Over His Head

“You what?” Nancy pushed past the teen and his father and down her front steps. Her Durango had been shoved four feet closer to her porch by the hippo-sized Suburban hard up against its rump. Her rear bumper was dented, the right taillight in shards and her right rear tire was flat. “What on earth happened?”

“My son, here, decided to move the Suburban into our driveway.”

“Yeah, I guess I hit Reverse,” the kid said. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“It was the fault of a malevolent universe?” his father snapped. “This unfortunate creature is Jason Wainwright, my son.”

“Look, you. I need my car right now—I have an emergency. I’ve got to help save a dog that was mauled by a pit bull.” She grabbed Jason by the sleeve. “Come on. You and your daddy are going to drive me to the clinic, wait for me if it takes all night and drive me home, or I swear to God I’ll have you locked up for driving without a valid Tennessee driver’s license.”

“I can’t leave my two younger children alone,” Wainwright said.

“Can’t your wife look after them?”

“I don’t have a wife.”

Dear Reader,

Since I began writing about Creature Comfort Veterinary Clinic, readers have been asking me to tell Nancy Mayfield’s story. Well, here it is.

Nancy was a professional equestrian until a terrible accident put an end to both her career and marriage. Now after years of struggle, she has a job she loves as a veterinary technician, good friends and neighbors, and her own quiet cottage in a tranquil village.

Until Tim Wainwright moves in across the street with his three strange children.

Suddenly she’s fighting desperately to avoid getting caught up in the family’s problems at the same time she’s drawn to Tim. She was an awful stepmother, and never intends to take on that role again.

Meanwhile, Tim is struggling to be a good father at the same time as he’s falling in love with a woman who doesn’t want any family, and definitely not one as dysfunctional as his.

Can they get together? Read and find out.

Enjoy!

Carolyn McSparren

Over His Head

Carolyn McSparren

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

“I LOVED WILLIAMSTON when I was a kid. So will you.”

Tim Wainwright turned his Suburban from the highway onto a narrow county road. A small sign said, Williamston, Tennessee, Population 123. He accelerated past it and hoped the kids hadn’t noticed that number.

Sometime in the ten years since his grandfather’s funeral cortege had wound along this road to the cemetery, the county had paved it. Thank God. After the horrors of the drive from Chicago, even in an air-conditioned Surburban, Tim didn’t think he could have faced the last leg of his trip on rutted gravel in a cloud of hot July dust.

His children would mount a full-scale rebellion at the thought of living down a gravel road. He took a deep breath and willed his shoulders to relax. He glanced over at Jason, who stared mulishly out the side window. He’d refused to say a word since they crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River, driving straight through Memphis and out the other side.

Jason’s buzz cut would have time to grow so that he wouldn’t start school totally bald. He’d fight losing the two earrings in his right ear, but they’d have to go as well. Maybree Academy had a strict dress code. That meant buying him clothes sized for a teenager rather than an African bull elephant.

From what he’d seen of the student body when he came down to interview, Maybree students preferred the preppy look. He prayed Jason would knuckle under to peer pressure and go preppy as well.

He could see Eddy in his rearview mirror, slumped against the armrest, either sleeping or pretending to. As glad as Tim was that Jason had stopped complaining, he wished Eddy would say something, anything more than to ask for orange juice at breakfast. If only he’d cry. Just once. Stoicism might be okay for Marcus Aurelius, but it was damned unhealthy for a seven-year-old kid.

At least he was no problem to dress. Tim could probably drape a tarpaulin over him without his noticing. He hadn’t even played his Game Boy on the drive down. Just sat and stared.

Angie’s black hair bounced in and out of his field of vision in the mirror. Usually he forbade headphones. He’d prefer that his children not go deaf before they reached twenty. Today, however, the headphones and portable CD player had been a blessing. She had zoned out on her latest techno-rock band.

“You must admit,” Tim said to Jason, the only one who’d be able to hear him, “This is beautiful country. Look at all the trees, the fields, the open space.”

“Yeah,” Jason said with a wave of his hand. “Look at all the malls, the pizza places, the movie theaters. Yeah, we’re gonna love it.”

“Look, Jason, I realize this is culture shock, but once you get used to the freedom…”

Tim saw his son actually turn his head to look—no, sneer—at him.

“Freedom. Right. Freedom is not riding to school in the morning with my father, spending all day with him spying on me and riding home with him in the afternoon. Freedom is a new Mustang.”

“In your dreams. We’ll be lucky if we can afford a thirdhand VW for you. Besides, the legal age for a license is sixteen in Tennessee, not fifteen, and then it’s restricted.”

“It would be,” Jason whispered. “Goddamn prison.”

“Watch your language.”

“Sure, like you watch yours.”

Tim let that pass. There was a certain amount of truth in it. Since Solange’s death he didn’t watch his language as much when the kids were around.

This was what she had wanted. Maybe not to move to the middle of nowhere in West Tennessee, but to move out of Chicago, find someplace to live with open spaces, a bigger house in a small town. No crime. Kids free to ride their bicycles or skateboards without fear.

Away from Solange’s mother.

He hadn’t listened. And so she’d died.

Now he was taking control of his family’s destiny. Time to haul on the reins and stop the runaway stagecoach before it turned over and killed everybody. He grinned. Even his clichés were turning country. “I’ve told you how great my summers were down here when I was a kid. You used to think they sounded pretty cool.”

“I used to think storks brought babies,” Jason said.

“You mean they don’t? Okay, I promise you there will be occasional access to malls and movies and maybe even pizza. But you’ll have to earn your privileges. Get an after-school job. Earn that VW. Pay for your own gas once you get it. Money’s going to be tight. And no more running wild because your grandmother can’t keep up with you.”

Jason held out his wrists. “Yeah. Freedom, just like you said. Just put the cuffs on now, Mr. Policeman, sir.”

“Jason, I’m tired, you’re tired, we’re all tired. It’s hot, we’ve driven all the way from Chicago, and I’ve had enough of the sarcasm.”

“Shouldn’t you call that creative interaction, Mr. Vice Principal, sir?”

“I’m just a lowly English teacher now, Jason.” He longed to stop the car, lean across the console separating them and slap the kid silly. He’d always believed in nonviolent alternatives to physical punishment for children and had never raised a hand to his three. He knew their grandmother did from time to time, and he suspected Solange had swatted a behind or two.

Every day Tim worked with abusive parents and abused children. He knew the damage abuse caused both.

Today, however, he was discovering how kids could drive a seemingly rational adult crazy. He took a deep breath. He needed to calm down and chill out before he started yelling. That never did any good and left him feeling guilty afterward.

He took another deep breath, then several more before he said, “Granddad taught me to fish for crappie and catfish in the creek that runs through the farm, and during the summer we took picnics down to the pond and swam. He taught me to paddle a canoe. We can rebuild the dock, buy a new canoe—”

“Skinny-dip with the local milkmaids.”

Tim could hear the leer in Jason’s voice. Doggedly he kept going. “I had a great bag swing by the pond. You could swing way out over the water and drop. Can’t do that in a swimming pool.”

“Who’d want to?”

“I have to pee.” Angie had taken off the earphones and was leaning against the back of his seat. “Stop at a gas station.”

“No gas stations between here and Williamston,” Tim said. He didn’t remember a gas station within twenty miles of Williamston. Better not tell Angie that. “If you’re in real trouble, we’ll pull off to the side of the road and you can go behind a tree.”

“Eeeew! No way! Gross.”

“Then hold on. We’re nearly there.” He checked her face in the mirror. It was powdered dead-white, made even more dramatic by her hair, dyed so black it looked like a wig. Unfortunately it wasn’t. She had bought the dye one afternoon after school, and greeted him looking like an underaged vampire when he got home from school.

“Dad was just telling us about how great it’s going to be to swim in some scummy old pond,” Jason said. “Water moccasins love little girls. One bite and you swell up and turn green and die.”

“Jason!” It was a wail. “Daddy, make him stop. I hate snakes. Are there really snakes?”

Sure there were, but he wasn’t about to tell Angie about them right this minute. “Most snakes are harmless. They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”

“Want to bet?” Jason breathed.

“Don’t think about snakes. Think about how big the house is. After Chicago, it’s going to seem like a palace. You’ll have a big room all to yourself. And some of the people in the area have horses.”

Magic word. Before she had been taken over by the Children of the Night, Angie’s one great desire had been for a horse of her own. Not possible in Chicago. Rich people who lived in the suburbs owned horses. Overworked vice principals of inner-city schools did not.

In his new job as an English teacher in a small private school, Tim still wouldn’t be able to afford a horse for Angie, but he might be able to give her riding lessons. Maybe he’d offer her a trade. She could have riding lessons if she took off the clown makeup and went back to brown hair.

In any case, the black hair and kohl eyeliner wouldn’t be any more acceptable at Maybree than Jason’s bald head. He’d have to find out how to remove the dye.

Solange would have known all about that kind of thing. But then if his wife were still alive, Angie probably wouldn’t have turned Goth on him.

The only one of his kids who looked halfway normal was Eddy, and he was the most screwed up of the bunch, at least to hear the psychologist tell it.

How could Tim ever teach his children to love Williamston the way he did? He’d regaled them time after time with stories of the wonderful summers he’d spent there. Maybe now that they were here, the stories would take on new meaning for them. They’d never paid much attention before.

The important thing was that he wouldn’t be working eighty hours a week as he had in Chicago. He could devote himself to their needs. He’d sacrificed his career, the potential of a principalship—all the additional money and prestige—for them. He owed them for the years he’d let Solange raise them practically on her own.

He swung the SUV off the highway and onto a narrow lane lined with big old trees that transformed the road into a sun-dappled tunnel.

He drove past the small rectangular common in the center of the village. The Bermuda grass lawn had turned brown in the heat, and the white fence needed a coat of paint.

The only place to eat in Williamston was a log cabin on the corner of the green. Today a big sign outside read Closed. Tim hoped that meant for dinner and not for good.

One more left, up a hill and past the big moving van. He pulled onto the grass verge at the far side of his grandfather’s house and cut the engine.

“Home at last.”

“No way,” said Jason.

“Way.”

“There’s supposed to be a town. Where is it?”

“You just drove through it.”

“A field and a log cabin?”

“Yuck, some palace,” whined Angie, who leaned across Eddy to stare out the window. “No one could possibly expect a human being to live in that—that hovel.” She frequently vacillated between teenage colloquial and Victorian supercilious in the same sentence.

Eddy had woken up and was rubbing his eyes.

“Well, Eddy? Care to add your comments?”

Eddy ignored him.

“Gross, gross, gross!” Angie’s hands fluttered. “I’ll bet you can’t even buy a CD for a hundred miles.”

“CD, huh! Try a loaf of bread. You said it was a town.”

“Williamston is a town. Just a very small one. More like a village.”

“More like a big fat nothing.”

“Looks like an old barn,” Jason said as he stared up at the house. “At least I won’t have to share a room with Ratso any longer.”

“Don’t call your brother names,” Tim said. Now that he had done this insane thing, had committed his whole family to this change, he was scared to get out of the car. “The house has five bedrooms. One downstairs for me, one for each of you, and one left over for guests.”

“For Gran’mere,” Eddy whispered from the back seat.

“Yes, Eddy. Your grandmother will come to visit as soon as we get settled.”

“No, she won’t,” Jason said with finality. “Not after we tell her what this place is like.” He leered over his shoulder at his brother. “We’ll never, ever see her again.”

“We will, too!”

“Jason, stop teasing your brother. Eddy, your grandmother will come to visit. She just can’t move down here with us. I’ve explained all that.” His voice said he’d explained it until he was blue in the face and wasn’t about to try again.

“If she loved us, she’d move.”

“Eddy, it’s okay, she does love us,” Angie said. “Jason, stop being a butthole.”

“Angie,” her father said, but without much heat. He was too tired of driving and refereeing to be upset by much less than ax murder.

“It’s a prison.”

“I want to go back to Chicago.”

“I’m hungry.”

“I want a soda.”

“Can’t we stay in a motel?”

“I hate this place.”

“I have to pee.”

He’d decided to feed them a catfish dinner at the Log Cabin. Now he’d have to find someplace else nearby, assuming there was another restaurant this side of Memphis, fifty miles away. They’d be a captive audience. He’d tell them some more stories of his wonderful summers. Tomorrow maybe they’d all go for a long walk. He really wanted his children to love this place, too.

But he was willing to have them hate it if it kept them safe from crime and gangs and drugs and alcohol and drive-by shootings.

He would even fight his own children to get them to twenty-one sound of mind and body.

CHAPTER TWO

“OH, NUTS. That’s all I need,” Nancy Mayfield muttered as she turned the corner by the village green into her lane. A huge moving van blocked not only the lane itself, but her driveway. There was no way to reach her garage except by driving across her lawn. Even though the ground was July hard, she preferred not to smash what little grass had survived the drought.

She pulled to a stop a couple of feet from the rear of the van. A large man who seemed to be dripping wet stood on of the tailgate with a psychedelically painted chest of drawers balanced precariously on a dolly.

“Hey, lady, move it!”

She glared at him.

“What’re ya, deaf? Back it up. Move it.” He waved her back with one hand.

Slowly and carefully she climbed out of her Durango, shut the door softly so as not to wake up Lancelot, snoring softly in the passenger seat, and turned to the man with a sweet smile. “No, you move it, buddy. You’re blocking my driveway and I would like to park my car.”

“Aw, jeez.” He yelled toward the house, “Hey, Mac, lady out here wants us to move the van.” He laughed. “Lady, ya got to be kiddin’.”

“Not at all. Blocking access to a private driveway is a crime in the state of Tennessee. If you remain where you are, I will have a sheriff’s deputy here to give you a nice, big citation before you can get that thing down the ramp.”

“It’s a chest of drawers,” said a baritone voice from behind her.

“It looks as if it’s been trapped in a riot in a paint store.” She tamped down her temper and turned slowly to look at the newcomer. This must be the “Mac” the mover had been calling. No doubt the driver of the van.

This Mac certainly looked as though he could move refrigerators without much effort. He was wearing dirty jeans, equally dirty sneakers and a soggy Chicago Cubs T-shirt that needed a good bleaching. He wasn’t quite as tall as Dr. Mac, but he was probably at least six-two.

He might be even brawnier than Dr. Mac. Moving refrigerators no doubt built muscles. His light brown hair was soaked with sweat, and his eyes were concealed behind fancy mirrored sunglasses. Nancy hated not being able to see people’s eyes.

He strode up to her as if to make her back down. After everything that had gone wrong today, she was spoiling for a fight. Just let Mr. No-Eyes dare to invade her space and see how far those muscles got him. Heck, she could always sic Lancelot on him.

Behind her she heard the wheels of the dolly begin to roll down the ramp.

“Hey! Heads up! I can’t hold her!” shouted the voice behind her.

As she started to turn, the brawny guy with no eyes grabbed Nancy around the waist and swept her to the side. The chest of drawers trundled to a halt on the road where she had been standing seconds before.

The man held her against his chest. She could hear his heart beat. Hers sounded like a trip-hammer. He smelled of male sweat and felt as though he was built of concrete. She struggled out of the circle of his arms.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Fine, thank you.” She wriggled her shoulders and realized the beating of her heart came not so much from the near miss with the furniture, but from the feel of this male body against her. Damn, when a semiliterate roustabout could raise her pulses, she really had been entirely too long without a man. “Now, move your van.” She pointed to the gravel driveway across the lane that led up to her small cottage. The heck with please. Time to start issuing orders.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize that was a driveway.”

“Well, it is, and I want access to it.”

“Look, miss—um—we’re almost finished unloading. If you could see your way clear to park your car where it is for an hour or so, the van will be gone.”

Reasonable. Only she didn’t feel like being reasonable. She was hot, she was tired, before morning she and Dr. Thorne would probably lose the mastiff they’d operated on this afternoon. She had a blinding headache over her right eye, her neck ached, and she was so sick over losing her dear old neighbors to that nasty man from Chicago that she felt like crying.

On top of all that, she was foster mother to Lancelot for the foreseeable future until the Halliburtons found a place to live that had room for him. And now this truck driver had disturbed her equilibrium in a way she didn’t like. It was the final straw.

“Please find the man who hired you,” she said as imperiously as she could. Not easy when she had to look up at Mr. No-Eyes.

He smiled. It was a nice smile, no doubt he practiced it frequently on irritated customers. This time it wouldn’t work. “I’m afraid I’m the culprit. I’m Tim Wainwright. My family and I are moving in. We’re going to be neighbors.” He pulled off his leather work glove and offered her his hand.

She felt a wash of heat even greater than the July afternoon. Great. Thank God she hadn’t actually called him a semiliterate roustabout. She’d considered it. He’d let her make a fool of herself. Suddenly it didn’t matter. Screw the moving van.

Without a word she climbed back into her car, reversed it and drove across her lawn to her driveway and pulled up beyond her dusty azaleas.

She went around to Lancelot’s door, grabbed his leash and helped him down. Alarmed by the irrational fear that that Tim person would follow her and try to apologize or explain, she hurried inside the back door.

She unhooked Lancelot’s harness, went straight to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of white Zinfandel. As she raised the glass, her eyes lit on the huge yellow cat who sat on top of the refrigerator. “Sorry we woke you, Otto.”

The cat leaped down and padded over to welcome Lancelot. Thank God her cats had known him since he was tiny. She felt fairly certain Lancelot thought he was a cat.

The two old friends trotted after her into her bedroom. A second cat, black and white and even larger, lay curled in the center of her pillow. She kicked off her running shoes and sat on the edge of the bed. The cat on the pillow watched her without moving its head. As she pulled her socks off, he reached out a long arm and swiped at one.

Obligingly she held it out for him. “Okay, Poddy, here you go.”

He grabbed the sock, mauled it for a second, then abandoned it and went back to sleep. Yellow Otto crept up on it, pounced and dragged it under the bed. Lancelot tried to follow, but couldn’t fit. “You bring that back, Otto,” Nancy said without much hope.

She set the glass on the side table and leaned back against her pillows with one arm across her eyes. She heard Lancelot thud onto the rag rug beside her bed. For six whole years this little house had meant peace and comfort, a place of her own, where nobody intruded on her privacy unless and until she wanted them to. The first house she’d ever owned.

The moving van was a symbol—a big monster that got in her way and disturbed her tranquility the way that monster man got in her face with his big sweaty forearms and his ingratiating grin.

And no eyes.

She sat up. His family? He’d said family. How many? Wife, undoubtedly. Children? Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents? The house was big enough to hold a small army. Just because the Halliburtons hadn’t used the upstairs didn’t mean it wasn’t there to be used. Williamston was going to be overrun by no-necked monsters, sure as shooting.

“I have enough drama in my life, guys, without coming home to more.”

Lancelot looked up at the sound of her voice. Poddy and Otto ignored her.

Then perhaps sensing her mood, Poddy climbed into her lap, walked around in a circle, collapsed and began to knead her thigh. She scratched his ears. “The Calhouns brought their mastiff in with a flipped gut after lunch. If they’d brought him in this morning, we’d have had a better chance to save him. Dr. Mac and I worked on him for two hours, but we had to remove so much necrotic tissue I doubt he’ll survive the night.”