The Secret Wedding Dress. Roz Denny Fox

I’ll find it in the truck when I get back.”

      Sylvie didn’t intend to spy on her neighbor, but the return address printed in bold lettering on a fat manila envelope was that of a major Atlanta newspaper. She assumed it was a few recent editions of the paper; he must want to keep up with news from home.

      She dashed up Mercer’s porch steps and rang his doorbell. Listening to the fading sound of the bell, she whistled a tuneless melody, swaying from side to side as she waited for Rianne or Joel to answer.

      He took his sweet time, but eventually Joel Mercer did yank open the door. His hair stood askew as if he’d been running both hands through it. Sylvie again admired small, gold-rimmed glasses that left his slate-blue eyes looking slightly myopic.

      “I brought your mail.” She’d also picked up a thistle in one bare foot, Sylvie discovered, idly brushing one foot over the other. “I see you’re still taking a newspaper from your home-town. Seems silly that they’d require you to sign for it. I’ll bet if you’d ask our librarian, she’d probably subscribe to this paper, if she doesn’t already. It’d save you the cost of shipping. Freda Poulson likes having news from other cities. There’s no one more interested in world events.” Sylvie grinned engagingly and extended the bundle.

      Joel grabbed the stack out of her hands and gave her a fierce scowl. “What are you doing snooping through my private mail? Tampering with someone’s mail is against federal law.”

      The form that was supposed to be signed by Mercer floated to the boards at their feet.

      Her smile turned to a frown, too. “Our mailman has rheumatoid arthritis. I couldn’t care less who sends you stuff. I volunteered to run this up to you to save wear and tear on poor Homer’s joints.”

      “If he can’t do the job he should retire.” Joel moved to shut his door.

      “Wait!” Sylvie neatly blocked his move. “This needs your autograph.” Bending to scoop it up, she and Joel struck heads. Sylvie rubbed her forehead, allowing him to come up with the signature card.

      “Do you have a pen?” he asked curtly.

      Dazed by their collision, Sylvie stared at him blankly.

      “Never mind. This mail system is so haphazard I’ll just make other arrangements,” he muttered after digging through all his pockets and finally coming up with a pen. A moment later he shoved the signed card back into Sylvie’s hands.

      Joel slammed his front door almost before Sylvie had negotiated a step back. “You have a nice day, too, buddy,” she snarled, stomping down his steps and out into his thistle-littered lane. She landed on the thorn buried in her foot and ended up yelping and limping to where Homer waited patiently.

      “Got it? Thanks, Sylvie. What’s Iva’s great-nephew like now that he’s grown up? I remember him as a quiet tyke over the four or five summers he spent with Iva and Harvey. Quiet but eager to please. Seems a long time ago.”

      “Are you saying Joel Mercer is related to Iva? Are you sure he’s not some city dude who bought the place from her nephew?”

      “Nope. That’s him all right. I hear he’s got a daughter about the age he was when he first used to visit the Whitakers. Mercy, how time flies. Say, don’t forget your lace,” Homer called as Sylvie turned to give the Whitaker house a longer evaluation.

      She lugged the heavy carton of laces she’d ordered from New York into her house, mulling over the latest tidbit Homer had added to the little she knew about her neighbor. Darned little. The man had acted downright surly about her touching his mail. What was the big issue? Did Joel Mercer have something to hide?

      JOEL STOOD IN HIS ENTRY and ripped open the envelope of tear sheets consisting of his last two months’ worth of cartoon strips. Enclosed was a big fat check that would have to last him until his accountant decided if he could retire on his investments or if he needed to seek another job. Lester Egan, his former boss, had attached a scribbled note asking Joel not to be hasty in his decision to quit the strip he’d started right after Lynn had divorced him. At the time, no one, least of all Joel, had dreamed that his satirical exaggeration using the backdrop of upscale Atlanta singles, would garner so much interest. Or that it would result in syndication and a whole bunch of new readers. Neither had Joel supposed his ex would return to anchor Atlanta’s nightly news.

      But Joel didn’t see how he could continue drawing comic scenes about city singles from Briarwood. To do what he did on a daily basis necessitated haunting popular nightspots, where the upwardly mobile twentysomethings hung out after work and on weekends. Anyway, he’d about run out of situations for Poppy and Rose, his cartoon characters. Material of that type didn’t fall out of North Carolina dogwood trees.

      Speaking of falling from trees—his dingbat neighbor had a penchant for crazy stunts. Tree-climbing at her age…Joel watched her retreat, barefoot, down his lane. Each time he saw her she looked different. Today she wore her dark hair in two fat pigtails tied with ribbons that matched her shorts. He couldn’t fault the shorts. They showed off her legs to good advantage. She did have nice legs. Maybe her best feature. Outside of that, nothing was remarkable except for her eyes. A warm hazel that reflected every nuance of her mood.

      Leaning into the etched oval window in the center of his front door to watch her progress, Joel was sharply reminded of how lethal even a casual meeting with Sylvie Shea could be. He had a lump forming in the center of his forehead. And no idea how Sylvie made a living, other than to barge through life at warp speed. Oh, and pet-sit with humongous, ill-mannered dogs.

      She did seem to have an active social life, he mused. There’d been the guy in the Mercedes. Yesterday, two muscle-bound dudes, both on very friendly terms with her, appeared like magic to rebuild her fence. One or both had hugged and maybe kissed her before taking off. And today, a girlfriend had shown up to visit for an hour or so.

      He watched Sylvie dig a package out of the mail truck and then scamper out of sight. Joel continued to stare out the window. His fertile imagination began fashioning caricatures of Sylvie Shea as a subject in his comic strip. A country cousin of Poppy or Rose. It started him thinking there might be a whole other side to the singles experience in Briarwood, North Carolina, than he’d believed. Having tired of political cartoons, he’d tripped over the idea of the singles strip after his divorce. After he’d been dumped into the singles scene himself.

      Truthfully, after a number of years spent skulking around Atlanta’s hot spots, studying unsuspecting females on the prowl for husbands, he’d learned how to observe without attracting attention.

      And now, the longer Joel considered the idea, the more he thought his neighbor’s varied taste in male friends, combined with her zany capers, might just offer the perfect new opportunity for him to continue the strip.