Loving Leah

“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.