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“The instruction manual said loving bouncer chair.”
Ted coughed.
“Drink your coffee, Ted, it will sort that tickle,” Miss Sarah said.
Ted looked at Mandy again. She gave him a little smile. How was it she could sit here listening to this and not be blushing? The woman was totally innocent to this kind of thing.
“There was also tub of lube. They get through that stuff. Jed said that’s the second one in three months,” Dorothy added.
“Lucky Bob and Nancy, is all I’m going to say,” Mr. Goldhirsh added.
“I’m trying a new stitch,” Gail Blake then said, as if they hadn’t just been discussing the sexual preference of two Ryker Falls residents.
“I forgot the donuts.” Rory made to get up.
“I’ll get them.” Ted stood, as his hands were now free.
“When you come back, you can read us some poetry, Ted,” Mr. Goldhirsh said.
He kept walking right through the kitchen and out the back door.
“Need to make a few calls,” he said in a loud voice so it carried. “Later!” He sprinted down the driveway.
Getting in his car, he sat with it idling for several minutes, wondering what the hell had just happened. He saw Mandy appear at the end of the driveway. She had a bag in one hand.
She headed to where he sat in his car. Opening the door, she bent at the waist to look in the passenger side.
“Miss Taft wanted you to take piece of her apple cake home. I was tasked with bringing it out to you. They wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“I bet.”
Mandy then did something he’d never seen her do. She started laughing, so hard that soon she had tears streaming down her face.
“Care to share the joke?” Ted opened the bag she’d placed on the seat. At least then his hands were busy and he wouldn’t touch the soft skin of her neck.
“Your f-face,” she managed after a few snorts to get herself under control.
“Do they always talk about stuff like that?” The apple cake was actually really good.
“Yup. Bob and Nancy are standard conversation at knitting club.”
The smile lit her entire face and sent her from pretty to stunning.
“Just so you know, I’m holding my first Falls Lodge staff function next week.”
“Really!” She looked ridiculously excited. “I’m so proud of you, Ted. You’re growing too.”
“Growing?”
“Both of us needed to change, and I’m glad to see you realized that.”
No one liked to be informed that they needed to change, especially when they were a hardass like him. But if anyone had the right to say that to him, it was this woman. She’d handled pretty much everything he’d thrown at her from the start of the Mandy transformation.
“Thanks. And now I need to get back to the work that Mr. Goldhirsh dragged me from.”
“How’d he do that?” She was bracing her hands on his seat now, and Ted could see down the neckline of her dress. But he refrained. He wasn’t a schoolboy lusting after the head cheerleader.
“By telling me he was sick, then backing it up with a really good cough.”
