Single in Suburbia (38 page)
She nodded, wishing she’d known.
“I was sent to look at a prospect in the Dominican Republic. The Phillies were after him, too, and we were afraid he was going to sign. I barely had time to stash Fido and the girls at their grandparents’. I just got back from the airport; I haven’t even gone to pick them up yet.”
He smiled and the glint of amusement was back in his eyes. “I can promise you if I’d known you were going to go and get yourself arrested while I was gone, I would have left you an emergency contact number.”
They were both smiling now and whatever language they were thinking it in, she could tell they were thinking the same thing.
“Viens ici,”
he said. Come here. He reached out and pulled her close.
“Je veux te faire l’amour.”
I want to make love to you.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her to his bedroom. And then he told her in flawless French exactly what he intended to do to her.
Epilogue
H
unter flipped burgers and hot dogs on the grill on Amanda’s deck while Dan Donovan and Hap Mackenzie tipped back their beers and gave him pointers. It was late September and the leaves were just beginning their turn to yellow and gold.
Wyatt, Tyler, Drew, and Julie threw baseballs to each other in the backyard, debating the Mudhens’ recent tryouts and the four new players they’d taken on. Every five seconds they demanded to know when the food would be done.
“Do you think your dad will be our pitching coach next year?” Wyatt asked Julie, who he’d already admitted threw really well “for a girl.”
Meghan and Samantha lounged in chaises, a bowl of potato chips between them, their noses buried in the latest issue of
Teen People;
Rose Red and Rose White dishing over the relative merits of the latest teen heartthrobs.
In the kitchen, Amanda, Brooke, and Candace did their own dishing while they prepared the side salads and set the table for dinner.
“God, I wish I could have some of that.” Candace eyed their glasses of Merlot. “I wasn’t that much of a drinker, but now that I can’t have any, I’m craving it big-time.” Her hand rested on the swell of her belly. Despite her complaints, her face glowed.
“Yeah, you look completely miserable,” Amanda said. “Dan’s in here fussing over you every other minute, you’re CEO of one of the fastest-growing residential cleaning companies in Georgia, and”—Amanda held up Candace’s hand with the gleaming diamond solitaire—“you’re about to be married to the world’s nicest, and evidently most virile, guy.”
“Too true.” Candace beamed. “Today when I tried to tell him my thoughts about our honeymoon, he told me not to worry about it; he’d already booked an island getaway.”
“Which makes him romantic and persuasive.” Amanda smiled. “He’s definitely my hero.”
“I know.” Candace rubbed her stomach again and stared out the kitchen window at the man who’d so surprised her. “He’s even got Hurricane Hannah coming around.” She turned away from the window to eye the bottle of wine. “You know our grandmothers’ generation drank all the way through their pregnancies.”
“Forget about it.” Amanda took the bottle and moved it out of Candace’s line of sight then helped Brooke put large serving spoons in the bowls of potato salad and coleslaw. Together they pulled condiments out of the fridge.
“Hap and I are going to visit my mother next week. He’s offered to move her up here.” She, too, smiled with happiness. Her beauty remained, but it glowed more softly now—not an asset to be cultivated and clung to, just part of who she was. “I can’t wait to tell her I’m in the cleaning business. Maybe we can make her a consultant or something.”
Amanda concurred. “All I know is putting Susie Simmons in charge of the new recruits was a stroke of genius. She’s put a whole manual together—and she makes all of them memorize it.”
“I had ten new inquiries this week,” Candace said. “The fact that our force is so thoroughly trained really appeals. All the side services we’ve added put us in a whole other league. We’re going to have to add some more cleaning squads.”
The three of them were still happily talking business when Hunter backed through the kitchen door with the tray of burgers and hot dogs in his hands. Fido followed at his heels.
Hunter set the tray in the center of the table and leaned over to drop a kiss on the top of Amanda’s head. “The hungry hordes are about to descend. Do you think we have enough meat?”
She waggled her eyebrows at him and smiled as saucily as she knew how.
Of all the good things that had happened, he was way up there. Their physical attraction remained so strong that it surprised her at times, but it was his easygoing acceptance of her and what she was that made him such a keeper.
The fact that Wyatt worshipped him and Meghan considered Samantha her long lost sister made things that much sweeter.
They chowed down around her kitchen table then sat talking late into the night. The mountains just two hours north of Atlanta were about to burst into full color and plans were afoot for a long weekend at Dan Donovan’s cabin. It would be a glorious time, Amanda knew, but so was this one. She wished this moment, and this evening, could go on forever.
It was after eleven when everyone left. Dan and Candace took all the boys to Dan’s for a sleepover. Brooke and Hap offered to drop the girls at Hunter’s on their way home so that Hunter could stay and help her clean up.
They’d just finished the last of the dishes and wiped down the counter when Hunter came up behind her. He slipped his arms around her waist and pressed against her. His lips were warm on the side of her neck.
“You know,” he said as he nibbled on her ear, “I’m kind of missing Solange tonight. Those swingy silver earrings and the way she used to bend over and show me her ass were a real turn-on.”
Amanda turned in his arms, pressing up against all that fabulous male hardness. “She did no such thing. Why all that poor girl could think about was making enough money to take care of those precious twin sons of hers.”
He kissed her again and then trailed his lips back down the side of her neck. “She was definitely coming on to me. She was hot for my form.”
He reached down to unbutton her blouse and dropped another kiss on the hollow at her throat. “I used to fantasize about making it with her in my laundry room. Or when she was down on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor.”
A wave of lust rippled through her. “She used to fantasize about you too.” A smile tugged at Amanda’s lips. “But there were those who thought her a bit flamboyant.”
Their lips met and their tongues followed suit. She was startled, as she always was, by just how much she wanted him.
“Do you want to go upstairs?” she asked, her voice turning husky. “I’ve still got the wig and earrings and that extra sexy polyester uniform.”
He smiled and the movement of his lips tickled her skin.
“Just speak French to me,
mon amour,
” he said as he bent her back over his arm like Gomez Addams used to do to Morticia. “You know it drives me wild.”
“Whatever you say,
monsieur,
” she whispered as he lifted her in his arms and began to carry her toward the bedroom.
“Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir? Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?”
Do you want to sleep with me this evening? Do you want to sleep with me? She delivered the lyrics of Patti LaBelle’s immortal song “Lady Marmalade” with a straight face and a seductively raised eyebrow as if she were composing them on the spot.
He did stumble halfway up the stairs, clearly biting back his laughter, when she got to “coochi, coochi, yaya, dada. Coochi, coochi, yaya, here.”
When he laid her on her bed, she very sensibly shut her mouth so that he could kiss her.
But her
coeur
—her heart—beat very, very fast.
About the Author
Wendy lives with her husband and two sons in a testosterone-laden home in the suburbs of Atlanta. When not at one ballpark or another, she spends her time either writing or attempting to invent an automatic toilet seat-dropping device.
Readers can contact her through her website at
www.authorwendywax.com.
Also by Wendy Wax
7 Days & 7 Nights
Leave It to Cleavage
Hostile Makeover
SINGLE IN SUBURBIA
A Bantam Book / July 2006
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2006 by Wendy Wax
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN-13: 978-0-553-90264-8
eISBN-10: 0-553-90264-4
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