Romance on Mountain View Road by Sheila Roberts Page B

trouble grasping the concept of homework—that no matter how smart you were, or thought you were, you still needed to do it. Jonathan suspected this time was going to be different, though. Once a guy got kicked out of his house, there was no quick route back.
    * * *
    Adam found it hard to concentrate at work. No wonder, with the way his life was going.
    He’d called Chelsea when he reached the office, tried to make up for his memory lapse by inviting her to dinner and had been told in no uncertain terms what he could do with his offer. It had all been downhill after that.
    As a pharmaceutical rep he spent more time waiting in doctors’ offices than he did actually talking to them about the new medicines in his company’s catalog. All that waiting gave him way too much time to think, and when he’d finally get a chance to see a doc, he invariably looked like he needed to be taking one of those new antidepressants he was peddling. One doctor even offered to write him a prescription for a competitor’s product.
    Back at the office he made phone calls and then hung up, wondering what exactly he’d promised, and had to read his emails repeatedly before he understood what he’d read. All he could think about was how mad Chelsea had been. All he could see was the hurt and anger on her face when she’d glared at him from the bedroom window.
    The idea of spending another night on Jonathan’s couch was anything but appealing. He had to do something. He called Lupine Floral and ordered a huge bouquet to be delivered that day, ASAP.
    â€œWhat’s her favorite flower?” asked the man who answered the phone.
    Favorite flower? His mind was a blank. “She likes yellow.” She’d painted their whole living room yellow one week when he was gone.
    â€œWell, then, we’ll send her a sunshine bouquet—yellow and white daisies and yellow pom-poms and yellow roses in a yellow ceramic pitcher.”
    Adam didn’t care what they came in, as long as they got the job done. “Yeah, that sounds great. Give me the biggest one you’ve got.”
    â€œHow would you like the card to read?”
    The card. He hadn’t thought of that. He didn’t want to announce to the whole world that he was in trouble. “How about ‘I love you’?”
    â€œThat says it all.”
    He hoped so. He gave the man his credit card information and ended the call. That should do it. Maybe now he could talk about medications without wanting to take a bunch.
    He was smiling when he drove down his street after work. Chelsea would have gotten her sunshine bouquet by now and it would have done the trick.
    She loved flowers. She worked part-time at Mountain Nursery and she’d planted all kinds of flowers around their house that made it look really nice—roses and a bunch of other things, names she’d rattled off that left him glassy-eyed.
    He wasn’t into flowers. But he was into his wife and he felt confident his peace offering would prove it.
    He lost his smile when he pulled up in front of his place and saw a kitchen trash bag with a yellow flower head sticking out the top. She’d tossed the arrangement? Seriously? And that wasn’t the only bag on the porch. Several huge garbage bags sat huddled together, and beside them was his baseball bat, his glove and his fishing gear.
    Okay, this was not funny. He got out of the car, marched up to the porch and checked inside one of the trash bags. Clothes. She’d just wadded up his clothes and stuffed them in garbage bags. He was going to have to pay a fortune to get his pants pressed.
    He banged on the door. “Chels!”
    Of course she didn’t answer.
    He banged again.
    Once more the bedroom window flew open. There she was again, that pretty face, that long, brown hair. That frown. Sadness overrode his anger. “Come on, baby. What do I have to do?”
    â€œChange.”
    â€œI’m