Teach Me a Lesson (34 page)

So she wanted that juice, which was on sale at half off, plus she had a coupon. Wouldn’t you know, though, the last bottle had twisted at the top of the rollers, stuck fast, and there wasn’t a grocery clerk in sight to help her out. Well, she was
not
going to be bested by a damn juice bottle. Yanking open the refrigerator door, she put a foot on the rubberized track, grabbed the edge of the shelf, hauled herself up, and stretched until her fingers just brushed the plastic bottle. If she could knock it a little, dislodge it . . .

“Let me help.”

The male voice was deep enough to send a delicious shiver down her spine. She would have gotten out of his way, but she felt him along her side as he leaned into the fridge door with her. His hand on the small of her back set a flame burning low in her belly. She couldn’t have moved if her life depended on it. Oh no, this was too good to miss. With barely a stretch, he straightened the bottle and set it rolling down the tracks to her waiting hand.

She was breathless when she turned to look up, and up some more. He was close enough to make her eyes cross, and she couldn’t focus sufficiently to take in more than cropped blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and a square, smooth-shaven jaw.

“Thank you” was all she could manage. She didn’t want him to move. It had been so long since she’d felt a man this near, breathed in his pure male scent, musky with testosterone and clean workout sweat.

He stepped back out of the fridge slowly, his body caressing the length of hers for what seemed like an eternity, until his heat was replaced by the cool blast of refrigerated air.

“My pleasure,” he said in that deep voice, setting her blood rushing through her veins.

She was so used to her ex’s average height that, even though she was five-foot-five, this man made her feel petite. Tall and broad, he was a Viking who’d just stepped off his ship. Except for the all-black running outfit. Tight black jogging pants encased his muscled thighs, and the black Lycra shirt framed his powerful chest. She was staring, probably even drooling. In days of old, yeah, he’d have been a Viking or a knight. These days, a cop or a fireman. Or a corporate raider.

The man made her remember how long it had been since she’d had sex. With the divorce and all the stuff that went before, it had been two years. Two
years
. She’d been so busy and worried, she’d hardly noticed. Until
this
man had stood close to her, awakened her.

She realized she must have been staring at him like he was an ice cream cone she was dying to lick.

Too bad she couldn’t afford a relationship right now.

“Well, thanks again.” With great effort, she tore her eyes away and grabbed her shopping cart. A man was the
last
thing she needed in her life. She had enough trouble managing her sons—teenage boys were murder—not to mention her ex. No sirree Bob, she did not need a man.

Yet she allowed herself one last glance over her shoulder as she wheeled her cart down the meat aisle. He was watching. His gaze turned her hot inside and out.

No, she didn’t need another man in her life. But she sure wouldn’t mind a little casual sex. At the very least, the Viking was something to fantasize about.

* * *

EVERYTHING HAPPENED FOR A REASON. HE’D COME TO THIS STORE
at
this
time; it had to be to see her. He was a believer in the law of attraction. If you wanted it badly enough, it would come to you, whatever it was. He’d felt the sizzle of her body against his, sensed her desire in the quickening of her breath and the perfume of her hormones. So, when he started his engine as she was exiting the grocery store with her full cart and a young clerk trailing in her wake to load the haul into her minivan, he didn’t feel any need to get her phone number or give her his. Law of attraction: He’d find her again.

Or she’d find him.

1

RACHEL DELANEY TUCKED THE GROCERY RECEIPT IN HER ACCORDION FILE ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER. SHE HADN’T BROKEN THE
piggy bank, but who the hell would ever have thought that canned kidney beans with no added salt would cost three times as much as beans
with
salt? Fewer ingredients costs more to manufacture? Wasn’t it just a matter of keying a different recipe into the assembly line? Whatever, her goal was making sure the boys ate healthy when they were with her because they sure didn’t when Gary had them.

They were still sleeping when she’d arrived home, so Rachel had carted the groceries in, put them away, and started breakfast. She didn’t like wasting the weekends she had with the boys on chores, so she rose early to get the grocery shopping out of the way. She certainly didn’t need to go to a gym before they woke up either; she got all the aerobic workout she needed running around at breakneck speed so she could accomplish everything and still have time with Justin and Nathan. She and Gary had dual custody, one week on, one week off. She’d have the boys until Sunday after supper, at which time she’d drive them over to Gary’s. He had an apartment only a couple of miles away. Wherever they were staying, the boys were close to school.

It was a gorgeous day. January in the Bay Area was usually sunny, though this January had seen its fair share of rain. But on this last Saturday of the month, the sun streamed through the kitchen window as she whipped up the eggs and vanilla for French toast. Okay, not such a healthy breakfast, but it was a once-a-month-only treat. Sometimes you had to give kids a treat or they rebelled against anything that was good for them.

Just as she knew it would, the scent of cooking that wafted down the hallway soon garnered sounds from the bedroom end of the house. In his horrific
The Walking Dead
zombie pajamas, Justin led the charge like a bull elephant rather than with a zombielike shuffle. His short brown hair was askew, his face still creased with sleep lines from his pillow. At thirteen he was the shortest in his eighth-grade class and hated it.

“Did you get maple syrup, Mom?”

“Yes, honey. It’s on the table.” Rachel flipped a thick piece of French toast. Maple syrup was god-awful expensive, but what was the point of eating French toast without it? If you were going to be bad, do it with gusto.

In sweats and a torn T-shirt, his identically cut brown hair as mussed as Justin’s, Nathan shuffled into the kitchen with a typical zombie growl. He should have been the one wearing
The Walking Dead
pajamas. He’d had a growth spurt over the last summer just before he started his sophomore year in high school, and he now topped his father’s five-foot-ten frame. She hoped the same would come for Justin.

She slapped two pieces of French toast onto their plates. Justin grabbed his, and Nathan did the same, though at a much slower pace.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

“Thanks, Mom,” Justin answered as he slid into his place at the table on the other side of the kitchen island.

“Thanks,” Nathan echoed, albeit grudgingly.

Rachel told herself his attitude was due to still being half-asleep, even at just past nine in the morning. But she knew that wasn’t the reason. Since the divorce, Nathan had become difficult.

She set another batch of egg-and-vanilla-coated bread in the hot pan. The boys were on their second helping by the time she sat down to eat her first.

“Dad said that if I kept my GPA above a three-point-five,” Nathan said around a full mouth, “and I pass the driver’s test with no errors, he’ll let me have his car in the summer when he buys a new one.”

“Please don’t talk with your mouth full.” The response was automatic, and not for the first time, she cursed inwardly at her ex. Sure, Gary offered the car, but he expected her to pay half the cost for the driving school and the insurance. She’d asked him
not
to talk to Nathan about it until she’d figured out where she’d come up with the extra money.

Nathan would be sixteen at the end of May, but they still hadn’t gotten his driver’s permit. She was putting it off as long as she could.

“You know, it would take a load off you, Mom. I could run Justin around so you wouldn’t have to.”

She almost laughed out loud. Right. As soon as he got that license and his dad’s car, he’d be off with his friends.

“Honey, thanks very much for the offer, but it’s only a ten-minute walk to school. Justin doesn’t need you to run him around. I already told you that I can’t afford the class and the insurance yet. I need to get more settled in my job.”

Another zombie growl rumbled low in Nathan’s throat.

Before the divorce, which had become final at the beginning of September, she’d been a homemaker. She didn’t have a college education or the computer skills required for something higher paying, but she’d managed to find a decent job as a receptionist at DeKnight Gauges, which was only a short drive from the house. There was opportunity at DKG; she was honing those computer skills she was lacking in. But right now, ends didn’t always meet. Thank God Gary paid the mortgage and half the expenses for the boys or she didn’t know what she’d have done.

Nathan didn’t seem to understand how tight things were.

“Come on, Mom. All the other guys are getting their permits. It’ll be six months before you have to start paying insurance anyway.”

“Nathan, you can wait a little longer.”

“Mom—” he started.

“Let’s have a nice breakfast,” she cut in. “Who wants another slice?”

“I do,” Justin piped up.

Nathan simply muttered something unintelligible. She made him one anyway.

“I won’t be able to hold my head up if I start my junior year without a license.”

Rachel sighed. He got his drama from his father. “Why don’t you get a summer job to help pay for it, then?”

She could hear his teeth grinding all the way across the kitchen. “I can’t get a job if I don’t have a license to drive there.”

“There’s the bus,” she said calmly. “Or you can look for something close by. You could even do some yard work for the neighbors.”

“Do I look like a gardener?” he muttered.

The egg coating sizzled in the pan. She didn’t answer his question, sure it was rhetorical. When she was his age, she’d done babysitting, hours and hours of babysitting, to be able to afford extras. Saying that, though, was tantamount to the old I-had-to-walk-five-miles-through-the-snow-to-get-to-school story and meaningless to kids these days.

“We’re living in the dark ages,” he went on. “I can’t even text, and I have to watch every minute I’m on my cell phone. You know, that’s why Dad
bought
us these phones for Christmas, so we could
use
them.”

They had a family plan. She believed cell phones were for keeping in contact with family, making arrangements for pickups, and yes, so she knew where her boys were. They didn’t have unlimited minutes or unlimited texting or Internet access, and thank God they didn’t or everyone would be texting at the dinner table instead of talking.

Since the divorce, everything was her fault because Gary promised them things for which she couldn’t afford to pay her share. There was polo for Nathan and soccer for Justin, the cell phones, the
this
, the
that
. Gary’s stock phrase was “If you can convince your mom.” She always ended up being the bad guy.

She didn’t, however, spew any of that. “Here you go.” She slid their plates onto the table, too tired to prompt for a thank-you.

“Everything’s about money with you, Mom. You make me crazy with it, just like you did Dad.”

It was the closest Nathan had come to saying the divorce was her fault. But he thought it, oh he thought it, every day.

“Let’s be pleasant at the breakfast table, Nathan.”

“I’m not hungry,” he muttered, shoving his plate away. He stomped out of the kitchen and half a minute later, the slam of his bedroom door rocked the house.

Across the table, Justin shoveled another bite of French toast slathered with maple syrup into his mouth. At least he swallowed before he said, “Can I go over to Martin’s house?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say they should spend the day together, doing . . . something. But the fact was, her sons didn’t want to spend time with her. They were pissed that she’d driven Gary out of the house, that she nitpicked about every dime she had to spend, that she denied them unlimited texting, and that if they went over on free minutes, there was hell to pay.

“Sure,” she said, hearing the weary edge in her voice. “Go to Martin’s.” She didn’t tell him to be home by lunch. Martin’s mom would feed him.

Alone in the kitchen, she gathered the plates, scraping the wasted French toast into the garbage.

Maybe she was a hard-ass. Maybe she should work harder to pay her portion of the things they wanted. She hadn’t gotten her driver’s license until she was eighteen, but it was different for a girl. The other boys at school would make fun of Nathan, call him a kid, tease him. He deserved a mother who understood those issues.

“What happened to us?” she whispered.

For Christmas, the boys had gotten her a dress from the local thrift shop, the tags still on it. She’d loved the leopard print. She’d liked that they were learning the value of money. But there’d been something in Nathan’s eyes. Something that wasn’t . . . nice. As if the gift was a punishment. She’d pushed the thought out of her head, but sometimes, like this morning, it came back. Her eldest boy was starting to hate her. Her heart turned over in her chest every time she thought about the widening gulf, but she had no idea how to breach it.

Justin called out indistinguishable words, maybe a good-bye, then slammed the front door on his way out. Two minutes later, it slammed again. Nathan. She’d have to call his cell and find out where the hell he was going. He’d been hanging around some guys from the basketball team, going to the games with them. He’d tried out but hadn’t made it onto the team. He was determined to give it another shot next year. Rachel hadn’t managed to meet these new friends yet, so she didn’t have a home number to call just in case.

Sometimes she wondered how much more she could take. Everything was falling apart. Nathan hated her, and while Justin didn’t seem perpetually angry, she felt him drifting away during the weeks they weren’t at home with her.