Flight

and asked if he would send a copy of the photo to her.

“I’m quite proud of that arrangement!” she said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go home and change my clothes.”

As he came in the door, the dogs greeted him. Seth was not far behind, jumping up and down and shouting, “He’s home! He’s home!” as if a fanfare ought to be playing, a red carpet rolled out.

“Hello, Seth,” he said, not feeling so tired after all.

“We’ve been watching about you on TV! Tell me about the bad guy in the flower shop.”

He groaned. There must have been a TV news team among the helicopters.

Irene came hurrying toward him, face full of worry, and hugged him tightly. “Are you okay?”

“Fine, I’m fine.”

“Your voice—”

“The smoke got it,” Seth explained. “My mom broke our window, so we got air. But he was in the smoke.”

Irene looked more worried than ever.

“Safe and sound,” Frank said. “Both then and this evening. Sorry you even had to think about it — it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Did you shoot him?” Seth asked.

“No. Nobody shot anybody.”

“Seth!” Elena’s voice called. “Let Frank have a chance to come in the door.”

Frank bent closer to Irene’s ear and said softly, “I didn’t mean to spring them on you like this…”

She laughed, but he didn’t think there was a lot of humor in it.

“You missed it!” Seth said with relish.

“Seth!” Elena’s voice warned.

He walked in to find Elena sitting on the couch. She was petting Cody, who had taken up residence on her lap. He still had an arm around Irene and felt the tension in her shoulders.

“Everything okay?” he asked warily.

“Fine,” Irene said.

“They were going to kill each other!” Seth said.

“A misunderstanding,” Irene said, blushing.

Elena looked embarrassed, too.

Frank felt a nearly overwhelming urge to go back to the office.

“It’s okay now,” Seth said. “I made them be friends. But they were fighting! And saying the S-word! And the B-word. And even…”

“Seth…” Elena warned.

“…the F-word!”

“Seth Lefebvre!”

“And,” he added in a lowered voice, “they fought naked!”

“I had a robe on!” Irene protested.

“Naked fighting…”

“And I had grabbed a towel by the time you came in, Mr. Tattletale,” Elena said.

“…swearing ladies!”

“Seth!” the women shouted in unison.

Seth gave Frank a look that asked Who are you going to believe?

“Well,” said Frank, doing his damnedest not to laugh, “I’m glad you were able to make them be friends.” He looked between the women and saw that he wasn’t going to get any immediate answers. Certainly not about naked fighting swearing ladies. Not only was he not going to get answers, their faces said, he shouldn’t dare to ask any questions. He was still tempted to try, but decided he’d had enough heroic action for one day, and accordingly changed the subject. “Have you eaten yet?” he asked Seth.

“I wanted to wait…” Seth began.

“He did,” Irene said. “But I was hungry after all that swearing and nude boxing, so I went ahead and ordered pizza. Is that okay?”

“That’s great,” he said. “I get home late a lot, Seth — so you should eat when you’re hungry.”

“I want to eat with you.”

The pizza arrived, and over dinner the mood seemed more relaxed, although Elena was quiet. Seth talked about going for a walk on the beach with Irene and the dogs. When Frank asked if Elena had joined them, he learned that she had stayed at home.

“I was admiring your garden,” she said quickly. “One of the things I miss — we can’t have a garden at the condo.”