I’ll send a check for two hundred dollars in the next mail—”
“Could you make that a money order, baby? And if you could see clear to maybe make that two-fifty, or even three, I’d really appreciate it.”
Karleen sighed. But, she thought after she hung up, at least her aunt hadn’t asked to come stay with her.
A thought that made her feel prickly all over, like the time she’d lifted up a piece of wood in the backyard after a rainstorm and a million great big old waterbugs had scurried out from under it. Even though it had been probably twenty years since she’d spent any significant time with her aunt, just talking to the woman disturbed a swollen, never-quite-forgotten nest of skin-crawling memories.
Karleen sucked in a lungful of air, then glanced over at the big mirrored clock by the entertainment center. Plenty of time before her afternoon appointment to do some digging in the garden, work off some of this negative energy.
She traded her bicycle shorts for jeans, shoved her feet into a pair of disreputable sneakers, plopped her silly straw hat on her head and went outside, where she was greeted by that brain-numbing music Troy liked so much. She half thought about going back inside, only to decide she couldn’t become a recluse simply because her new neighbor made her uncomfortable in ways she didn’t want to think about too hard. The music, though, might well drive her right over the edge.
So she rammed a Garth Brooks CD into the boom box on the deck, hit the play button and tromped over to her shed. Honestly, she thought as the metal doors clanged open, she doubted Troy was even forty yet. How he could like music that reminded Karleen of meat loaf and black-and-white television, she had no idea. Eighties rock, she could have understood. She wouldn’t ’ve liked it any better, but at least it would’ve made sense.
But then, there was a lot about Troy Lindquist that didn’t make sense. Like why, if he was so well off, he’d bought a fixer-upper out in Corrales when he could’ve easily bought one of those flashy McMansions up in the foothills. Why there didn’t seem to be a nanny or housekeeper in the picture.
Not that any of it was her business, but it was curious.
After shaking out her thickest gardening gloves in case somebody with too many legs had set up housekeeping inside, she yanked them on, then batted through a maze of cobwebs to find her shovel, which she carted over to a small plot that, unfortunately, was next to Troy’s fence. But that was the only spot in the yard that wasn’t in shade half the day, or plagued with cottonwood roots.
The pointed steel bit into the soft soil with a satisfying crunch. By the third thonk, two little pairs of sneakered feet suddenly appeared on the lower rail, followed by two little faces hanging over the top. Two little eat-’em-up faces that she bet looked exactly like father’s when he’d been that age.
“Whatcha doing?” the shorter-haired twin, clearly the appointed spokesperson of the duo, now said. The babies reminded her of leaves fluttering in the breeze, never completely still.
“I’m gettin’ the soil ready so I can plant a garden.”
“Whatcha gonna plant?”
“Tomatoes,” she said, breathing a little hard as she jabbed the shovel into the soil. Most people would use a rototiller and be done with the chore in no time flat, but Karleen liked doing it the old-fashioned way. “Cucumbers. Squash. Maybe cantaloupe.” For some reason, she couldn’t grow flowers to save her soul, but vegetables, she could handle.
“C’n we help?”
“Yeah,” the second, smaller one said, his voice like a butterfly’s kiss. “C’n we?”
“Oh, I’m not planting anything today,” she said, secure in the knowledge that by the time she did, they would have in all likelihood forgotten this conversation. “It still gets too cold at night. So not for weeks yet.”
“Oh,” the first one said again. “But when you do, c’n we help?”
Then again, maybe she’d have to plant by moonlight this year.
Then the littler one said, his eyes like jumbo blue marbles in a face that was all delicate angles, “Yeah, we never, ever had a garden before.”
Oh, Lord.
“Tell you what,” she said, straightening up and shoving her hair out of her face with the back of her wrist, which was when she noticed Troy, his damp T-shirt molded to his torso, standing on his deck, watching her as intently as a cat stalking a bird. “When it’s time, you can ask your father, and we’ll see,” which of course sent both boys streaking away shouting, “Daddy! Daddy! C’n we help Karleen plant her garden?”
Troy swung the first child to reach him up into his arms, making the little boy break into uncontrollable giggles as he blew a big, slurpy kiss into his neck. Chuckling, he squeezed a few more giggles out of the kid before setting him down to scoop up his brother and repeat the process. “You two are going to be the death of me yet,” he said, the top notes of amusement and exasperation in his voice in perfect harmony with the deep, almost unbearably tender melody line of unconditional love.
The ache that bloomed inside her was so sweet it clogged her throat, even as, from thirty feet away, she caught the apology in his eyes. “It’s okay,” she pushed out, but he shook his head. He said something to the boys, who scampered off to the other side of the yard, before he stepped inside his house. A second later he reappeared and headed her way, a bottle clenched in each fist.
Karleen jerked her head back down and plunged the shovel into the soil again like she was inches away from striking oil.
Chapter Three
Troy’d been watching Karleen off and on for ten minutes or so, going after that poor plot of dirt as though it had offended her deeply. Especially after the boys had accosted her. Not that he could hear the conversation over that god-awful country caterwauling. But after more than a decade of dealing with bank managers, suppliers, advertising agencies and potential investors, he was no slouch at deciphering body language.
A dialect in which his new neighbor was particularly fluent.
The cold, wet bottles soothed his heated palms as he crossed the fifty feet or so. A good thing, since the closer he got, the more agitated her digging became. Well, tough. She still wasn’t his type, but he wasn’t the bogeyman, either. And it bugged him no end that she seemed to think he was. So, okay, maybe he wasn’t exactly racking up the bonus points by invading her space, but considering she’d come out of her house looking ready to bite somebody’s head off, he sincerely doubted he was more than a fly on an already festering wound.
The brim of her hat quivering, she glanced up at his approach. And sure enough, worry peeked out from behind the aggravation simmering in her expression, and he thought, See? Told ya, followed by the inevitable pang of empathy whenever confronted by someone in trouble. Amy used to tease him unmercifully about it, about his always getting far more personally involved in other people’s messes than he should. Some things, he thought as he held out one of the bottles, can’t be helped.
“It’s hotter than it looks. You’ll get dehydrated.”
“Thanks, but I’m good,” she said, stabbing the dirt again. Her jeans sat intriguingly low on her hips, allowing an occasional glimpse of that sparkly belly-button stud, companioned by one of those stretchy tops that were basically just big, blah bras. Although on her, not so blah. In fact, the way the sun licked at the moisture sheening her skin…
Nope. Not blah at all.
“It’s a bottle of water, Karleen. Not my fraternity pin.”
Panting slightly, she shifted her gaze toward him again; fireflies of sunlight danced over her face through the straw brim. He wiggled the bottle. She reached over and snatched it out of his hand. “Fine,” she said, twisting off the top and taking a swallow. “Now will you go away?”
“Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”
Surprise