Page 8 of Misadventures Of A Single Mom

Crazy things happened when you lived near the University. One summer night, a car had driven up on the front yard, realized there was a house in the way, did a three-point turn and kept going. I hadn’t seen—or heard—it happen as my bedroom was at the back of the house, but the tire marks gouging the front grass was proof enough. Having someone in the backyard though was way too creepy. A little too close to home.

As I looked around assessing the nocturnal activity, I saw the Colonel, coffee cup in hand, head into his house. He hadn’t seen me before he went inside. Left standing at their shared fence was Ty. He too, held a mug. It must have been the morning coffee klatch. His gaze was intense, his look serious as he stared at me. No smile. I gave a small wave and noticed Ty wasn’t looking at my face, but a foot lower. I felt heat rush to my cheeks as I remembered.

White tank top. No bra. Two mornings in a row of looking bad.

I crossed my arms over my chest for modesty’s sake, although I was already past embarrassed. Even with the Colonel’s yard between us, I could see Ty’s mouth drop open. His gaze was aimed on my chest like a heat-seeking missile on a target. I dared a glance down at myself.

Instead of covering myself, I had all but hoisted the girls up so that inches of cleavage showed. One nipple had popped out the scooped neckline and was pointed right at Ty. Holy crap! I tugged the tank back up and back into place, then dashed into the house to get dressed before anything more mortifying, if that were even possible, could happen. I’d given a talk on dildos and flashed him all within two days. Just great.

3

Ty and the Colonel couldn’t make heads or tails of the footprints and were not happy, to say the least, about someone traipsing through my backyard. We sat on my patio having second and third cups of coffee. I pretended I wasn’t absurdly embarrassed about the whole nipple incident. The Colonel was oblivious to the whole thing and Ty was a gentleman and didn’t bring it up. But his lips quirked up frequently as the three of us talked and I caught him glancing at my very covered chest. Nothing was falling out now that I wore a big, baggy sweatshirt. It didn’t stop him from looking though, nor from my nipples getting hard wondering exactly what he was thinking.

We chocked the footprints up to some college kid, drunk and lost. Happened often enough to be plausible. We debated what to do about preventing another late-night visitor. Options ranged from Zach’s idea of setting booby traps to the Colonel’s thoughts about adding motion sensors to my exterior lights. The motion sensors won.

Zach and Bobby weren’t completely convinced, so they strung some red velvet holiday ribbon with little sleigh bells attached—dug from our Christmas box in the garage—over thefence gate. Just in case. They believed this might notify us of intruders or bad guys. Worked for me.

Two days later, the hubbub had died down completely. No nighttime motion had been sensed. Thunderstorms had passed through which made the ground even softer and the grass taller. The footprints all but disappeared. The boys moved on to the excitement of the upcoming camping trip with the Colonel. Every summer we ventured up to Hyalite, settled into our usual spot at the base of the reservoir with a view of the peak for two nights of wilderness splendor. Even though it was still three days away, they were super excited.

So far, we’d ridden our bikes to morning swim lessons at Bogert Pool, peddled home and eaten lunch on the patio. Sounded simple, but getting two kids to ride a mile down a straight, flat bike path—two ways—was super hard. Someone complained about something. Tired legs, thirst, heat. A chain usually came off or something was dropped more times than humanly possible. To me, it was almost worth depleting the ozone by driving to prevent me from strangling my children. But they had endless reserves of energy that needed draining and bike riding wore them out. Besides, when the first snowstorm hit—most likely mid-September, only a short six weeks away—I would think longingly of the leisurely summer days cruising around on our bikes.

I was folding clothes in the laundry room when I heard Zach call for me, launching himself down the basement steps like a crazy man. He had that Holy Crap look on his face. “Mom, come quick. Bobby’s stuck.”

“Stuck? Stuck where?” I had a beach towel half folded but dropped it and ran up the steps like the house was on fire. “Bobby!” I called, panicked.

“On the patio,” Zach said.

I skidded to a stop, did a U-turn in the family room and headed outside. There, I found Bobby standing next to the patio umbrella stand, bent at the waist, his left arm inside the PVC pipe. Stuck. “Hi, Mommy,” he said calmly.

I grabbed gently at his upper arm and tugged. Definitely stuck. “How on earth did you do this?” There was no blood, his arm was still attached, and Bobby wasn’t freaking out, so I didn’t freak either.

“Zach put candy down the pipe and dared me to get it.”

I gave Zach the evil eye and he had the smarts to look contrite. The situation was actually really funny and I tried not to laugh. First, I had to get Bobby’s arm out, then I could go laugh in private while the boys contemplated life in their rooms for an hour or two of time-out.

The umbrella stand was of the homemade variety. Wind in Bozeman could gain hurricane strength without trying too hard. A thunderstorm or just the summer version of Chinook winds could take down trees, whisk kiddie pools away to another county and blow down patio umbrellas. To combat having to replace a broken umbrella every thunderstorm, the Colonel and I made our own sturdy variety, sure to keep the strongest winds from blowing over and damaging the weakest of umbrellas. Even though I had a covered patio, the umbrella shaded various spots in the yard, like the sandbox, on the hotter days.

We’d taken a five-gallon paint bucket, dropped a three-inch PVC pipe in the middle and filled the bucket around it with quick dry cement. The PVC pipe stuck out the top about a foot and the patio umbrella pole slid right in. Nothing tipped that much concrete since it was so heavy. Unless it was a tornado—but living in a valley between three mountain ranges—made that impossible.

“Are you hurt at all?” I knelt down and talked to Bobby at his level.

He shook his head, although his dark eyes looked a little wary. I was sure mine did, too.

“Okay, let’s think about this.” I took in his arm, the PVC pipe and contemplated. I could cut the pipe above the concrete, but I’d have to measure Bobby’s other arm to see how far down his fingers went. Didn’t want to lop off any necessary appendages. But I didn’t have the tools to cut through PVC. Screwdrivers, a hammer and a couple of wrenches. No major power tools or saws. There wasn’t much choice but to call in reinforcements.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Bobby calmly. I dashed into the kitchen and got my cell. I found the non-emergency number for the fire department on the side of the fridge and dialed.

“Is Ty Strickland there, please?” I crossed my fingers he wasn’t out on a call. Was it his day on shift or had I forgotten? What had he said the other night? I walked back out to the patio to sit with Bobby. After a minute, Ty came on the phone.

“This is Jane West. I’m sorry to call you at work, but I’ve got a problem. No one’s hurt, but Bobby’s arm is stuck in our patio umbrella stand.”

He was quiet for a moment, probably processing this and trying to formulate a mental picture. I heard him chuckle. “We’ll be right there. Tell Bobby to hang tough.”

Ten minutes later, a fire truck worth of firemen traipsed through the kitchen to tend to Bobby’s arm.

“We’ve taken bets on how this happened,” Ty told me, his eyes bright with humor. They briefly dropped to my mouth, and then lower still to my breasts.

Why did my nipples get hard whenever he was around? One glance from him was all it took. My eyes darted to the other firefighters to see if they’d noticed. They hadn’t, too busy putting Bobby at ease. But the way Ty’s mouth ticked up at the corner led me to believe he had and the way his eyes heated, he liked what he saw.

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