The Dating Intervention: Book 1 in the Intervention Series (36 page)

Finally, by the time she was about three-quarters of the way through her veggie sandwich, he ended the call, slipped his phone into his back pocket and turned around. He jogged back to their table and began scooping up his sandwich and drink.

“Sorry, Delaney. I’ve got to go.”
 

He leaned down to give her a brief kiss on the cheek, and then hurried out of the restaurant, leaving her holding a soggy quarter of her sandwich. Suddenly the alfalfa sprouts didn’t seem very appetizing.
 

***

I don’t know if I can ever have kids of my own
.
Carpool Tuesday is such hard work, and it lasts less than an hour each week.
 

After a five-minute argument over whose turn it was to choose the radio station, Delaney exercised her driver’s rights and chose it herself. All three kids had howled in misery when she cranked up the classical music. So she’d turned it up louder. Then Sarah started in, yelling over Beethoven.
 

“Aunt Dee, Mom said you and Jake the Dreamy are
kind of
going steady. Is that true?”
 

“Do you have homework tonight?” Delaney said.
 

“Is it true, Aunt Dee?” Luke said.

“Are they giving homework in kindergarten these days?”
 

“Stop it, Aunt Dee,” Luke said. “I’m not in kindergarten any more. You know that.”
 

She turned the music up even louder, and saw Sarah and Luke exchange very adult eye rolls.
 

Since Jake had abandoned her at The Sand Witch, Delaney thoughts had centered around who could possibly have called him. He hadn’t seemed upset, so she doubted he’d gotten bad news. In fact, he had seemed excited. So why hadn’t he explained his hasty exit?
 

As she approached the intersection where she’d first laid eyes on Jake Rhoades, she scanned the traffic behind her to see if he was there now. Then she did a mental head slap. Of course he wasn’t.
 

During the remainder of the drive, Delaney compiled a list of reasons Jake had ditched her at lunch: an old, totally hot flame (Brittany?) had invited him over for a quickie; someone he’d had his eye on from FindLove.com had finally called and asked him to meet up right away; his wife was having a baby – triplets, actually.
 

Delaney pulled into Summer’s driveway and rubbed her hands over her face. Now she was getting carried away. It was unlikely that Jake was married. But the other options were wide open.

What did her intuition say? It was coming up dry, too.
 

It said he was telling the truth about his gallery. He was passionate about his work and wanted to make a living at it. The timing for a new, hot-and-heavy relationship wasn’t stellar. But the louder, meaner voice (the one that insisted on a “fail-proof” backup system for dating) told her not to get her hopes up.

Of course, Sarah took advantage of the sudden silence that rang out when Delaney turned off the van in the Grays’ driveway.

“So. Are you?” she said.
 

“Am I what?” Delaney said.

“In love?”
 

Delaney rolled her eyes.

Giggling, the boys clambered out of the van while Sarah held the door open, her eyes never leaving Delaney’s.

“Why won’t anyone leave me alone?” Delaney said.

“Geez. You sound like Nate when Mom wants him to take a bath.” Sarah said.

“Shut up.”
 

They both closed their doors and as they came around the front of the van to walk into the house, Sarah said, “You can’t say that to me. I’m just a kid.”
 

“Whatever,” Delaney said.
 

“I get grounded for saying ‘whatever.’”
 

“Ground me,” Delaney said, putting an arm around Sarah’s shoulders and giving her a squeeze. “See who picks you up from school next week, you snotty little brat.”
 

“Aunt Dee!”
 

Just as she’d been doing since Sarah was born, Delaney kissed her on the head. “Love you. Here’s the keys. Tell your mom I said to leave me alone and stop talking smack.”
 

“Fat chance.”

Neither Josie nor Summer were at their table when Delaney walked into Rowdy’s on Thursday night. She slid onto a stool and waited. Unfortunately, being alone gave her more time to fret about Jake.
 

She
still
hadn’t heard from him.
 

Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” played, and Delaney wondered if it was a sign:
You want me to act like we’ve never kissed. You want me to forget, pretend we’ve never met. And I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but I haven’t yet. You walk by and I fall to pieces.
 

Again, Delaney dissected every word she’d spoken to Jake when they last saw one another.

Had she made too many stupid jokes? Made that weird face Summer and Josie said she always made when she drank soda out of a straw? Maybe she had sprouts stuck in her teeth the entire time and Jake was too grossed out to see her again. Had she talked with her mouth full? Her mom still nagged her about that. Although she’d never gone so far as to tell herself Jake was The One, she had felt something special between them.

I would have thought he’d at least have the decency to break things off
.
 

If Jake wanted to end things, Delaney faced a spinster life. Not that she hadn’t imagined that before, but thinking about it now seemed so sad and lonely. She pictured herself sitting in a rocking chair, Pixie curled on her lap and a herd of cats perched all over the house—the couch, the windowsill, the kitchen counter. For a moment, Delaney found herself struggling to breathe.
 

“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” came over the speakers:
I’ve never seen a night so long, when time goes crawling by. The moon just went behind the clouds to hide its face and cry. Did you ever see a robin weep, when leaves begin to die, that means he’s lost his will to live, I’m so lonesome I could cry.

Yes
, Delaney thought,
I’m so lonesome I could cry
. Tears threatened as she imagined going to sleep alone every night, for the rest of her life.
 

She had never been more grateful to hear Josie’s grumbling voice.
 

It was like a soothing balm: “I can’t believe you guys are making me do this damned interview tomorrow. I can’t take the stress.”
 

Benjamin hurried over to their table, his tray laden with drinks.

Delaney sipped her beer and with a gargantuan effort, mentally switched gears. “Do you want to practice interview questions?” she asked Josie.

“When Summer gets here.”
 

They sat in silence for six entire minutes, and of course Delaney’s mind went straight back to Jake Rhoades.
 

Maybe she hadn’t acted grateful enough when he brought coffee to her at work. Maybe she hadn’t thanked him in a big enough way when he sent her flowers. She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. Josie glared at her. She jiggled her leg. What if it wasn’t something she’d done recently? What if he was just coming to terms with the fact that she was in her mid-thirties and she still partied like a twenty-something at The Teeter Totter? The list of possibilities seemed endless.

Finally, Summer rushed in.
 

For the next half-hour, Summer and Delaney hammered Josie with all the questions they could think of: Why do you want to be principal? Why this school? What are your plans for the staff and students? How do you feel about sleeping with your staff members? What are your short- and long-term goals for the school? What is your stance on nylons? How do you feel about training for teachers and staff? How will you fund extracurricular activities?
 

“You mean, like the sewing club?” Josie hissed at the last one.
 

“I think you sound great, Josie,” Delaney said. “I think you’re ready.”
 

Summer nodded. “You’re going to kill it.”
 

Josie inhaled deeply, through her nose, then let out the breath through pursed lips, psyching herself up. “I can do this.”
 

“What time’s your interview?” Summer asked, her tone so innocent Delaney knew she was onto something else.
 

“Well, since it’s an in-service day, it’s at ten. So I’ll go in at eight, like usual, go to our first training and then go to the interview.”
 

“Great,” Delaney said. “Sounds perfect.”
 

Under the table, Summer had grabbed her knee and squeezed it in a vise grip. It was everything Delaney could do to keep from crying out in pain.
 

“Has Jake the Dreamy texted you today?” Summer asked, her eyes boring so hard into Delaney’s that Delaney thought she might combust.
 

“Um, I don’t know,” Delaney said.
 

“You so know,” Josie said. “You’re probably checking your phone twenty times a day.”
 

Delaney shrugged one shoulder, embarrassed Josie had guessed the truth so easily. “So what?”
 

“Check your phone,” Summer said.
 

Oh.
Delaney pulled her phone out of her purse and saw Summer’s text:
You need to clear your schedule tomorrow morning. We have to be at Josie’s school to keep her from chickening out last-minute.
 

Quickly, before Josie could look over her shoulder and see the message, Delaney clicked out of it. When she did, she saw that Jake had, in fact, texted her. Her heart rate increased. Her hands shook. She opened the message:
Sorry about the other day. I’ll explain later.
 

Well, he wasn’t ending things. Yet. That was good news, right? Or was it? He said he’d explain later, which meant he planned on speaking to her again. So that was good. Unless his explanation was actually him dumping her. Why had it taken him so long to apologize?

Still shaking, and with more questions than answers, Delaney slipped her phone into her purse. Summer gave an exaggerated shrug, which reminded Delaney that she should have responded to Summer’s text. She fished her phone back out.

“Actually, he did text me,” she said. “I should respond real quick.”
 

Her fingers flew across the phone’s keyboard as she responded, first to Summer—
I’ll be there
—and then to Jake—
No prob
.

Although she actually felt like there was a problem, and she’d prefer to text straight to the bottom of the Jakes Rhodes mystery all night, he and his strange behavior and smokin’ hot looks would have to wait.
 

For now she had to play coach to Josie, who’d undoubtedly need all the coaching she could get.

Delaney’s phone chirped at six-thirty a.m. She didn’t have to look to know it was Summer:
I’ll meet you at 9:30. That’s what time Josie’s first training gets out. Park in the back, by that big Dumpster.
 

Delaney:
Perfect. See you then.
 

Since Doctor Kat had made a recent habit out of laying all the cards out on the table, Delaney asked her straight out if she could have the morning off so she could ride herd on Josie. Naturally, Doctor Kat agreed it was a great plan. Armed with double her typical caffeine intake and a huge dose of nerves, Delaney felt a pretty decent buzz when she met Summer at nine-thirty.
 

Summer, too, seemed more energized than usual as she practically leapt from her car behind the Dumpster in Josie’s school parking lot.
 

“So I was thinking,” she said without preamble. “We should just go look through her window and see if she does this on her own. If she does, we wait out here until it’s over to see how she’s acting after. If not, we charge, get her into the office and blockade the door so she can’t leave ’til it’s over.”
 

“Sounds good,” Delaney said. “But isn’t her room on the third floor?”
 

Summer nodded, shrugged.
 

Delaney drew a deep breath, rolled her shoulders. “Let’s do this.”
 

American Traditional School was a one-hundred-year-old old brick building with an original external fire escape. Spying on Josie through her window, then, meant climbing a small rickety ladder and then three flights of ancient, narrow metal stairs.
 

“Are you sure you should be doing this?” Delaney asked as Summer hiked up her long magenta skirt and put a flip-flopped foot on the first rung of the ladder.
 

“I’m pregnant, not on my deathbed,” Summer growled, hoisting herself up. “Come on.”
 

The metal creaked as they made slow progress upward.
 

“We should have done this one at a time,” Delaney said when they finally reached the third-floor landing, panting.
 

“She’s not there,” Summer said.
 

“Shit,” they said at the same time. Together, they bent down to look through the open window at the empty classroom.
 

“What time is it?” Summer asked.
 

“It’s almost nine-thirty,” Delaney said. “Could she have left already?”
 

“Her door’s open. She’s probably in the bathroom.”
 

“What should we do?”
 

Summer’s lips pressed together. “Climb in.”
 

“You first,” Delaney said to Summer, who nodded, brushed her hair out of her face, then hiked up her skirt again and lifted her leg over the windowsill.
 

At that very moment, Josie walked back into her classroom. She froze when she saw Summer, half-in, half-out of the window.
 

“You are so predictable,” she snapped. “What are you
doing
out there? You’re going to kill yourself.
And
Baby Number Five.”