CHAPTER 10

	By the third day of rain, Ty had scraped away all the cracked plaster and paint
from the two rooms that had sustained the most damage, and was working on the third. 
He was applying plaster, standing on a step ladder dressed in faded jeans coated with
dust, with his T-shirt tucked into his waist and hanging like a rag at his side, when he
heard female voices coming into the room behind him.
	“I still say you’ve got the best looking handyman in the county,” Serena was
saying, with a giggle, as the two women stood watching him work.  Sandy followed the
movements of the muscles on his back as he moved his arms and silently agreed, but
out loud she laughed.
	“Don’t let Bob hear you say that!” she teased.
	“A woman can still look!” Serena asserted.  “I may be married but I’m not dead,
and I’m not blind.”  Then she laughed as she looked around the room.  It was the
smallest of the three empty bedrooms, situated at the back of the house away from the
street. The ceiling sloped on one side and a dormer window was quaintly fitted into the
slope. 
	“This is such a lovely room,” Serena said. “This will make a perfect nursery —
when you two are ready for it.”
	She smiled, and winked at Sandy, who proceeded to sputter and choke on her
breath.  She shot a quick glance in Ty’s direction but he only hesitated slightly as he
passed the plaster trowel.  Without turning around, he commented in a calm drawl “You
just worry about your own nursery, Serena.  How’s Bob coming along with that by the
way?”
	The ploy was successful, and Sandy was amazed at his talent for turning the
conversation around so easily.  Serena was lost in her chatter about the nursery, the
baby, and Bob.  Ty finished a couple more passes of plaster, then climbed off the ladder
and put down his tools.
	“If you don’t mind, ladies, I’m just going to go wash up a bit,” he said, giving
Serena a bright smile. Then, as he passed Sandy on the way out of the room, he leaned
in and whispered in her ear. “Thank me later.”
	Sandy blushed, but Serena was too busy talking to notice.

	Some time later, Sandy sat across the kitchen table from Serena and smiled
while the other girl talked.  If there was anything she had learned since meeting Serena,
it was that she liked to talk.  Not that she gossiped, for she didn’t, but she seemed to be
in a constant state of chatter.
	“I’m so glad you two agreed to come over tonight,” she was saying now. “Bob
enjoys Ty’s company so much, it has been a long time since he has had someone to
talk to that he has so much in common with.  Oh, people around town are friendly
enough, you and I both know that, but there’s just something about Ty that Bob really
likes.”
	Bob isn’t the only one, Sandy thought to herself, with a sigh.  It had been almost
a month since Ty McKinley had shown up at her door in the pouring rain and in that
short time her life had been turned completely upside down.
	“Ty has been doing wonders on your house too!” Serena was saying, excitedly.
“It looks fabulous! You are so lucky to have him.”
	The house indeed looked fantastic.  Having finished plastering the three upstairs
bedrooms, he had painted one by the time the rain stopped.  With the sunshine back, he
had left the inside work and moved back outside where he had started scraping down
the old paint on the clapboard siding and all the trim.  He had worked for a week straight
until all but the back of the house had received their required coats of off white paint. 
The wood trim around the windows and doors on the front of the house had also been
painted and the broken gingerbread accents under the eaves had been repaired.  From
the street, the house looked like a million bucks!
	“He is rather amazing isn’t he?” Sandy commented, then winced at her choice of
words and her dreamy tone.
	“I’ll bet he is,” the girl winked at her.  But before Sandy had a chance to say
anything more, Serena was chattering again. “Just like my Bob.  He’s so sweet, he won’t
let me carry anything heavy now.  We went to the doctor the day Bob got back home,
and he said I should be taking it easy, so Bob has been doing everything for me.  He’s
so worried about how I’ll manage the next few weeks while he’s on his long stretches on
the road, but he wants to be home when the baby is due so he has arranged to switch
some runs with another driver.”
	Serena was tossing the salad as she spoke, and her hands moved in time with
her words. Bob was home for a few days and Sandy and Ty had finally accepted their
invitation to dinner, and the couple was absolutely delighted to have them.  With less
than a month to go before the baby was due, Serena had a lot to talk about, and Sandy
was thankful for that. It kept the conversation safely off the topic of her and Ty.  It was
always heart-wrenching when Serena referred to them as a couple when Sandy knew
there was no future for them.  Perhaps she hadn’t been wise to allow their relationship to
progress to the next level, but she knew she would never regret it, and never forget him,
even after he left.
	And he would leave.  It seemed to be her lot in life, she thought, to fall in love
with men who didn’t love her back, men who would walk out of her life and leave her
standing there alone.  The difference, of course, was that Jonathan had left her
shattered.  His leaving had been a complete shock to her, totally unexpected.  Where Ty
was concerned, she knew he would eventually walk out of her life the way he had
walked in, and she told herself that knowing it made it easier for her to prepare for it. It
would be hard, but at least she would be ready for it.
	The sound of Ty’s voice filtered in from the next room and Sandy sighed as she
listened to him talk. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but there was something
oddly soothing about his voice as it washed over her.
	“It’s like music to the ears, isn’t it?” Serena’s statement penetrated her thoughts
and brought her back to earth.
	“What?” she asked, apologetically.
	Serena grinned. “The voices of the men we love,” she said, pausing in her
preparations to rest her hands on the top of her belly.  “I know just how you feel.
Sometimes when we’re in a room full of people I just sit and listen to him talk to the
others.  I could tell by the look on your face you were doing the same thing.”
	Sandy winced and blushed slightly. Had it been that obvious?  “Oh, no Serena,
really, I was just thinking of something else, my mind was a million miles away, I’m so
sorry.”
	Serena chuckled. “I don’t doubt you were, but I’d say probably not quite a million
miles, hmmm? Maybe just across town?”
	“Serena!” Sandy’s blush deepened. “Please, listen. You must know — it’s not like
that,” Sandy said, deciding it was time to tell Serena the truth and ease the incredible
tension that she felt whenever the girl talked about Ty.  To her surprise, however,
Serena wasn’t at all startled by her confession. She simply gave her a soft smile, and
nodded, and leaned over to rest her hand on top of Sandy’s on the table.
	“Honey, I know what Bob has told me. He says Ty is just a handyman working at
your house and getting room and board. He says there is nothing between the two of
you and that I shouldn’t embarrass you by talking about your Ty the way I do.”
	“You already knew?” Sandy looked at her wide eyed and  Serena’s grin widened.
	“Sure I knew, but I also know that you are in love.”
	“Oh, Serena, no!” Sandy objected, shaking her head.  “Bob is absolutely right.
There really is nothing between Ty and me.”
	“Sandy, Bob tends to believe what people tell him. Me, I may be a simple girl who
doesn’t get out much, but I know love when I see it, and I see it on your face and in your
eyes when you look at him or think about him.”
	Sandy wrinkled her brow in defeat. “Oh Serena, does it show that bad?” she
asked, realizing that denying it any longer would be futile.
	Serena chuckled. “Honey, love like that is never bad.”
	Sandy groaned. “Well, I seem to make a habit of falling in love with men who
don’t love me back,” she said with a frown, voicing her earlier thoughts.
	“Don’t be silly, girl!” Serena straightened her back. “I’ve seen the way he looks at
you too. Of course he loves you back!”
	But Sandy shook her head. “No, you’re mistaken Serena,” she insisted.
	“Hogwash!” the girl retorted.  “If that man doesn’t love you, then I’m not
pregnant!” she patted her large belly and nodded purposefully.
	“Then I suggest you go on a diet, girl!” Sandy said, and the two of them burst out
laughing.
	“You two  sound like you’re having a good time in here,” Bob said, as he stepped
into the kitchen.  “How’s my lovely family doing?” He bent his head to kiss his wife on her
welcoming lips, then he kissed her belly.  Sandy decided that was what love looked like,
and Serena was surely mistaken about Ty.  What he felt for her was simply a physical
attraction — what she saw in his face was only lust — and that would ware off
eventually.  In time, once he decided it was time for him to move on to someplace new,
or go back to wherever it was he had come from, he would be gone from her life and
she would pick up the pieces and move on.
	Bob carried a stack of plates out of the kitchen and Sandy smiled at her hostess.
“You’re a lucky girl, Serena,” she said, a genuine smile on her face. “Your husband loves
you very much.”	
	“And I know it too,” Serena said, turning  a huge grin toward her husband as he
returned.
	“I get the impression I’m being talked about in here,” he said with a grin.
	“You better believe it,” his wife agreed as she held out her hand for him to help
her up from the chair.  “You boys better watch out when we girls get talking about our
men.”
	But there was no more talking about men for the next few minutes at least.  The
food was ready and it was time to help get things to the table.  When Ty walked into the
room Sandy felt her pulse quicken and shot a shy glance towards Serena. The other girl
just smiled and nodded ever so slightly, then turned cheerfully towards Ty and started a
new conversation.

	It was ridiculous, Sandy insisted to herself, as she clung to Ty on the back of his
bike on the ride home.  She knew what to expect, she had never tried to fool herself
where Ty’s feelings for her were concerned.  She had jumped into deep water, but she
had done it with her eyes open. Ty didn’t love her, despite what Serena might think, and
she knew that.  When the time came, when she had run out of things for him to fix, or
when he needed to move on, he would go.
	It was a fact she reminded herself of daily.  As she lay in bed beside him,
listening to his breathing at night, or studying his profile in the early hours of dawn, she
reminded herself of that.  He would go, and she would miss him, but she would not let
herself be shattered like she has been with Jonathan, because this time she knew all the
facts in advance.  He didn’t love her. There was immense chemistry between them, and
an enormous physical attraction, but he did not share her love, only her bed.
	After the first few times when they had made love, she had been uncertain how
things between them would proceed.  He had told her he had had great difficulty keeping
his hands off her, but once he had had her, she wondered if the novelty would have
worn off? She knew she still wanted him — more than she ever did before, but was it
presumptuous of her to think he felt the same way?
	She had seen the desire in his eyes when he had looked at her, when they had
made love, and it had made her giddy to know that she had been the cause of that look.
She had never seen desire in Jonathan’s eyes when he had looked at her. He had
always looked appreciative, even attentive, but there had also been another clouded
expression hidden underneath.  Now she knew what that had been — regret, and
hopelessness!
	She had come away from the church that day feeling that she was unattractive to
men in general.  The best way to avoid getting hurt again was to avoid men altogether.
Who needed them anyway?
	That was a question that was shot clear out the window every time Ty walked in
a room these days.  She was surprised, what with her previous convictions against men,
how easily she had let herself fall under his spell.  On the first rainy night they had made
their way from the bedroom where she had been admiring the dry ceiling, to her
bedroom where they had made love once again.  Then Carl had called him for some
help with Daisy, and when she had gone to bed for the night, he had not been home yet.
	Until that point, they had made love on the spur of the moment. She was unsure
what he would expect to happen when it came time to actually go to bed for the night.
Not wanting to appear too over eager, she had chosen not to wait up for him, but she
couldn’t sleep either.  She had listened for the familiar sound of his bike, and when she
had heard it, her heart had pounded as she had listened to his footsteps on the stairs --
and going to his own bed.
	Laying in bed in the dark, she had watched the patterns the trees made on her
ceiling in the moonlight as they gently swayed in the breeze.  She had reminded herself
that there had just been a moment of sexual tension between them, and they had
diffused it.  She shouldn’t expect it to go any further.  She had been thankful for the soft,
playful breeze that had drifted through her window screen, for it cooled her flushed body
— at least until she thought about how it had been Ty who had replaced that screen so
she could enjoy the late evening breezes.  Then the thought of him had increased her
heat instead of easing it.
	When he had tapped softly at her bedroom door she had felt her heart jump into
her throat and sat up instantly.  She had barely been able to find her voice to invite him
in.  When she had watched him enter, seeing his bare chest glisten in the moonlight
above his jeans, she had found herself holding her breath, afraid he only wanted to talk
to her, just to tell her something and then leave.
	She needn’t have worried.  He had made the distance between the door and her
bed with ease, and had made no hesitation before dropping to sit on the edge of her bed
and taking her in his arms.   His kiss was passionate, even though she reminded herself
it was driven by lust and not love, but she responded to it regardless.
	After that night they had simply fallen into the habit of going to bed together each
night. There had been no spoken agreement, but the physical acceptance of each other
was there.  They moved into a comfort zone with each other that seemed acceptable to
both of them, and though Sandy knew it would not last forever, she was happy to have
whatever time she could get with him in her life.
	So why had she watched Serena and Bob together tonight and envied them their
unquestioned love for each other?  Why had she ached for the familiarity they shared in
every aspect of their lives, born of the knowledge that they would grow old together? 
Why had she found herself with this deep penetrating longing to be like them — to be
married?
	As the bike rounded the last corner onto her street and headed for home, she
held on a little tighter.  She was being silly, of course, and she knew it.  She had tried the
wedding thing before, and look where it had gotten her!  It had not progressed into a
marriage — not even a honeymoon — and knowing what she now knew, she was
thankful it hadn’t!  She thought of the passion that she would never have known if
Jonathan had stuck around to marry her, and the infidelity that would have been there. 
Yes, sooner or later Jonathan’s affair with Maggie would have surfaced, and she would
have been hurt just the same — or maybe even worse?  Maybe she would have been
pregnant with his child by then?
	She pictured herself looking like Serena did, waiting for the baby to come, her
belly swollen with the life she carried. Her intent, as she had drifted into this thought, had
been to remind herself how devastated she would have been to find out about
Jonathan’s true feelings at a time like that. Instead, her mind spiraled in a completely
different direction, and she found herself thinking about having Ty’s baby.
	Oh for goodness sake!  She scolded herself.  That just wasn’t ever going to
happen.  He wasn’t going to be in her life long enough for that, and besides, she might
have thrown her convictions to the wind as far as having sex out of wedlock were
concerned, but she drew the line at having a baby with a man who did not love her.
	Jonathan had insisted, in his good judgment, that they not start a family too soon
after their wedding.  Sandy had taken care of that by seeing the doctor and going on the
pill, and after everything had fallen apart she had simply kept up with it — just in case —
although she’d often wondered just in case what.
	Just in case Ty McKinley came along, she told herself, as the bike coasted into
the driveway and she was forced to let go of him and climb off.  Just in case she fell in
love with a man who only lusted after her, she chided herself with a scowl.  She pushed
that thought to the back of her mind.  I don’t care! she told herself.  It’s better this way
than the illusions of love that had been all her marriage to Jonathan would have been
based on, wasn’t it? At least I know where I stand!
	Yes, she knew exactly where she stood.  As the door of her house closed behind
them, she stood almost instantly in the circle of Ty’s arms and she felt tingles run down
her spine.
	“I thought we would never get out of there!” he moaned against her lips.
	“I thought you liked Bob and Serena?” she asked him.
	“I do like them, but all their touching each other and those little pecks on the
cheek Bob kept giving her — I couldn’t wait to get you home so I could do this,”  he said
as his lips connected with hers.  Her lips parted and his tongue swept the dampness of
her mouth. His hands moved on her back, one hand cupping the curve of her rear end
and pressing her tightly against him. She let out a muffled sound as she felt his hard
desire pressed against her belly, and her own kiss filled with a drunken hunger.
	“Mmmmm,” she murmured against his cheek as his lips trailed across her face to
the nape of her neck.  “I know what you mean.”
	All evening he had wanted to do this — wanted to touch her, hold her, kiss her. 
Wanted to make love to her!  It had been driving him absolutely mad!  It wasn’t that he
wanted to have sex, that he needed a woman — it was her.  Being in the same room as
her and not being able to touch her, seeing her across the table, smiling and laughing as
she talked with Serena, and not being able to silence her with his kiss.  His whole body
had ached for her.  He had never wanted any woman like he wanted her.
	 He lifted her effortlessly into his arms and carried her up the stairs, still kissing
her.  Though they had taken to sleeping in her room at night, this time he carried her to
his bed, and her heart pounded in her chest. Making love with him was always amazing,
but there was something strangely masculine, so very powerful, about his room.  Just
the thought of being taken to his bed was erotic to her, and she found herself throwing
all reserves to the wind.  There was no easing into it either, within seconds their clothes
were on the floor and she lay naked and waiting on his bed as he stood towering over
her.  Her chest rose and fell heavily as she breathed, and for a moment he simply stood
there looking at her body.
	“You’re beautiful,” he said, under his breath, with a groan.  Her eyes traveled
down his own body and she thought much the same thing as he began to  lowered
himself over her.   His lips tasted her, trailing kisses along her thigh, as his hands gently
caressed her legs.  As she squirmed under his touch and reached for him, lacing her
fingers through his hair with an overwhelming urgency.  He moved with a wild passion,
until his tongue found her heat, and she arched toward him and called his name softly.
	Seconds later he was above her and she cried out to him as she wrapped her
legs around him and drew him into the depths of her being, exactly where she wanted
him.    As he took her with his throbbing masculine need, she clung to him, and met him
thrust for thrust.  The future would have to wait. For now,  there was nothing but this
night.