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.“Go on.Go.”He was out of that chair and headed for the stairs in an instant.She watched him go, and for the first time she felt grateful.Truly grateful.That he’d come back to town at last, that he was working things out with Johnny.That he adored her daughter and her daughter seemed to feel the same way about him.Somehow, Bowie Bravo had become a very good man.And good men, as every woman knows, are much too hard to find.“Well,” Angie said in a disgusted tone a week later, “it’s obvious he’s interested, or he would be interested, if you gave him so much as a hint that you wanted him to be interested.”Glory settled the baby a little more comfortably against her breast.They were at Glory’s house that day.She’d made vegetable soup and grilled-cheese sandwiches.“How would you know if he would or could be interested?”“What do you mean how would I know? Haven’t we been through this already? I’ve seen you together.The attraction is…palpable.”“Palpable.” Glory scowled.“That’s a very big word for something that’s none of your business.”Angie let out a laugh.“If it’s none of my business, then you should stop talking to me about it.” She took a bite of her sandwich.“Mmm.Soooo good.You always did make the best grilled cheese.I think it’s that panini pan you use.Makes them crispy on the outside, and melts the cheese to a truly decadent gooeyness.”“Are you changing the subject?”“You mean the one that’s none of my business?”“He’s moving out in four weeks.”“So? He’ll still be in town.That way, when you finally stop lying to yourself and make your move, you won’t have to drive all the way to Santa Cruz to seduce him.”Glory let her mouth drop open.“I do not believe you just said that to me.”“Good point.Denial is always an option.” Angie pushed back her chair.“More iced tea?”The days went by much too fast.Bowie went to Santa Cruz for two days on business.When he returned, Johnny ran out to meet him.Bowie grabbed him up and twirled him around.Glory watched them from the bay window in the family room and couldn’t help smiling at the sight.Bowie finished the train set for Johnny, even painted every car to Johnny’s exact specifications.Johnny had the set in his room now, along with a giant tub of blocks of all sizes and shapes that Bowie had made from scraps of lumber.The whittling lessons seemed to be progressing, too.Johnny had whittled a rather crooked-looking squirrel and a small, round creature he said was a guinea pig.Now he was working on a raccoon.Nearly every evening when Glory went downstairs for that final cup of tea, Bowie came inside to sit with her.They talked.About nothing.About everything.Another week flew past.And suddenly, it was the last Monday in February and time to go to the clinic for her six-week checkup.Angie, who’d gotten her master’s degree in nursing a couple of years before and become a nurse practitioner, did the exam and gave Glory a clean bill of health.She also wrote a scrip for a birth-control pill that was progestin-only and safe for nursing mothers.“Never hurts to be prepared,” she said with a pleasant, professional smile as she ripped the prescription off the pad.Glory accepted the scrip even though she did not approve of herself for doing so.And then, before Johnny got home from school, she drove down to Grass Valley and filled it.The instructions for the pills said she would be fully protected within forty-eight hours of taking the first one.She put the pill case away in her underwear drawer and told herself that Angie was right.It was good to be prepared.Not that she needed to be prepared.In the morning, when she got up, she took the pill case from her drawer, popped the first pill out of its protective plastic bubble and swallowed it.As soon as she did that, she wished that she hadn’t.She did not, after all, actually plan to seduce the father of her son.“Denial is always an option.” Her sister’s knowing voice echoed in her brain.Was she in denial?It was a definite possibility.But if she did try and seduce him, in forty-eight hours, given that she took the second pill, she would be protected from getting pregnant again, at least.The other consequences of such a foolish action would still be hers to confront, the emotional consequences.The ones she really ought to be considering more thoroughly.Glory put the case away and went down to breakfast, where Bowie stood at the cooktop stirring a pan of oatmeal.Her heart gave a lurch in her chest and her pulse beat faster, just at the sight of him standing there in her kitchen.His hair was a little longer than it had been when he first showed up at her door.And his eyes were like oceans she could happily drown in.He smiled at her.“Morning.”“Morning.” She got down her mug and brewed her tea and tried not to think that Johnny had a sleepover birthday party at his cousin’s on Friday.Well beyond the forty-eight hours required for contraceptive safety…That night, with the kids in bed, when she sat alone at the table with Bowie, he asked her what was up with her.“Up?” she replied, so calmly, so innocently.“I don’t know what you mean.”“You seem…different.”“Different, how?”“I don’t know.Like you’ve got some big secret, I guess.”“A bad secret?”“How would I know—unless you want to share it with me?” He gazed at her coaxingly.She tried not to stare at his mouth, not to think about kissing him.“There’s nothing, really.”“You sure?”“Positive.”The next morning, she took another pill.And then another the morning after that.And then, all of a sudden, it was Friday
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