A Ring for Rosie. Maggie Wells

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СКАЧАТЬ thought, Rosie started to shake her head. How could Georgie possibly think she hadn’t already gone down those roads? Wasn’t this god-awful sweater set proof enough? “No use. I need to suck it up. Get over him. Get a new job. Find some new man to waste my life wondering about—”

      She’d barely hit full-stride when George halted her with the flat of her palm. “Whoa. Whoa. Wait. The new job thing isn’t gonna fly.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Mike would go the murder-suicide route on James before he’d let you leave Trident, and I can’t have him shipped off to prison. I’m just getting him broken in.”

      Rosie couldn’t help but chuckle. “He’s not easy to train.”

      “Precisely. Which is why you can’t leave them.”

      Instead of wrapping her in a blanket of warmth and approbations, Georgie’s adamant insistence she remain at Trident felt like a knife twisting in her gut. Miserable again, she eyed her new sort-of friend. “You don’t understand. I can’t. I can’t take this anymore.” Her free hand curled into a fist. The water bottle crackled and popped under the pressure. “I hate feeling like this. I am not this woman. I don’t want to be this woman.”

      Georgie gingerly removed the bottle before she could send chilled water shooting up like a geyser. Rosie started to turn, but the other woman caught her arm and held firm.

      Damn.

      Georgie Walters was small, but strong. “Makeover and new man. Just the ticket.”

      “Georgie, please,” she started.

      “I know a great guy. His name is Charlie, and we went to culinary school together.” Rosie opened her mouth to protest but clamped her lips shut when Georgie gave her a teeth-rattling shake. “Listen,” she continued, her voice low and commanding. “He’s still raw from a previous relationship, like you, but ready to move on. Again, like you,” she added with a pointed stare.

      “I don’t know—”

      “I do.”

      The thread of steel in Georgie’s answer startled her. And Rosie found she didn’t want to be the one in control. For once, she wanted someone else to make the decision. Make the plan. Handle all the details she couldn’t quite trust herself to handle. Like choosing the right person to love. Running her tongue over her teeth, she savored the last traces of sweetness from the cookies she’d devoured.

      “If you’re not into blind dates, there’s always the Internet or apps. I think Monica used to use MatchStix. We could sign you up.”

      The thought of Internet dating was enough to push past her aversion to blind dates. “Charlie?” she asked, her voice barely more than a croak.

      Georgie’s smile broke like a sunrise. “He’s the nicest guy. Owns a fondue restaurant.” She wrapped an arm around Rosie’s shoulders and gave her a hug. But it felt more like she was caught in a snare. “His place is called Chuckie’s Cheese. I took Mike there on our first date.”

      Rosie gasped softly as she realized somehow, in her desperation, she’d agreed to a set-up with a giant mouse.

      * * * *

      James had made many, many bad decisions in his life, but the biggest mistake he’d ever made was currently draining every bit of steam from his water heater.

      “Does Mommy like peanuts?” his younger son, Jeff, asked.

      James didn’t bother trying to connect the conversational dots between the page the boy was coloring in his activity book and the random question. The twins’ facile young minds took leaps their mentally stiffer father didn’t bother to chase.

      James glanced at the stairs, not even slightly tempted to picture the woman behind the closed bathroom door naked. He’d been there and had the battle scars to prove it. Sighing, he looked down at the boys kneeling on their chairs and wondered for the millionth time how anyone could walk away from them. Jamie was coloring a picture of a block of cheese pale pea-green. Jeffrey had the same page, but his cheese was a nice, fresh cheddar-y orange.

      Smiling, James ran his hand over the cowlick that differentiated Jeff from his minutes-older twin. Jeff was definitely the more low-key but dreamy of the two. Something James was sure would give him fits later on, but now, the boys’ flights of fancy gave him fits of the warm fuzzies.

      “I have no idea, squirt,” James replied.

      His forehead furrowed as he realized what he’d said was true. He had no clue what the mother of his children liked or didn’t like outside of the bedroom. Their relationship had been mostly sexual, highly combustible, and nothing more than physical from the start. Megan had no more desire to be tied down than he had. At the time, he thought their mutual apathy made them a perfect match.

      Boy, had he been wrong. “We’ll ask her when she gets out of the shower.”

      A skillet brimming with one-pan meal noodles and broth simmered over low heat. If Megan didn’t quit trying to drain Lake Michigan in the next two minutes, he and the boys were going to eat without her.

      “Kellon Wilson shoved his peanut up his nose an’ almost died,” Jamie reported earnestly. “They hadda call the wambulance.”

      James paused mid-stir. Kellon Wilson had been at the birthday party they’d all attended at Trampland Trampoline Park. A chubby boy with perpetually rosy cheeks and hair the color and consistency of straw, Kellon had a mischievous streak James admired. The thought of the exuberant boy strapped to a gurney made his heartbeat slow to a dull thud.

      “What? How?”

      “He’s ’llergic,” Jeff supplied helpfully.

      James stared at his boys in disbelief. Given the prevalence of peanut allergies these days, the daycare the boys attended twice a week had a strict no-peanut policy. He had to ask the question. “How? Where did he get the peanut?”

      “Julie Joyce brings ’em. She says they’re her favorite, but she’ll let you have some if you let her use the blue slide first. She says the first slide is the best.” Jamie added an authoritative nod.

      “Kellon was first in line, so she gave him some of her peanuts,” Jeff explained.

      James set the wooden spoon aside and turned his full attention to his kids. Contraband on the playground. In preschool. The details were a bit much to wrap his head around after the day he’d had. “But doesn’t he know he’s allergic to them?”

      Jamie blinked owlishly. “He di’ent eat ’em.”

      His jaw dropped, but he quickly recovered. “He shoved one up his nose?”

      “Right,” Jeff confirmed, seemingly pleased to discover his father wasn’t a total moron.

      “Do the teachers know about Julie Joyce and her secret stash?” he asked, dividing a look between them.

      “Yep.” Jamie nodded hard enough to make James’s neck hurt in sympathy. “They called her mom on her an’ everything.”

      “I bet they did.”

      “We were wondering if Mommy likes peanuts,” Jeff concluded. СКАЧАТЬ