“What waste?”

“Their castings and tea.” Mike should have known his son wouldn’t let him off that easy. “That’s their poop and urine. It works like a fertilizer. So we can dump that in another part of the yard, like where we plant bushes or trees… Hey, I hear the doorbell. That’ll be your Grandma Conroy.”

“No! Do I have to go, Dad? I want to stay with you.”

His parents may have been unhappy about the divorce, but both were thrilled to have their one and only grandson suddenly within three miles of them. Barbara Conroy had always tended to dress on the formal side, but today she wore snug jeans and a long T-shirt-a perfect getup for surviving the day with a four-year-old. “Hey, you.” She snagged a kiss off him first, gave him a motherly look over. “You doing okay?”

“Couldn’t be better.”

She said something to him-but his attention was diverted when a car pulled up next door. It was a meeting of the Lexuses. His mom’s was lipstick-red, Amanda’s mom favored a custom-painted sapphire. Apparently it was a mutual grandma-pick-up-grandkid day.

Both grandmothers looked alike-blondish hair, great bones, slim and both appearing energetic and younger than their years. They spotted each other, about the same time Molly skipped out the door and saw Teddy.

Molly stuck out her tongue at Teddy. The insult was returned. Then Slugger started baying because the poodle next door started an excited-barking thing. The grandmothers started talking and laughing at the commotion, but for one whole, long second, all he saw was her.

Amanda.

The grandmas herded their respective grandkids into their respective Lexuses. Mike heard Amanda tell her mother, “Mom, please don’t call her princess” and then a minute later, “Mom, no buying her a million toys. Just be together, okay? Have a good time.”

And her mom responded with a chant of “uh-huh, uh-huh” as if they’d had this conversation a zillion times before, and the whole while she was winking at her granddaughter. Molly appeared to need several suitcases to be gone for a few hours.

Teddy just galloped to the car and climbed in. By the time the cars pulled out and all the noise disappeared-even the dogs quieted down-suddenly there were just the two of them with nothing more than a spare stretch of driveway separating them.

Lightning arced between them, even though there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.

“I owe you a big thanks,” she called out.

“No sweat.” He’d put her painting stuff on the back porch before daybreak, hoping he wouldn’t have to run into her. But now, the more he looked at her, the more he relaxed. Last night, there’d been something…off…between them. An intimacy, because of being alone at night, the dark, her not wearing much and then nothing while she was in the shower, her crying, the whole thing.

It wasn’t as if that chemical-lightning thing had disappeared. If anything, the charge was more intense-but now he was braced for it. And looking at her this morning was reassuring. She looked…well…prissy. Not vulnerable and cute, like last night, with the naked navel and the wild heap of red hair. Today, her hair was scooped up, a spotless yellow shirt paired with white shorts, sandals with yellow flowers. And she had on makeup. At this hour of the morning.

He hadn’t shaved in three days now-hadn’t brushed his hair in two. No reason to spruce up-he wasn’t trying to please or attract any female again. Still, he was glad to admit he had a heap of things he had to do-she hastily admitted the same-and they both took off in opposite directions.

It was the truth, besides, Mike thought self-righteously. With Teddy gone, it was a perfect chance to make a trip to the hardware store.


Amanda let Darling out for a quick business trip in the backyard, petted Princess, grabbed her car keys and list and headed out. She’d had a spiffy Austin Healey before the divorce. Now she had a white SUV, which looked like a clone of all the soccer moms’ transport vehicles up and down the neighborhood.

Mike was gone, she noticed. At least, his garage door was open and his truck nowhere in sight. She hadn’t forgotten what a hero he’d been for her last night, but thankfully, she’d wakened this morning certain that he was a resistible hero. They both had their hands full with major life changes right now. And she wasn’t about to forget the major life lesson that had been battered into her by the divorce.

She wasn’t going to be the needy one in a relationship ever again.

She backed out of the drive and turned left-then immediately realized she should have steered right. It was going to take a while before she got her bearings in the neighborhood, and hardware stores were hardly her normal milieu. This morning, though, she had a major hardware-store type of list. She wanted bricks, to make a brick walkway in the back. Mulch. Stones. Eventually she wanted a porch swing back there, too.

In the meantime, she needed just stuff. Gardening gloves. A little spade. A little shovel. She didn’t even have a flashlight in the house. Somehow she had to figure out a way to mow the grass. And Mike-not that she wanted to keep dwelling on her neighbor-had intimated she needed a sturdier ladder.

She located the store-after only a couple of wrong turns-and even found a reasonably close parking spot. She’d been in one of these warehouse hardware stores before. Once. But she didn’t have a clue where anything was, so she just grabbed a cart and pulled out her list. She figured she’d get the boring stuff over with first-the household tools. Hammers and screw drivers and flashlights. Picture-hanger doohickeys. Things like that.

Thankfully that chore didn’t take long, but once she wandered into the garden center, there seemed a million choices, a million things to look at. She slowed down. Absently started humming…

Moments later, she realized someone else was humming, too. A man’s hum. Not in the same aisle where she was looking at bricks and stones, but somewhere not far. When she stopped humming to listen, he stopped, too.

When she started humming again, so did he.

She glanced around the corner into the next aisle. Saw nothing. Shaking her head, she continued on. She would have to find some help, get someone to carry the bulky items for her. In the meantime…well, she wasn’t sure how she ended up in the plumbing aisle, but suddenly there he was.

Mike.

He spotted her about the same time she spotted him. He had a faucet set in his hand. She was still holding her list. But for a petrifying second, she forgot what she was doing altogether.

She told herself swiftly that it was nothing like the night before. Granted, he’d come across as this handsome, wonderful white knight, all sexy eyes and protectiveness and strength…but she so wasn’t about to believe in the fairy-tale thing again.

And once she caught her breath, she realized it was okay today. Better. He was just an oversized scruffy mutt, after all. And as long as she didn’t look directly in his eyes, she didn’t feel any of those…well, zingers. As if she’d been prodded with something electric and compelling. As if she was somehow meant to move closer to him.

She tried a light laugh. “I swear, we keep meeting in the oddest places!”

He finally looked away from her, too, and lifted the package in his hands. “I’ve been looking at faucets. Nothing exactly wrong with what we’ve got, but there’s a new kind…” He showed her. “You can turn it on and off with a wrist, never have to touch a handle. Which means that little boys-and big ones-don’t necessarily have to wipe out a whole sink when they’re cleaning up.”

“Now that would be a miracle,” she said with an other laugh, this one more natural. “I’m new at the yard-and-gardening business. Never had any ‘green’ to work with in the city. So I’ve just been shopping for some general tools and landscaping stuff.”

“Yeah, we’re getting into that kind of trouble in our house, too.”

So much for small talk. She took a breath, knowing she really needed some things to be said. “Look. I can’t thank you enough for last night. You certainly didn’t need to finish painting the wall or doing the cleanup-that was way over the top. And after I cried all over you, too.”

“Yeah, that was really awful. Don’t do it again.”

She was startled, then realized he was teasing. His crook of a smile momentarily disarmed her, but then, blast it, she realized she was looking at him again, feeling the pull of, say, an earthquake or a tsunami.

“Well, I owe you a payback.” She hoped her voice came out sounding normal.

“Forget it. No problem.”

“I was thinking of bringing you a homemade lasagna-”

“Whoa. Complete change of mind. You do owe me a payback.”

This time they both laughed. “So you like lasagna. Okay. Done deal. I’ll bring it over tomorrow, around 5:00 p.m. or so.” She pulled her cart, as if she were going to go back to her shopping, but then couldn’t seem to resist asking, “Was that your mom who picked up Teddy?”

“Yeah. Barbara. And my dad’s name is David. They’re over the moon we bought the house here. Teddy’s the first grandchild. Their place is just a few towns over, in Lisle.”

She pulled at her cart again, as if she had the good sense to cut the small talk and go back to her shopping chores. Somehow, her feet seemed rooted right there, temporarily, though. She couldn’t seem to quell a second round of nosiness. “How about Teddy’s mom?” When Mike lifted an eyebrow, she said swiftly, “I know, I know. It’s none of my business. But if we’re living next door, I don’t want to accidentally say something hurtful or difficult for your son, so…you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” His arched brow suggested he knew perfectly well she was being nosy. But he answered. “Right now I’ve got primary physical custody. My ex-wife hasn’t remarried yet, but she’s about to be.” He lowered the brow. “Truth is, Teddy’s real bent out of shape about his mother. He doesn’t get it. Why his mom would take off. He seems to believe that she personally abandoned him.”