Knocking at Her Heart (Conover Circle #1) (17 page)

She’d showered earlier that day.
There’d been nice hot water then. What the heck had happened to it? Whatever it
was, she didn’t have time to worry about it now. She hurried back to her
bedroom, sat on her bed, and dumped a liberal amount of raspberry-scented
lotion in her hand. She smoothed it on her skin, watching the clock the whole
time. She was going to be late.  She hated being late.

When she got downstairs, her
father sat at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. Her mother sat at the
other end of the kitchen table, painting her nails. 

Great. They were like squatters
in the Old West. Nobody would budge or they’d give up their claim.

“It’s a big house,” she said, to
one in particular. 

Her father looked up. “The light
is better here.”

Her mother waved one hand of
freshly painted nails. “It’s Slip Into Bed Red. Do you like it?”

Maybe she should paint her toes.
“Yeah, it’s great, Mother.” She walked over to the sink and turned on the
faucet. She let it run for a few minutes before shutting it off. There was no
hot water in the kitchen sink either.

She turned toward her parents.
Her father was staring at her mother, like he couldn’t believe this was the
woman he’d been married to for thirty-some years. “I think there’s something
wrong with the hot water heater,” she said. “Be careful if you shower
tonight—the water is very chilly. I’ll check it when I get home later.”

“I could check it for you,” her
father said. 

His hands were insured. She
didn’t think anyone would be happy to hear that her father had taken up home
repair. “It’s no problem,” she said. “I’ll do it later. It’s just that Sam is
picking me up at six.”

Her mother blew on her nails.
“It’s not like you’d know what to do, Peter. Just because you watch HGTV, it
doesn’t make you a carpenter.”

Her father rolled his eyes.
“Plumber. It’s a water heater, Frances.  Carpenters don’t do water.
Plumbers do.”

“Whatever.”

Her father, looking determined,
shoved back his chair. “Where’s your flashlight, Madelyn?”

Oh good grief. She grabbed the
flashlight from the drawer next to the sink. “Come on. We’ll go look at it
together.” 

She led the way, her father
followed, and, like it was some damn parade, her mother brought up the rear.
The house was over a hundred years old and the basement looked every one of its
years. She’d painted the stone walls white the first year she’d moved in. It
had brightened it up some. Each year since, in the spring and fall, she had
forced herself to haul her vacuum down the steep steps and rid the windowsills
and corners of spiders.

She hadn’t done it yet this
spring. She figured the first Daddy-Long-Legs, dangling by one thin leg, would
send her mother running.

When they got downstairs, they
saw that the water heater looked sturdy enough. Her father grabbed the
flashlight out of her hand and squatted down to peer under the big white round
contraption. “There’s no pilot light,” he said. “And it smells like natural
gas.”

Yikes. “We had hot water this
morning. What could have happened in the meantime?”

“I have no idea,” her father
said. “The only thing I’m fairly sure of is that we should turn off the gas and
let it clear out before we try to light it.”

Sounded like a plan to her.

She held out her hand to help her
father off his knees. Just as she did so, she saw a mouse peek its head around
the leg of the old sink that sat next to the water heater. She moved her head,
just a fraction of an inch, and saw two more.

Christ. They were tripling before
her eyes. 

She screamed.

“What?”  Her father looked
around.

“Mice,” she said, pointing.

Her mother started hoping from
foot to foot. “Kill them! Get a broom! Step on them!”

Her mother was fast heading to
hysterical, and Maddie didn’t think she was more than a car length behind. She’d
never, ever, had a mouse in her house. She hated them. She wouldn’t even read
the book
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
.

Now she didn’t have just a mouse.
She had mice. Plural.

She thought she might get sick.
She put her hand over her mouth.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” her father
said. He gently pushed both of them toward the stairs.  “Go. Now. Before
one of you faints down here and I’ve got to drag you up the stairs.”

They went. Maddie swore she heard
the thunder of mouse hooves echoing in her ears.  When she got to her
kitchen, she could feel her heart racing in her chest.

She had rodents.

Who knew how many lurked in the
shadows? She looked at her mother. The woman sat on a kitchen chair, her back
ramrod, her feet several inches off the floor.

“Well,” her father said as he
closed the kitchen door. “That was fun.”

“Call. An. Exterminator.” Her
mother’s voice was shaky and she sounded out of breath.

“Why don’t you try to set a few
traps first,” her father suggested. He turned to his wife and studied her.
“It’ll be fine, Frances?”

“I hate mice,” her mother said.

“I know.”

It was his tone of voice that
caught Maddie’s attention. He sounded almost amused. 

“Remember our first apartment?”
he asked. “The one on Elm Street?”

Her mother smiled. 

Her father stroked his chin.
“We’d lived there about a month when you saw a mouse in the kitchen. I came
home from work and you wouldn’t get off the couch. You’d been there for hours.”

Her mother put her feet back on
the floor. “You brought my dinner to me.”

Her father nodded.

“And when I was afraid to go to
bed, you sat with me, all night, and held my hand. We watched old movies.”

He father cleared his throat.
“And ate popcorn.”

Good Lord. Her father had tears
in his eyes.

Her mother studied her freshly
painted nails. “I loved that apartment. Mice and all.”

It took her father a moment to
respond. “It was a good time in our lives,” he said, finally.

Frances looked up. “We were
living there when we got pregnant with Madelyn.”

“We stayed up all night that
night, too.”

Now her mother’s eyes had tears
in them. “Making plans,” she said.

Her parents were staring at each
other, lost in shared memories. Maddie took a step back, hoping to escape
unnoticed. It would have worked, too, if there hadn’t been a knock on her door.

Her mother’s shoulders jerked. “I
imagine that’s for one of us,” she said looking at Maddie.

Maddie glanced out the window.
“It’s your ride,” she said.

Frances Sinclair pushed her chair
back.

Ask her not to go!
Maddie willed her father to say
the words that would keep Frances Sinclair in her chair, her eyes looking
dreamy. 

But he didn’t. He simply
shrugged, picked up his paper, and started reading again. When the knock came
again, her mother left without another word.

Maddie looked at her watch. It
was almost six. “Dad, do you want me to stay?” she asked.

He looked up and smiled at her.
“Go. Enjoy. I’ll run get some traps yet tonight. By tomorrow, your mice
troubles may be gone.”

Suddenly having mice didn’t seem
like all that big of deal. “Do you think there’s a chance that you and Mother
can work this out?”

Dr. Peter Sinclair studied his
million-dollar hands.  “I don’t know, Madelyn. It’s complicated.”

“Make it less complicated. Tell
her you love her.”

He folded up his paper and stood
up. “I’m not sure she’ll believe me.”

“Don’t you think you have to
try?” There was another knock on the door. 

“What I think is that we can’t go
on like we have the last two days.” He waved a hand at the door.  “Sam is
here. Go. What’s going on between your mother and I has no effect on you.”

Did he really believe that? “You
couldn’t be more wrong, Father.”

Maddie walked out of the kitchen,
grabbed a sweater off the staircase railing, and opened the front door. “Hi,”
she said.

He smiled at her. “Everything all
right?”

“Peachy.”

He looked at her closely. “What
happened?”

She absolutely did not want to
talk about Peter or Frances. “I have mice,” she said.

“Where?”

“In my basement.” She shivered
and slipped her arms into her sweater. “At least that’s the only place I’ve
seen them. There could be more in my underwear drawer.”

He winked at her. “So, they’re
smart mice?”

She punched him in the shoulder
and tried to ignore the vision of Sam pawing his way through her bras and panties.
“Don’t you have a game to coach?”

“You bet. Let’s go.”

“I thought you said Kelsie was
your assistant? Do we need to swing by and pick her up?”

“Jean is dropping her off there.”

“Will your sister stay for the
game?”

Sam opened the car door for her.
“It’s the craziest thing. She normally does, but she has to do some work thing
tonight. She never works at night.”

He walked around to his side and
got in. He started the car and backed out of her drive. “What are your parents
doing tonight?” 

“Father is at home, and Mother is
out with Tom Holt. We’re just your average modern family.”

Sam turned to look at her. “I
don’t understand what Tom is doing? Do you want me to talk to him?”

“No, please don’t. My parents
need to solve this themselves. They need to hurry, though.  I know my
father can only stay a few days.” 

“Do you think your mother will go
back with him?”

“I have no idea. So? Do they sell
hotdogs at these games?”

He laughed. “You want to change
the subject?”

She nodded. “I’ve been trying to
imagine you as a coach. Are you one of those guys who sits quietly on the
bench, giving the occasional encouraging nod or are you a crazy man, waving
your arms, screaming at the kids?”

Sam pulled his car into the
parking lot of the high school. “I’m sort of in-between. I do a lot of
encouraging, a little hand waving, but no screaming. Kelsie screams a little.
Not at the players. She just gets excited.”

When they opened the gym door,
Ms. Excited ran halfway across the big room to meet them. She threw her arms
around Sam’s knees. “You’re late, Uncle Sam.”

“I had to pick up Maddie.”

Jean trailed Kelsie. She had on a
black dress and heels. “Hi, Maddie,” she said. Jean looked at Sam. “She’s all
yours.”

He studied her. “You’re sort of
dressed up for work, aren’t you?”

Jean only shrugged. “Good luck.”
She turned to Kelsie and gave her a hug. “Be good.”

Kelsie immediately turned her
attention to Maddie. The little girl wore a green baseball cap—it was turned
backwards. She had on a gray sweatshirt and blue jeans, and her tennis shoes
lit up when she walked. She put her small hands on her non-existent hips. “My
job is to hand out towels and water,” she said. “What’s yours?”

Maddie looked at Sam.

“She’s going to start the wave.
Come on, Kelsie. Let’s get these boys warmed up.”

There were boys in green jerseys
and blue shorts and boys in red jerseys and blue shorts.  “I take it we’re
green?” Maddie said.

“The Green Beans. They’re the Red
Tomatoes,” Sam explained. “The league is sponsored by the canning plant on the
edge of town. I’m just happy we’re not the yellow squash.”

Maddie smiled all the way up to
the top of the bleachers. From her vantage point, she watched Sam do drills
with his team. He stood under the basket, retrieving balls, as the team
valiantly attempted lay-ups. Then he did the same while they all attempted a
free throw.

It didn’t make any sense. She was
in a brightly lit gym, there were babies crying in the background, bad music
playing over the speakers, the smell of burnt popcorn permeated the air, and
none of it stopped her mouth from literally going dry for Sam
Jordonson.   

He was dressed like Kelsie, in a
gray sweatshirt, snug jeans and white tennis shoes. His did not light up. He’d put
on a green baseball cap. He had a whistle around his neck, a clipboard in his
hand, and a pencil behind his ear. He should have looked a little goofy, but he
just looked perfect.

The referee blew his own whistle
to start the game. All the parents and grandparents in the bleachers turned
their attention to the court. She, however, kept watching Sam.

When he clapped in encouragement,
her heart beat a little faster. When he scooted over on the bench and welcomed
a kid off the court with a pat on the back, she felt her own shoulders tingle.
When he stood in the middle of the huddle, his eyes bright, his hands motions
animated, she felt alive with the intensity. And when he whipped off his
sweatshirt in the middle of the second quarter, stripping down to just a
T-shirt, she felt heat rip through her body and settle in her
core.    

She was lusting over the
basketball coach.

That was probably in the rule
book under Things Not to Do.  Don’t foul, don’t shoot an air ball, and
don’t lust after the coach.

At half-time, Sam came to find
her. He handed her a bag of popcorn. “Fresh batch. You doing okay?  These
bleachers can be kind of hard on the tailbone when you’re not used to them,” he
added.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Your team is
pretty good.”

“They’re playing tough.” He
leaned closer, like he didn’t want anyone to hear. “I really appreciate you
being here tonight. You’ve got to be bored out of your mind.”

She managed a smile. “Don’t worry
about me. I’m easily amused.”

“I promise I’ll make it up to
you. You can make me go shopping or something crazy like that.”

He acted like this dating could
get to be a regular thing. “I’ll get my list ready,” she said.

“You do that. I’ll see you in
about thirty minutes.”

When the whistle blew to start the
second half, she really tried to watch the game. That lasted about three
minutes. He was way more fun. Now that the score was tight and the minutes
short, he was running his hands through his hair. It didn’t take much to
imagine them racing across her bare skin. When a player for the Tomatoes tossed
an errant pass toward the stands, Sam stuck up a hand and slapped the ball
down.

Which made her think about skin
slapping skin, which was really the craziest thought of the night. She pulled
at the neckline of her long-sleeved cotton shirt. 

“It’s warm in here, isn’t it?”
said the grandma next to her.

“You have no idea.” She was about
ready to spontaneously combust. By the time the whistle blew to end the game,
she’d resorted to silently singing the ABCs.

“We smoked ‘em! We smoked ‘em!”
Kelsie said, dancing around, her hands in the air, her fists clenched.

“Be a gracious winner, Kelsie,”
Sam said, smiling at her. “And we didn’t smoke them. We only won by six.”

“Are we going for ice cream?” she
asked.

Sam looked at Maddie, sort of
apologetic. “It’s sort of a tradition when we win.”

“Let’s go.”

The Dairy Dream was chaos with
red and green shirts everywhere. It was a bunch of outdoor voices in a very
small space and smelled like a locker room. Sam winked at Maddie. “You and
Kelsie get us a table,” he said. “What do you want?”

“Whatever the two of you normally
have is fine,” she said, sliding into the plastic booth.  Kelsie took the
other side and immediately grabbed the stubby crayons in the glass at the end
of the table and started coloring on her placemat.

Maddie saw Sam move up in line as
more and more of the kids got their orders filled. He glanced back at her and
winked. The she saw his spine stiffen. She followed his gaze to a table full of
red shirts. All the boys had big dishes of ice cream in front of them with the
exception of one blonde-haired kid. He had nothing. 

When he came back to the table,
Sam was carrying four double hot-fudge sundaes. “Four?” she asked.

“I’ll be right back,” he said,
picking up one of the sundaes.

Maddie watched him walk over to
the table and congratulate the boys on a good game. Then he motioned to the
sundae. “I got an extra one of these by mistake. You want it, Jacob?”

Four booths away, Maddie could
see the boy’s eyes light up. “I guess,” he said, like he could do Sam a favor
by taking it off his hands.

Sam slid it across the table.
When he returned, he sat down without a word and dug into his own sundae.

“That was nice of you,” she
whispered.

“What?”

“You didn’t get an extra one by
mistake. You ordered one for that boy.”

“So?”

He almost seemed annoyed that
she’d noticed. “What’s the story?”

He looked at Kelsie, as if to
make sure she was absorbed in her ice cream and coloring. “His dad was
self-employed and he got hurt about a year ago. I did the surgery. He’s back to
work part time now, but I think things are still pretty tight. I suspect
there’s no money for ice cream in that family.”

She felt the cold ice cream slide
all the way down her throat and settle in her stomach. “And you know what
that’s like, don’t you, Sam?”  She kept her own voice low.

He put his spoon down. “Let’s
just say I’ve had my share of half-priced school lunches.”

“There’s no shame in that, Sam.”

“Try telling that to a
ten-year-old boy who has to wait in line with his mother once every two weeks
for a free bag of groceries. I hated that. I’d spend the whole time praying
that none of my friends would ride by on their bikes.”

They’d had very different
childhoods. She’d had the luxuries and he hadn’t even had the basics. “I’m
sorry, Sam.”

He shrugged. “It was harder on
Amy and Jean. I didn’t care as much about the clothes or the other stuff that
girls want.”

But there’d been things that Sam
had wanted. She could hear it in his voice. She wanted to know, but he
evidently didn’t want her to ask because he picked up his spoon and tapped it
against Kelsie’s dish. “Hey little one. You look like you’re about to fall
asleep. Eat up. We’re going home in just a couple minutes.”

Kelsie fell asleep on the mile
drive between the Dairy Dream and her house. Sam carried her into the dark
house and Maddie followed. “I’m going to take her upstairs,” he
whispered.  “I’ll be right back. Feel free to turn on some lights.”

She found a switch and then
wandered around the small living room, looking at the pictures. They were
mostly of Kelsie—some with Amy, some with Sam, and some with an older woman
that Maddie could only assume was Sam’s mother. She had the same dark hair and
defined cheekbones. 

In less than five minutes, Sam
was back. “Did she wake up?” Maddie asked.

He shook his head. “She’s out.”
He looked at his watch. “I didn’t think Jean would be working this late.”

She could tell he was worried.
“I’m sure she’s fine, but maybe you should call her if that will make you feel
better.”

He picked up his cell phone and
started dialing. He’d just pressed send when the front door opened. Jean,
laughing, entered first, followed by a tall, thin man. When she saw Sam she
stopped. At that exact moment, her purse started ringing.

“That’s me,” Sam said, staring at
the man. He pressed a button and the ringing stopped.

Jean’s face was seriously pink.
“I didn’t realize you were home. Hello, Maddie.” She turned to the man behind
her. “Brad, this is my brother Sam and his friend, Maddie Sinclair. Sam and
Maddie, this is Brad Mason.”

Brad, dressed in gray trousers
and a gray and black sweater, nodded at Maddie. “It’s nice to see you again,
Maddie.”

Sam’s head whirled toward her.

“Brad and I volunteered at a
recent library fundraiser,” she explained.

Brad extended his hand to Sam.
“It’s a pleasure,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Sam returned the shake. He turned
to his sister. “How is it that you two know each other?”

Maddie wondered if he had any
idea that he sounded exactly like her father had sounded the night he’d
interrupted them on the stairs.

Jean took a step toward Sam.
“Brad is the executive director of the Center.”

Sam looked at Brad. “So you’re
her boss.”

Brad scratched his balding head. “I
supervise her supervisor. So, I guess that makes me her boss.”

Sam cocked his head to the left.
“So you had some kind of event at the Center tonight?”

Brad looked at Jean, clearly
seeking guidance.

Jean turned to Maddie and even though
she was an only child, she recognized the look. It was the
Get-My-Brother-Out-Of-Here look.