May Day Magic (2 page)

“Why don’t I take it? Tell me what plants you want and we’ll do it up for you.”

“Oh, ah—” Diane started to refuse his help, but she had to admit, she wasn’t carrying that planter any distance today, not with the way her back was acting up.

“It’s almost May,” Marc mused, the corners of his mouth turning up. “Isn’t that when you like pansies?”

Her heart made a little flip. He’d noticed that? “I-I do like pansies.” Her lips spread into a smile. “You wouldn’t mind taking the planter?”

“Not at all.”

“Great then,” she said. “That would be great.” Now I’ll just flutter my eyelashes, she thought.

She huffed out a breath. Standing by and doing nothing went totally against her grain. She pivoted and gripped the planter, but before she could even think about heaving it upward, her back muscles seized in a torso-long rip.

The edges of her world turned black. “OOooWOOO!” The inhuman noise that sprung from her mouth filled the confines of the large office.

Marc stepped close. ”Diane! What is it?”

“Wolves!” Leila’s son burst out from across the room. “Cantyoutellwolves?”

Marc whipped around to face the cot.

Diane inhaled a sharp, labored breath, her hands now gripping the planter for support.

Marc spun back her way. “Stop it!” He placed his own hands on either side of hers, holding the pot in place. “Don’t lift. I’ve got it.”

“I’m not lifting it right now, believe me.” Diane managed. “My back. A spasm.”

She gritted her teeth. Jack-knifed over the planter, she stared at her bedraggled begonias and focused on yoga breathing. Into the pain, then out; blow the tension away.

“Where’s it bothering you?” Behind her now, one hand steady on her waist, Marc began to rub his knuckles down her spine.

Effervescence flowed from his touch. They’d never been this physically close. He’d never touched her before.

The spasm released an infinitesimal amount.

“My son gets muscle cramps.”

She grimaced, aware he couldn’t see her expression. Here she was, unglued by his touch, while his attention was centered on effective sports massage.

“Is that any better?” His voice was low, his mouth near her ear. “How’s the pain?”

His clean, fresh scent filled her senses. The effervescence swooped into private places.

Chapter Two

Pain? What pain? All she registered was the man. So close. The exhilarating security of his touch, his strength.

“Can I help you sit somewhere?”

The concern in his voice reached her deep inside. She locked her gaze on the dirt in the planter. But maneuvering once her back had seized was painful, and awkward, and nothing she wanted to attempt in front of Marc Stafford.

“Come on, Diane. I’m not trusting you until you and this planter are in separate corners of the ring.”

A chortle slipped from Diane. At the unintentional movement, she stiffened and gave another low moan.

Leila’s son responded with a loud wail.

Her eyes widened. What was going on with the boy? She couldn’t see him. Oh-so-carefully, she turned her head to look at Marc.

His deep brown eyes met her gray ones.

“Is he awake?” she asked in a low voice.

Marc took a few steps back to get a better vantage point. “I don’t think so. He’s not moving. His eyes are closed.” He faced her. “What’s, ah, the matter with him?”

“Shave them!” the boy spit out. “S-s-h-ave-our-sheep!”

With a snort, Marc bit his lip and looked away.

If the boy was having feverish, fractured-fairy-tale inspired dreams, her howl might have truly frightened him. But what children’s story, however fractured, would revolve around emergency shearing?

Diane straightened a couple inches, her face crinkling in an involuntary wince. She needed to get to the cot to check on him. “Shave our sheep?” she repeated, to Marc.

Marc reached out, ready to assist.

“I’m okay,” she asserted. “But I’m wondering if my patient’s spiked a fever. He’s babbling gibberish.”

Marc looked down then reached into the pot, crumbling a clump of dirt between his fingers. “Does he, ah, have a speech impediment?” He looked up. “Not sure that was gibberish. I think he may have been sending out an S.O.S.”

Diane furrowed her forehead.

“‘Save our sheep’?” Marc offered.

For a beat, Diane stared at Marc, and then dissolved in giggles.

Marc burst into deep chuckling.

Diane fought to keep her torso still, but mirth was the stronger opponent. Her barks of laughter, interspersed with sharp inhales as the pain tweaked from her movements, kept setting off Marc. Which in turn set her off again.

She held her sides, exerting hard pressure, until they both managed to catch a breath. She blinked, and eased up a hand to wipe her tearing eyes.

Marc’s forehead creased into a canyon. “Diane, this is crazy. You need something for the pain. What can I get you?” He gestured toward the medical cabinet. “Pain killers? Muscle relaxants? Hot rub?”

Ducking her head, Diane pressed her lips together as heat touched her cheeks. All she could think of was the male nurse character she’d seen in that adult film at one long ago bachelorette party. A grin broke over her face. Marc made one naïve nurse. Medical cabinets were always locked, and the key hung on a long chain around her neck, dangling down between…

An image of Marc retrieving the key had her blood heating in an instant. No need for that “hot rub” he’d been hawking.

“What am I missing?” Marc asked.

A giggle escaped. “You’re trying to help me…but…I’m the nurse!” At the blank look on his face, more silly laughter spilled from Diane, more tears streamed from her eyes.

Then Marc surrendered with a self-deprecating grin. “You’re not crying from the pain, are you?”

Diane shook her head, managing a deep breath. “No,” she said. “Not from the pain.”

His shoulders relaxed.

The sight of his relief warmed her more than a dozen hot rubs. She wiped her eyes again.

“But do you think you’re the only one who can help someone feel better?” His tone was soft, gentle.

Dual sensations swelled inside Diane, under her breastbone, low in her torso.

Leila’s son muttered something unintelligible.

In a slow flowing move, Diane drew her shoulder blades together, straightened her back, and turned to look at the boy.

Marc followed her gaze.

“His braces are new. He may be having trouble with his s’s.”

All of a sudden, her eyes sprung wide open.

The spasm was gone. So was the pain.

“What’s wrong?” Marc leaned in.

“Nothing.” She blinked. “Nothing at all. I’m fine now.” She eased into a full twist, to the right, the left. A little sore, but that was it. Amazing.

Marc ran fingers through his hair, leaving it mussed. He exhaled and stood examining her. “So laughter really is the best medicine?”

She grinned. “Maybe.”
Laughter
? Or was Marc the miracle tonic?

They stood staring at each other.

Did he have any idea of the spell she fell under when he just smiled? When he concentrated his considering brown gaze on her?

How exactly did a thirty-six-year-old, divorced, mother-of-two, school nurse let a man know she was interested? Her heart pounding her nervousness in loud beats, she gave him an awkward smile. She was as out of practice with dating as she was choosing a prom dress.

He stood close enough to touch, and he seemed to be waiting for something.

She glanced down. Her “Call Me Candy” toes proposed a frivolous, fun-filled life, one that included a man. She didn’t want this intimate moment to disappear, for their next conversation to be at Stafford’s about herb butter or the jumbo strawberries.

Maybe she could suggest they meet for coffee this weekend. She took a deep breath—and the final bell sounded.

Her lungs deflated. What was she thinking? On nurse duty with a feverish drooling eight-year-old on the cot a few yards away was not the ideal moment to make her first attempt at romancing a man in over a decade. She glanced over at the boy. He would need time to wake up, and Leila would be along any minute.

“Time for me to get back to work.” Marc clasped his hands together, and gave her a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll just take this out to my truck.” He grabbed the planter.

She might be clueless, but she was still female, and her intuition screamed she’d just missed her chance. “Thank you, Marc.”

He could take the planter. And she could pick it up.

The pot might have held clouds the way he hefted it up to his hipbone.

“We’ll call when it’s ready.”

Her gaze followed him as he walked out, his shoulders broad, his jeans riding on those narrow hips.

Heart rate rising, she shook her head. She’d offered her twelve-year-old daughter advice about boys last week? What a joke.

Chapter Three

With a grunt, Marc hoisted the planter into the back of his truck. Fortunately, he hadn’t run in to anyone on the way out. Making sick plant house calls was not something Stafford’s generally did, although he just had.

He resisted slamming down the pot too hard. The begonias weren’t the target. He hated seeing Diane hurting and not being able to help her. She tugged at him in ways no one had in a very long time. In any number of ways.

He snorted out a breath. At least his line of work gave him a physical outlet to expend pent-up energies. For the life of him, he couldn’t tell what Diane’s thoughts were about him. They were friends.

Could they be more?

Dragging the pot into one corner, he secured it with a cord. What was Diane doing, hauling around that heavy urn with a back that was acting up?

His first instinct was to protect her. But not knowing where he stood with Diane raised another, more unwelcome instinct. An instinct he hoped he’d left behind in the years since his separation from his wife. The instinct to protect himself.

He stood in the truck cab and brushed his hands clean, looking across the middle school lawn at the neighboring high school grounds.

The PTA could thank Diane for his zealous support of the artificial turf that now covered the town football field. He was a strong opponent of the heavy irrigation and herbicides living turf would have required. But he was also pretty sure he had rambled on and on, beyond any necessity to further convince the association, caught in Diane’s interested gray-eyed gaze, spellbound by the graceful curve of her neck as she rested her chin on a palm and listened.

Reminded of how vulnerable she’d appeared today, his initial protective instincts churned back to the forefront. Someone should be holding off the world for her, for a space. Her cot-bound town crier was no middle school student. Someone had asked Diane for help, and as usual, she’d agreed.

Jumping down from the truck cab, Marc shook his head at the cliché that occurred to him, but what could he do—he spent so much time outside. He would never venture such a cornball thought aloud, especially in front of his teenage son Ian, but Diane reminded him of the sun.

He could offer back brightness by planting up some yellow and purple pansies. He’d do that for any of the schools in town, right? Seated in his truck, he turned the key. The engine growled to life.

When he’d seen that pink polish on her toes, his mouth had gone dry. He grabbed the water bottle on his passenger seat, took a long drink, and stepped on the gas.

****

“Why do we have to go to Stafford’s now?” Allen moaned as he slid into the back seat. “I wanted to do something with Brett. Don’t we have all weekend to shop?”

In her rear view mirror, she saw the tawny crown of his head bent over his cell phone. She’d given in to his pleas for a phone this year so he could check in with her. But the games were what he’d wanted. No matter, she could still check in with him.

“Mom told you why we’re going.” In front next to Diane, Meggie answered in a superior tone. “She’s picking up her planter, and we’re getting flowers to make a May basket to take Grandma on Sunday.”

In the first grade, Diane had opened the front door on the first day of May and found a doily basket full of pansies and crocuses hanging on the knob, her name written on a ribbon laced through the frilly edge.

From then on, every year until the end of elementary school, a May basket magically appeared on the front door knob. No matter how often Diane begged her mother to admit she made the basket, her mother never would. But the flower choices were her mother’s favorites—bi-colored jonquils, purple tulips, and pansies.

When Diane started the tradition for Meggie’s first-grade May Day, the children’s father had ridiculed it, claiming the flowers a waste of money they didn’t have, and that had been it. Diane had never thought about pursuing the tradition with her own family again.

Until last night when she landed on a May basket as the perfect get-well surprise for her mother.

Realizing they’d already completed the drive across town to Stafford’s, Diane put on her blinker and turned into the parking lot. She flushed, remembering Marc’s message on her voicemail. She’d replayed the message more than once, to hear him say her name, announce the planter was done, and that he’d deliver it to school Monday.

She didn’t want him to have to bring the planter back to school. And she wanted to talk to him somewhere other than her nurse’s office. She could pick up the planter with a cart and Meggie’s help. They’d even managed to get a head start this afternoon. When Meggie was free for the last period, Evelyn had shooed Diane out the door early. Diane stopped home to change into some styled jeans, a fitted tee, and a tweedy-cabled cardigan sweater. They arrived ahead of the Friday after-work rush, increasing her chances of catching Marc with a spare minute or two.

She steered into a parking space. A flutter kicked up low in her stomach at the thought of him. She turned off the ignition, drawing her brows together. She’d never been this school-girl silly even as a school girl.