Her Second-Chance Man. Cara Colter

moments later, it mirrored the way he felt. Empty. His house looked unlived in and uninviting.

      It was a modest two-bedroom, stucco bungalow in a newer subdivision of Esquimalt. He kept the lawn mowed and the newspapers picked up, but this morning the house looked cold. He realized, embarrassed by such an unmanly thought, that it would be improved with some flowers, a little landscaping.

      Some of the neighbors had landscaped with twig trees surrounded by tiny shrubs.

      He realized he yearned for something more flamboyant. Flowers mixed with grass falling all over each other. Since the look would be totally out of place in his well-ordered neighborhood, he supposed that was about her, too.

      How could one visit have left him feeling so unsettled? As if he was suddenly seeing his life through Jessica’s eyes?

      There was an easy solution to that. Don’t see her again. After all, it had worked last time. But even thinking that felt like a cheap shot.

      He went around the side walk and in the back door. He had become accustomed to sharing mornings with Michelle as she got ready for school. She was perpetually grumpy, but better company than no one. More recently, the puppy had added some liveliness to the morning routine, particularly if somebody stepped in some pee.

      He took off his boots, went up the four steps into his kitchen, and looked at his surroundings as if he was seeing them for the first time. The room was not messy, because he always shoved the dishes in the oven until he ran out, but it seemed suddenly lacking in any kind of personality.

      Jessica’s kitchen had not exactly been tidy. Why had it felt like it was brimming over with warmth and liveliness?

      He had a plain, wooden kitchen set, its lines straight and clean and modern—Danish it was called. The fridge and stove gleamed white, and there were European-style cabinets as white as the fridge and stove. Venetian blinds, closed, covered the window over the sink. Now that it had been pointed out to him he found the odd little finger smudge, but it was still a nice room. Efficient. Roomy. Bright. But it needed something.

      “Yeah,” he said sarcastically, “like plants hanging from the ceiling and hundred-year-old chairs painted red and yellow.”

      A voice inside him did not pick up the sarcastic note. It said exactly.

      There she was again, Jessica making her presence known in his life, even though she was thirty miles away. She was just a bit of a thing. How did she manage to exude so much power?

      Hocus-pocus, he reminded himself. Well, he wasn’t falling under her spell.

      Okay, so his kitchen needed some color. Something over the window—a valance, he thought it was called—some cushions on the chairs, place mats on the table. That’s why Sears had their whole-home plan, so guys like him could pick out some matching stuff without the complication of the little woman.

      He stepped in the dog’s water dish, something that was part of his morning routine, and wondered if he should get rid of it, just in case the dog did not return. O’Henry was painted on it in pink nail polish, the handwriting ridiculously curly, childish and feminine at the same time.

      Had O’Henry made it through the night? The answering machine wasn’t blinking, not that he was at all certain Michelle would call him to report a life tragedy. Brian glanced at the clock. Just now seven o’clock. Way too early for him to phone there.

      Not that calling seemed like the right thing to do for a man who wanted to keep things tidy and impersonal. What was he going to say? Good morning? Did the dog die?

      He wanted to hear her voice. Was Jessica casting a spell on him?

      Annoyed with himself, he picked up the dish and emptied it, thought about it for a minute, and then tucked it into the cupboard under the sink, behind the garbage can, where it wouldn’t be a reminder in case the dog was not coming home. He would not have been so sensitive a few months ago.

      He looked at the clock again. He should sleep, but a different plan was formulating. If he showered, he could pick up some breakfast for all of them and be out there by eight-thirty That seemed more diplomatic than phoning and asking if the dog had died.