Package Deal(17)

“I’ll let you know. We’re going to have some coffee before he goes home.” She kissed Cecelia, left the room, and headed back downstairs.

“Is everything okay?” Marcus poured her a cup and one for himself.

“Everything is fine.” She sipped her cup in silence. The dawning desire she felt in the theater—to get to know him better, to feel his arms around her, was even stronger now. In the darkness of the theater, she’d hoped what she was feeling was hidden, from others and from him.

Marcus looked at his watch. “I’d better be going.” He stood up to leave.“I had a great time. Perhaps we can do this again.”

“I’d like that.” She walked him to the door and glanced up the stairs. No small blond head was looking down at her.

“Checking to see if we’re being spied on?”

“You caught me.” She chuckled.

He leaned toward her and kissed her on the cheek. “I hope she won’t mind, even though it’s just our first date,” he whispered, and he turned her face so that he could kiss her on the lips, softly, and again, more firmly, when she didn’t pull away.

“You heard her.”

Marcus nodded.“I like a child who is protective of her mother. Shows she has good character.” He kissed her again.“I’ll call you.”

“Please do.”She shut the door after he left and stood there for a moment before heading up the stairs to bed. Nice. Very nice. She smiled to herself as she slipped out of her dress. More than nice. Way more than nice. Was that why her body still buzzed from his kisses? But did she dare to think he might become more than a friend?





Chapter 4



The October breeze grew into a full-fledged windstorm late in the afternoon. Soon the light mist became heavier. By the time Amanda arrived home, the rain was blowing sideways, buffeting the door as she entered.

Cecelia perched on the window seat in her bedroom. “Look at the big waves.”

“I know. I’ve never seen rain coming down like this. I wonder if it’s normal, this sideways stuff.” The wind rattled the window panes near her desk. “It feels like a soup-and-scones kind of night. What do you think, Cece?”

“Yum! With blueberry jam, too?” Her daughter looked up from a picture she was drawing. “I’m going to send Francie a picture of the mountains. I’ll bet she’s never seen mountains like these.”

“I’m glad. Sharing is nice.”

The wind whistled between the jamb and the door with an unexpectedly strong gust as Amanda went into the kitchen to put the scones in the oven. Six weeks into the start of school, her daughter was making friends and seemed happy. She was getting to know more faculty members, too, for which she was grateful. Amanda hummed to herself as she opened a can of tomato soup to go with the scones. She nearly dropped the saucepan at Cece’s shrill scream from the living room.

“Mom! Come quick! Trees are falling down!”

Amanda spun around and raced into the living room. As she stood near the window, her arm around Cece’s shoulders, a huge maple across the street leaned—as if in slow motion—and crashed to the ground, just missing her neighbor’s house. One limb hung precariously against the lip of the roof, threatening the car parked outside the garage.

Before she had a chance to catch her breath, the lights in the house went out.

“What happened?” Cece squealed.

“Power’s out. I’ll get some candles. I guess we eat by candlelight tonight.Sort of like camping, right?” She hugged her daughter.

Cece giggled. “I’m going upstairs to see if the rest of the houses lost their lights, too.”

Amanda felt her way back into the dark kitchen, fished around in the junk drawer for matches and lit two half-burned candles. By their meager light, she looked around for sandwich makings. “Soup’s not hot and who knows how long the electricity will be out.”

“Wow! You should see all the sparks,” Cecelia exclaimed from the top of the stairs. “It’s like the Fourth of July.”

“What sparks? Cece, come down here, please.”

“From the wires. Green and yellow sparks. Really pretty!”

Amanda trotted back through the living room, glancing quickly out the front window as she headed for the stairs. She could see more trees coming down along the street, sparking wires reflecting red and yellow lights in the living room windows.

“I never dreamed we’d have storms like this here,” she gasped, running up the stairs, her heart pounding, even as a crash shook the house and Cecelia screamed again.

“Cece, where are you? Are you okay?”