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So after the move, he’d again taken his time, driving another Realtor crazy, looking for a new home for him and his boys. Another new start. He could have bought pretty much any house he wanted in Albuquerque. But he hadn’t wanted any house; he’d wanted the right house. Only, who knew “right” would be this quirky, lopsided grandmother of a house, mottled with the patina of mold and memories? That his new definition of home would include bowed wooden floors and a wisteria-and-honeysuckle choked portal, weathered corbels and windows checkered by crumbling mullions and pockmarked wooden vigas ribbing the high ceilings?
Damn thing was twice as big as they really needed, even after getting everything out of storage. And he’d have to buy one of those John Deere monsters to mow the lawn. Still, he thought as he finally climbed out of the car, hearing the boys’ clear, pure laughter on the nippy breeze, this was a house that exuded serenity, the kind that comes from having seen it all and surviving. A house that begged for large dogs and swing sets and basketball hoops and loud, boisterous boys.
Troy walked over to inspect what turned out to be a loose, six-inch thick post on the porch, shaking his head. And, because he’d clearly lost his mind, smiling. The house needed him. Right now, a good thing.
A flimsy wooden screen door whined when he opened it, the floorboards creaking underfoot as he walked through the family room to check on the boys in the backyard. The French doors leading outside were suffocated underneath God-knew-how-many coats of white enamel paint; Troy dug his trusty Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and scratched through to the wood: maple. Maybe cherry. Pocketing the knife, he pushed the doors open, his lips curving at the sight of the kids chasing each other around and around the trees, their yells competing with doves’ coos, the occasional trill of a robin.
“You guys want pizza?” His voice echoed in the half-empty house, the emptiness inside him.
“Yeah!” they both hollered, running over, their faces flushed under messy, dirty hair. Find towels, he thought. Wash kids.
“C’n Karleen eat wif us?” Grady said, five times louder than necessary, and Troy thought, What? even as he stole a please-don’t-be-there glance at her yard.
“She probably has other plans, guys. You go back and play, I’ll call you when it gets here.”
God, kids, Troy thought as he tromped back into the house, thumbing through the phone book for the nearest pizza delivery. After ordering two larges—one cheese, one with everything—a salad and breadsticks, he soldiered on upstairs to the boys’ new room. Since it faced the back, he could work and still keep an ear out. Blake and Shaun had helped him set up the bunk bed, but the boxes of toys and clothes and heaven knew what else had clearly multiplied in the last two hours.
Shaking his head, he got to it, only to discover a couple boxes of his junk among the kids. After another glance out the window at the boys—huddled together underneath a nearby cottonwood, deep in some kind of twin conspiracy, no doubt—he stacked the boxes and carted them to his bedroom across the hall, no sooner dumping them on the floor at the foot of his (unmade) bed when his cell rang.
“Just called to see if you were settled in yet,” his mother said in his ear.
“In, yes,” he said, shoving one of the boxes into a corner with his foot. “Settled?” He glowered at the pile of boxes sitting in front of him, silently jeering. “By the time the boys graduate from high school, if I’m lucky.”
“Which is where a woman comes in handy. Although listen to me,” Eleanor Lindquist hurriedly added, as if realizing her gaffe, “I’ve still got unpacked boxes in the garage from when we moved in here when you were five! At this point, I think we’re just going to leave them for you and your brothers to ‘discover’ after we’re dead.”
“Can’t wait.”
Eleanor laughed softly, then said, “I’m sorry, Troy. About the woman comment—”
“It’s okay. Forget it.”
A brief pause preceded “Anyway. Your father and I are thinking about coming down there for a visit. In a couple of months, we thought.”
Troy stilled. “Oh?”
“We’ve always wanted to see the Southwest, you know—” News to him. “But we thought we might as well wait until you got your housing situation straightened out. Of course, we can certainly stay in a hotel if it’s inconvenient—”
“No! No, of course not, there’s plenty of room here.” Good one, Mom. “But…how’s Dad? Is he up to the trip?”
“Of course he’s up to the trip, it’s been more than five years, for goodness sake!”
The doorbell rang. Wow. Domino’s must be having a slow night. “Pizza guy’s at the door, I’ve got to run,” he said, digging his wallet out of his back pocket as he thundered down the stairs. “My best to Dad.” He clapped shut his phone and swung open the door, only to jump a foot at the sight of Karleen on his doorstep.
Bookended by a pair of slightly smudged, grinning, yellow-haired boys.
“Lose something?” she said.
Chapter Two
Troy allowed himself a quarter second’s worth of sexual awareness—the perfume alone was enough to make him light-headed—before the hindsight terror thing kicked in nicely and he grabbed two skinny little arms, yanking the bodies attached thereto across his threshold.
“What’s the big idea, leaving the yard? You know you’re not supposed to go anywhere without a grown-up! Ever,” he added before Scotty could snow him with the pouty lower lip.
“We didn’t cross the street or nothin’,” Grady said, his defiance trembling at the edges. “We only went to Karleen’s.”’
“Why on earth did you do that?”
“’Cause we wanted her to come over, only you said she prob’ly had plans. ’Cept she doesn’t. Huh?” Grady said, twisting around to look up at her.
“I am so sorry,” Troy said, following his son’s gaze, which was when it registered that Karleen was wearing one of those painted-on exercise outfits that left little to the imagination, and that her skin was flushed—From exercise? From being pissed?—and her lipstick was eaten off and she’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail, leaving all these soft little bits hanging around her face and her eyes huge underneath her bangs and—
“We were coming right back,” Scotty said softly, cruelly derailing Troy’s train of thought.
Kids. Right.
Troy straightened up, forking a hand through his hair. Giving them the Dad-is-not-amused face. “That’s not the point. You’re too little to be by yourselves, even for a minute.”
Grady’s little forehead crumpled. “Then how come you always tell us what big boys we are?”
“Yeah,” Scotty said, nodding, looking impossibly tiny and vulnerable. Not for the first time, responsibility walloped Troy square in the chest.
So he pointed a hopefully stern finger in their faces. “You’re not that big,” he said, just as a compact sedan with a Domino’s sign clamped to the roof screeched up in front of the house, and the kids started hopping around like grasshoppers, chanting, “Piz-za! Piz-za! Piz-za!”
“No, wait,” he said to Karleen as she made her getaway (he couldn’t imagine why), breathing an oddly relieved sigh when she stopped, biding her time while Troy paid the pizza guy. After the very well-tipped teen loped back toward his car, Troy focused again on Karleen. Her arms were crossed underneath her breasts, her lips curved in a Mona Lisa smile as she watched the boys. The sun had begun to go down in earnest, soft-edging the shadows, leaving a chill in its wake. He wondered if she was cold…
“Good Lord, honey…how long has it been?”
Troy’s head snapped up. “What?”
Bemusement danced in her eyes. “If you stare at my chest any harder, my bra’s gonna catch fire.”
“I—I’m sorry, I don’t usually…” He blew out a breath, his face hotter than the pizza. “I didn’t mean…” She laughed. Troy sighed again. “Okay, so maybe I did. But I’m not a letch, I swear.”
“Oh, don’t go gettin’ your boxers in a bunch. You’re just bein’a man, is all. No harm, no foul. It’s kinda cute, actually.”
Cute. Not exactly the image he was going for.
Oh, God. He was staring. Again. Not at her breasts, at least, but still.
“Uh…thanks for bringing the guys back,” he said, shifting the pizzas.
One eyebrow lifted. “I hadn’t exactly planned on keepin’ ’em.”
“More’s the pity,” Troy muttered, then shook his head. “Honestly, I have no idea what got into them, they’ve never gone off like that before. But you really are welcome to stay. If you haven’t eaten, I mean.” He hefted the two boxes, which he now realized were slowly melting his palms. And probably the salad on top. “There’s plenty. I’ll even promise to behave,” he said, remembering to smile.
Now it was apparently her turn to stare, in that thoroughly assessing way women had that made men feel about six. “So the boys really came all on their own? You didn’t send them over?”
Troy jerked. “What? No! Why would you think that?”
“Sorry. I just…” For one small moment, wisps of regret floated between them, only to spiral off into nothingness when she said, “Thanks for the offer, anyway. But I can’t.”
She pivoted and again started back toward her house.
Let her go, let her go…
“Another time?”
Karleen turned. “You’re not serious?”
“Well, yeah, actually I am.” What? “Was. I mean, we’re neighbors and everything…” He shrugged. Lamely.
“Yeah, well, it’s the and everything part of that sentence that worries me.”
“Figure of speech,” Troy muttered, fighting another blush. Bad at this didn’t even begin to cover it. “I promise, Karleen, I’m not coming on to you.”
“Well, no, you haven’t reached salivatin’ stage yet, maybe. But you are definitely coming on to me.”
Troy snagged the Really? before it got past his lips, then thought, Hey, maybe this is easier than I thought. Or maybe she is.
Then he remembered she was the one walking away.
“And…that would be inappropriate because you probably have a boyfriend or something.”
“Or maybe I’m not interested.”
“Or that.”
That got a head shake, which made the ponytail, if not the breasts, bounce. “You know, you really are sweet,” she said, and again those wistful wisps cavorted in the chilly early evening air, more visible this time, although no less phantasmagorical. “As it happens, I haven’t had a boyfriend since I was…” She cleared her throat. “A long time.”
“You’re into other women?”
She burst out laughing. The kind of laugh that made him smile, even around the size thirteen in his mouth. “Oh, God, you are too much! No, honey, I just meant boyfriend sounds kinda…juvenile or something. I’ve had lovers, and I’ve had husbands—”
“Husbands?”
“Three, if you must know. And three is definitely this girl’s limit. Anyway. I’m trying to make a point, here—no, there’s nobody in my life right now. By choice. Because if you ask me, it’s all far more trouble than it’s worth. Which is why I’m turnin’ down your invitation. For tonight or any other time. Because you are sweet and there’s no use pretending we’re not attracted to each other, but some things just aren’t meant to be.”
She nodded toward the boxes. “Your pizza’s gettin’ cold, sugar,” she said, then spun around, this time making it all the way across his yard.
Troy stared after her for several seconds as it all came flooding back. The part about how much it sucked to get rejected. Even when the woman wasn’t someone you really wanted to get tangled up with, anyway.
He went inside, slamming the door shut with his foot, and called the boys to dinner.
“What’s his name again?”
“Troy Lindquist,” Karleen tossed in the direction of the speakerphone while she pedaled her butt off on her exercise bike. It had been two days since Troy and his Tiny Tots had moved in next door. Two days since Karleen had walked away from an invitation that she’d known full well had included a lot more than pizza, Troy’s insistence otherwise notwithstanding.
Two days since she’d answered her doorbell to find a plastic-wrapped Chinet plate on her doorstep, heaped with two slices of pizza—one cheese, one supreme—a bread-stick and salad. And taped to the top, a note:
It’ll only go to waste. Enjoy. T.
And in those two days, she’d put in enough miles on this bike to give Lance Armstrong a run for his money. If nothing else, she was gonna have thighs you could bounce a rock off.
Slightly crackly, fuzzy clicking filled the room as Joanna tapped away at her computer keyboard, the rhythmic sound occasionally punctuated by her dog Chester’s barking, the occasional squawk, scream or “Mo-om!” from one of her four kids. Clearly ignoring them all, Joanna said, “Huh.”
“Huh, what?” Karleen said, panting and daubing sweat from her neck and chest with the towel around her neck. Of course, she could have Googled the guy herself, but Joanna beat her to it.
“Blond, you said? Late thirties? Blindingly gorgeous?”
“That would be him. Why? You find something?”
“Well,” Jo’s voice croaked over the speaker, “there’s a photo of some blond hottie named Troy Lindquist, with a dark-haired hottie named Blake Carter—”
“Yes! He was there, too!”
“Yeesh, I’m surprised your retinas didn’t melt. Anyway, there’s a caption under the photo—oh, for God’s sake, Matt, let the baby have the ball, already! And put the dog back outside, his feet are all muddy!—about their company. Ain’t It Sweet.”
“I don’t know. Is it?”
“No, Ain’t It Sweet. The frozen desserts people?”
Karleen stopped pedaling, her heart beating so hard she could hardly hear herself talk. “As in, The Devil Made Me Do It Fudge Cake?”
“The very same.”
“Troy owns it?”
“Apparently so. Well, he and this Blake person are partners. It says here…” Karleen waited while Joanna apparently scrolled. “They recently moved their headquarters from Denver to Albuquerque…. Main ice-cream plant still in Denver…holy moly.”
“What?”
“‘Analysts say, with its steadily increasing sales figures and healthy profit margins, as well as a huge projected franchise growth within the next three to five years, Ain’t It Sweet is poised to bolster its North American market share by as much as fifty percent, with plans to increase its overseas distribution in the works. Already, this upstart company is routinely among the top five high-quality frozen confections brands Americans name when polled in market surveys.’”
“It sure as hell’s the brand I think of when I think of…whatever you said.”
“Yeah,” Jo said. “Me, too. Their Yo-Ho-Ho Mocha Rum Truffle cheesecake…”
“Oh! And their Everlasting Latte Cinnamon Swirl sorbet…”
Stupid names. Fabulous stuff. Holy moly was right.
“Hot and filthy rich,” Joanna cackled. “And single, you say?”
“Don’t go there.”
“I’m not going anywhere. You, on the other hand, have an unattached, lonely, rich hottie living on the other side of your west wall. A single, lonely, rich hottie with a direct link to the best ice cream in the entire freaking world.”
Rolling her eyes, Karleen climbed off the bike and grabbed the phone from its stand, walking out to her kitchen for some water. “Why do you assume he’s lonely?”
“I can see it in his eyes in the photo.” Which, coming from anybody else, would have sounded weird as hell. But Jo was like that. And besides, much as it pained Karleen to admit it, she’d seen it, too. Up close and personal. “For God’s sake, Karleen, pay attention! Ice cream! Sex! Money! Ice cream!”
She had to laugh. “I got it, Jo. I’m not interested.”
“Are you insane? I’m interested, and if I were any more happily married my brain would explode. Maybe you better check your pulse, make sure you’re still alive.”
Karleen released a long, weary breath. “And you do know you are beating a very dead horse, right?”
After a pause, Jo said, “You never used to be like this.”
“I think that’s the point, honey,” she said softly. “And yes, I’m very aware of how attractive he is. And nice. And he’s got two adorable little boys. But his expression when he first saw me far outweighed whatever hormones were playing dodgeball between us—”
“There were hormones playing dodgeball?” Jo said on a squeak, and Karleen rolled her eyes.
“Jo. Even if I was thinking about followin’ through, these lashes do not flutter at someone who looks at me the way Troy Lindquist did. You could practically see the ‘trailer trash’ lightbulb go on over his head.”
“Karleen. Blond hair and a Texas accent do not trailer trash make.”
“The boob job comes pretty damn close.”
“Then half of L.A.’s trailer trash, too. And would you stop beating yourself up over that? You were thrilled when Nate gave them to you for your birthday.”
“Uh-huh. Until I realized what’s gonna happen at some point when they’ll have to come out and I’m gonna end up with a pair of deflated balloons on my chest. I’ll be regretting them for the rest of my life. Just like my marriages.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Jo said in a voice Karleen had heard far too often since the first day in seventh grade when they’d sat next to each other in Social Studies, and for some bizarre reason the daughter of a hotshot attorney and one of Albuquerque’s most successful car dealers had taken a liking to a little hick from Flyspeck, Texas. “Dammit, Kar—you’re smart, you’ve got your own business, you don’t owe anybody anything. So your marriages didn’t work out. It happens.”
“Three times?”
“So you’ve had more practice than most people. Big whoop. But if being alone is what you really want, hey…go for it—”
Karleen’s call waiting beeped in her ear. “Sorry, I’m waiting on a client’s call, I need to take this. I’ll talk to you later, honey, okay?”
At that point, she almost didn’t care who was calling. That is, until she heard “Leenie? Is that you?” on the other end of the line.
A fireball exploded in the pit of Karleen’s stomach. The phone pressed against her ear, she wobbled out to the family room, dropping onto the worn Southwest pastel sofa. Well-meaning friends, rich hunky neighbors, all forgotten in an instant. Not even the glass menagerie sparkling on the windowsill—usually a surefire defense against the doldrums—could withstand the all-too-familiar tsunami of irritation and guilt.
“Aunt Inky?”
“Well, who else would it be, baby? Shew, what a relief, I was afraid you might’ve changed your phone number or somethin’!”
Definitely an oversight on her part. Karleen resisted the impulse to ask her mother’s younger sister what she wanted. Because she only ever surfaced when she did want something. “Well. This is a surprise.”
“I know, I’ve been real bad about keepin’in touch. And it would’ve been hard for you to contact me, since I’ve been doing so much, um, traveling and all.”
“Uh-huh.” Inky didn’t sound drunk, for once. But then, it was only ten o’clock in the morning. The slurring wasn’t usually noticeable until mid-afternoon. “So where are you now?”
“Lubbock. Been here for a couple months now. It’s okay, I guess. God knows I’ve lived in worse places.” A pause. “You take up with anybody new yet?”
Karleen shut her eyes. “No, Aunt Inky. I told you, I prefer being alone.”
“What fun is that?”
“It’s not fun I’m after, it’s peace. You should try it sometime.”
“Well, each to his own, I suppose,” her aunt said. “You doing okay, then? Money-wise, I mean?”
Ah. Karleen had wondered how long it would take. “I get by.”
“Well, that’s good. You always were a smart little thing, though—sure as heck a lot smarter than your mama or me—so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You still livin’ in the same place, that house with all the trees around it?”
Ice immediately doused the fire in her belly. And oh, she was tempted to lie. If not to pack her bags and make a run for it. Except Inky was the only family she had left, for one thing. And for another, Karleen was done running, done believing that whatever she needed was always right over the horizon.
“Yes, I’m still here.” She hesitated, then added, “It’s all I’ve got, really,” even if that was stretching the truth a little.
Sure enough, Inky came back with a soft “Then I don’t suppose you could spare a couple hundred dollars? Just a loan, you understand. To tide me over until I get back on my feet.”
Karleen nearly laughed, even as she again resisted temptation, this time to point out to her aunt that if she spent less time in a horizontal position—either in the company of men of dubious character or out cold from cheap booze—she might actually stay on her feet for more than five minutes. But it wasn’t like Karleen had a whole lot of room to talk, so who was she to judge? And anyway, it had been nearly a year this time, so maybe this really was an emergency.
“I guess I can manage a couple hundred. As long as you pay it back,” she added, because she wanted her aunt to at least think about it.
“Of course, baby! Let me give you my address, I’m stayin’ with a friend right now—” oh, brother “—but I should be here for a while….”
Karleen scribbled the address on a notepad lying on the coffee table. “Okay, I’ll send a check for two hundred dollars in the next mail—”
“Could you make that a money order, baby? And if you could see clear to maybe make that two-fifty, or even three, I’d really appreciate it.”
Karleen sighed. But, she thought after she hung up, at least her aunt hadn’t asked to come stay with her.
A thought that made her feel prickly all over, like the time she’d lifted up a piece of wood in the backyard after a rainstorm and a million great big old waterbugs had scurried out from under it. Even though it had been probably twenty years since she’d spent any significant time with her aunt, just talking to the woman disturbed a swollen, never-quite-forgotten nest of skin-crawling memories.
Karleen sucked in a lungful of air, then glanced over at the big mirrored clock by the entertainment center. Plenty of time before her afternoon appointment to do some digging in the garden, work off some of this negative energy.
She traded her bicycle shorts for jeans, shoved her feet into a pair of disreputable sneakers, plopped her silly straw hat on her head and went outside, where she was greeted by that brain-numbing music Troy liked so much. She half thought about going back inside, only to decide she couldn’t become a recluse simply because her new neighbor made her uncomfortable in ways she didn’t want to think about too hard. The music, though, might well drive her right over the edge.
So she rammed a Garth Brooks CD into the boom box on the deck, hit the play button and tromped over to her shed. Honestly, she thought as the metal doors clanged open, she doubted Troy was even forty yet. How he could like music that reminded Karleen of meat loaf and black-and-white television, she had no idea. Eighties rock, she could have understood. She wouldn’t ’ve liked it any better, but at least it would’ve made sense.
But then, there was a lot about Troy Lindquist that didn’t make sense. Like why, if he was so well off, he’d bought a fixer-upper out in Corrales when he could’ve easily bought one of those flashy McMansions up in the foothills. Why there didn’t seem to be a nanny or housekeeper in the picture.
Not that any of it was her business, but it was curious.
After shaking out her thickest gardening gloves in case somebody with too many legs had set up housekeeping inside, she yanked them on, then batted through a maze of cobwebs to find her shovel, which she carted over to a small plot that, unfortunately, was next to Troy’s fence. But that was the only spot in the yard that wasn’t in shade half the day, or plagued with cottonwood roots.
The pointed steel bit into the soft soil with a satisfying crunch. By the third thonk, two little pairs of sneakered feet suddenly appeared on the lower rail, followed by two little faces hanging over the top. Two little eat-’em-up faces that she bet looked exactly like father’s when he’d been that age.