Page 6 of Misadventures Of A Single Mom

In his lap, completely comfortable and at ease with the man. My heart flip-flopped and I felt like I was fifteen again. Just looking at him gave me butterflies in my stomach, made my palms sweat. I was afraid I might start to ramble and giggle. I laughed instead. I couldn’t help it. Nice to see someone poke fun at life’s little foibles.

An hour later,so I could go to work, I left the boys with the Colonel. They were camping out in his backyard for the evening, the tent going up as I left. The sun was setting, pink and purple streaked the sky. The air had finally started to cool. I zipped up my hoodie sweatshirt.

“Camping will put hair on their chests,” he said.

Zach and Bobby glanced at him and didn’t look particularly excited about that concept.

“You get to pee outside,” he added, and the boys jumped up and down for joy.

I gave the boys quick hugs and kisses before they dashed over to the nearest pine tree to pull down their pants and water it.

“Don’t worry about anything,” the Colonel told me. “I’m more comfortable in a tent than inside anyway.”

Probably true after all the years in the military.

“I’ll wake you when I get home and lug them into the house,” I said, then dashed off.

I openeda shipment of peek-a-boo lingerie. It was pink, it was stretchy and it was all see-through. It left nothing to the imagination and gave a ton of access to all the important places.

The store smelled like piña colada as a customer had dropped a canister of tropical scented dusting powder on the floor. It had taken me fifteen minutes to vacuum up what looked like flour, but its use was less culinary and more sexual, although there was some licking involved. The scent lingered. I probably smelled like it, too.

The phone rang.

“Goldilocks.” Goldie listened, and then answered, “You got it stuck where?” She listened some more. “Uh huh.” And then some more. “We don’t give advice on medical conditions, but if it’s stuck where you say and you can’t reach it, then you need to go to the ER to get it out. Come in next week when you’re feeling better and I’ll give you a replacement, on the house.” Goldie hung up.

Nothing like customer service!

“So, I heard about the incident at the fire station this morning,” Goldie commented, gum popping between her capped teeth. My mother-in-law was seventy, five feet nothing, lots of dyed blonde hair piled high on her head. She wore a black V-neck stretchy top, which showed off ample cleavage. Trim jeans and a pair of clogs. She aimed for under forty above the ankles, and went for comfort when it came to her feet.

Her husband, Paul, was her antithesis. Calm, quiet, reserved. He chose his words wisely. When he spoke, I listened, as it was always something good. I had no idea how they’d stayed married for almost forty years but, whatever it was, it was working.

Paul was an obstetrician who’d delivered more than half the babies in town. Now he delivered those babies’ babies. He’d been on call when I went into labor with Zach, but I drew the line—even at nine centimeters dilated—at my father-in-law seeing my hoo-hah, so they’d called in an alternate. It was no small stretch that as a couple, my in-laws knew more about a woman’s hoo-hah than anyone else in town. She was the expert on fun, he the consequences.

“John Poleski was at the breakfast with his wife and grandson. Fortunately, he had that pacemaker put in last year.”

John Poleski was eighty if he was a day, shaped like a tall Humpty Dumpty and bald. He’d worked for the railroad on the highline near Malta, a small town near the Canadian border, for decades. I’d never seen him in anything but overalls.

I rolled my eyes at her as I rung up a sale for strawberry-flavored body lotion and a DVD rental ofHit Me With Your Black Cock.

“Wish I’d been there.” She chuckled. “I’ve got to kiss my grandson for stirring things up.” Goldie was all for stirring things up. She was Bozeman’s Stir-Things-Up Queen. She liked to stick her nose in everyone’s business, which was easy to do around here. “John also said you met Ty Strickland. He’s arealman. I bet he’s good with his hands.” She waggled her eyebrows at me.

I dreaded where this was going. I decided to take the high road because I wasnottalking with her about my dirty thoughts involving my new neighbor. “I’ll definitely remember him when my snow blower stops working.”

She clicked her manicured nails on the glass-topped display case full of the higher end toys. “Snow blower, my ass. He can take care of other things you need worked on, Jane.” She looked at me, her head tilted down to give me a beady-eyed gaze. “You need sex and that man can give it to you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I grumbled, walking over to the hanging racks with the lingerie. I had no doubt Ty Strickland couldgive it to me.I also had no doubt he’d be really good at it.Really, reallygood.

“It’s been three years since Nate’s been gone,” she replied, breaking me from my thoughts of having sex with Ty. “How long before that?”

This was a typical conversation I had with my mother-in-law. She’d talk sex with the pope. Although I thought the pope would be more comfortable than I was at the moment. This was her son—her dead son—she was talking about. But she was the first to admit his elevator hadn’t gone all the way up and it had skipped the morals department altogether.

“Obviously, you did it to have Bobby and that’s been, what, five years or so?” She looked up in the air at her imaginary calculator.

“Holy crap,” I whispered. I’d have sex with the first guy who came through the door if Goldie would just shut up.

“Honey, I’ve known you since you were a little baby freshman at MSU.”

MSU, or Montana State University, was practically downtown, in fact, only a few blocks from my house. “Coming from a state like Maryland, I swear you didn’t know one end of a cow from another.”

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