Propositioned by the Playboy: Miss Maple and the Playboy / The Playboy Doctor's Marriage Proposal / The New Girl in Town

He had already strapped on his tool apron when she came out the door with hot coffee for him and a hot chocolate for Kyle. He took his coffee, said good morning, gruffly, as though they were strangers, but his eyes strayed to her lips before they skittered away.

“Guess what?” Kyle told her. “Mary Kay and I went to the planetarium last night.”

“And how was that?” she asked.

“Awesome,” he breathed.

She saw in him what she had always wanted for him, a capacity to know excitement, to feel joy, to be just an ordinary kid, a boy moving toward manhood, who could have a crush on a girl and still love tree houses at the very same time.

She glanced at Ben, and knew he saw it, too, and saw the incredible tenderness in his eyes as he looked at Kyle.

And she knew he could say whatever he wanted, but she would always know what was true about him.

“Could I bring her here and show her the tree house?” Kyle asked. “When we’re done?”

“Of course,” Beth said.

“It’s not going to get done if we stand around here, drinking coffee,” Ben said, and set his down deliberately. “Kyle, you can start hauling lumber from the truck for the platform. Stack it here.”

Ben looked like he intended to ignore Beth, but she had a different idea altogether. She had found an old tool belt in the basement, and she strapped it on, too, picked up some boards and headed for the stairs.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m helping.”

“You don’t know anything about building a staircase,” he said with a scowl.

“Well, you didn’t know anything about crossword puzzles, either.”

“We don’t want this to end like that,” he said. “Building things isn’t like doing a crossword puzzle. There’s a purpose to it.”

“There’s a purpose to crossword puzzles,” she told him dangerously.

“Which is?” he said skeptically.

“They build brain power.”

“But nobody gets hurt if they’re done wrong. If we don’t build this right, you could be up there in your hammock on a sunny summer day, sipping lemonade and reading romance novels, and the whole thing could fall down.”

“Romance novels?” she sputtered. Had she left one out last night, or was she just that transparent?

“It’s just an example.”

He saw her as a person who had filled her life with crossword puzzles and fantasies! And annoyingly it wasn’t that far off the mark!

But she was changing, but that made her wonder if it was true that nobody was going to get hurt from doing the crossword puzzle wrong. She was open in ways she never had been before, committed to living more dangerously. Rationally, that was a good way to get hurt.

She didn’t feel rational. She felt as if she never cared to be rational again!

“Show me how to hammer the damn steps down, and how to do it so that I and my lemonade and my romance novel don’t end up in a heap of lumber at the bottom of this tree,” she told him.

“Ah, ah, Miss Maple. Grade-five teachers aren’t allowed to say damn.”

“You don’t know the first thing about grade-five teachers,” she told him.

His eyes went to her lips, and they both knew he might know one thing or two. He hesitated and then surrendered, even though it wasn’t the marine way. “Okay, I’ll put the stringers and then show you how to put the treads on.”

In a very short while, she wondered how rational it had been to ask. Because they were working way too closely. His shoulder kept touching hers. He covered her hand with his own to show her how to grip the hammer. She was so incredibly aware of him, and of how sharing the same air with him seemed to heighten all her senses.

Alive. As intensely alive as she had ever been. Over something so simple as working outside, shoulder to shoulder with a man, drinking in his scent and his strength, soaking his presence through her skin as surely as the beautiful late-summer sunshine.

Before she knew it, they were at the top of the staircase.

“It’s done,” she said.

“Not really. At the moment, it’s a staircase that leads to nowhere.”

Trust a man to think that! It showed the difference between how men and women thought. He so pragmatic. She so dreamy. Amazing he had thought of the tree house in the first place!

Just to show him the staircase led to somewhere, she stepped carefully off the stair and onto a branch.

“Hey, be careful.”

She ignored his warning, dropped down and shinnied out on the branch. From her own backyard was a view she had never seen before.

“I can see all of Cranberry Corners,” she said. “This is amazing.”

And that’s what happened when you took a chance and lived on the edge. You saw things differently. Whole new worlds opened to you.

“You better come back here.”

She ignored him, pulled herself to sitting, dangled her feet off the branch, looked out the veil of leaves to her brand-new view of the world and sighed with satisfaction.

“If you fall from there, you’re going to be badly hurt,” he warned.

She looked back at him. He looked very cross. Too bad.

“In between romance novels, I try and squeeze in a little reading that has purpose. Do you know Joan of Arc’s motto?” she asked him.

“Oh, sure, I have Joan of Arc’s motto taped to my bathroom mirror. What kind of question is that? Come down from there, Beth. Now is no time to be quoting Joan of Arc.”

“‘I am not afraid,’” she said, wagging her legs happily into thin air, “‘I was born for this.’”

“Hey, in case you don’t remember, Joan’s story does not have a happily-ever-after ending.”

“Like my normal reading?” she asked sweetly.

“It’s not attractive to hold a grudge. I’m sorry I insinuated you might just read something relaxing and fun in between studying Aristotle. Get off that branch.”