Shoot, Pat thought. Now he’d done it. He’d attacked her like some kind of animal. Hunter, he silently shouted, you’re such a weenie! He wrapped the blue robe tightly around her and tied the belt in a double knot, then looked at his watch.

“Damn, I’m late. I’ll pick up the kid at six.”

He bolted through the doorway, then paused. “About that kiss. I don’t want you to think I’m easy.”

“I don’t think you’re easy. I think you’re nuts. I think you’re a sex maniac.”

He grinned and waved. “Good. I was worried.”

She listened to his car pull out of the driveway and turned to the sleeping Tim. “You know what I really think? I think he’s magic. No one’s ever kissed me like that. No one! Not that it matters. I’m done with men, forever.”

She put the water on for coffee and sat down to read the helpful hints, but her thoughts kept returning to Pat. She wondered if she was just licking her wounds from her relationship with Dave. Was this just a reaction from her bruised ego? No, she thought. When Pat had touched her, it had been magical. No other explanation. She’d gone gooney – brained.

Tim awoke, saw the strange woman looking down at him, and began to howl.

Almost twelve hours later Megan glared at Tim and wiped a splot of smushed green beans off her nose. The baby seemed to have become adjusted to her during this long day.

“So, how old are you, kid? Nine, ten months?

You think you’re a match for a twenty – seven year- old college graduate? Hah! Gotcha.”

She successfully spooned a load of green beans into the little mouth.

“Brrrph,” Tim said, spewing green beans across the table and into Megan’s hair.

Pat chugged into the driveway in his old tan Dodge van and made a quick assessment of Megan’s house in the fading light. He’d found out she was house – sitting for a member of the William and Mary faculty who was on sabbatical.