’ll be mowing the grass.”

“And we’re going to weed the flower beds, too,” Gracie declared. “Maybe, if we have time, we’re going to the nursery to buy some plants, too. We both like roses best, you know.”

No, he hadn’t known that about either Gracie or Leah, John ruefully admitted to himself.

“I was going to mow the lawn,” he said. The yard wasn’t that overgrown yet, was it? Well, yes, he realized after a swift survey, it was.

Leah shot him a skeptical look as she straightened.

“When, exactly?” she asked casually, wiping her hands on the seat of her shorts.

“Eventually,” he muttered, shifting from one foot to the other uncomfortably as he looked away from her penetrating gaze.

“We have to do it today, Daddy, ’cause everybody’s mad at us,” Gracie stated in a solemn tone. “Mrs. Thomason and Mr. Carey and the Donovans—both of them.”

“Mad at us?” He eyed first Gracie, then Leah in confusion.

“Apparently your neighbors, at least the ones Gracie mentioned, seem to feel property values on the street are set to take a nosedive if we don’t get your yard cleaned up within the next twenty-four hours,” Leah explained with an all-too-sweet smile.

“How do you know that?” John demanded.

“They each took the opportunity to tell me personally. And I assured them all, personally, that I’d see it was taken care of immediately.”

“You’re not mowing the lawn, Leah.”

“But, Daddy, we have to,” Gracie insisted.

“No, I have to, and I will just as soon as I change my clothes,” he assured his daughter.

“What about your research project?” Leah reminded him in a tone he couldn’t quite read.

“I have teaching assistants working on it, too.”

“Will wonders never cease? Teaching assistants. However did you manage to conjure them up just now?”

“Do I need to buy gas for the mower or is the tank full?” John asked, choosing to ignore her teasing words and her equally teasing smile despite the shaft of warmth the two combined sent straight to his heart.

He wasn’t going to be able to use his work as an excuse to stay away anymore, and she knew it. But it wouldn’t be wise to encourage her gloating. She might be tempted to try to get him to lower his guard even more, and that he couldn’t afford to do around her. He’d only end up telling her things about himself he’d really rather not.

“Looked to me like the tank’s full,” she advised. Then to Gracie she added, “Come on, sweetie, let’s get started on the front flower bed, okay?”

“We’ll definitely have time to buy some roses now, won’t we?” Gracie asked as she and Leah collected the gardening tools already laid out on the patio table.

“If not today, tomorrow for sure,” Leah replied.

“You’ll go with us, too, won’t you, Daddy?”

John hesitated, trying to come up with a reason besides work to say no. But the hopeful look on Gracie’s face, combined with the warning flash in Leah’s eyes, had him saying, instead, “Yeah, sure, I’ll go to the nursery with you. Can’t have you two buying out the place on me like you did when you went grocery shopping without me.”

“He’s actually more worried about all the planting he might have to do later,” Leah said sagely.

“But we’ll help him, won’t we?”

“We’ll help him all he wants,” Leah said, and the look she gave him before she turned away conveyed much more than what her words alone implied.

Watching as Leah and Gracie disappeared around the side of the house, John allowed himself to consider all the ways he could have used Leah’s help but wouldn’t. And he was reminded yet again of how much he’d missed her in all the years she’d been away. She had always been good for his soul; she could be again.

But he couldn’t attempt to rekindle the relationship they’d shared in years past for so many reasons, chief among them that friendship would no longer be enough for him. And intimacy—the kind of ardent sexual intimacy he could easily imagine having with her—demanded an honesty he could never allow himself to express.

Leah tried not to feel too smug about the slight inroad she’d made into John’s icy reserve of the past few days. She hadn’t intended to embarrass him into helping with the yard work. She’d been fully prepared to mow and rake and weed flower beds with Gracie’s limited help. But given the opportunity to draw John into an activity involving his daughter, she’d have been a fool not to take it.

Her only real hope of making the summer a success for Gracie was to engage John’s cooperation. And as long as he kept running off to his office at the university, she hadn’t any hope of doing that. She wanted him to spend time with his daughter, too, and had begun to fear that her constant presence was the main reason he didn’t.

Leah could see how much he loved Gracie, yet she also sensed a puzzling restraint in him toward the little girl. Had the pain of losing Caro been so great that he was now afraid to let himself acknowledge his love for anyone else, including his own daughter? Leah hoped not. Gracie needed him, not at a benevolent distance, but up close and personal, with his deepest emotions fully and completely committed.

“All done here?”

John’s gruff, matter-of-fact voice startled Leah so much that she lost her grip on the flat of pink-and-white petunias she and Gracie had chosen from the rows on display at the nursery. Instinctively John reached around her with both arms and helped her catch it before it hit the ground. His muscular chest pressed against her back, his strong, broad hands covering hers, he stood for several exquisitely long moments, seeming to hold his breath just as she did.

Leah wanted to lean into him and savor the warmth of his body, wanted to tip back her head and smile up at him teasingly as she would have in the past. Instead, she stood as if frozen in place, her heart thudding slowly in her chest, waiting for whatever angry recrimination he would no doubt choose to hurtle her way.

“Aunt Leah, you almost dropped our petunias,” Gracie said, then added with a giggle, “Good thing Daddy was here.”

“A very good thing,” Leah agreed, sending the little girl a grateful smile.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” John said as he finally eased away from her.

“My fault for not paying attention.”

“Well, pay attention to this,” he said in an almost teasing tone that put Leah in mind of years past. “That is the last flat of flowers going on our tab today, unless one of you wants to walk home. The Jeep is now holding all the plants it can hold and still have room to spare for the three of us. Don’t forget we’re going to have to plant all that stuff, too.”

“I know, Daddy, and I’m gonna help. But we want to stop for burgers and fries first, don’t we, Aunt Leah?”

“Trying to take advantage of my good mood, huh?”

“You’re in a good mood today?” Leah couldn’t help but quip as they waited for John to pay for the plants they’d chosen.

John eyed her quizzically for several seconds, apparently giving her question serious consideration.

“Yes,” he admitted at last, a hint of surprise in his voice. “I am.”

“Must be something in the air,” she offered lightly.

“Or maybe the company I’m keeping.” He held her gaze an instant longer, then scooped Gracie into his arms. “Yeah, it has to be this lovely little girl’s company.”

“Oh, Daddy, you’re so funny sometimes.”

He had meant Gracie of course, Leah told herself as they piled into the Jeep and headed for her niece’s favorite fast-food restaurant. But that didn’t stop her heart from beating faster.

Back at the house again, there was a message waiting for John on the answering machine. A problem had come up at the university lab that required his immediate attention.

“So much for leaving the teaching assistants in charge,” he grumbled after explaining the situation to Leah and Gracie.

“No problem,” Leah told him cheerfully for Gracie’s sake. “The really hard work is all done. We shouldn’t have any trouble putting the plants we bought in the beds after we eat, right, sweetie?”

“Right, Aunt Leah,” the little girl agreed happily enough as she peeled the wrapper off her cheeseburger.

“Don’t try to move the heavier containers,” John instructed, already withdrawing from their company as he headed toward the hallway.

Leah had thought, obviously in error, that he didn’t really want to go to the lab.

“At least eat something first,” she urged, waving a hand at the burgers and fries she’d set out on the table.

“I have to take a shower,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll eat on the way to the lab.”

He was back in the kitchen in fifteen minutes, wearing khaki pants and a black knit T-shirt, looking so handsome that Leah’s heart ached. Then he was out the door with his food in hand, leaving them with a wave. Leah felt a sense of regret as she heard the Jeep’s engine roar to life.

They had been making some fairly decent progress in the getting-to-know-each-other-again department. For the first time since she’d arrived there Sunday night, she’d felt reasonably relaxed in John’s presence, and he’d seemed reasonably relaxed in hers, as well.

Would he put up the wall of resistance between them when they were next together? she wondered. Would he revert to the man she’d come to dread the past couple of days?

Not if she had anything to say about it, she vowed as she dipped a French fry into ketchup, then munched on it contentedly.

“Why are you smiling, Aunt Leah?”

“I’m thinking about how much fun we had this morning, and how lovely the yard looks now. And I’m thinking that if we get everything planted by tomorrow afternoon, we could plan to have a picnic on Friday.”

“Oh, I love picnics!” Gracie said.

“Well, then, let’s clean up this mess and start putting our flowers in their beds.”

“Do you think my dad would like to go with us on the picnic?”

“Maybe,” Leah replied, careful not to get the little girl’s hopes up too high.

John has always loved going on picnics, too, and with luck, he would have the crisis at the lab under control by Friday. After the way he’d behaved today, she wanted to believe he’d make the effort to be with them again, for Gracie’s sake, if nothing else.

Having him along would be fun for her, too, Leah admitted as she and Gracie finished tidying the kitchen. He had definitely begun to mellow toward her. The more fun things she could plan for them to do together, the more likely he was to mellow even more. And that would be such a good thing…for all of them.

Chapter Four

John stood in front of the refrigerator with the door wide-open, the light from its interior the only light in the kitchen at one-thirty in the morning. Methodically he opened first one plastic container, then another as he tried to decide which of the various leftovers from the meals Leah had prepared appealed most to him. There’d been meat loaf Monday night, the spaghetti he’d already sampled Tuesday night, and tonight…ah, yes, this must be it—chicken in some kind of a cream sauce that included chunks of onion, carrot and mushrooms.

Too good to eat cold from the container, he decided, switching on the light over the stove. With a minimum of clatter, he found a plate to put in the microwave oven, transferred a hefty portion of the chicken and vegetables onto it, then stood by the counter and waited for it to heat.

Embarrassing, really, to steal around his own kitchen in the dead of night eating leftovers when he could have sat down at the table earlier with Leah and Gracie like any sensible person. But he’d set the pattern Monday night, and he wasn’t sure how to break it without seeming obvious. Though obvious about what, he didn’t know.

He’d had a perfect right to join Leah and Gracie for dinner each of the preceding evenings. Not that anyone had kept him away except himself. After the time he’d spent with them that morning, he’d wanted to come home much sooner than he actually had.

He’d gotten sidetracked at the university lab, though, coping with first one unanticipated problem and then another as the afternoon wore on. He’d retreated to his office at last, when everything seemed to be under control, only to have his attention diverted again as he’d made an attempt to clear away part of the mountain of paperwork that had accumulated over the past several months.

It had been almost eight by the time he’d noticed the deepening shadows in the corners of his office and glanced at the clock on his desk to check the time. He could have left then, but all the mowing and raking he’d done earlier in the day finally seemed to have caught up with him. Suddenly he’d felt too tired to do more than stretch out on the old sofa he’d installed for just such an occasion. Just for a few minutes, he’d assured himself, only to awaken several hours later, rested and ready to eat.

The scent of Leah’s chicken and vegetables wafted from the microwave oven, making John’s mouth water and his stomach growl. He opened the door before the timer could beep, grabbed the plate and almost dropped it when the hot china burned his fingers. Muttering a curse, he jostled the plate from hand to hand until he could set in on the table, then he dug a knife and fork from the silverware drawer and grabbed an icy cold beer from the refrigerator.

He really had to try to get on a more reasonable schedule, he admonished himself, twisting the cap off the bottle. He’d be lucky to get back to sleep by three, and then, if their pattern continued, Leah and Gracie would be up at six, waking him, as well.

With a groan, half in pleasure at the wonderful taste of the chicken and half in anticipation of yet another bleary-eyed morning to come, John reached for his beer, tipped it back and took a long swallow, then another. A flicker of movement at the doorway to the den caught his eye, startling him.

He jerked with surprise, and the second swallow of beer went down his throat the wrong way. Eyes watering, he started to cough. Several moments passed before he managed to get his breath back. Then, as he wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, he realized he was no longer alone in the kitchen.

Leah stood in the doorway, a look of concern in her sleepy eyes. Her shiny brown hair was tousled in an enticingly touchable way, and she wore only an oversize black T-shirt with a silver lightning bolt across the front. The garment barely came to midthigh, accentuating her long, slender legs. To John, it looked sexier than any silk-and-satin nightgown might have.

First short denim shorts and a red tank top without benefit of a bra, then a black T-shirt that should have at least covered her knees. She was making him hot for her, hungry for her, in ways he couldn’t afford to be. And she was doing it innocently, without any overt provocation, because she wouldn’t know, couldn’t know from his behavior toward her so far how swiftly her place in his heart was being restored.

Eight years ago John hadn’t realized that with only the slightest shift in his awareness of Leah, his feelings for her would have quickly exceeded the normal bounds of friendship. He was older than she by several years, so he had assumed the role of her protector early on in their relationship and had taken her quiet, steady, faithful companionship not only at face value, but also for granted.

Then, just as he’d begun to realize Leah was no longer a girl, but a vibrant young woman on the verge of adulthood, Caro had come into their lives, so bright and so beautiful. He’d been dazzled by her, too dazzled to see the recklessness and irresponsibility in her nature, and the constant need to be amused, as well as amusing, that were also a part of her personality.

Even though Leah had been only eighteen, she’d actually been the one who embodied all the things he’d really needed. But imperceptive as he’d been at the time, not to mention ruled more by hormones than common sense, he’d wanted only Caro, and much to his later dismay, Caro had been the one he’d gotten.

“Hey, are you okay?” Leah asked, her soft voice filled with concern.

Instead of scurrying away as he’d thought she would, she joined him in the kitchen, obviously unaware or uncaring that she was intruding on his privacy. Considering her behavior the past few days, John would have bet on the latter. She’d toughened up quite a bit over the past eight years, his little Leah. Only, she wasn’t little anymore, and she certainly wasn’t his.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said, allowing a gruff note into his voice, hoping to chase her back to bed.

“I made the mistake of falling asleep on the sofa earlier,” she replied. “By the time I got into bed, I wasn’t really that tired anymore, so I was half-awake already when I heard you come in.”

She sauntered past him, leaving a hint of lavender scent behind to tease him, opened the refrigerator door, then bent over gracefully to retrieve a beer for herself.

John sat frozen in place, his gaze riveted to the display of lacy panties her pose revealed. Only when she straightened again was he able to look away and quickly take several more slugs of his beer. By the time she’d pulled out a chair and joined him at the table, he had as much of his attention as possible focused on his plate of food.

“There’s some rice to go with the chicken if you want it,” she said. “I can get it for you. It’s in another container.”

“No, thanks. This is fine,” he hastened to assure her, not trusting what he might be tempted to do if he had to watch her bend over in front of the refrigerator again.

He ate another mouthful of chicken while she sipped her beer, then shot a glance her way and saw that she was watching him, not only openly, but intently. Though she was fully awake now, she still looked ready to be dragged back to bed. Feeling the heat rise in his cheeks, he looked down at his plate again.

He had never once thought of taking Leah to bed in the past. Well, he had a few times in the months just before he’d lost what wits he had over Caro. But he’d never let Leah know it, either by word or deed. And that had been years ago.

Even if he could justify initiating a sexual relationship after such a long time, he wasn’t foolish enough to think she’d agree to it. For one thing, her life was in Chicago, and for another, there surely had to be someone special with whom she shared that life—though John couldn’t imagine any man allowing Leah to go off to Montana for an entire summer without pitching a fit.

“Are you sure?” she asked, interrupting his train of thought.