"Just got a call Saturday." With a shrug, he sat down to tug on his boots. "Action western with your pal Mel. He wants me and Max. So we got to do some meetings, some test shots. See if we can give them what they're looking for."
"That's wonderful. I'd
think you'd be more excited."
"It's a job. I don't suppose you're interested in tagging along."
"I'd love to, but I can't leave the girls, and work. How—" How long will you be gone? She bit the question back. "They'll be so impressed when I tell them."
"I've got a guy coming in for a few days to see to the stock while I'm gone. I should be back by Friday."
"Oh." Only a few days. She smiled again. "If you are, I have this opening I have to go to on Friday night. Would you like to go?"
"An opening of what?"
"It's an exhibit at the art gallery. Expressionists."
To his credit, he didn't snort. "You want me to go look at paintings and make all sorts of idiotic comments on brushstrokes and underlying meanings." His cocked his head. "Do I look like a guy who's going to stand around sipping espresso and talking about the use of color on canvas?"
"No." He was sitting on a stump, bare to the waist, with faint purpling braises on his ribs. His hair was wild and tousled. "No, you don't."
No more, he thought, than she looked like a woman who would toss aside responsibility and ran off to L.A. with her lover for a week.
What the hell is she doing with me? he wondered as he rose. And to me? If this goes on much longer, what will we do to each other?
"We'd better get back." He shrugged into his shirt. "You don't want to keep Seraphina waiting."
"Michael." She laid a hand on his chest. "I'll miss you."
"Good." He lifted her into the saddle.
Chapter Nineteen
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He wasn't gone a few days, but nearly two weeks. Laura reminded herself every night that he was under no obligation to call her, to tell her what was delaying him. Or just so that she could hear his voice.
She reminded herself that they had an adult relationship in which each party was free to come and go as he or she pleased. It was because she'd never had a relationship like it before, she told herself, that she was fretting. Worrying. Feeling hurt.
She certainly had plenty to keep her busy. And she had learned the hard way never to allow a man to be responsible for providing her with a fulfilling life. That was her job, one she intended never to neglect again.
With her work, her children, her family and friends, she had a full, contented life. Perhaps she wanted to share it with Michael and to be a part of his life, but she wasn't a lovestruck teenager who sat by the phone hour by hour waiting for it to ring.
Though she did try to will it to ring a time or two.
At the moment, though, she wasn't worried about the phone. She had other problems on her hands. Ali's spring dance recital would begin in less than two hours. Not only was no one ready but one of the kittens had coughed up a hairball in the middle of Kayla's bed, causing much dismay and more female disgust—and one of the barn cats had gone exploring, seducing Bongo into giving mad chase through the herb garden, which resulted in bad news for the chamomile and tansy and earned Bongo a bloody nose.
Nothing Laura did could lure the insulted, hissing cat down from the cypress tree where he had taken shelter. And Bongo continued to whimper pitifully under her bed.
Despite all of that, her biggest problem was Ali herself. The girl was moody, uncooperative, and whiny. Her hair was terrible, she claimed. Her stomach was upset. She didn't want to go to the recital. She hated recitals. She hated everything.
Her patience strained, Laura tried one more time to style Ali's hair to the child's specifications.
"Honey, if you're nervous about tonight, it's all right. You'll be wonderful. You always are."
"I'm not nervous." Ali pouted into the mirror. "I never get nervous before I dance. I just don't want to go."
"People are depending on you—your instructors, the other girls in your troupe. The family. You know how excited Grandma and Granddad were when they left for Uncle Josh's. Everyone's looking forward to tonight."