Darling obstacles by Barbara Boswell, Copyright Paperback Collection (Library of Congress) DLC

It would be the first date she'd had since she'd been widowed six years ago.
    "Great!" Rich said again. They talked about the weather for a few minutes before hanging up.
    Maggie pondered the situation as she made lunch for the children. Little Nicole sat in Kari's old

    high chair, entrancing the girls with her toddler's antics.
    "I wish we had a baby sister," Kari said, sighing longingly as Nicole overturned a bowl and put it on her head.
    "Me too," Kristin echoed. "I'd even settle for a baby brother. H
    "You need a dad for that," Kevin informed them with nine-year-old wisdom. "And we don't have one."
    "If Mommy got married again we would," Kristin said, "And maybe they'd have a new baby. Wouldn't that be great?"
    "I'd rather have the new dad than the new baby," Kevin decided.
    Maggie smiled absently, not really listening, lost in her own thoughts. She was still surprised that she'd accepted Rich Cassidy's invitation without a moment's hesitation. In the past she'd turned down the occasional offer of a date quickly and firmly, slightly scandalized that anyone had dared to ask. She was a mother, not a date! And she had felt very much married to Johnny for a long time after his death. But gradually she had begun to accept her widowed status. Today's yes to Rich seemed to signify the completion of the process.
    Inevitably, her thoughts turned to Greg and their hot kisses on the staircase the day before. Perhaps that was the episode that had signified her acknowledgment of her single woman status. She hadn't thought of Johnny or the children then! Her whole body felt warm at the memory.
    She still had trouble believing it had actually happened. She had been baby-sitting for his children steadily for the past two years, but Greg had never before touched her or even indicated that he wanted to. She doubted that he'd even thought of her as a woman. Oh, she knew he liked her as a person. When they chatted together in the doorway, his eyes were warm and friendly and he always laughed at her jokes. But yesterday he had looked at her in a whole

    new way. He had kissed her and touched her. . . intimately. Maggie felt a tightening in her midsection and recognized the sensation as one long-forgotten but unexpectedly revived by Greg. It was sexual arousal.
    Had she unconsciously given some sort of signal to indicate that she was no longer strictly a mother but a woman as well? Had Rich Cassidy picked up on that message too? Maggie remembered reading that a woman's body came into its sexual prime in the years past thirty, and the implications scared her. She wasn't about to start in on a mad sexual whirl, sleeping her way from Baltimore to Washington with any man who came along, no matter what her body thought it craved! She had three children and a stable family life and old-fashioned morals, and she would have to get that message across to Rich Cassidy . . . and Greg Wilder. She reminded herself that he'd had a date last night and that Taffy had plans for him while the children were tucked away in front of the video recorder.
    Maggie sliced the dill pickle with unaccustomed zeal. She hoped the Smithton twins had reached new lows in terrorist behavior. She recalled her frozen parting with Greg the previous afternoon and slashed the pickle harder.
    "Mommy, you cut it into a zillion pieces," Karl said, pointing at the hacked-up pickle. "It looks yucky. I don't want any."
    "You don't have to have any, honey," Maggie said sweetly. "Kevin will eat it." Kevin ate anything.
    "Kids, how would you feel about me going to a concert on Saturday with Mr. Cassidy?" she asked. She decided it was only fair to solicit the children's opinions. If they were adamantly opposed to her going out, she would of course change her plans. The kids came first in her life. If they didn't want her to leave them . . .
    "Like on a date?" Kevin asked, wide-eyed.
    "Um, yes," Maggie said.

    "Can we still watch TV that night?" Karl asked.
    "Of course. Kristin can baby-sit.