Yours, Mine & Ours

“Now that would be a miracle,” she said with an other laugh, this one more natural. “I’m new at the yard-and- gardening business. Never had any ‘green’ to work with in the city. So I’ve just been shopping for some general tools and landscaping stuff.”

“Yeah, we’re getting into that kind of trouble in our house, too.”

So much for small talk. She took a breath, knowing she really needed some things to be said. “Look. I can’t thank you enough for last night. You certainly didn’t need to finish painting the wall or doing the cleanup-that was way over the top. And after I cried all over you, too.”

“Yeah, that was really awful. Don’t do it again.”

She was startled, then realized he was teasing. His crook of a smile momentarily disarmed her, but then, blast it, she realized she was looking at him again, feeling the pull of, say, an earthquake or a tsunami.

“Well, I owe you a payback.” She hoped her voice came out sounding normal.

“Forget it. No problem.”

“I was thinking of bringing you a homemade lasagna-”

“Whoa. Complete change of mind. You do owe me a payback.”

This time they both laughed. “So you like lasagna. Okay. Done deal. I’ll bring it over tomorrow, around 5:00 p.m. or so.” She pulled her cart, as if she were going to go back to her shopping, but then couldn’t seem to resist asking, “Was that your mom who picked up Teddy?”

“Yeah. Barbara. And my dad’s name is David. They’re over the moon we bought the house here. Teddy’s the first grandchild. Their place is just a few towns over, in Lisle.”

She pulled at her cart again, as if she had the good sense to cut the small talk and go back to her shopping chores. Somehow, her feet seemed rooted right there, temporarily, though. She couldn’t seem to quell a second round of nosiness. “How about Teddy’s mom?” When Mike lifted an eyebrow, she said swiftly, “I know, I know. It’s none of my business. But if we’re living next door, I don’t want to accidentally say something hurtful or difficult for your son, so…you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” His arched brow suggested he knew perfectly well she was being nosy. But he answered. “Right now I’ve got primary physical custody. My ex-wife hasn’t remarried yet, but she’s about to be.” He lowered the brow. “Truth is, Teddy’s real bent out of shape about his mother. He doesn’t get it. Why his mom would take off. He seems to believe that she personally abandoned him.”

Amanda shot him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t tell you to solicit sympathy. But it’s like you said-if we’re living so close, we should probably know what the situation is with our kids.”

She nodded, and immediately came through with her stash of baggage. “My ex is Thom. He has regular visitation rights, although he only makes it half the time. I had a job in advertising-we lived downtown Chicago-but after the divorce… Well, Molly’s about to start preschool, so I figured it was time to move to the suburbs, settle where there were good schools and families and other kids for Molly to play with.” She added wryly, “To be honest, I’m finding the move a little bit of a culture shock.”

“Hey, you’re not alone. I never envisioned living in suburbia, either. But I felt the same, for Teddy’s sake. Wanted the kind of neighborhood where he could grow up, go out and play, meet other kids, do the good-school thing. And the clincher for me was living closer to his grandparents.” Abruptly he straightened, as if he feeling he’d shared too much. Or that he’d found too much in common with her. “Well, I’d better-”

“Me, too,” she said instantly, and did a quick U-turn with the cart. “I need to move on. Just remember, lasagna tomorrow. If you’re not there at five, I’ll just leave it on the front porch. See you later.”

She couldn’t seem to escape the store that fast, though. She just seemed to need so much stuff. The weight kept adding up, for the bricks, the mulch, the stone. And once she hooked on to one of the store’s employees, she asked for his help picking out a lawn mower. All the bulky and heavy stuff had to be delivered; there was just no way she could get it in and out of her car.

By the time she edged into the checkout line, her cart was full, and she was daydreaming about some lunch and a nap. As she reached down for her purse, though, she noticed something odd. The items she’d chosen had somehow changed. Somehow, the pink gardening gloves she’d chosen had metamorphosed into a heavier, ugly gray pair. The pretty little spade she’d picked out had turned into a set of gardening tools with sturdy steel handles. Instead of one shovel, there was now both a pointy shovel and a flat blade, neither particularly huge, but definitely sturdier than what she’d originally picked up.

For a second, she thought she had the wrong cart, but there were so many other things that she recognized- like the matching dishtowels and the porcelain drawer pulls and the shoe organizers and the picture-hanger doohickeys. She glanced behind her, around her. Mike was nowhere in sight. He’d undoubtedly long finished his shopping before she did.

But he was the only soul in the universe-at least, that she could imagine-who would have done this to her.

He couldn’t keep pulling this white-knight thing on her.

This time, there would have to be serious payback.

Mike should have known that putting in the new faucet would turn into a federal project. Bad plumbing always led to more bad plumbing, even in a new place. Conceivably, the work was hampered by his being a lot better lawyer than he was a handyman. And by the dog, who wanted to sleep on his foot while he was lying on his back under the kitchen sink. And by Cat, who crawled up his leg and sat purring on his damned stomach while he was trying to wrench in the new connection.

Several phone calls interrupted him, adding more complications to the sweat-fest chore. The first call, he jumped for-hit his head, then his elbow. But it was Teddy. “Hey, Dad. Grandma said to tell you I’m being good and she wants me to stay overnight.”

Mike could hear the tiny wobble in his son’s voice. Teddy wasn’t comfortable, being away from him at night. At least for now. “Not overnight, sport. I want you home. But if grandma wants you to stay for dinner, you can.”

His son ran off, then called back three minutes later. “Okay. I’m having dinner here. Grandma says do you want to come?”

“Tell her no, thank you. But call me again if you’ll be later than 7:30 p.m., okay?”

“Yeah. Grandma says she’s gonna get me my own cell phone.”

“No, she’s not…” Mike shook his head. The connection was severed. There were possibly going to be a few complications, living this close to grandparents. Four years old? A cell phone? Not.

The other two calls he let go to the answering machine. Working with water and grease and heat under the sink was a whole lot more fun than talking to his ex. Nancy wanted to arrange a time to be with Teddy.

He’d call her back.

When he got around to it.

Even hearing her voice put a snarl in his mood. He was long over Nancy, but still testy on some of the divorce details. He was working on moving on, getting past it, all those stupid slogan words that divorced people used. But it was one thing to have a failed marriage…another to have your marriage end because your wife took off with a germ-freak nerd who couldn’t weigh more than one hundred and fifty pounds.

That she could desire such a jerk was part of what festered. Even if the marriage had long lost its luster before the divorce, Mike never had any reason to doubt his ex was happy in bed. It wasn’t losing her that hurt. It was losing her to such a ninny. His sexual pride still felt stomped on by a bulldozer.

Anyway. He’d had enough of chores by four o’clock. He showered, put on old shorts and his Harvard tee-his favorite, as exhibited by the frayed neck and holes-called the hound and aimed for the deck. Teddy wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours. He figured a half hour of slouch time in the shade was just what the doctor ordered.

He opened the door to the deck-and almost tripped over a twelve pack of beer. Cold beer. Dripping, sweating cold. A fancy longneck brand. Bottles.

It was enough to make a warrior weep. Since he only hit a grocery store when he was desperate-those places were terrifying-he hadn’t picked up beer or any other side goodies. He glanced around for a note, but he already knew who’d done this to him-even before he turned his head.

One glance was all it took to identify the slim, bare foot perched on the white lawn chair next door.

Her deck was smaller than his, with a lattice privacy half wall-which was why he couldn’t see the rest of her body. But he could see the foot. And the curve of her white calf.