DISCLAIMER: The wonderful original characters from the CBS television series Scarecrow and Mrs. King are the property of Warner Brothers and Shoot the Moon Productions; they don't belong to me, nor will I get one dime for writing this story. The story and any new characters, however, are mine. Please don't archive without my permission.

AUTHOR: matahari2 (Kathy)

Title by CobraDeathGrip (Chris)

SUMMARY: Someone encounters a little competition for the attentions of the object of their affections. . .hmm. . .who could this be?

TIMEFRAME: Season 3, between Over the Limit and Sour Grapes

FEEDBACK: You betcha! Please! Just click on the email icon on the Matahari2 Stories page—I’d love to know what you think of this story.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Many, many thanks to Laura (MusicBox83), my primary beta. Her comments and helpful hints really helped me to come up with fresh ideas, which produced some of the story’s best scenes. Thanks also to Stemwinder, who helped me to add more action where it was needed, and helped me to avoid punctuation problems and a few spelling glitches, and to my friend Jamie, who offered a very helpful suggestion for one of the scenes. Thanks to all these ladies for their strong encouragement and support throughout the writing of this story. I’d like to add a special “Danke schön” to paintergirl from the PAX forum, for her invaluable help on the proper use of German words and phrases. Thanks, PG!

A LITTLE COMPETITION

Chapter 1

Saturday Morning – 4247 Maplewood Drive

Sauntering up the steps to the landing, Dotty West casually sorted through the day’s mail, until one particular item caught her eye. “Amanda!” she called up the stairs, “You have a very interesting-looking letter here! It has a West German postmark, Wiesbaden, I think,” she added, putting on her reading glasses to take a closer look.

As Amanda finished tying her shoelaces, she stared at her bedside alarm clock, trying to remember, but she couldn’t for the life of her recall meeting anyone from Wiesbaden. Now Munich, yeah, she’d been there twice last fall, once with Mother and the boys, and. . .that other time. ‘Who could forget being arrested for counterfeiting?’ she smirked to herself, as she let out a small sigh and headed downstairs.

“Morning, Mother,” she greeted cheerily, peering over the back of the sofa toward the coffee table. “Where’s this mysterious letter?”

Dotty flipped through the grocery ads as she replied, “It’s right there on the counter, Amanda.”

Just then, the teakettle took its cue to whistle, and Amanda turned off the burner and cast a slightly suspicious glance at her mother’s back. Without a word, she rolled her eyes and picked up the letter in the blue parchment envelope, tracing a finger over the return address as she walked around to the other side of the island and took a seat on one of the stools. Silently, she read the vaguely familiar name, ‘D. Volkenauer, 19 D Königstrasse, Wiesbaden’, and her lips formed a smile as she remembered. “Mother! This is from that nice police Lieutenant in Munich!”

“Nice?!?” Dotty huffed, as she put down the grocery ads and went into the kitchen to place a tea bag into her empty mug and pour in the steaming water. “You call someone who arrested you for a crime you didn’t commit, nice?”

Amanda ducked her head and acknowledged, “Okay, well. . .all right, he didn’t seem so nice at first, but then again, he had no way of knowing I wasn’t guilty, not until my friend from IFF came over and helped me to clear my name. And once we—I mean they—found the real counterfeiters, Lieutenant Volkenauer couldn’t have been nicer. He apologized all over himself, Mother—shoot! He even asked me out, to a nice, authentic Bavarian dinner,” she recalled with a dreamy smile.

Dotty’s eyebrows rose in anticipation, although her daughter’s eyes seemed to have glazed over, her mind apparently captivated by some special memory. She took a sip of her tea and prompted, “Yes, Darling, and?”

Amanda’s smile vaporized as she shrugged her shoulders and poured cold water on her mother’s romantic notions. “I said no, Mother.” Dotty opened her mouth to reply, but Amanda went on to explain, “Now look. . .all I could think about at the time was getting home. I’d already booked the flight, and I was so tired, and. . .”

Dotty’s impatience showed itself as she glared over her reading glasses. “So what does he have to say?”

"Well. . .let's see," Amanda stalled, painstakingly unfolding the sheets of parchment. Knowing she might have to censor the letter’s contents, she scanned the first page quickly, then cleared her throat and forged ahead. "Well. . .he's coming to DC. . .Sunday, October 20th. . .expects to be here a couple of weeks. . .he wants to know if it's okay if he calls me while he's here. . .would I honor him by agreeing to go out to dinner with him. . .hmm,” she hummed, pausing to contemplate his invitation.

Her mother’s exaggerated cough caused her to shake her head and refocus her attention on the letter. “Oh, and look!" she exclaimed, underlining the next sentence with her finger. "He apologized again for the mix-up last year." She looked up and smiled, laying the letter face down on the counter. "See? I told you he was nice!"

“Mm-hm!” Dotty accepted with a knowing grin. Lifting her mug and taking the scissors from the drawer beside the refrigerator, she gave Amanda her patented ‘you aren’t fooling anybody, least of all me’ stare. “I bet he’s nice-looking, too!” she finished, turning on her heel and returning to the sofa to start clipping grocery coupons.

Amanda shook her head and pushed away from the island, shouting, “Mo-ther!” over Dotty’s muffled laughter. She’d barely had time to refold her letter and stuff it into the back pocket of her jeans when she heard Jamie’s voice from the stairway.

“She will not, Phillip. No way is Mom gonna let you--”

“Morning fellas!” Amanda called out. She folded her arms and leaned back against the sink, waiting for them to come into the kitchen. “So tell me. What is it that I’m not gonna let your brother do?” she asked, searching each of their faces in turn.

Jamie rolled his eyes and shook his head, then turned to his brother. “You tell her!”

Phillip frowned at Jamie and yelled, “Thanks a lot, Doofus!”

“Phillip! Do not call your brother ‘Doofus’!” Amanda shouted. Stuffing one hand in the front pocket of her jeans and leaning the other against the counter, she zeroed in on Phillip as she asked, “Now. . .what is it you want to do?”

Phillip gave Jamie another dirty look before answering their mother. Then he shrugged, and said simply, “I wanna dye my hair red.”

Amanda nearly exploded. “You what?!?”

Preteen angst written all over his face, Phillip spread out his hands and started to explain. “Well. . .see. . .Todd Sullivan has red hair, and Linda seems to pay a lot more attention to him than she does to me, and. . .”

His mother cut off his explanation as she began to get the picture. “Oh. . .so that’s what this is about? Linda Montez?” At Phillip’s embarrassed nod, Amanda came over to his side and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, smiling at her older son with the understanding born of experience. “Phillip. . .Sweetheart, there’s no need for you to do something like that.” She turned his head with her hand so she could look into his eyes. “You look perfectly fine, just the way you are. And besides. . .girls aren’t only impressed with a guy’s looks, you know?” she hinted, ruffling his hair and kissing the top of his head.

“They’re not?” Phillip asked, his voice wavering slightly as he pulled away.

“Hm-mm,” Amanda confirmed with a shake of her head. “No. . .a girl’s even more impressed by the way a fella treats her. Trust me,” she said, lifting up a three-finger, scout-worthy salute. “I was a girl once!” She chuckled softly and went on, “C’mon, fellas, let’s get your breakfast. Your soccer game starts in an hour and a half, right? Okay then, let’s get a move on!” She gave each of her sons a little shove and turned to open the refrigerator and pull out the milk for their cereal.

Once they’d finished their breakfast, Amanda sent the boys upstairs to get cleaned up. She’d started to sponge a small amount of spilled milk from the countertop when a familiar face popped up outside the kitchen window. At her look of panic, the apparition tipped his head toward the back of the house and dropped out of sight. ‘Whew!” Amanda thought, ‘that could’ve been a close one!’

She very nearly jumped out of her skin when Dotty came up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder, saying, “You know, Dear. . .you handled that business with Phillip really well.”

“What? Oh. . .” Amanda replied with a nervous little laugh. “Thank you, Mother. I just. . .” she trailed off.

“I know,” her mother whispered, smiling proudly. “All right, I suppose I’d better go up and get ready, too.”

“All right, Mother,” Amanda said quietly, rinsing out the sponge and giving her mother ample time to reach the top of the stairs before she tip-toed out the back door.

She found him leaning against the wall of the potting shed. “Lee! What on earth are you doing here so early on a Saturday morning?”

“Amanda!” he scolded good-naturedly, “where are your manners? Don’t you ever say ‘hello’?”

“Hello,” she deadpanned, looking away to hide her smile. Pointing back over her shoulder with her thumb, she warned, “You know. . .you barely missed greeting Mother with your little window routine, and Phillip and Jamie’ll be down here any minute. So, what is it, Lee?”

Looking suitably chastised, he answered, “I just wanted to check and see if you could come in to the office early on Monday morning. Billy’s scheduled an 8:00 meeting. See. . .we have a visitor coming from Interpol—Dieter Volkenauer. . .remember, we met him last year in Munich, on that counterfeiting case? Well, he’s changed jobs. He works for the Federal Criminal Police, the BKA—it’s their equivalent of our FBI. Anyway, he’s on temporary assignment to Interpol, tracking an East German terrorist group called ‘der Blitzstrahl’, the ‘Lightning Flash’. They’re the ones. . .”

“Oh yeah,” Amanda broke in. “I read about them in the paper. Didn’t they blow up a plane full of hostages at the Frankfurt airport?”

“Yes. . .yes they did,” Lee replied with a quick nod. “And the scuttlebutt is that several of them may have entered the U.S. in the last few days, with plans to destroy a monument, somewhere in DC.”

“Lee! There are so many monuments in the District! Does Interpol have any idea which one’s being targeted?”

Lee shook his head. “Not a clue,” he answered with a resigned sigh, looking away for an instant before turning back to face her. “All they have is a cryptic note that was sent to the BKA’s office in Wiesbaden, and a phone message about ‘American idolatry’ that was left on Volkenauer’s answering machine early last week. The caller said one of DC’s ‘marble monstrosities’ would fall. . .before midnight, October 31^st.”

Amanda’s mouth dropped open. “Oh my gosh! That’s terrible!” She cast her eyes downward, shaking her head at the awful possibilities of what could happen if these terrorists were allowed to have their way. She looked back over her shoulder nervously and pulled the letter out of her pocket, gesturing with it as she spoke. “Um. . .Lee, not to change the subject, but. . .I just received a letter from Dieter. . .Lieutenant Volkenauer. He didn’t tell me about any of this stuff, but then again, I guess he wouldn’t, would he? Not in a letter, anyway, but. . .”

“He wrote you a letter?!?”

The mixture of shock and confusion on his face was mildly amusing, but Amanda managed to keep her composure. “Well. . .yeah,” she admitted, now almost sorry for having mentioned it. “He told me he was coming to DC on the 20^th, and he wanted to know if it was all right if he called me while he was here, and if we could go out to dinner. I guess he’s still kind of, you know, trying to apologize for what happened last year,” she said, tilting her head to the side as a telltale blush colored her cheeks.

“Yeah. . .I guess so. . .” he said softly, although his intense stare, tightened jaw and fisted hands said something else entirely. He averted his gaze, pausing to study the pattern of the brick pavers beneath his feet, then looked up into her eyes and gave her a pale imitation of a grin. He took a step closer to her, reaching out to touch her arm. “See you Monday?”

As she whispered, “Sure. . .I’ll be there,” he slid the fingers of his left hand down her arm and turned away, disappearing around the corner of the house before she could say goodbye.

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