Driven To Distraction: Driven To Distraction / Winging It

That would never do. He’d become bored with her in no time even if he were interested to begin with, which was probably ninety degrees away from reality. And she wanted a baby. Barrett was eyeing Weasel Boy with concern. He’d be way out of his league with a baby.

She tilted the bowl and drained the remaining milk into her mouth. “I’d better let you work,” she said, pushing her chair back and taking her bowl to the kitchen. “Come on, Weasel Boy. Let’s leave the scientist dude in peace.”

Weasel Boy wasn’t budging. He followed Barrett into the kitchen when he put the bowls in the dishwasher, then to the foyer where Stacy was waiting. But he was firmly at Barrett’s heel.

“You must really like dogs,” he said at the same moment she made a grab for the dog and landed face first on the floor.

“I love dogs,” she muttered as she made another futile grab.

Barrett was watching as she played tag with Weasel Boy all around his legs. “Then why don’t you have one?”

“Granny was allergic to animals, so growing up, I couldn’t have any pets.” Another lunge, another miss. “We compromised when I started bringing the problem dogs home from the Humane Society. I kept them outside, of course. It worked out pretty good.”

“But you could have a dog now.”

“Yes—” her hands slid over the dog’s slippery body “—but the problem is I want all the dogs at the shelter. I can’t look at those faces and pick just one to adopt. I wish I had acres and acres of dogs, cats, rabbits…everything. So I’ve continued to bring them home and spread my love out to a lot of them.”

He scooped up Weasel Boy and handed him to her. “Because you’re a nice person.”

“Yeah, real nice,” she said breathlessly. When she met his gaze, he looked almost…disappointed. Nah, she must be misreading him. “I got it from Granny. She was a saint.” Weasel Boy started wriggling in her arms. “Well, I’d better go.” She wanted to stay. Bad. But she reminded herself about his deadline and opened the door.

“What about your being my girlfriend?”

She stopped mid-movement and turned. “What?”

“What are we supposed to do? To convince the neighbors?”

Her shoulders deflated. Boy, he really was afraid of those women. More precisely, afraid they’d interrupt his work. “Oh, that. We’ll make a few appearances. That should do it. Nothing that’ll distract you from your work.” She gave him a wave. “See you.”

He grinned. “I see you, too.”

NITA JOINED the women at the corner just out of sight of Stacy’s house. “She’s pretending they’re dating, I just know it.”

“Wait, here comes Ernie.”

He was putting a lot of effort into appearing casual as he strolled down the sidewalk. Occasionally he glanced behind him, then around. As soon as he turned the corner, he sped up.

“Well? Are they?” they all asked.

“I never give up my secrets to the enemy,” he said with a lift of his chin. “Not even if you torture me.”

“You’re spying for us, you dingy!” Betty said.

He took them in with narrowed eyes. “But how can I be sure of that? Maybe you’re all just pretending to be on my side. Maybe you’re double agents. I’m good at ferreting out the bad guys. That’s why they made me a spy in the war, you know.”

“We know, we know already,” Nita said. “Out with it.”

“They called me the Black Gopher. That was my code name.”

“All right, Black Gopher, out with it!”

He lifted his chin. “I never cracked under the interrogation. No matter what they did to me, I held my secrets. I…ah!”

“Give it up!” Nita said, a firm grip on his earlobe.

“All right, all right! You’re dislodging my sonic ear, woman!” He pushed it back in. “I pretended to be watering my plants when they was by the door talking. They didn’t have a clue I was listening. They used to call me the Black Gopher, you know.”

“We know! Are they or aren’t they?”

He nodded, pride gleaming on his face. “It’s a charade, all right, just like you said.”

“Like I said,” Nita said, releasing her hold. “That’s just the kind of thing she’d do to protect that man from us.”

Betty said, “But I think it’s more than that. She really likes him. She’s got a glow about her.”

Annette gave it some thought. “Yeah, now that you mention it, she does.”

“So what’s our game plan? The usual?” Arlene asked.

“No, it’s different this time. Barrett’s different,” Frieda said.

Ernie nodded. “He does seem like a good guy. Gene’s son says so.”

“Not like some of those other guys she’s brought around.” A chorus of agreeing murmurs went up. Ernie said, “It took a lot of convincing until that last guy believed Stacy was part of a Mafia family. I should have used the line I used the time before that with the dinner theater actor.”

“But it’s so mean to make up stories about Stacy’s mental health,” Frieda said.

“Maybe we’ve finally found the guy she deserves.”

“And she’s everything we said Barrett needs in a woman.”

“She looked so dang disappointed that we didn’t see it at workout earlier,” Arlene said with a slow shake of her head. “I feel just terrible about it.”

“We were only thinking about ourselves. Game plan, game plan. Well, they’re already pretending to be dating, that’s a start.”

“But you know our Stacy. She’ll be diligent about not distracting him from his important project.”

They all nodded in agreement. Then Nita got a glimmer in her eyes. “So we force their hand. Call their bluff. She’s protective of Barrett getting his project done, right? If we keep bluffing about trying to set him up with our offspring, she’ll have to spend more time protecting him. More time with him.”

Betty rubbed her hands together. “Ah, and what if we come right out and tell her we don’t believe her? Tell her we want proof?”

They all put their hands in the center of their circle, cheered, “Power Squadron, unite!” and pulled their hands away with a flourish.

“Oh, by the way, Arlene, good work nixing that grooming job for Stacy. It wasn’t the right thing for her. What line did you use this time?”

“The one about her escaping the loony bin. It seems to do the trick.”

Betty smiled. “We’ll find her the right man, and then the right job. Hopefully the assistant director’s position at the Humane Society will open up soon. That’s where she belongs, not grooming dogs.”

“Or working at a pet store.”

Ernie had a glint in his eyes. “Maybe we can give that assistant director a little nudge….”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I can’t bring Elmo back in?” Stacy stared at the phone and imagined RJ’s lean face and military-style haircut on the other end. She’d called to tell him she was keeping Elmo for the night.

The director of the shelter cleared his throat. “Naomi took in some boarders. Five of them.”

“We only had four cages available.”

“That would be the problem with bringing Elmo back. Look, I’m not pleased about it, either, but the woman with the dogs gave us a very generous donation. She had to fly out of town to attend a funeral, and she had no one to watch her dogs. I can’t put Elmo in a cage with any of the other dogs, because he’s so small, and the woman said all the dogs had to be kept separate. Sorry, Stacy, but you’re going to have to keep him for a few days. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

She glanced at Weasel Boy, who was staring at the front door and whining. Yeah, he was going to be real grateful, wasn’t he? “You’re right, it’s not a problem. He’s fallen in love with the guy next door.”

“Good for you, Stacy. It’s about time.”

“Not me! The dog!” But even as she denied it, her heart gave a funny dance inside her at the thought.

“Maybe you can convince him to take the little guy, then.”

“Forget it. He doesn’t believe in romance. I mean, he’s not comfortable around dogs.”

“I’ve gotta run. Thanks for helping us out. You’re the best.”

When she walked into her bedroom, she was drawn to those pieces of paper taped to her dresser mirror. She couldn’t walk in here without looking at them. Which was good because then she didn’t notice the clean clothes in a stack on the floor waiting to be put away or the unmade bed. Granny would be ashamed of her. What would she think about this unorthodox way to start a family?

She looked at the sperm donor profiles. Which one, which one? These were her top picks. Smart, talented, healthy. “Eeny, meeny, miny…” Her finger dropped to her side. She just couldn’t decide. Why? Every time she thought she’d made a choice, she changed her mind. The calendar reminded her she had mere days before ovulation. She fell back on the bed and pulled the gingham comforter over her head. Why couldn’t she commit?

FOR HALF THAT NIGHT, Barrett watched the snails and made diligent notes. Unfortunately, they were about Stacy. He couldn’t figure her out, and more important, couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t get her out of his mind. When she left, he felt strangely empty. He’d never felt that way before. He knew it had something to do with her, or more precisely, her absence. So he sat down at the computer and started charting what he knew about her.

She was nice. In fact, everything he knew about her was involved with her doing things for others, things she didn’t necessarily want to do. Now she was doing something for him just to be nice.

Then there was the hand holding. Now that was something. He’d never admit this to anyone, but he felt a little out of touch with the world. Like when he saw groups of people socializing and laughing at things he didn’t get at all. Or couples strolling arm in arm. He’d never once seen his parents hold hands or nuzzle each other or perform any mating rituals.

He’d always figured he wasn’t inclined to that kind of affection.

But when he’d held Stacy’s hand…he’d connected with her. For the first time, he’d felt emotionally connected to another person. To Stacy.

He shot out of his chair, ready to walk next door. He sank into his chair as reality set in. He was sure his parents had felt some degree of desire, enough to marry, at least. Look how that had ended.

Here he was feeling, well, aroused, and she was just posing as his girlfriend to be nice. He grimaced at that. He didn’t want her to be nice to him. He wanted her. To want him.

Go back to the first part, he reminded himself. And don’t forget that you’ll soon be in another country studying the rain forest. He tried to remember how excited he’d been at the prospect. He glanced at the snails. She thought they were cute. She saw angels and dogs and dragons in clouds. She wished on falling stars.

He tried not to see the dreamy sparkle in her eyes.

He was leaving the country for two years.

With a sigh, he closed her file and went back to work.

6

DESPITE THE LATE NIGHT, Barrett was up early. He ran the perimeter of the neighborhood, took a shower and started working on the snails. He made four charts for each season, with graphs for water levels, temperatures and snail activity. At sunrise, he moved to the back deck. Normally he wouldn’t have noticed the dappled sunlight on the white concrete deck or the scent of jasmine from the bush in the corner of the yard. Or the waves of light as the sun reflected off the small pool. He wouldn’t have been aware of the back door opening next door, of Stacy’s voice calling, “Weasel Boy, stay in the yard!” He would have been so wrapped up in his work that he wouldn’t have put the picture of Stacy’s face with her voice. Or thought of her spandex-covered bottom.

But he would have probably noticed the mutant dog that stared at him with a happy yipping sound. And that same dog leaping into his lap. Normally he would have minded the interruption to a nice, quiet morning. But that interruption was coupled with Stacy’s smile as she walked around the side of the house, so he could hardly mind too much.

“Sorry about that. I’m telling you, that dog loves you.”

Barrett patted the dog’s nearly bald head, finding it wasn’t bald, but covered with fine, silky hair. “I guess he has to go back to the shelter today.”

She scrunched up her face. “Well, no. The assistant director boarded five dogs yesterday, which means Weasel Boy’s cage is now occupied, and he’s too small to be put in with any of the other dogs. Which means I’m stuck with him until they find a home for another dog and free up a cage. And I wouldn’t mind so much being stuck with him, except—” she glanced at the dog on Barrett’s lap “—it means you’re stuck with him, too.”

Elmo tilted his head and gave a melodic whine. Something about that plea twanged a chord in his chest. He shrugged. “I suppose he can hang around here for the day.”

“Really? That’d be great. Otherwise I’d have to leave him in the house, and he’d whine up a storm. That’s what he did last night, whine and whimper for you. Kept staring at the door. I even let him sleep with me, just so he’d feel better.”

Barrett glanced at the dog again, because looking at Stacy while she was talking about whining and whimpering for him was doing strange things to his body. Then he actually envied the dog for snuggling up with Stacy all night, and that had him looking at her again. Sunshine slanted down over her, glinting off her brown hair and making her purple spandex leggings look nearly fluorescent. Her calves were muscular and shiny from what he guessed was suntan oil. Her arms were set off by the white tank top she wore. She was squinting, and then she shaded her eyes with the flat of her hand against her forehead.

“I have something for you,” she said, coming closer. He could smell the light coconut scent that obliterated the fruity scent she usually wore. And since when did he notice scents?

“I made it for you last night. What do you think?”

She shook out a white T-shirt and smiled as he read the words in serious script. Alcohol and Calculus Don’t Mix. Never Drink and Derive. “Cute, huh?”

He smiled. “Yeah…cute.”

She walked closer and handed it to him. “You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to. You’re probably not even a T-shirt kind of guy. It was just for fun.”

He held it up, wondering how long she’d worked on it, and what she’d thought about when she’d made it. “Thank you.”

She shrugged. “It was nothing. I’ll leave you alone so you can get your work done. Let me know if Weasel Boy bugs you, and I’ll come get him.”

He liked watching her walk. There was a bounce to her step, and of course there were the curves of her behind to consider, too. Elmo whined, and Barrett reluctantly drew his gaze to the dog. Happy with just that moment’s worth of attention, Elmo curled up in his lap with his dog sigh. No way was Barrett going to tell Stacy the dog was bothering him. He set the T-shirt over Elmo like a blanket and settled in to work.

Thirty minutes later, a persistent noise penetrated his consciousness. It was time to get a glass of chocolate milk anyway, and perhaps a bowl for Elmo, too. And to find out what that high-pitched buzzing noise was.

The noise, it turned out, was Stacy up on her flat roof with some loud contraption blowing leaves out of the gutter. Since she hadn’t noticed him yet, he figured it was all right to watch her for a minute or two. As she wrestled with the blower, it blew her hair into wild disarray. She wore sunglasses that occasionally caught the sun in a blinding flash. She moved around on the roof with ease, stepping toward the gutter where she aimed the nozzle and blew pine needles and debris over the edge.

In fact, she seemed to be…dancing. That’s when he noticed the headphones. She wiggled her hips and pursed her lips, mouthing the words to a song. Then she twirled with the blower close to her. It blew her hair straight up until she swung it out again.

She was dancing with the leaf blower. And while he should find that preposterous, he found himself smiling.

He forced himself to go into the house before she caught him staring. A woman like Stacy could make him believe things could work between a man used to his comfortable world of research and grants and a woman who wanted romance and worked with dogs. The only thing she lacked to make her perfectly wrong for him was a baby.

He and Elmo enjoyed their chocolate milk out on the lanai, and then Barrett went back to work. He wanted to glance toward Stacy’s place, but he congratulated himself on keeping his focus.

Elmo wandered away only long enough to attend to his canine business before returning to his place in Barrett’s lap. He did the strange air-licking thing for a few minutes and then settled down. Barrett laid out the pertinent field notes he had made over the last year as he’d trekked through Everglades National Park logging tree snail data. He glanced at the calendar and calculated the remaining time he had left. He had virtually no time between this project and the next. He knew his father was disappointed that he hadn’t remained working on Everglades projects for the university. But that wasn’t what called to him. Would he ever find the one thing that kept his interest indefinitely?

The blower noise had grown louder since he’d been in the house, though he couldn’t see Stacy on her roof anymore. Focus on the tree snails, he told himself. If he kept his focus, he could probably complete his project on time. The papers were laid out so he could gather the data he needed from each sheet in order. He got into a rhythm for a while.

Elmo’s head came up a second before the papers on the table spiraled into the air and drifted gently down around and into the pool. The noise stopped abruptly, and he turned and looked up to see Stacy on his roof with her hand over her mouth.

“I’m so sorry!” She set the blower down, stood too fast and lost her balance.

He scrambled to position himself beneath her. She tumbled over the edge of the roof but hung onto the gutter. Without thinking, he wrapped his arms around her to help ease her to the ground. Only he didn’t want to let her go.

She was warm and soft and firm all at the same time, and she smelled delicious, coconuty and sun-warmed. His arms were anchored around her stomach, and his hands brushed her bare waist. A catchy tune pounded from the headphones that were dangling around her neck. He thought about dancing with her, but that would be sillier than…than holding her for much longer than was strictly necessary.

“Okay, I’ve got it,” she said.

For someone who had studied time, who knew the measurement of time remained constant and absolute, those moments felt longer than usual. She turned to look at him. “Barrett, we’ve got to get your notes out of the pool!”

The notes. Of course, how could he have forgotten? She slid down his body to her feet, tossed the radio headphones on the table and pivoted toward the pool. Twenty or more pages floated at the surface, the ink dissolving before their eyes. Stacy slid into the pool and started retrieving them.

“I’m so sorry. You must think I’m a klutz.”

He grabbed the papers he could reach from the edge. “What were you doing up there, anyway?”

“Gene asked me to do their gutters the next time I did mine. I wasn’t going to do the gutter above you, because I was afraid this would happen.” She was plucking papers as she spoke. “I glanced down to see where you were, you know, to make sure I didn’t bother you, and…lost my balance. I never lose my balance. Granny said I had the balance of a monkey.”

The word monkey came out all garbled. The water was up to her mouth as she walked toward the deep end where most of the papers ended up. She wasn’t going to be able to reach them. So he did something impulsive, maybe for the first time he could remember. He got into the pool with her.

The water was cool as it enveloped him. “Here, I’ll get these.”

“You didn’t have to come in here. I’m the one who scattered them into the pool.” She sounded breathless as she treaded water.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and held her up, facing him. “It’s…” He forgot about the cold water, the papers and whatever he’d been about to say. Like when he’d held her as she’d hung from the roof, his body awakened as her body brushed against his. Her skin was cool beneath his hands.

“It’s what?” she asked in a breathless voice.

“Hmm?”

“You said, ‘It’s.’ You never…finished.”

Their faces were inches apart as he pulled her flush against him. Beads of water dotted the pink lip gloss she wore. Why did he have the insane urge to lick them off? He wanted to kiss her, wanted it with every molecule in his body. He felt an intense desire to take her mouth and see if it tasted as good as it looked.

Her brown eyes were large as she watched him. Her breath was coming in short puffs, soft and barely audible. If he didn’t consult his logic here, he was going to be in big trouble.

Logic.

“Tree snails,” he said, and moved her toward the edge of the pool.

She grabbed onto the edge when he abruptly moved to retrieve the rest of the papers. “Pardon?”

He started reciting snail names with each piece of paper he snatched out of the water. “Delicatus. Elegans. Floridanus. Lucidovarius.” He had exactly four days, four hours and twenty-nine minutes to complete this project. All right, he was focused again, his mind firmly on deadlines and Stacy’s bottom as she pulled herself out of the pool…“Septentrionalis.” He took a deep breath when he grabbed the last piece of paper and turned around. “Nipples.”

At first he wasn’t aware of what he’d said, only that she was sitting on the edge of the pool, and her white tank top was close to transparent. She glanced down and jerked her arms across her chest. Only then did he realize exactly what had come out of his mouth.

Not a snail name.

Not even close.

She jumped to her feet and set the wet papers on the edge of the table. “I’d better go before I die of embarrassment altogether,” she said, her arms still fastened to her chest.

“I’m sorry—”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I’m going now.”

Barrett had reached the side of the pool, where Elmo was waiting for him. They both watched her stalk around the hedge and heard her door slam shut.

He was completely baffled. First that she’d affected him in such a profound way. And second that she’d blamed herself for his faux pas. It made no sense.

It made even less sense than his having gone in the pool fully clothed, shoes and all.

STACY LOOKED at herself in the bathroom mirror. Yep, there they were, showing right through the white material like brown beacons. No wonder the word had slipped out of his mouth! Gawd, could she be more embarrassed? Probably not. First sending his notes afloat and then this. He must think she was something else. He probably had some technical word for her, some fifty-cent word she wouldn’t understand.

The only redeeming factor in the whole pool incident was when he was reciting those snail names. She had to be the only person in the world to be turned on by snail names. That probably made her a disturbed woman, but she could handle that. Of course, it more than likely had something to do with the fact that Barrett was reciting them, though why he’d been doing it just then was a mystery.

She peeled off the tank top and tossed it in the hamper. Okay, the other redeeming factor was when he’d held her against him in the pool. The water sure wasn’t cold anymore after that. No, sirree. And if she’d been in her right mind, she wouldn’t have thought for a minute that he was going to kiss her. She wouldn’t have imagined the hunger she saw in his eyes. He was only holding her up in deep water, being nice. What he was probably thinking was that he’d like to throttle her for distracting him from his project yet again, and worse, for waterlogging his notes.

That’s what she’d really seen, annoyance, not hunger. He’d probably been reciting those snail names to keep his temper at bay like other people counted to ten.

She stripped out of her leggings and left them in a wet pile on the bathroom floor. A glimpse of her boyish figure reinforced her misunderstanding. No way could this body entice that man.