Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
The overnight mail truck arrived in Tess’s driveway the next morning. As she signed for the package, she noticed the Flagstaff postmark. Well, at least he hadn’t sent another bouquet of flowers. She’d be hard-pressed to explain a second floral delivery from her new principal.
Once she’d bid the deliverywoman goodbye, she closed the front door and ripped open the package. Inside were a pair of unbelievably soft, furry gloves. She put them on and discovered they were too big for her, but inside one glove she encountered a folded slip of paper. She pulled it out.
Dear Tess,
I saw these in a clearance sale. I could have brought them with me Sunday night, but I decided I’d rather send them so you can spend the next thirty-six hours imagining how you will feel when I put them on and run my hands over every inch of your naked body. In the meantime, enjoy the daisies.
M.
With a cry of frustration she clutched the gloves to her chest. What an evil man.
What a wonderful, delicious tease of a man.
She smiled to herself. Just like when they were kids, they always had to get each other back.
He’d sent the daisies and she’d tortured him over the phone.
Now this. The score was definitely in his favor at this moment.
She put on one of the gloves and ran it experimentally over her bare arm. Oh, Lord.
“Knock, knock, can I come in?”
Tess leaped to her feet as her mother came through the unlocked front door, a habit she’d developed that Tess had seen no reason to change — until now.
Heart pounding as if she’d been caught raiding the cookie jar when she was five, she shoved Mac’s note in the pocket of her shorts and pasted on a welcoming smile. “Hey, Mom! How’s it going?”
“I hadn’t heard from you in a few days, so I thought I’d drop by and find out what you’re up to. Darling, you look guilty as hell. What’s going on?”
“Nothing, Mom.”
Debbie Blakely raised her eyebrows, obviously not convinced.
She was a small woman, and Tess had taken after her in height and hair color, although her mother’s warm brown now came from a commercial product instead of nature.
She was what Tess always thought people meant when they described someone as “pleasingly plump.” Tess wouldn’t have wanted her mother to lose an ounce, but she sure wished she’d be a little less perceptive.
Her mother glanced at the coffee table littered with the remnants of the overnight package and then at the gloves, one on Tess’s hand and the other clutched against her chest. “What’s that, a joke? Gloves in the middle of a heat wave?”
Tess thought fast. “That’s what it is, all right. Mac sent them. It’s his way of saying, Nanny, nanny, boo, boo, I’m in Flagstaff where it’s cool and you’re not.”
Her mother laughed. “That would be Mac. And if I know you, you’re planning your revenge even as we speak. Now I may have an idea what you’re looking guilty about. Don’t smuggle ants into his bed this time, Tess. It took Nora weeks to get them out of the ranch house.”
“Right. No ants. Maybe I’ll solder his boots to the horse trough, instead.”
“Well, I promise not to tell. Want to do lunch?”
“Uh, sure.” She’d planned to spend the day transforming her bedroom, but she could probably take time out for lunch.
“Good. I was thinking today that I won’t be able to pop over here and invite you to lunch much longer, so I’d better take advantage of your being here while I can.”
Tess walked over and gave her mother a hug. “I’ll come home whenever I can. And I want you and Dad to visit me in New York whenever you can get away.”
“Oh, we will, but... it won’t be the same. My, those gloves are soft.”
Tess had forgotten she was still wearing one. “Um, yes. I might actually use them in New York.”
Her mother examined the glove. “Kind of big, aren’t they?”
“Well, yeah, but it’s the thought that counts.”
“And no doubt Mac’s thought was to torture you while he’s enjoying the cool mountain air. He probably didn’t care if they fit or not. Men.”
“Scoundrels, all of them,” Tess agreed.
“But we couldn’t live without them, could we?”
“Guess not.” Or so Tess was discovering. This was turning into the longest three days of her life.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll freshen up in your bathroom before we go,” her mother said.
“Sure. Help yourself.” Tess sent thanks heavenward that she’d decided to watch a movie last night instead of starting her renovations then. Satin sheets would have been a little difficult to explain to her mother, not to mention the angled mirror she planned to install.
“Oh, so these are the flowers you got from your principal,” her mother called out as she passed through Tess’s bedroom into the bathroom. “Why don’t you have them out on the coffee table?”
“I was enjoying them before I went to bed last night,” Tess called back.
Oh, my. Word traveled as fast as always around this place.
She and Mac would have to have their wits about them.
But they’d had a lot of practice being co-conspirators.
Maybe she could think of this secret project as an extension of the pranks they’d pulled together over the years.
She looked down at the gloves. Then again, maybe not.