Dear Reader,

I’m so excited to be a part of Harlequin Flipside! I’ve always loved romantic comedy because sometimes life is pretty absurd, and all you can do is laugh and go on. I think that’s what my character Lucy Lake does. When life hands her lemons, she attempts to juggle them. The results aren’t always pretty, but she manages to see the humor in every situation…even when she’s falling in love.

I especially enjoyed writing this book because of Millie. I’m a big dog lover, but for some reason I’d never written a story with a dog as one of the main characters. Granted, Millie isn’t an ordinary dog, but she does embody that wonderful loving, accepting spirit all dogs have.

So I hope you enjoy Life According to Lucy. And look for other Flipside stories from me in the coming months. I love to hear from readers. You can e-mail me at cindi@cindimyers.com, visit me online at www.CindiMyers.com or write me in care of Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Rd., Don Mills, ON M3B 3K9, Canada.

Happy reading!

Cindi Myers

Lucy hated meeting people before noon!

And now she had to go meet one about flower beds.

She staggered to the kitchen, but she didn’t see the old gardener. Instead, she saw a guy with broad shoulders and thick blond hair. She froze. This was definitely a man who would notice her wrinkled shirt and rat’s-nest hair, not to mention her leg stubble.

She backed toward her room. She’d just go change clothes, wet her hair and blow it dry, shave her legs, put on makeup—

“Lucy! There you are.” Great. Outed by her ever-so-helpful father.

Trapped, she moved her legs automatically as she stared at the gorgeous stranger. He had on more clothes today, but there was no mistaking those broad shoulders and that smile. It was the hot guy who had witnessed her humiliation yesterday. And it looked as if he was about to go two for two!

Life According to Lucy
Cindi Myers

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cindi Myers believes in love at first sight, good chocolate, cold champagne, that people who don’t like animals can’t be trusted and that God obviously has a sense of humor. She also believes in writing fun, sexy romances about people she hopes readers will fall in love with. In addition to writing, Cindi enjoys reading, quilting, gardening, hiking and downhill skiing. She lives in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado with her husband (whom she met on a blind date and agreed to marry six weeks later) and two spoiled dogs.

Books by Cindi Myers

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

902—IT’S A GUY THING!

935—SAY YOU WANT ME

HARLEQUIN BLAZE

82—JUST 4 PLAY

118—RUMOR HAS IT

For Carole, and other daughters who miss their moms

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

1

Gardens teach us many lessons, among them humility, hope and the importance of pest control.

WHAT DOES A GIRL have to do to change her luck? Lucy Lake thought as she watched her landlord march past her and deposit her TV by the curb. She’d wanted true love and dated a string of players. She’d wanted a raise and gotten a pink slip. She’d wanted love letters in the mail and instead had gotten an eviction notice. Honestly, how much worse could it get?

“Mr. Kopetsky, it was just a little mix-up at the bank.” She followed her landlord back toward the apartment. Could she help it if she hadn’t kept very good track of her finances? It had been all right when she’d been gainfully employed, but the money she brought in doing temp work since she’d been laid off hadn’t been enough to cover the shopping habit she’d acquired in more flush times.

“Ha!” Kopetsky spat into the oleanders that flanked the walk, narrowly missing the gardener who was planting a flat of marigolds alongside the shrubs. “That check bounced all the way to San Antonio. And it wasn’t the first time either.” He started up the outside stairs toward Lucy’s second floor rooms, pausing to lean over the railing to address the gardener, “Make sure you use that big bark mulch so it don’t blow all the way to Del Rio when the wind comes up. I ain’t payin’ for that stuff to blow away.”

“I’ll take care of it, Mr. K.” The gardener rose, all six feet two inches of him, broad shouldered and bare chested. Even given her distress over her current situation, Lucy couldn’t help gaping at him. Her notoriously fickle libido gave signs of stirring, and the only thought that came into her mind was the old soup slogan: Mmm, mm, good!

“Can I help you with something, ma’am?”

Her libido made a hasty retreat and her shoulders slumped. As too often happened, the Greek God spoiled everything by opening his mouth. Not that his voice wasn’t nice enough—rich and appropriately masculine—but the word “ma’am” was the killer. She was not a ma’am. Her mother was a ma’am. Her grandmother was a ma’am. She, Lucy Lake, was light-years away from ma’am-hood.

“Ma’am?” He did it again, and took a step toward her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped, and turned away. Any man who would call her “ma’am” was not anyone she could be interested in, no matter how broad his shoulders.

Kopetsky marched past her with a box of dishes. “I’m just doing my job here,” he said. “Don’t take this personal or anything.”

“Oh, of course I won’t take it personal.” She raised her voice as he walked away from her. “Why would I take having all my belongings dumped by the curb personal?”

She was keenly aware of the gardening god standing there watching this little drama. It was bad enough being evicted without having Mr. Bronzed Muscles looking on. She gave him what she hoped was a quelling look, but he annoyed her further by smiling. A gorgeous, white-toothed grin that might have been sexy if not for the fact that it was completely ill-timed.

Kopetsky hunched his shoulders up around his ears and turned to glare at her. “You’d better call somebody to haul this stuff away before trash pickup in the morning.”

She frowned. If she didn’t get her belongings out of here by nightfall, they’d be picked clean long before the garbage men showed up.

Sighing, she gathered up an armful of clothing and headed toward her car, ignoring the curious looks from her neighbors and passing strangers. Didn’t they have anything better to do than gape at her?

Of course they didn’t. An eviction ranked right up there with the Mosquito Festival and the Art Car Parade in her neighborhood. All three were venerable Houston entertainments, though mosquitoes and Art Cars had to settle for being feted only once a year.

Other women might have burst into tears or made a big scene, but Lucy was almost getting used to this kind of setback. Two months ago, she’d lost probably the best job she’d had to date when the software company she worked for went belly-up. Since then she’d worked a series of temporary jobs and drowned her sorrows with hefty doses of shopping therapy.

Okay, so maybe those trips to the mall were a bad idea, but a girl’s gotta find solace where she can, right? It wasn’t as if she had a man she could depend on. Her last steady boyfriend eloped with a cheerleader over a year ago. Stan said she’d always be a good friend, but she wasn’t his idea of the perfect girlfriend. She told him dumping someone was not the best way to keep a friendship going, but he just smiled and chucked her under the chin. Talk about insulting! She hadn’t been chucked since she was nine.

Since Stan split she’d dated a bull rider, a motorcycle racer, a construction worker, a performance artist and one angst-filled musician, every one of whom seemed to think she was great to be with as long as she didn’t want anything from them—say, a wedding ring.

Now, she’d lost her apartment. It hadn’t been much of a place, but the rent was cheap and it did have a nice view of the Transco Tower if you stood on the toilet and craned your head in the right direction.

When was the next disaster going to sneak up and bite her in the butt?

“Where do you want this?” Startled, she looked up to find the gardener standing beside her, holding her television as easily as if it was a cube of foam.

“Uh…just put it in the back seat.” She opened the door and he slid the TV into the car. “Thanks,” she mumbled.

“No problem.” He stepped back and surveyed her car, a bright blue economy model that had seen better days. “You’re not going to get much in there.”

“No kidding.” She slammed the door shut. “I’ll figure out something.”

“I’ve got a truck—”

She didn’t even know this guy. Why was he being so nice? “Look.” She turned to him. “Thanks, but no thanks. I didn’t ask for your help.”

“No, but you need it.”

Great. A know-it-all and a buttinsky. Instead of a gardening god, the man was a gardening geek. Give her a rough-around-the-edges bad boy who knew how to mind his own business any day.

She turned and marched back toward the front of the apartment building. Garden-boy followed. Honestly, some people couldn’t take a hint.

Mr. Kopetsky was depositing a mangy-looking ficus at the curb. “You ought to leave this one for the garbage,” he advised. “It looks dead.”

“It is not dead!” She reached out to steady the little tree and a rain of yellowed leaves fell to the sidewalk.

“Too dry. And probably not getting enough light.” The gardener reached out and felt a brittle leaf. “It’s hard to get the conditions right in these little apartments.”

She rolled her eyes. “Who asked you, okay?”

He held up his hands. “No one. Just trying to help.”

“If I want your help, I’ll ask for it.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And don’t call me ma’am.”

“What do you want me to call you?”

“Nothing. Go back to playing in the dirt.”

“My, don’t you have a way with words?” Still grinning, he retreated to the marigolds.

She stared at his back, at the muscles that gleamed with sweat and swallowed hard. Maybe she’d been a little harsh. He was probably a nice guy. Too nice. No tattoos or piercings, hair clipped short. He looked like the poster child for clean-cut American.

Exactly the sort of man her mother would have loved. Mom was big on clean-cut and polite—men, she said, who had integrity. “You can count on a man with integrity,” she’d always said.

Thanks to Mom, Lucy knew what it was like to date an Elvis impersonator, a one-eyed pizza delivery driver and a man who made his living as a sewage plant diver—all of whom were up to their nonpierced earlobes in integrity. She knew her mother’s heart was in the right place, but she’d always preferred guys who were a little more exciting than that. Guys who took risks. The kind her mother never approved of. Her motto was: Life Is Too Short to Date Dull Men.

She stared morosely at the ficus. Okay, so maybe it was a tad unwell. Still, she couldn’t bear to get rid of it. Her mother, in one of her many attempts to improve Lucy, had given her this tree.

Mom had also given her a bread maker she’d used once, a sewing machine that had never been out of the box and a complete set of the works of Beethoven. She couldn’t bear to get rid of any of them either. Now that Mom was gone, she cherished everything associated with her, from half-dead plants to impractical appliances.

Mostly what Mom had given her was advice. “Be patient and one day you’ll find the perfect career. One that takes advantage of your unique talents.”

“You mean there are jobs out there for women who can read e-mail and talk on the phone at the same time?” she’d asked.

“Your perfect job is out there somewhere,” Mom said, ignoring Lucy’s lame humor. “And the right man is waiting for you, too. All you have to do is open your eyes and look.”

“If I open my eyes any wider my eyeballs will fall out.” Could she help it if the dark and dangerous men who got her motor running weren’t exactly husband material?

Mom gave her that long-suffering look she’d perfected. “You’ll see I’m right one day. I have experience with these things.”

What experience? Her mom got married when she was twenty, had Lucy when she was twenty-five and worked part-time in the county tax office until she got too sick to do it anymore. Her life didn’t look anything like the one Lucy lived.

She carried another load of clothes and the battered ficus to the car. She liked to think if Mom had beaten the cancer, she’d have listened to her more. But in her more honest moments, she knew that wasn’t true. She wasn’t the kind of person who took advice, good or otherwise.

When she got back to the curb, the gardener had disappeared. It figured. A man who was truly interested wouldn’t have given up so easily. In his place, two women in polyester pedal pushers were pawing through her possessions. One of them held up a lamp she’d inherited from her Aunt Edna. “I’ll give you five dollars for this,” she said.

Five dollars for a lamp whose base was carved like a pineapple? “Sold!”

“How much for this box of Tupperware?” The second woman held up a carton of kitchen supplies.

She swallowed. “Uh…five dollars?”

Fifteen minutes later, she’d sold the sofa, two kitchen chairs, a toaster that didn’t work and a blender that did. She had over a hundred dollars in cash and people were still shoving money at her.

Beep! Beep! She looked up and felt sick to her stomach as a familiar blue pickup truck rolled toward her. Talk about bad timing…. The window glided down and her father leaned out. Dad had thick salt-and-pepper hair that he’d worn in a flattop since he was discharged from the Army in 1969. He dressed in bowling shirts and baggy khakis dating from the Nixon presidency, and shiny cowboy boots. Her friends who met him for the first time thought he was hip and fashionable. She didn’t have the heart to tell them he’d been dressing this way for forty years. “Honey, why didn’t you tell me you were having a yard sale?” he asked.

She stuffed the cash in the pocket of her jeans and reluctantly walked over to him. “Uh, it’s not exactly a sale, Dad.”

He stared as two men walked past him with her couch. “You’re selling your sofa?”

She pretended to adjust his side mirror. “Dad, what are you doing here?”

“I thought I might take you out for a decent meal.”

Since her mom had died a year ago, her dad dropped by a couple of times a week to take Lucy to dinner. He said he wanted to make sure she got a good meal every now and then, but she knew it was really because he was lonely.

A woman marched past carrying her old bedside table. “If you’re not having a yard sale, what are you doing?”

She stared at the ground. “I’ve been evicted.”

She braced herself for the storm she was sure was coming. The familiar “at your age you should be more responsible” lecture. But he didn’t say anything.

After a minute, she couldn’t stand it anymore and risked looking at him. He didn’t look angry at all, just tired. Old. An invisible hand squeezed her chest. “Is everything okay, Dad?”

He sighed. “I was going through some of your mother’s things today.”

The hand squeezed tighter. “Oh, Daddy.” She touched his arm, not knowing what to say. How did you comfort someone when they’d lost the person they’d lived with for over thirty years?

He gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “There’s a bunch of stuff in the potting shed—bulbs and plants and all kinds of books and stuff. I figure I ought to do something with it, but I don’t know what.”

Lucy’s mom had been an avid gardener. She’d won Yard of the Month so many times the Garden Society gave her a brass plaque and told her she couldn’t enter again. She’d tried to pass her green thumb along to her daughter, but Lucy was probably the only person in the world who once actually killed a pot of silk flowers.(She forgot and watered them. The stems rusted and they fell over.)

“I thought maybe you’d come over and help me,” Dad said.

“Sure. Sure I will.” She glanced back over her shoulder toward her dwindling pile of possessions. She needed to poll her girlfriends to find out who would let her crash for a few days until she could find a new apartment. And she’d probably have to break down and balance her checkbook to see what she could afford. “Uh, how about one day next week?”

Dad opened the truck door and climbed out. “Come on. I’ll help you get the rest of your stuff. You can move in with me.”

“I don’t know, Dad.” She followed him over to where two women were arguing over her DVD player. “I wouldn’t want to impose.” Besides, there was something so pathetic about a single, unemployed twenty-six-year-old having to move back in with her father, wasn’t there?

“You got somewhere else to go?” Dad elbowed the two women out of the way and picked up the DVD player.

Her shoulders sagged. “No.” She gathered up a box of CDs and followed him to the truck. Unemployed…evicted…back under Dad’s thumb. Yep. Trouble came in threes, all right.

GREG POLHEMUS hung the little brass plaque on the wall behind the cash register and stepped back to admire it. Best of Show, Downtown Art Fair it proclaimed in fancy script. It looked pretty good up there with the other awards and citations he’d collected lately.

“Your father would be so pleased.” Marisel rested her hand on his shoulder and gave him a fond look. The Guatemalan nursery worker mothered everyone at Polhemus Gardens, but especially Greg, despite the fact that he was her boss.

“Oh, he’d probably gripe about me wasting time at an art fair when we have so much work piling up.” He smiled, picturing his father in scolding mode. He’d frown and shake a finger at Greg, but his eyes would be dancing with laughter. Greg had never thought he’d miss his father’s litany of complaints, but now that the old man was gone, he found himself wishing he’d paid a little more attention to what he’d had to say.

“He would gripe, but he’d still be proud.” Marisel impaled a stack of order slips on the spindle by the register. “It’s after six o’clock on a Friday night. What are you still doing here?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” He picked up a sheaf of invoices. “I’m working.”

She shook her head. “You need to hire someone to help you with all this paperwork. You can’t do everything.”

He laughed. “Are you trying to fill my father’s shoes in the griping department? You’re going to need more practice.”

She frowned. “A handsome young man like you should be out enjoying himself. Dancing. Seeing the girls.”

When had meeting women stopped being easy? He didn’t want to go hang out at bars by himself, and the buddies he used to hang with were either married and raising families or still living like frat boys, sharing apartments and living on beer and fast food. He was stuck somewhere in between, with a house of his own and a business to run, but no family to share it with.

He thought of the woman he’d met today outside the apartment, the one being evicted. Most of the women he knew would have dissolved into tears at the very thought of such public humiliation, but this one had been reading the riot act to crusty old Leon Kopetsky. Then she’d lashed out at him like a cobra.

He should have known better than to step into something that wasn’t his business, but she’d looked so alone, standing there with all her possessions piling up around her. He’d wanted to do something to help. It didn’t even matter that she didn’t want his help. There wasn’t any real heat behind her anger, only wounded pride. Too bad he didn’t have the chance to get to know her better.

He could ask Kopetsky her name, but what good would that do? It wasn’t like he had time to spend trying to track down his mystery woman.

“You should go out, meet someone nice,” Marisel prodded.

“I see plenty of women,” he said. “I was digging a new rose bed for the Lawson sisters just this morning. And Margery Rice calls me at least once a week to come over and see her.”

Marisel made a face. “The Lawson sisters are old enough to be your grandmothers and Margery Rice should be ashamed of herself, a married woman flirting like that.”

“Oh, I don’t take her seriously.” He paged through the invoices. Margery Rice was a very well-built forty-year-old who had let it be known he could leave his shoes under her bed any time, but he didn’t have any intention of taking her up on her offer. Still, it had been a while since a woman had warmed his sheets. Marisel was right; he needed to make more of an effort to find someone.

“I promise I’ll get out and circulate,” he said. “After the art show is over and I win the bid for Allen Industries.”

“If those people have any sense you’ll win the bid. But your father tried for years to get them as customers and he never could.” She shook her head. “That shows right there they aren’t too smart.”

He nodded. Yes, his father had gone after Allen Industries for years. But this year, Greg was determined to get the job. “There’s no way they can turn me down. The plan I outlined for them is exactly what they’re looking for, and no one will beat the price.”

“And then what? You’ll spend all your time making sure the job is done perfectly instead of getting out and having any kind of life.” She wagged her finger at him in a fair imitation of the old man. “You’re too young to be a hermit.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. At six-two, he towered more than a foot over Marisel, but she looked for all the world as if at any moment she’d lay him over her knee and tan his hide.

“You laugh, but don’t you know the woman for you isn’t going to fall out of the sky?”

“I was thinking I might find her hiding behind a rose bush one day.”

“Why would you think a loco thing like that?”

“Pop always said you could find all the best things in life in gardens.”

She made a clucking sound with her tongue. “I don’t think he meant women.”

“You never know. He might have.” The way things were going, Greg figured he had as much chance finding a woman in a garden as he did anywhere else. And he spent more time in gardens. He opened a drawer and shoved the invoices inside. “Come on. I’ll drop you off on my way home.”

She pulled her sweater close around her. “You don’t have to go to any trouble for me. I can take the bus.”

He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Come on. If you see any likely looking women on the way, you can point them out to me.”

She swatted at him. “You are a bad boy, Greg Polhemus.”

“Yes, ma’am. I work at it.”

He laughed as she began muttering under her breath in Spanish and led the way to the car. When he’d caught up on some of his jobs, he would make more of an effort to date. That house of his needed a family in it and he was tired of sleeping alone.

2

To dig is to discover.

LUCY COULDN’T BELIEVE she was moving back into her old bedroom at her age. She was supposed to be a strong, independent young woman. So what was she doing letting Dad rush to her rescue? She stared at the antique white bed and dresser her mother had picked out when Lucy turned ten. Her DVD player sat on the dresser next to the ballerina jewelry box Mom had given her for her thirteenth birthday. The bookcase in the corner held her collection of Sweet Valley High books and troll dolls.

She half expected her high-school best friend, Janet Hightower, to call and ask her for her notes from history, and had she seen that rad new guy in chemistry class?

She sighed and sank down onto the bed. Somehow, when she’d been planning her future, she’d thought she’d have been past all this by now. In fact, if the diary she’d kept when she was twelve had been accurate, she’d be living in a fifteen-room mansion in River Oaks with two perfect children, a millionaire husband who worshiped the ground she walked on and gave her diamonds “just because” and a silver Porsche in the driveway.

Which just goes to show that at twelve, she hadn’t known squat about real life.

She ran her hand along the end of the bed. When she bent over and pressed her nose up against the quilt, she could smell the faint scent of White Shoulders. Her mother’s favorite perfume. What was Mom up to now? Was she a young woman again, swooping around Heaven and flirting with all the men? Was she in some star-dusted greenhouse developing a new strain of tulip? Was she looking down wondering how the heck her daughter had managed to screw up her life—again?

“I’m going to get it together, Mom,” she said, in case Mom was listening. “I’m working on it.”

Mom laughed. Okay, it was only her imagination, but she knew if Mom was here, she would laugh. After gardening, Mom’s second favorite hobby was her daughter. “I’m going to find you the perfect man, don’t you worry,” she’d say.

Lucy groaned, remembering. Her mom’s idea of Mr. Perfect and hers hadn’t quite meshed. Lucy wanted men who flirted with danger. Bad boys who made her pulse race and her heart pound. Her oh-so-conventional childhood had made her long for darkly handsome rebels.

“Lucy! Where are you?”

“Back here, Dad.”

Her father appeared in the doorway, the ailing ficus in his arms. “I think this is the last of it,” he said.

“Thanks, Dad.” She stood and set the ficus by the window, then stepped back to survey her home-away-from-home. Except for the tree and the DVD player, it looked like she’d never left.

“So where are you working these days?” Her father took her place on the end of the bed.

“Um, I’m still doing temp work until I can find something more permanent.” She began unpacking her suitcase.

Dad made a noise that could have been a grunt. “I didn’t send you to college so you could do temp work.”

She gave herself credit for not rolling her eyes. “I’m an English major, Dad. Houston is full of English majors waiting tables and tending bar. There just aren’t that many jobs that call for quoting Emily Dickinson and analyzing Thomas Wolfe.”

“You ought to let me talk to the guys down at the hiring hall. They could get you into an apprenticeship program.” Dad was an electrician. “There are lots of single guys down at the hall,” he said. “You might meet somebody nice.”

“I don’t want to meet somebody nice.” She deposited an armful of T-shirts in the dresser and reached for the next stack.

“You want to meet somebody rotten?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I don’t want to meet anybody.” Not anyone her father would introduce her to. His idea of Mr. Right was probably even more straitlaced than her mom’s.

He leaned forward, worry lines etched on his forehead. “Honey, is there something you’re not telling me?”

“What do you mean?” She moved over and unzipped her garment bag.

“You say you don’t want to meet men. That doesn’t mean you want to meet women, do you?”

She dropped an armload of dresses. “No! Jeez, Dad!”

“I mean, not that I would care or anything. Not that I understand that sort of thing, but—”

“Daddy, I am not a lesbian.” She blushed. This was not the sort of conversation she ever pictured herself having with her father. She slid back the closet door and the scent of White Shoulders engulfed her. She blinked at the familiar houndstooth jacket in front of her. “What are Mom’s clothes doing in my closet?”

The bed creaked as he stood and came to stand behind her. “She started keeping some of her things in here after you moved out.” He cleared his throat. “Guess I haven’t gotten around to cleaning them out yet. I can move them into the attic if you want.”

He reached for the jacket, but she stopped him. “No, that’s okay.” She shoved the jacket and the clothes behind it to one side and hung her things on the rod. “There’s still room for mine. It’ll be okay.”

She looked at her cropped, red leather jacket next to her mom’s old houndstooth. Mom had never liked that jacket much, but now Lucy thought the two of them looked right at home together.

“Let me call the hall.” Daddy interrupted her reverie. “At least you could get a decent job out of it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to be an electrician.”

“Why not? It’s good, honest work. Kept a roof over your head and food in your mouth for plenty of years.”

She turned away and rolled her eyes. Looked like she was in for lecture number seven on Dad’s top ten hits. So much for thinking the rent here was free. She’d forgotten about the listening tax.

She made a show of looking at her watch. “Gosh, look at the time.” She smiled brightly. “What should we have for dinner?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m going out.” He turned toward the door. “I’d better get a move on or I’ll be late.”

She followed him down the hall. Her first night home and he was going out? “I thought we were going to go through the potting shed tonight.”

“You do it, hon. I’m going out.” He disappeared into the bathroom at the end of the hall.

Out? Her dad? She shrugged and wandered into the kitchen. The refrigerator held a quart of milk, a wedge of green cheese, half a package of sliced ham that was drying out around the edges, a jar of pickles, a twelve-pack of Bud and three Diet Sprites. The cabinets yielded some crackers, a can of tomato soup, a box of Lucky Charms and a jar of peanut butter. Lucky Charms? She hadn’t eaten those since junior high.

She was digging into a big bowl of sugar-frosted oats and marshmallows when Dad came out of the bathroom. A cloud of Brut preceded him down the hall. She let out a whistle when he appeared. He’d traded in the khakis and bowling shirt for starched jeans and a striped western shirt with pearl snaps and gold stitching around the yoke. Light bounced off the glossy surface of his boots. “So what do you think?” he asked.

“I haven’t seen you this dressed up since Aunt Edna’s third wedding.” Comprehension slowly stole over her sugar-charged brain. “You’re going out,” she gasped.

He reached for a western-cut sports coat. “That’s what I said.”

“I mean—you’re going out with a woman.”

He grinned. “Yeah. Don’t wait up for me.” He kissed her cheek, then left, the scent of Brut trailing after him.

She slumped in her chair, feeling as if she’d slipped into some alternate reality. Her dad? On a date? Mom had been gone only a year—wasn’t that a little soon? Only yesterday he’d been a grieving widower. Now he was all decked out like Garth Brooks, telling her not to wait up for him.

She carried her cereal bowl to the sink and dumped the contents down the drain. Who was this woman anyway? Some floozy he met in a bar? He’d been married to her mother for thirty years—what was he doing dating someone else?

Part of her realized she was being totally irrational. Her dad was a grown man. He had a perfect right to date.

The thought did nothing to make her feel better. This was her dad. Dads didn’t date. Okay, some did, but not her dad.

Then an even worse realization hit her. It was Friday night and she was home alone, while her dad had a date.

On this pathetic note, she opened a beer and wandered out the back door to the potting shed. Her parents’ house used to be a carriage house for the big Victorian next door, which now housed a hair salon, a new age bookstore, a pottery studio and four upstairs apartments. A six-foot high wooden fence separated the two properties, though Mom had had lattice panels installed in two places so the folks next door could look in on her garden.

The showiest flower beds were in the front of the house, devoted to an ever-changing array of colorful annuals. But the backyard was home to Mom’s prized roses. She had over thirty bushes in every color imaginable, including a purple rose that was almost black. All the roses had names, which Mom had tried to teach Lucy, but of course, she couldn’t remember most of them now.

The potting shed resembled a kid’s playhouse, with real glass windows on either side of a bright blue door. Lucy guessed this was appropriate, since it was sort of her Mom’s playhouse. She shoved open the door and the scent of potting soil and peat, mingled with undertones of White Shoulders, engulfed her. She swallowed a lump in her throat even as she glanced toward the workbench that ran along the back of the shed. She almost expected to see Mom there, up to her elbows in dirt, grumbling about aphids or spider mites or something.

But of course, she wasn’t there. Only a jumble of clay pots, seed packets, fertilizer spikes and flower stakes crowded the workbench. She took a deep breath and stepped into the shed. The least she could do was try to get the place in order.

She set aside her beer and began stacking the clay pots. On a shelf, she found an old shoe box that held seed packets filed in alphabetical order. Ageratum, alyssum, asters, bachelor buttons, basil…She recognized the flowers from the pictures on the front. Probably some of these were meant to be planted in the beds out front, but which ones?

Underneath everything else, she found a spiral-bound notebook with a picture of a Japanese pagoda on the front. Garden Planner was embossed in gold beneath the pagoda. She smiled, recognizing a Christmas gift she’d given to Mom several years before.

She pulled an old bar stool up to the bench and opened the planner. Important Numbers was the first page. Along with numbers for garden club members, seed companies and a local nursery was the following notation, in Mom’s clear handwriting: When in doubt, call Mr. Polhemus!!

Mr. Polhemus was a leathery-skinned old man who tilled the beds each spring and delivered mulch for the roses. Mom swore by his gardening knowledge. During those last six months, when the chemo left Mom too weak to plant, he’d even come over one Saturday and set out the fall annuals.

The planner was divided into months. Mom had made notes to herself for each month. Lucy flipped though the pages until the notation for September caught her eye: Always remember the importance of having a plan.

Was Mom talking about gardening or life? She frowned. Maybe her problem was she didn’t have a plan. After all, would a person with a plan be sitting at home—in her dad’s home—alone on a Friday night?

She turned the pages in the book until she found a blank sheet of paper, then fished a pen from an old soup can in the corner of the workbench. Number one, she wrote, then chewed on the end of the pen, trying to decide what was most important.

Get a decent job, she wrote.

Number two: Find a decent man.

She looked at her list. Okay, so maybe she could stand to include a little more detail. Like what constituted “decent” in either category.

She closed the book and shoved it aside. It was all too much to think about right now. In one day she’d endured the humiliation of being evicted, then been forced to move in with her father, of all people. To add to her misery, her supposedly still-grieving dad was now out on the town with who knows what kind of scheming floozy. Honestly, why was all this happening to her? Had she been cast in some new kind of reality show? Sleeze-o productions presents, How Low Can You Go! starring the lovely Lucy Lake as Hapless Victim number one!

She wandered out into the garden. The streetlight on the corner cast a soft glow over everything. Traffic over on the Loop was a low hum, in harmony with the fountain that bubbled at the center of the yard.

Her feet crunched on the oyster-shell path Mom and Mr. Polhemus had installed two years ago. The beds themselves were outlined in white rock Mom had collected at a quarry near Austin. The roses were arranged by type: chinas in one section, teas in another, climbers in a third. Normally at this time of year, the bushes would have been covered in blooms, the air awash with the scent of roses.

Unfortunately, Lucy wasn’t the only one missing her Mom. The roses looked like they were in mourning, too. Their leaves drooped and the few blooms she found were riddled with holes from marauding bugs.

Mom had planted her favorites in a bed along the back fence. She stared at Mom’s pride and joy, a huge pink rose named Queen Elizabeth, a sick feeling in her stomach. It was hardly more than a thorny cane, its few leaves a sickly yellow. Mom would have a fit if she saw this.

She knelt and began yanking weeds from around the Queen, anger adding strength to her efforts. While her dad was out gallivanting around town with who knows who, it would be up to her to look after Mom’s garden.

She was struggling to uproot a stubborn clump of grass when a movement near the fence made her scream and jump back. Visions of giant rats or gophers filled her head as she frantically looked for some weapon. People weren’t kidding when they said everything is bigger in Texas. Houston’s tropical heat and humidity grew nasty pests not seen outside of horror movies.

A snuffling noise from the shadows called forth a whimper from her paralyzed throat muscles. Oh God, please don’t let it be a rat. Or a possum. Or a mole. Or…

The almost-naked rose canes vibrated as something pushed past them. She jumped back. Where was a good-sized tree when you needed one? Rats didn’t climb trees, did they? What about possums? “Go away!” she shouted, and made shooing motions in the direction of the flower bed. “Get out!”

The creature, whatever it was, kept right on coming. She knew any minute now it would burst from the bushes and charge straight at her. She would have run, but her legs refused to listen to her brain. If she ever did get going, she’d probably trip and land face-down on the path. The only thing worse than confronting a rat was confronting one on its own level.

She glanced toward the trellis windows in the fence, hoping to see one of the neighbors out for a stroll. Preferably carrying a weapon—hey, this was Texas, it could happen—but the alley was empty. She took a deep breath. Obviously, she’d have to look out for herself. So what else was new?

The only thing available was the clump of weeds in her hand, so she threw that in the direction of the movement.

In horror she watched as a small shape shuffled out from beneath the rosebushes. It raised its head into the light and looked at her, a pair of beady brown eyes peering out from beneath an overhang of orange-red curls. “Woof” the dog said, and shook mulch from its curly coat.

3

Little problems have easy solutions; for big problems, it’s probably too late.

LUCY’S ADRENALINE SURGE abandoned her, leaving her weak-kneed and feeling a little foolish. A dog? She’d been terrified of a dog?

Not just a dog, she amended as the canine in question shuffled closer. A poodle. A toy poodle. Evidence of a long-ago trim still lingered in the pom-pom on the end of its tail and its overgrown topknot.

A flood of sympathy drove out the last vestige of fear. “Oh, baby, how did you get in the backyard?” She glanced toward the alley gate, but it appeared to be latched. She squatted down and held out a hand to the pup. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

The next thing she knew, the pooch had its front paws on her knees and was licking her in the face. Who needed makeup remover with a dog like this? “Okay, okay!” She held the dog at arm’s length, fending off sloppy kisses. (Reminded her of a few guys she’d dated.) She checked for a tag and collar—no sign of either. While she was at it, she took a peek between its legs. “So you’re a girl. That’s good.” Considering her track record, the last thing she wanted was another stray male in her life, even of the four-legged variety.

She set the pup on the ground and stood. “I’ll bet you’re hungry.”

“Woof! Woof!” The pup raced toward the back door and stood with her nose pressed against it.

She laughed. “I take that as a yes.” The pup raced ahead of her into the kitchen. She opened a cabinet and started shuffling through the contents. “We don’t have any dog food. I don’t suppose you’d like a can of soup, would you? Or Lucky Charms? I think I remember seeing a can of tuna fish….”

When she turned around, tuna in hand, she saw that her furry visitor had somehow managed to open the refrigerator and was busy demolishing the rest of the sliced ham. The dog made loud smacking noises and wagged her tail at Lucy.

“If you hang around long, I guess we’ll have to buy a lock for the refrigerator.” She shut the door and dropped the shredded ham wrapper into the garbage, then filled a bowl with water and set it down for the dog. The pup attacked that with enthusiasm too, managing to splash water in a foot-wide radius around the bowl. When it finally raised its head, water dripped from its ears and chin.

Lucy opened a Diet Sprite and leaned against the counter, studying her visitor. “I guess I should take you to a shelter.”

The dog sat up straighter and gave her a reproachful look. The kind of look that made her want to plead guilty to some crime she hadn’t committed. “I thought only mothers could look at you that way,” she muttered.

“Okay, so I guess the shelter idea is out. But I’ll have to call around and make sure nobody is looking for you. You’re kind of a cute dog for somebody to abandon.”

The dog rewarded this comment with a tail wag. Lucy sat at the kitchen table and the dog climbed into her lap and began the face-washing routine again. She tried to fend her off and checked the clock. How did it get to be after ten? And where was her dad?

He probably hadn’t been out this late since the Milligan’s New Year’s Eve party two years ago. What if he got tired and fell asleep at the wheel on the way home? What if all this socializing was too much for him and he had a heart attack? What if a drunk driver crashed into him…?

What if he decided to spend the night with his mysterious date?

She pushed the dog away, clutching at her own chest. Maybe the pain she felt wasn’t a heart attack, but it was definitely a heart ache. “Don’t go there. Do not even think about it.” After all, parents didn’t really have sex lives, did they?

“Woof!”

The pup cocked its head to one side and looked up at her. “What do you know about it?” she asked.

You know you have sunk to a new low when you spend a Friday night talking to a stray dog. What was worse, she actually imagined the dog looked sympathetic.

She tried watching TV, but all that did was put the dog to sleep. While the pup snored on one end of the sofa, Lucy went out into the potting shed and retrieved her mom’s garden planner. Maybe something in there would tell her what to do for the ailing roses.

The book was full of notes about gardening, all written in her mother’s careful hand. But she didn’t see anything that would help her save the roses. She found information on when to prune (missed that one already) and when to spray (missed that one, too.) Nothing about what to do with sick roses.

Of course not. The roses were never sick when Mom was alive.

I’ll bet that gardener I met today would know what to do. She shook off the thought. She didn’t even know the guy’s name, and it wasn’t as if she had any intention of going near Kopetsky again to find out.

She continued flipping through the book. August 15: plant fall tomatoes and asters. Order pyracantha and euonymus for new bed along driveway. Buy vitamins for Lucy.

She smiled. Mom was always telling her to take her vitamins. To bundle up when it was cold. To think positive. She used to view her advice as meddling. What she wouldn’t give to hear it all again.

With a sigh, she flipped the book shut, but it fell open again to the phone list at the front. The underlined words leapt out at her: When in doubt, Call Mr. Polhemus.

Of course. Mr. Polhemus would know what to do about the roses. She reached for the phone and dialed the number. No one would be in this time of night, but she could leave a message. “Polhemus Gardens, Leave a message and I’ll call you back.” Mr. Polhemus’s voice was a familiar growl on the answering machine.

“Hi. This is Lucy Lake—Barb Lake’s daughter. Her roses aren’t doing very well. I wonder if you could come over and take a look at them? It’s an emergency. Thanks.”

She felt a little better when she’d hung up the phone. At least she’d done something. The dog woke up and crawled into her lap. Her fur was soft as silk and her tummy was warm against Lucy’s thighs. All in all, she found the animal’s presence strangely comforting.

DAD FOUND THEM there on the sofa, asleep, when he came in. Lucy woke, heart pounding, when she heard the door click shut. “Who’s there?” She demanded, clutching the dog to her chest. As if a fifteen-pound poodle would be much protection.

The light came on and Dad stood in the doorway. “I told you not to wait up,” he said.

Meanwhile, the dog proved her watchdog capabilities by lunging toward Dad and launching herself at his chest. “Woof!” But the effect was spoiled by her wildly wagging tail and lolling tongue.

“Who is this?” Dad ducked away from the dog’s kisses.

“She was in the backyard. I guess she’s lost or abandoned.”

“Friendly little thing, isn’t she?” He scooped her up and handed her to Lucy. “And you found her in the backyard?”

“Yes. She was back behind the rosebushes.”

He chuckled. “Just what we need, another redhead who’s crazy about roses.”

Lucy glanced at the dog. Her hair was the same color as her mother’s. Her gaze shifted to the clock and she came instantly awake. “Dad, it’s almost three o’clock!”

He grinned. “Yeah, can you believe it?” He stretched and yawned. “I’m beat. I’m going to bed.”

She stared after him as he shuffled down the hall. She wanted to call after him, to demand he tell her what he’d been doing, and with whom. She frowned at the dog. “I don’t like this. And I don’t like that I don’t like it. What kind of a lousy daughter am I anyway?”

The dog whined and laid her head against Lucy’s arm. This must be why people like dogs so much, she thought. No one will adore you the way a dog will. They don’t care if you don’t look good or make a lot of money or if you have evil thoughts. Keep the dog biscuits coming and they’ll love you for life. If only men were so simple.

ENTIRELY TOO FEW hours later, Dad was pounding on the bedroom door. “Lucy, wake up! Greg Polhemus is here to see you.”

She surfaced from beneath the covers, grunting. “What time is it?” She mumbled and groped for the clock.

“It’s seven-thirty.”

Why did he sound so cheerful? She hated people who were that cheerful before noon. “What does he want?” She stifled a yawn and slid back down under the blankets.

“He said you called him.”

“Hmmm. Yeah. I guess I did.” Who cared about old Mr. Polhemus when this bed was so nice and comfy….

“Aeeeee!” She leapt out of bed, swearing and lunging around for the cruel person who would stick an ice cube in her side when she was trying to sleep.

How about a cruel dog? And it wasn’t an ice cube, but a cold, wet nose. The pup sat on Lucy’s pillow and wagged its tail, the doggy equivalent of a grin on its face. “What are you so happy about?” Lucy snapped.

“Woof!”

She figured that remark had something to do with breakfast. Not bothering to look in the mirror, she ran a brush through her hair and pulled on the shorts and T-shirt she’d worn last night. Every time she’d seen Mr. Polhemus, he was in the same stained coveralls and dirty ball cap, so he wasn’t likely to notice what she had on.

When she staggered into the kitchen, her dad was sitting at the table with a guy who had broad shoulders and thick blond hair. The stranger was laughing at something her dad had said and didn’t see her coming in. She froze in the doorway. Why hadn’t Dad mentioned Mr. Polhemus had brought a man with him? A man who might possibly notice her wrinkled shirt and rat’s nest hair, not to mention her leg stubble.

She backed toward her room. She’d just duck in, change clothes, wet her hair and blow it dry again, shave her legs, put on makeup—

“Lucy! What are you doing back there? Come on out and meet Greg.”

Her legs moved automatically as she stared, goggle-eyed, at the man with her dad. He had on more clothes today, but there was no mistaking those broad shoulders and that smile. “Greg? You’re Greg Polhemus?”

He smiled and stood. “If it isn’t Miss Nothing.”

He actually stood up. Her mother would love that. Of course Lucy had known that already, hadn’t she? But where was the real Mr. Polhemus? “What happened to the old man in the coveralls?” she blurted.

His smile faded. “That was my dad. He died last year.”

Okay, could they just rewind and start over? She gulped. “I’m sorry.” That’s the way she liked to start every day—shoe leather for breakfast.

She dropped into a chair and the dog immediately vaulted into her lap. “Cute dog,” Greg said.

“Uh, yeah.” She rubbed the dog behind the ears. Anything to keep from looking at him. “Yeah. She showed up last night. I think she’s lost.”

He leaned over and patted the dog’s flank. He smelled like Irish Spring. The dog’s tail beat against Lucy’s side. “Maybe somebody dumped her,” he said.

Some man, she thought. She scratched the pup’s chin. “I guess if no one claims her, I’ll keep her.” After all, we women have to stick together.

She stifled a yawn and risked a peek at Greg. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t a total geek. He hadn’t given her too hard a time about yesterday. At least not yet. And he did have nice hair and bronzed muscles and all…He looked up and caught her staring. She fought back a blush. “Do you always start work so early?”

He shrugged. “You said it was an emergency.”

“Well, yeah. It’s my mom’s roses. They’re dying.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I called you.” She was easily annoyed in the morning. Especially when she was operating on only four hours sleep. “Or rather, I called your dad.” She frowned at him. “Do you know anything about roses?”

He stood, towering over her. “I know everything about roses.”

She bit back a groan. Lord save her from arrogant men!

GREG FOLLOWED Lucy out into the backyard. She wasn’t exactly what he’d expected from Barb Lake’s daughter. Barb had been the stereotypical suburban housewife, in sweater sets and khakis. Her daughter looked like she’d stepped out of the pages of some hip fashion mag. Or rather, she looked like a model who’d slept in her clothes. She’d obviously just rolled out of bed. The thought sent a kaleidoscope of erotic images whirling through his brain.

He focused on her cute little bottom as she picked her way along the garden path. She was acting all bent out of shape because he had shown up instead of his dad, but he figured it was mostly a face-saving move, considering the last time he’d seen her she’d been literally tossed out on the curb.

He dragged his gaze away from her to study the yard. Sun glared off the oyster-shell paths and heat radiated off the fence boards. The thermometer on the wall showed eighty-two degrees.

Then his gaze landed on the roses and his stomach twisted. The bushes looked as if they’d been attacked by locusts. The canes drooped and drifts of yellow leaves decorated the mulch. Barb must be turning over in her grave. The old man was probably spinning right along with her. He moved closer and broke off a remaining leaf and examined it, then dug down into the mulch with his fingers. Lucy fidgeted beside him, like a patient waiting to hear the worst.

He moved to another bush, and then another, shaking his head and making clucking noises under his tongue. This was bad. Really bad.

“Well? What’s wrong?” Lucy blurted.

He straightened and turned to her. “More like what isn’t? You’ve got black spot, aphids, powdery mildew, root rot and rust.” He ticked the maladies off on his fingers.

She blinked at the pathetic plants, her mouth trembling. He braced himself for tears. Did he have a clean handkerchief anywhere?

“Can’t you do something?” she asked.

He looked at the roses again and sighed. “Maybe. It’ll take a lot of work.” Just what he needed. More work.

“That’s okay.”

Sure. A babe like her probably had a social life. “Um, what I meant to say is it will take a lot of my work.”

“Oh.” She traced a dollar sign in the oyster shell with the toe of her sandal. “Are you expensive?”

“I can be.” He grinned, unable to resist adding, “But then, I’m very good.”

She jerked her head up to stare at him and he gave her a lazy, half smile. Maybe trying to resuscitate Barb Lake’s roses wouldn’t be such a hardship. Especially if he could talk her daughter into working with him.

A noise in the bushes distracted them both. That little dog of hers was digging furiously in one of the beds. “Looks like the pup’s ready to get started,” he said.

“Hey! Get out of there!” She lunged and the dog darted away.

“What are you going to call her?” Greg asked.

She brushed aside the shower of leaves that had drifted onto her arms and shoulders when she’d gone after the dog. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”

“You found her in the garden. It ought to be something to do with gardening. How about Rose?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Rose doesn’t sound like a dog’s name.”

He looked around, seeking inspiration on the shelves outside the potting shed. Ortho—no. Daconil—He didn’t think so. Mille fleur fertilizer…He grinned. “How about Millie?”

She looked down at the dog. “I think I like it. What do you think, Millie?”

The dog’s ears drooped and she let out a low growl.

“I don’t think she likes it,” Greg said.

“Well, I do.” She scooped the dog into her arms. “From now on, I’m calling her Millie.”

He glanced around the garden again. “I’ll have a crew out on Monday.”

“Can’t you start today?”

He shook his head. “I have other jobs. This is going to take some time.” Although he didn’t know how much time the roses had left.

“What can I do to help?” she asked.

“You can pull all the mulch away.” He gestured to the beds. “We’ll need to dig out everything, put in new soil, prune, spray, fertilize….”

Her shoulders drooped and she cuddled Millie closer. “Uh, okay. I guess we’ll wait until Monday then.”

He grinned. “I’ll see you then.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll probably be at work.”

He thought he did a pretty good job of hiding his disappointment. “Where do you work?”

“Here and there.” She waved her hand in the air. “I’m between jobs right now, so I’m doing temp work until I find something in my field.”

“That must be interesting.”

“It’s not. Most of it bores me out of my mind, but it pays the bills. Some of them, anyway.” She glanced back toward the house. “It’ll be good for me to stay here a while, to, uh, help out my dad, you know.”

“Yeah.” He’d moved back home the last few months of his father’s life. It had been a strangely disorienting experience, but one he didn’t regret.

They stood there for a moment, alternately looking at each other and the half-dead garden. Even disheveled with no makeup, she was beautiful. She had short, spiky dark hair and big green eyes with long dark lashes and delicate features. Not a conventional beauty maybe, but she definitely stirred something in him.

“Well…uh, I’d better let you be going,” she said finally. She took a step back toward the house. “See you around.”

“Yeah. See you.”

She let him out the back gate. He made himself walk to his truck without looking back, but he was sure he felt her gaze on him. When he reached the truck, he risked a glance in her direction. She was still there at the gate, the dog in her arms, a pensive look on her face, as if she was trying to figure him out.

“Then that makes two of us,” he said softly, and climbed into the truck. If you come up with any answers, be sure to let me know.

Lucy watched Greg drive off and waited for the overheated feeling inside her to vanish. She’d obviously been alone too long if an arrogant geek like Greg could make her all hot and bothered. With any luck she’d have a job on the other side of town Monday and she wouldn’t see him at all.

She went back inside and found Dad gathering up his keys and wallet. “Dad, where are you going?”

“I’m meeting a friend for brunch.”

She sniffed the air. The distinct smell of Brut wafted over her. “The same friend you were with last night?”

He grinned. “No, a different one.” He kissed her cheek. “See you later.”

“Great, my dad has a better social life than I do.” Millie didn’t offer any sympathy this time. She was still staring after Lucy’s dad, a funny look on her face.

Lucy decided to call shelters. Not that she really wanted anyone to claim Millie, but she figured she had to make an effort, in case the pup was some child’s dog. She didn’t want to be responsible for some kid crying herself to sleep every night for the next week.

“Hello, Noah’s Ark? I have a poodle that wandered into my yard last night…. It’s a toy poodle, about fifteen pounds…Her hair is orange. Well, not really orange, sort of pinkish orange…. Oh, all right then, apricot…. No one’s reported a missing apricot toy poodle? Thank you.” She left her number, just in case, and moved on to the next listing.

Six shelters and not one had a report of a missing apricot poodle. She set down the phone and smiled at Millie. “Well, girl, looks like we’re stuck with each other.”

“Woof!”

So now should she spend a Saturday morning home alone doing laundry, or should she try to scare up a little fun? As if the washing machine wouldn’t still be there tomorrow. She decided to do something productive—her nails. She was adding the second coat of Marvelous Mauve when the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“What are you doing answering the phone at your parents’ house? Is something wrong?”

“Hello, Gloria.” She rolled her eyes. Gloria Alvarez was her oldest and dearest friend, and the one person who wouldn’t let her get away with anything. “Why are you calling my parents’ house?”

“I called your number and got a recording that said it had been disconnected. Then I tried your cell and no one answered. I stopped by your place and there’s some old guy with no teeth sitting in your living room.”

“It’s not my living room anymore.”

“What? You got a roommate?”

“No, I’ve been evicted.”

“Evicted? Kopetsky did that to you? How dare he!”

She smiled. That was Gloria for you. Ready to leap to a friend’s defense without a second thought. If Lucy let her, Gloria would be organizing a picket line to patrol the sidewalk in front of her old apartment and writing irate letters to the Houston Chronicle. “I think it had something to do with the fact that my rent checks kept bouncing.”

“Oh.” A long silence while she pictured Gloria taking a slug on her extra-large chai with soy milk. “Listen, if you’re a little short right now, I could loan you—”

“That’s okay. I appreciate it, but I’m doing okay. Really. I just need to keep track of things better.” And maybe cut down on shopping…but no, she’d catch up on everything as soon as she found a real job again.

“So where are you living now? I’d offer you a place, but with Dennis and the girls there’s no room.” Dennis was Gloria’s boyfriend, a struggling comedian who supplemented his income by teaching at a comedy defensive driving school. The idea was, if people had to sit through eight hours of traffic laws and driving techniques, at least make it entertaining. Dennis might never have a future on stage, but his presentation of the top ten ways to avoid a traffic ticket had people rolling in the aisles. The girls were a pair of greyhounds Gloria adopted from a rescue organization. Their names were Sand and Sable, tall elegant dogs that looked almost comical walking alongside short, round Gloria.

“That’s okay. I have a place to live.”

“Where? Don’t tell me you moved in with that musician. I told you he’s no good for you.”

“That musician” was an angst-ridden aspiring country star Lucy had dated for a few weeks. He only knew three chords on the guitar and he sang with a twang that would peel paint, but he looked spectacular in a pair of starched jeans and a cowboy hat, so Lucy had no doubt he’d go far. Gloria had hated him on sight.

Gloria hated all the men Lucy dated. She claimed to be able to read in the tarot cards that these men weren’t good enough for her friend. Maybe she was right, since no man had been good for her yet. “No, I moved back home. Just until I get back on my feet again.”

She was sure Gloria would have lots to say on this subject, none of it good, but her friend surprised her. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “It’s healthy to get back to your roots sometimes. Home is a good place to heal.”

“Gloria, I’m not sick.”

“Maybe not physically, but spiritually—Listen, I have a new book to lend you. It’s called Karmic Healing and the woman who wrote it…”

Lucy sort of tuned out the rest of what Gloria had to say. So sue her. Gloria had a new theory about life every week. She was into crystals, fortune telling, feng shui, aura reading and ancient Native American rituals. Only last week, she’d told Lucy ten different ways to realign her chakras.

As for Lucy, if a theory didn’t involve shopping or chocolate, she wasn’t interested. “I have to go, Gloria. I, uh, I think someone’s at the door.”

“Wait, wait. I have to tell you the reason I called. My friend Jean has a booth at the downtown art fair and I told her I’d stop by. Wanna come?”

“Sure. I’m into art.” Anything was better than washing her father’s shorts. “And afterwards maybe we could swing by the mall….”

Gloria laughed. “Okay. Pick me up in half an hour.”

4

Making simple matters complex or complex matters simple are both bad gardening techniques.

LUCY LEFT MILLIE with a breakfast of canned tuna and a fresh bowl of water. She made a mental note to buy dog food and something more substantial than dry cereal for herself while she was out today. After she’d backed the car out of the garage, she glanced back and the dog was watching her out the window like an abandoned child. I don’t need this kind of guilt, she thought.

Gloria and Dennis shared a duplex off Gessner. It was one of those areas of the city that used to be run-down but was now trendy. Slick new apartments sat side by side with sagging bungalows. Gloria claimed this gave the neighborhood character. Personally, Lucy thought it meant paying high taxes and still having to dodge the crack-house traffic on weekends.

But Gloria and Dennis had fixed up their place and it looked real nice, if you didn’t mind purple burglar bars on the downstairs windows and a red front door. When Lucy pressed the door bell, she set off frantic barking, accompanied by the scrabble of toenails on the hardwood floors. Gloria opened the door and Sand and Sable launched themselves at Lucy with all the enthusiasm of body surfers in a mosh pit. She fended off doggy kisses and lashes from doggy tails. “Yes, I’m thrilled to see y’all too,” she said as Gloria dragged them by the collars back into the house.

Dennis appeared in the hallway, a container of instant ramen noodles in his hand. “Hey, Lucy. What are you chicks up to?” Like many men in their late twenties and early thirties, Dennis had his hair cut very short in an attempt to disguise the fact that he was going bald. Unfortunately, he also had rather large ears, one of which sported a gold loop. When he wore a white T-shirt, as he did now, he bore a startling resemblance to Mr. Clean.

“I told you, we’re going over to see Jean’s display at the art festival.” Gloria made a face at Lucy. “He never listens.”

“I listen.” He stabbed at the noodles. “I just don’t agree that what Jean does is art.” He pointed the forkful of quivering noodles at her. “She makes collages out of garbage.”

“It’s found art,” Gloria corrected.

“Garbage.”

Lucy hated it when her friends fought. She never knew what to say and besides, the argument was usually over something really uninteresting. It wasn’t as if she could actually get involved in the conversation. “How did it go at the Laugh Stop last night?” she asked Dennis.

“Lame crowd.” He spoke around a mouthful of ramen. “They wouldn’t know funny if it bit ‘em in the ass.” He dropped the fork into the ramen container and set it on the hall table. “Gotta go. Got a class this afternoon.” He aimed a kiss in the direction of Gloria’s cheek. “Catch you chicks later.”

When he was gone, Lucy helped Gloria put the girls in the backyard. “How was your first night back at home?” Gloria asked.

“Okay, I guess.” She waited while Gloria locked the various deadbolts on her front door. “My dad went out on a date.”

“A date?” She grinned. “I think that’s sweet.”

Lucy led the way to her car. “Gloria! It’s only been a year.”

“But your mom was sick for a year before that. I mean, he must have been lonely. Besides, your dad’s kinda cute. If I didn’t have Dennis—”

Lucy clapped her hands over her ears. “You did not say that. I do not want to hear my best friend lusting after my dad.”

She opened the car and they both slid in. “Speaking of lust, is there a new man in your life?” Gloria asked as she fastened her seat belt.

“No. Why would you think that?”

“Your aura has a nice warm red tone today. Signifying sexual arousal.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. The things Gloria believed. “I do not have a new man in my life.” She pulled the car into traffic and headed downtown.

“Auras don’t lie. You haven’t met anyone new? Even casually?”

“No. Well, not unless you count the gardener I hired to try to salvage my mom’s rose garden.”

“Oh? Is this a male gardener?”

She thought of Greg Polhemus’s well-defined muscles and broad shoulders. “Uh, yeah.”

“Then he counts.” Gloria angled toward Lucy and assumed her therapist’s tone of voice. “Tell me about him.”

She shrugged. “What’s to tell? His dad always took care of my mom’s garden. I got his number out of her garden planner. But then the old man’s son showed up instead.”

“What happened to the old man?”

“He died. About the same time as my mom.”

“See, there’s something you have in common.”

“Gloria, I am not lusting after this guy. He’s a gardener and that’s it.”

“Is he good-looking?”

She squirmed and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “I suppose. If you like the clean-cut, straight-arrow type.”

“And, of course, you don’t.”

“Come on, Glor. Have I ever gone in for guys like that? You know I dig men who are more exciting. Dark and dangerous.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re still single.” She held up her hands in a defensive gesture. “I’m only saying auras don’t lie. You ought to think about this guy more.”

“All I’m thinking about is whether or not he’s going to save my mom’s roses. You should see them. They’re pathetic. Mom would cry.”

Gloria leaned across the seat and patted her hand. “It’ll work out. Things always do.”

Easy for someone to say who already had a job and a man she loved.

They snagged a parking place a couple blocks from the festival and followed the crowds toward the plaza that had been taken over by artists’ booths. Lucy could have found her way with her eyes closed by following the smell of corn dogs, funnel cakes and sunscreen that was the particular perfume of any outdoor festival.

In addition to food and artwork of every description, the booths featured an array of handmade items, from intricate beaded jewelry to crocheted doilies no extra roll of toilet paper should be without.

Halfway down the first aisle, she spotted a booth advertising homemade doggie treats. She grabbed Gloria’s arm. “Wait, I want to get some of these.”

“You don’t have a dog.” She followed her into the booth.

Lucy grabbed up a plastic bag and began filling it with bone-shaped cookies. “I do now. She showed up in the garden last night. An apricot poodle. I named her Millie.”

“How sweet. That’s a very good sign, you know, that she chose you for her new home. Animals have good instincts about people.”

“Glor, it’s a stray dog. She was in our yard. Where else was she supposed to go?”

Gloria spread her arms wide. “Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling you you’re about to begin a series of new relationships.”

I’d settle for one good relationship with a member of the opposite sex, she thought, but she didn’t dare tell Gloria that. She might start in on Greg Polhemus again.

They found Jean’s booth in the second aisle. Jean worked at the crisis center with Gloria when she wasn’t assembling art from trash. Lucy studied a piece displayed at the front of the booth. It featured a penny, a dime, a gum wrapper, a cough drop covered with fuzz and a ball of lint formed into something resembling a tornado, in which the aforementioned items whirled. Wash Day Blues was neatly inscribed in ink across the bottom.

“It’s a collection of all the items I found in my pockets while doing laundry,” Jean explained, coming up behind her. “Clever, huh?”

“Uh, yes.” But would anyone actually pay for it?

While Gloria and Jean discussed the significance of garbage as a cultural indicator, Lucy wandered across the aisle to a booth displaying beaded jewelry. Now this was art she could relate to. She picked out a black-and-purple choker and carried it over to the mirror to try it on. She’d about decided she had to have it when a movement in the mirror caught her eye. A woman in a tight leather miniskirt, fringed tank top and hot-pink cowboy boots was waving a peacock feather fan around like she was Gypsy Rose Lee while a gray-haired man in starched jeans and ostrich boots looked on.

Her stomach took a dive toward her ankles as her numb brain finally registered that the guy was her dad and the woman was someone she’d never seen before in her life.

She dropped the choker and whirled around, gasping for air. Gloria ran over to her. “Lucy, what’s wrong? Your face is so pale. And your aura…” She stepped back and furrowed her brow. “Honey, your aura looks really bad.”

Who gives a flying fig what my aura looks like? She felt like shouting, but some invisible hand had a hold of her throat and all she could do was point in the direction her dad and his “date” had headed.

When she could talk again, she told Gloria she’d seen her dad with a strange woman. “Come on, we have to follow them.” She took off after them, past a booth full of pottery, a caricature artist and a display of batik clothing. She finally spotted them at the funnel cake booth. Little Miss Leather was breaking off bits of fried dough and feeding them to her dad, who obediently opened his mouth like a toddler playing the airplane game.

She grabbed on to the corner post of the sausage-on-a-stick hut, feeling sick to her stomach.

“C’mon, Loo. What’s the big deal? He’s just having a little fun.”

“Gloria, that woman is my age.”

She tilted her head to one side, considering this. “Oh, I think she’s a little older than that. Thirty, at least.”

“That’s still twenty-five years younger than my dad. And look at the way she’s dressed.”

“That leather looks awfully warm for this time of year. But the boots, very retro. I wouldn’t mind a pair for myself.”

Lucy glared at her. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

“I have to choose a side? I didn’t know we were having a fight.”

She clenched her hands into fists. “We aren’t, but we will be if you keep insisting on defending that bimbo.”

Gloria shook her head and made a tsking sound. “Now, be rational.”

“I don’t want to be rational!” Honestly, what was rational about this situation? This was her father they were talking about, not some stranger. A man who had spent almost every Saturday for the past ten years at the hardware store or watching sports on television. Why was he suddenly chasing around after a woman half his age?

“You don’t even know her,” Gloria said. “She might be very nice.”

She took a deep breath. This was one of the things she didn’t understand about life: just when she thought she was all grown-up, a sensible, mature woman, something like this would happen to make her feel like a six-year-old. The thought of throwing a temper tantrum was eerily satisfying at the moment.

About that time the woman in question started sucking the sugary remnants of the funnel cake off her fingers with an enthusiasm that caused her dad’s eyes to glaze over, and Lucy’s brief stab at maturity to flee. “I don’t care if she teaches kindergarten to underprivileged children and spends Sundays volunteering at the nursing home,” she growled. “I don’t want her dating my father.”

The couple started off walking again and Gloria and Lucy followed at a distance. They were holding hands now, her father standing so erect, shoulders squared and chest out, that Lucy wondered how he could breathe.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he dated someone his own age, she thought. Someone sweet and motherly. But what did a bombshell like this gal see in a fifty-five-year-old man? Okay, so he was in pretty good shape for his age, but honestly…What if she was trying to scam him? Dad would be easy to take advantage of. After all, he’d been out of the dating scene a long time. He didn’t know what it was like out there. Things were bound to have changed a lot and he’d be an easy mark for some unscrupulous bimbo.

Dad and the woman stopped at a booth selling ceramic masks. While she admired one of the fanciful creations, Dad turned to face Lucy and Gloria, gazing idly around. Lucy ducked into the large tent to keep from being seen.

The tent featured all kinds of bushes and trees growing in pots and cut into fanciful shapes. “Topiaries,” Gloria said, admiring a baby elephant sculpted of ivy. “These are very nice.”

Lucy peeked out from behind a penguin made of privet. “Are they still over by the masks? I can’t see.”

Gloria glanced behind her. “They’re still there.”

Lucy moved up, still keeping behind the displays in case Dad looked this way again. “What are they doing?”

“I think she’s trying to convince your father to buy one for her.”

“I knew it! She thinks he’s her next sugar daddy.”

“Good afternoon, ladies. May I help you?” A smiling, older Latina woman approached. “That is a beautiful poodle, isn’t it?”

Lucy stepped back and realized she’d been lurking behind a larger-than-life sized rendition of a poodle. “Uh, yes. Yes, it is.” She thought of Millie. Why hadn’t she stayed home with her today instead of ending up in this mess?

“Are you looking for something in particular?” the saleswoman asked.

She shook her head. “Uh, no. We’re just looking.”

“Uh-oh,” Gloria hurried to join her behind the poodle. “They’re headed this way.”

The saleswoman looked confused. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Everything’s fine.” She retreated further into the tent. “We’ll have a look over here.”

“Over there!” Gloria nudged her and pointed to a sign marked Maze.

She followed her into the maze, which had been formed out of pots of clipped hedges. The only problem was, the hedges were only chest high. They had to crouch down to stay hidden. Which meant her butt was sticking up. Not the most attractive position.

“I think this must be for kids,” Gloria said.

She peeked over the top of the maze and saw her dad and the woman enter the tent. Her dad pointed to the poodle and said something that made the woman laugh. She ducked down again, narrowly avoiding being seen.

“Why don’t you go out there and introduce yourself?” Gloria said.

She was right, of course. This was a public place. There was no reason she shouldn’t walk right up to her father and say hello. Except how would she explain what she was doing in the kiddie maze?

That, and the fact that she was a coward.

“They’re coming this way,” Gloria hissed.

She tried to see through the bushes, but they were too thick. Then she spotted a gap a little farther down the line. If she spread a couple of branches apart with her hands, she could just fit her head through…there. Now she could see them and she was pretty sure they couldn’t see her.

The woman was clinging to Dad’s arm as if she might fall over without support and Dad still looked slightly dazed. He was carrying a plastic bag that she guessed held the mask and no telling what other swag she’d talked him into buying for her. Come over here a little closer, she thought, glaring at her. I’ll drag you into these bushes and show you what happens to women who take advantage of my father.

About that time, they turned in her direction and she shrank back. Of course, she had no real intention of getting into a catfight in the middle of the children’s maze. She liked to think she was tough, but her real nature had the fortitude of warm custard.

Something on the far side of the tent caught the bimbo’s eye and she dragged Dad off in that direction. Lucy heaved a big sigh. While the woman and Dad were occupied elsewhere, maybe she could sneak away.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Gloria said. Lucy felt her crawl past.

She had every intention of joining her friend, but when she tried to turn around, her head wouldn’t move. She was wedged firmly in the tightly woven branches. “Uh, Gloria?” she said in a loud whisper.

But apparently Gloria was already too far away to hear her. Lucy wrapped her fingers around the limbs on either side of her neck and tried to pry them apart, but all that got her was scratches on her arms. Great, she thought. I’ll be stuck here forever.

“Daddy, what’s that lady doing over there?”

“I don’t know dear. Perhaps she lost a contact lens. Let’s not bother her.”

Yeah right. Everybody looks for contact lenses in the walls of a maze. She guessed it made as much sense as spying on your own father. She pulled back harder, tears stinging her eyes as twigs raked her skin and tangled in her hair.

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