Looking for Miracles (12 page)

Her feet seemed locked to the floor. One good push would move her chair on wheels away from this near embrace where Mike sat behind her, shoulder to shoulder and both their hands still on the mouse. Lori wanted to argue with her traitorous body. She really had to move—now. But it felt much too good to be this close to Mike.

He must have thought so, too, because he was moving even closer. His eyes widened and he dipped his head down until their lips met. It was a slow kiss, tentative and sweet. Lori wasn’t sure she had ever felt anything so marvelous in her entire life.

Still, all her senses screamed that this could not continue. They were in an open office with a huge
glass window facing the street, and all of Friedens. This was a fluke; a chance kiss brought on by being too close for too long to an incredibly handsome man. Finally she made her body work. Her feet pushed the chair across the floor, away from Mike’s warmth. Her hand left its comfortable place on top of his.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened there,” she said, trying not to stammer.

“I think I do.” His smile was slow as molasses and as darkly sweet. “And I wouldn’t mind it happening again.”

“Well, I think I would. And will you look at the time! I have to go get Tyler from school, so if the offer to sit at my desk still stands…” Lori took a deep breath, amazed at how rattled and silly she sounded, unable to say anything else until she got under control.

The light dimmed in his sparkling brown eyes. “Oh. Sure. I’ll take good care of Mikayla. Take your time.”

Lori nearly ran to the coat rack for her jacket. It was all she could do to not grab it so quickly that the whole rack tipped over. That was all she needed, for the coat rack to be as unbalanced as she felt right now. She flew out the door, still hearing the bell jingle overhead after the door closed.

Control. She needed much more of it than she
possessed right now, and fast. How could one little kiss stir her up this much?

As she strode down the block, being stirred up wasn’t what disturbed Lori the most. She could understand Mike’s kiss having that effect on her. He was handsome, and they’d shared space most of their waking hours for the last few weeks. It was probably only natural that their bodies reacted this way once they finally collided.

No, the disturbance wasn’t what rattled Lori the most. It was the
rightness
of the whole experience. Here she was a widow of a few months, with two kids to support and a life to build. She didn’t have the luxury of leaning on anybody for anything right now, except her Father in heaven. Yet she felt no shock or shame in Mike’s kiss. Having their lips meet was disturbing and alluring, but it didn’t feel wrong. That, more than anything, was what stunned Lori as she hiked the several blocks to Tyler’s preschool.

She reached the front doors of Faith Community Church and her head was still spinning. The cool breeze on her face hadn’t done anything to clear her head or dispel the feel of Mike’s kiss on her lips. To do that she would probably have to hike to Juneau.

Chapter Eleven

F
irst day at work. First kiss from Mike. Lori wasn’t sure which exhausted her the most. Maybe it was the combination of the two that made her want to go to sleep that night when Tyler went to bed at eight.

If it wasn’t for Mikayla having one of her bouncy, awake periods, she might have put on her pajamas right away and gone to bed like Tyler. However, somebody had to be the grown-up and stay up and do a few things during the evening, so Lori elected herself.

She didn’t feel much like the person in charge tonight. Surely the person in charge wouldn’t have agreed to be kissed like that today. Nor should a responsible woman with two children depending on
her for everything enjoy such things so much. Or be unable to get them out of her head. Why did that one kiss insist on replaying itself over and over until Lori could see and feel Mike’s embrace without closing her eyes or pausing in folding the basket of laundry in front of her.

It wasn’t fair. Surely she should be able to enjoy one harmless kiss and then be able to forget it. Surely Michael had done just that. He wasn’t sitting next door remembering every detail of that brief moment like she was. No, he was probably doing some of the paperwork he had left at the end of the day, or watching television.

“Just forget he’s over there. You can do that,” she said out loud. Her words echoed in the small living room.

Hearing the truck start outside, Lori changed her estimation of what Mike was doing. Apparently instead of doing any of the things she imagined, including reviewing their encounter, he was answering a fire-and-rescue call with the rest of the volunteers. Lori looked out the window of the front room in time to see the truck, its removable blue light plugged in and flashing to advertise its status, pulling out of the long gravel drive.

Dear Lord, keep him safe. Let him come back to me all right
. The prayer was as natural and easy as any she’d ever prayed. And it dumbfounded her the
moment the words were out. Whoever said Michael would come back to
her?
Of course he’d come back safely, as soon as the barn fire or smoldering car, or whatever emergency had called the volunteers, was under control. But he wouldn’t be coming back to her. Because he wasn’t hers to begin with.

Lori looked down at the laundry she was folding again. Tyler’s blue jeans, a soft chambray shirt that she could use for work if she dressed it up with a scarf. Mikayla’s little footed sleepers. This was the fabric of her life. Surely there was no room for care and concern for a man. Not even one as attractive and available as Mike Martin.

Except that he had worked his way into her life, becoming part of the fabric as strongly woven in as the laundry in front of her. How had that happened? They’d only known each other a short time. He cared for her, but surely not in any romantic kind of way. He liked the kids. He’d kissed her once. And here she was praying for his safety while she folded laundry in her living room.

“Face it. You’re falling in love with him.” Lori’s words, spoken aloud, echoed off the walls even louder than her earlier statement had. The words were true. And they scared her half to death. What business did she have falling in love? It wasn’t the time or the place for such things. Surely
it wasn’t part of God’s plan for her life at this point, was it?

Lori looked out the front window, neatly framed by heavy green drapes. How did she figure that part out? For starters, she didn’t need to turn on the radio while she folded the rest of the laundry. She needed to spend the time in prayer instead. Perhaps that would give her a clearer idea of where Mike fit into her life.

Even if it didn’t, prayer time was never wasted. Lori smiled and reached back into the laundry basket. “Hey, that’s a good thing about the kids being asleep,” she said, finding another pair of Tyler’s little white socks. “Nobody will look at me funny while I talk to You out loud, Lord.” Sometimes you had to grab those miracles, no matter how small, wherever they came.

The crunch of tires on the gravel outside woke Lori much later. She had fallen asleep sitting up in the chair by the window. Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs that felt as if they’d gathered there, she looked out the window. It was Mike and the truck, both looking none the worse for wear. Good. Now maybe she could go to bed and have a peaceful night.

Mikayla was down to waking up only once a night. Lori, walking down the darkened hallway, prayed that this would be the night she slept until
five or six in the morning for the first time. That would be a little miracle in itself. How long was it until babies slept all the way through a seven-or eight-hour stretch? She tried to tax her brain into remembering that far back with Tyler.

It was definitely later than the five weeks Mikayla had been around. But not a whole bunch longer, was it? Pushing her hair away from her face, she stretched and padded into the bedroom without turning on a light. Tomorrow she’d see if Tyler’s new preschool had a library, with child-development books in it. She felt like she needed a refresher course in Newborn 101.

By the time she dropped Tyler off at school the next morning, Lori was sure one book wasn’t going to solve all her parenting problems. Tyler had dawdled through breakfast and insisted on setting up some complicated block contraption to house his fire engine while she dressed Mikayla. She never could find the scarf that would have dressed up the chambray shirt she wore, and she felt stressed and hurried as she pulled the resisting Tyler into preschool.

“I want to go home. I wasn’t done building,” he still protested.

“The blocks will be there when you get home this afternoon. And they have blocks at school.”
Lori tried not to sound as exasperated as she felt. Where was all the joy she usually felt in the morning with the kids? Even Mikayla seemed to sense her grouchy mood today and fussed all the way to Friedens in her car seat.

Now she wanted the blanket off that covered her seat and prevented her from seeing anything inside the church building on the way to Tyler’s classroom. Lori dodged her daughter’s flailing hands and feet to lift the blanket.

“It’s going straight back on when we leave. You don’t need a cold.” She knew the baby didn’t understand a word she was saying, but that had never stopped her before.

Tyler used the opportunity of being let loose in the hallway to jam his hood back on and turn around. “I really, really want to go home and build. And I miss my fire engine,” he said.

“Tyler Harper, I am not going to repeat myself. I am also not going to chase you.” Lori stood still in the hallway for emphasis. Tyler turned around, knowing he had pushed the limit. “I know you want to go home right now. But Miss Gloria and Mr. Mike are expecting me to go to work so we can get things done. If I don’t get my work done this morning, they won’t get all theirs done, either.”

“And then the goats will be hungry.” Tyler
pushed his hood back. Lori marveled at how well he could put together a chain of events. “I guess I better go to school. Sorry, Mom.”

She ruffled his hair. “No problem. And I’m sorry if I sounded mad. I’m not mad, just…rushed, I guess.”

Tyler’s forehead wrinkled. “Me, too. That’s a good word. ‘Rushed.”’ He said it with a whoosh of air that blew his blond bangs away from his face, making Lori laugh.

“We’ll have to do something about that, won’t we? The rushing?” She made a similar sound to the one Tyler had made, which got him giggling, too. His laughter made Mikayla smile and in an instant her morning was turned around. Funny how simple most solutions were when you let them happen. Tyler opened the classroom door and headed in to the delightful rumpus that was morning at preschool. It made Martin Properties look very calm in comparison.

How did she do it? Mike looked at Lori, working at the computer calmly entering figures, the phone pressed to one ear while her left hand jiggled Mikayla’s crib. The woman was amazing. In the short time she’d been at work in the office she’d found so many ways to fit in.

He had been worried about her managing the
baby and learning the operations around here. For Lori it hadn’t seemed to be a problem. She picked up on Gloria’s way of doing things quickly, and they communicated better than he’d ever seen his mother get along with any of the part-timers in the office.

Her awful old car kept chugging along between the little green house and town every morning and afternoon and she was never late. A lot of evenings she declined Gloria’s invitation to share dinner with them, although Mike did notice that she took her up on using the washer and dryer at the “big house” any time his mom offered.

Mike’s own phone ringing pulled him away from his careful observation of Lori. That was a shame, because when she got really involved in what she was doing with the computer, or jiggling the baby, she had this habit of running the tip of her tongue over her pink lips while she concentrated. That he could definitely watch for quite some time.

“Martin Properties.”

“And even Martin speaking.” Hank’s voice was jovial. “Haven’t seen you around much lately. Which is a good thing, I guess, because it means there hasn’t been much search work around here.”

“That’s true. But I don’t expect a busy man like you called here just to ask why I haven’t been over to the station lately.”

“You got me there. I need to speak to the lovely lady on your end of the phone. Is she available?”

“Lori’s talking to a client right now. Can I have her call you?” Mike wondered what the sheriff wanted with Lori. Surely their business together was wrapped up.

The other man’s chuckle was dry and slow. “What if I was to tell you I wanted to talk to your mother? There
is
more than one lovely lady working for Martin Properties these days. Although I’m sure you have eyes for them both differently than I do.”

Hank wanted to talk to his mother and was calling her a lovely lady? Surely this had to be chamber of commerce business or something. Mike couldn’t imagine another reason for Hank to want to talk to his mother. “Sure. I’ll check and see if she’s free.”

Gloria sounded happy to talk to Hank on the phone. And judging from her enthusiasm in picking up the call, maybe it wasn’t chamber of commerce business after all. Mike decided he was going to have to give Hank another good look. Sure, he was widowed and about sixty. And Gloria was, when you got down to it, the most attractive single woman in Friedens of a certain age.

But surely his mother wasn’t interested in lunch with Hank Collins for anything but business, was she? Mike breathed a sigh of relief when she came
out of the office asking Lori to go to lunch with them at the Town Hall. Lunch for three sounded much more likely to be business.

Still, the whole thing had him a little confused. If it was all business, why did his mother dash back into her office and come out smelling of cologne, with freshly applied lipstick? And why were she and Lori giggling as they left the office with Mikayla packed in her infant seat?

Mike considered closing up for half an hour and just happening to take lunch at the Town Hall today. But since he only did that once in a blue moon it would be obvious what he was up to. Checking up on the lovely ladies he worked with, and why either of them wanted to have lunch with the sheriff. And although he was dying to know the answers, Mike wasn’t a snoop. So he manned the phones and finished the proposal he was working on for a strip mall just off the highway. But that girlish giggling from Lori and his mother as they left taunted him the entire time they were gone.