“But you need help,” Lily said, frowning. “You’re completely on your own.”
She shrugged, her smile little more than a grimace. “I have a friend who babysits the boys when I’m working at the restaurant. But that’s not all day long.”
“You’ll work it out,” Lily assured her. “Everyone who has kids finds a way to work it out. Just make sure you invite us to your graduation.”
When her friends just grinned at her, Natalie raised a brow. “Oh, really? What about the three of you? You want me to go to school, but I don’t see any of you making changes in your lives. I’ll send you an invitation to my graduation when I get an invitation to Rachel’s baby shower and Abby’s wedding and a signed copy of Lily’s first coffee-table book of her photos. What do you say to that?”
They all recognized a gauntlet had been thrown down. The question was…which one of them would pick it up first?
Chapter 1
“Look, Mommy,” Tommy said happily, holding up the turtle he’d just carried in from the backyard. “I’m taking Pete with me to school!”
In the process of checking her sons’ backpacks to make sure they would have everything they would need for their first day of school, Natalie glanced up in alarm. “What? Oh, no, you’re not!”
“It’s okay,” Harry said as he followed his brother into the kitchen. Carrying his own turtle and unmindful of the dirty water dripping onto his clean shirt, he flashed a sweet, boyish grin at her. “The teacher won’t care. Sean said everybody is supposed to bring something the first day for show and tell.”
Swallowing a groan, Natalie didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry. Sean Johnson, the next-door neighbor’s son, was the bane of her existence. Nine going on thirty, he was constantly giving her sons advice that invariably led them into one mess after another.
“I’m sure Sean meant well,” she told them as she quickly took the turtles from them and returned them to the small plastic pool they called home in the backyard. “You can take your turtles to school, but not today. First, you have to get permission from your teacher.”
“She won’t mind, Mom,” Tommy assured her earnestly. “Sean said so.”
“Just to be sure, we’ll play it safe. Now, come on. I’ve got to get you two cleaned up or you’re going to be late for school.”
“Aw, Mom, not again! Do we have to?”
“We just changed shirts!”
They had, in fact, already changed twice, but she couldn’t let them go to school looking as if they’d been playing in the mud. Bustling them into their room, she snatched their dirty shirts over their heads and had to laugh as they chatted like magpies.
She wasn’t laughing thirty minutes later, however, as she hurriedly walked the boys to their classroom. “Can you stay with us, Mom? Pleeeze?”
“We don’t want you to go to college,” Tommy added, wrapping his arms around her legs. “You can go to school with us.”
She saw the touch of fear in his eyes as well as Harry’s, and forced an upbeat smile. “I’d love to, hotshot, but the principal won’t let me. Your school is for boys and girls, not mommies. But you’ll be okay—I promise. You’re going to learn to read and add and subtract and do all sorts of things. Trust me…you’re going to love it!”
They didn’t look convinced, but then one of the little boys already in the classroom stepped forward and said, “Hey, are you guys twins? I’m a twin! See—there’s my brother.”
The boys absolutely loved being twins, and they were instantly fascinated. Turning to check out the other twins, they said in unison, “Wow!” Giving her a quick hug, they sprinted across the room to make friends.
Knowing they would never miss her, Natalie only took time to assure the teacher she would be back to pick the boys up when school was out, then rushed outside to her car. Hurry. The single word beat like a drum in her head. She had fifteen minutes to make it to class. She would have to fly.
It was a beautiful August day, and as she raced through the streets of Eagle, Colorado, all the lights turned green right on time. For a moment she thought she was going to make it. Then, just two miles from the campus of Mountain State University, her right rear tire blew with no warning. Startled, she gasped as the car swerved sharply to the right.
“Oh, no!” she cried, fighting to control it. “This can’t be happening! I’m already late!”
The powers-that-be didn’t care. The awkward thump of the flat echoed loudly as she steered her ten-year-old Honda over to the curb.
She wasn’t a woman given to profanity, especially since she’d had her sons, but at that moment she could have cursed a blue streak. Class started in eight minutes. She was never going to make it.
“Well, damn!”
Another woman would have called her road service, then waited for a big strong man to change the flat for her. But she didn’t have road service, and there was no big strong man in her life. Ever since Derek had decided he didn’t want to be a father or a husband, she’d learned to do things herself. That included changing flats. Resigned, she turned off the motor and stepped to the back of the car to unlock the trunk and retrieve the jack. She didn’t even worry about getting dirty—there was no point. It was a given she was going to get filthy.
Five minutes later she was struggling to loosen the lug nuts and not getting anywhere fast. Frustrated, she was considering giving the wheel a good swift blow with the lug wrench when a motorcycle suddenly pulled up behind her. A Good Samaritan at last, she thought with a sigh of relief. She was still going to be late for class, but she couldn’t worry about that. She just hoped that whoever her rescuer was, he was big and strong. Because nothing short of a Hercules was going to loosen those darn nuts.
At any other time she might have been nervous if she’d been stranded on the side of the road with no one around to help her but a lone motorcycle rider. But she was on the main thoroughfare to the university, it was broad daylight, and it was the first day of the fall semester. Cars streamed by in never-ending numbers. Surely an ax murderer wouldn’t be at work under such circumstances.
Rising to her feet to face her rescuer, a smile of gratitude already curling the corners of her mouth, she felt her breath hitch in her throat at the sight of him. She readily admitted that there was something about motorcyclists that had always fascinated her. Dressed in black leather, riding down the street on their growling steel-and-chrome bikes, they were like dark knights, bold and daring, in search of adventure. And if she thought there was even a chance her boys would grow up to ride motorcycles, she’d lock them both in their rooms until they were thirty-five!
That didn’t mean, however, that she couldn’t appreciate the man striding toward her. He’d taken off his helmet and left it on his bike, and she couldn’t stop her heart from skipping a beat or two as she got a good look at him. Tall and lean, with thick golden-brown hair that was rebelliously long, he had a confident stride to his step and a glint of amusement in his blue eyes that was incredibly appealing. And he couldn’t have been a day over twenty-two.
So? a voice drawled in her head. He could be thirty-five and wonderful and you still wouldn’t give him the time of day. You’ve sworn off men. Remember?
She didn’t deny it. When it came to love and romance, she was done, finis, finished. The only men in her life were her sons, and that’s the way she intended to keep it. If she sometimes felt a pang of loneliness and longing in the dark of the night, then that was her little secret.
“Having trouble?” the knight in black leather asked her with a crooked smile. “Looks like you could use a hand.”
“I just need the lug nuts loosened,” she said. “I can do the rest