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