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“Pardon?”
“I’m tree snails.” He blinked. Get a handle on yourself, man. You’ve met attractive women before and had the wherewithal to introduce yourself properly. “I mean, you said frogs, but I’m studying tree snails.” The feel of her hand in his, plus the awkwardness of the whole situation, made him lose his train of thought. This never happened. “I’m Barrett Wheeler. I want to apologize for—”
“Peeking through the bushes at me?” she offered cheerily, extricating her hand and ducking to peer through the hole. “Gene does it all the time.”
“He does?”
“Just to be neighborly, to say hi.”
He couldn’t help notice the hint of cleavage showing above a tank top that hugged small, firm breasts and thought, Fat chance he was just being neighborly. Since he wasn’t exactly in a position to comment, however, he let it drop. “So Frankie and George were also dogs?”
She glanced at Buddy, who was whining but still holding his position. He had a fresh string of drool hanging from his lips. “Oh, sure. I work with the problem dogs at the Humane Society. We’re a no-kill shelter, which means we work extra hard to fix the reasons the animals got put up for adoption. I bring them home for half a day or overnight sometimes and teach them manners.” She tilted her head at him. “What did you think they were?” An expression of horror crossed her face. “George, Frankie, Buddy…you thought I was entertaining men, didn’t you?” Just when he was hoping for spontaneous combustion again, she laughed. Not the demure, quiet kind of laugh the women he socialized with had, either. Stacy’s laugh was an explosion of sound. In fact, she doubled over and braced her palms on her thighs. “If you only knew how preposterous that thought was!”
Barrett thought he felt a warm flush creep up his face, though he was sure he was mistaken. He never blushed. “Not that it’s any of my business, of course, and my intention wasn’t to eavesdrop—”
That laugh of hers vibrated through him. “Too funny!” But her laughter and the delightful smile that lit up her whole face faded. “And too sad, when I think how long it’s been since—” Buddy nudged her behind, sending her into the bushes. She caught her balance, and Barrett caught a whiff of strawberry. “Well, I try to teach them manners, anyway,” she said.
How long since what, and why was the thought of her entertaining men preposterous? There was that curiosity again. He was probably better off not knowing. “Is that what you do for a living? Teach manners to dogs?”
“Not for a living, no. I’m just volunteering at the shelter until I get a real job.” She glanced at her watch. “In fact, I’m waiting for a callback on a job any time now, hopefully with good news.”
“Aren’t you a bit young to live in here?” he asked through the hole.
“My granny raised me here. I was grandfathered in on the sixty-five and older rule—well, grandmothered in, if you want to be technical. When I graduated from high school, I wanted to go to college, live on campus and everything. But the more I talked about it, the weaker Granny’s heart got, so I didn’t go. When she passed on two years ago, I was going to sell the house and move, but everyone asked me to stay. They’re all like family to me, so I did. I’m a surrogate granddaughter to a lot of them. And no one else is brave enough to lead the workout classes at the community center.”
“Workout class?”
“A combination of aerobics and light weight work.” She gestured with her arms as though she were lifting weights. She had great biceps, just enough muscle to still look feminine. “Keeps the bones strong.”
“So you stayed.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Well, it’s not like I had anyplace else to go.”
He gave her a smile. She smiled back, and their gazes locked. His stomach started feeling rather odd, as though he’d forgotten to eat. He sometimes did that when he was immersed in his research, but he was fairly certain he’d eaten a bowl of Cap’n Crunch cereal that morning. Maybe if he ceased looking at those eyes of hers, the feeling would go away.
He shifted his gaze down a couple of inches. That’s when he noticed what a great mouth she had, small but lush, coated in a clear pink color. The funny feeling wasn’t going away, it was intensifying. He went back to her eyes, a rich brown color that reminded him of the chocolate syrup he mixed in his milk. None of this looking was helping the strange feeling in his stomach. Still, he couldn’t seem to break away or find something, no matter how inane, to say.
Buddy helped by giving her another nudge, sending her forward again. She let out a yelp, and Barrett held out his hands even though he couldn’t do much good on the other side of the hedge. He got another whiff of that fruity scent before she regained her balance and made Buddy sit again. That gave Barrett another glimpse of that pink spandex, and though he’d never been fond of the color pink, he was reconsidering.
Buddy approached the hedge again, and Barrett backed away.
“Are you afraid of dogs?” she asked.
“What makes you think that?”
“Just how you were asking me to get Buddy away from you in a desperate sort of way.”
“Oh. Not afraid, more like…uncomfortable.”
“Have you ever had a dog before?”
“No.”
“That explains it. They’re really great to have around.” She nodded toward Buddy, sending a lock of brown hair to brush against her nose. She swiped it away. “You want one?”
“No.” His quick answer took her aback, so he added, “Not today.”
“Well, guess I’ll let you get back to your work. Welcome to the neighborhood. If you need anything, just come on over.”
“I will, thanks,” he said, wondering what he might need and then deciding not to delve too far in that direction.
Still, they remained there for another moment or two, until she smiled and said, “See you.”
“I see you, too.”
“No, I mean, see you around.”
“I knew that.” He knew that. So why was this woman skewing his logic?
“Okay,” she said with slightly widened eyes. “See you—I mean, goodbye.”
And then she was gone, playing hide-and-seek around her orange and grapefruit trees with the horse dog. Okay, that was over. Now he could focus on his work and not be distracted by his next-door-neighbor who was not a floozy. Right?
Wrong. Twenty minutes later, he was still distracted by her. Still thinking about those pink shorts and her small but lush mouth. He didn’t have to imagine her voice or her laugh. She was working with Buddy, pleading, cajoling, praising.
“Sit! Good boy.” This in a honey-coated voice that sent that strange feeling spiraling through his insides again. “Down. Good boy! Smile. All right!”
Smile? Before he could ponder how a dog could smile, his thinking process came to a halt. She couldn’t be distracting him. Women didn’t fit into the equation of his life. He couldn’t quantify them, for one thing. There wasn’t one rule that delineated them, one formula that they fit into. They consisted of way too many variables.
In the scientific world, everything added up. He loved the predictability, the formulas, knowing it would always make sense. A plus B equaled C every time. Science was a beautiful thing.
Relationships were something else altogether.
His parents were a prime example of two different people who should have never married. His mother was a free spirit who followed her whims and didn’t have a clue as to what her life goal was—or a care about finding out. After the divorce, she followed her whims into and out of several different jobs. Now she was a blackjack dealer on a cruise ship.
His father—well, he was still professor and chairperson of the Department of Biology at the University of Miami and always would be. After watching his parents’ marriage disintegrate, Barrett wasn’t inclined to date women who didn’t have his interests. He’d dated women in his peer group and been intellectually stimulated. He’d met women outside his peer group who’d physically stimulated him. But never had a woman done both.
So he’d accepted that a woman wasn’t going to comprise one of the elements that made up his life. He was fine with that. He derived all the satisfaction he needed in life from his work. As soon as he figured out what field interested him, anyway. Then there wouldn’t be any vague sense of something missing. And that something wasn’t a woman. After all, the shortest distance between points A and B was a straight line…and women were all curves.
2
STACY TRIED to forget about that hole in the hedge and the handsome face that had been framed there a few minutes before and especially the flutter in her chest whenever she did think about that handsome face. She knew about the smart scientist-type guy working there—everybody knew everything in Sunset City—but she’d never imagined he’d be so young and yummy. Well, at least as much as she could see of him with the hedge in the way. Vivid blue eyes with a warm tilt to them, almost shaggy blond hair. Dimples! Who would have figured?
She wondered what the rest of him looked like.
Forget it. He’s way too smart for you. What guy’s going to be interested in a skinny chick who lives in a retirement community and has no career? A bit of a tomboy who can’t grow her wispy locks into anything even resembling a sexy mane of hair?
Not that she hadn’t been working on a career. She’d gotten roped into continuing Granny’s T-shirt business out of the garage. Every time she told her customers—mostly the residents of Sunset City—that she was going to sell the equipment and get a real job, T-shirt orders came in like mad.
Last year she stopped letting the orders keep her from looking for a job where she could find purpose in her life and meet people her own age.
“Down.” She pushed Buddy on his haunches to give him the idea. When he complied, she gave him a dog snack. “Good boy!” He pulled his lips back in a dog smile. “Smile,” she encouraged so he’d eventually do it on command. “All right!”
The problem was, she rarely got a chance to meet eligible men. Well, men who were under sixty-five, anyway. On the rare occasion when she did, as soon as he came to Sunset City, he suddenly developed a condition or life situation that kept him from seeing her again. She wasn’t sure if she was a thirty-one-year-old has-been or never-been.
On her last birthday, she was about to once again push back her having-a-baby deadline. At twenty, it had been twenty-five. When she’d approached twenty-four with no prospects, she bumped it to twenty-eight. Then to thirty. Then thirty-two.
She refused to bump it again. Thirty-two was it. She was taking the situation into her own hands.
When she sneezed, she was gratified to hear Barrett say “gesundheit” through the hedge. “Thanks!”
Then the phone rang.
It was Ernie across the street. “God bless you.”
“Thanks,” she said sweetly. “Now turn that sonic ear thing off and stop eavesdropping on people, you nosy old fart!” Ever since he’d gotten that listening device, no one had any privacy.
He chuckled. “I was born to spy. Back in the war, they used to call me—”
“The Black Weasel, I know.”
“Gopher, not weasel! You don’t know nothing ’bout spying.”
“I know I don’t like being spied on.”
“Sorry, Stacy. I won’t do it no more.”
He always sounded so darn sincere, and she always believed him. Until the next time.
“It’s all right. It’s not as if I ever do anything that interesting.” She thought of the interesting science dude and then stopped thinking about him.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Ernie muttered, and he had the nerve to sound disappointed in her!
“You still need help with finding that old book you’re after on the Internet?”
“Sure do. Been looking for the Tall Book of Tall Tales for years now. Appreciate you coming over and helping me climb the Web.”
“Surf the Web, Ernie.”
“How can you surf a Web, now tell me that? I’m climbing it.”
“Fine, climb it,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll be over tomorrow—oh, got another call coming in. Bye!” She pressed the talk button twice and said, “Hello? This is Stacy Jenkins.”
“This is Bob over at Mary’s Grooming. You applied for the grooming position?”
Her heart started thumping. She was a shoe-in! She helped Arlene with her poodles and Betty with her miniature schnauzer. They would give her glowing references, along with her boss over at the shelter. “Yes, yes, I did.”
Finally, a job. A real job with a regular paycheck and benefits. Direction.
“I’m afraid we hired someone else. Now, it’s nothing personal, you’ve got to believe that. We chose someone more qualified, that’s all. Good luck with…finding something else. Just remember that we were real nice about it.”
She dropped the phone on the grass, feeling as deflated as the beach ball Buddy had popped with his teeth earlier. She’d failed again. Not that she necessarily needed the money. Granny’s house was paid off, and her expenses were minimal. The folks at Sunset City always paid her for her help, even though she always refused. What she wanted was purpose and a college fund for the baby.
What she had was a drooling dog staring at her with the phone in his mouth. “Give that to me!”
Buddy took off, ready for the chase. After she finally retrieved the phone and dried it off, she loaded Buddy into her old pink boat of a convertible and headed to the Humane Society. His ears flopped in the wind, but he didn’t seem to mind much. As usual, she got caught up in visiting the other animals at the shelter before she was able to head home. She started the engine and sank into a Celine Dion song while her car idled. A mushy love song, of course. She’d think that love was overrated, except she’d never been in love and couldn’t say for sure.
Then, miracle of miracles, a handsome man had entered her world—and he was all wrong for her. Too smart, too handsome, too temporary. Bummer. That was all right. She’d gotten used to the reality of not finding a soul mate. Well, mostly. And she had three successful men vying to give her what she really wanted—a baby. A software engineer, five foot eleven with blond hair and blue eyes. An artist who painted landscapes and portraits, six feet with brown hair and blue eyes. Or a model, six foot one with brown hair and eyes.
The fact that she didn’t know their names or what they looked like hardly mattered. No, not at all. Oh, there was a fourth candidate, and she did know his name—Ricky Schumaker, the maintenance engineer at Sunset City. He’d seen the three profiles of the sperm donors taped to her dresser mirror when he was fixing a leak in her bathroom. He’d been bugging her ever since to be the father of her child.
When ferrets flew.
For some reason, that face in the hedge popped into her mind as Celine crooned about everlasting love. No, he wasn’t going to be an everlasting love. He’d be a nice distraction for a while, nothing more. The best thing to do would be to forget he was there. Yeah, that’s what she’d do, put him right out of her mind. Not another thought.
She put the car in gear. He probably wasn’t much of a cook. Maybe he was too busy to worry about food. All right, she’d be a good neighbor and bring him dinner. No harm in that. And after that, not another thought.
Decision made, she pulled out onto the highway, images of homemade biscuits, ham and cheese soufflé and apple pie in her head. Unfortunately, she wasn’t much of a cook, so she pulled into a fast-food chicken joint and ordered a bucket of extra crispy.
AFTER NAVIGATING the ten speed bumps leading to her street—some of the residents liked to race down the main drag—Stacy pulled into her driveway. Balancing the bucket and the side containers, she headed next door.
The first sign of trouble was the golf cart parked in the driveway. It, like most of the golf carts and cars in Sunset City, had a poofy flower atop the antenna. That thanks to Granny, who had given one to all her friends one Christmas. Because the flower was blue, she knew it belonged to Arlene of the blue poodles. Said poodles—their silvery-blue fur tinted the exact shade of Arlene’s hair—were sitting in the golf cart in a car baby seat. Arlene also had a niece with a curvy figure. A single niece she’d been trying to find a husband for, because her only offspring had become a priest and wasn’t likely to produce any grandchildren for her. That left Tanya as her only hope for sort-of grandchildren.
Hugging the warm bucket to her belly, Stacy advanced up a walkway lined with pink flamingos—they lit up at night. Arlene was standing at the doorway talking to Barrett.
“It’s called Pissin’ in the Snow, one of my specialty dishes. See, it’s coconut gelatin, that’s the snow part, and the lemon drops spell out your name.” The white mold jiggled obscenely. “Where I was born in the Appalachian mountains, that was a compliment, spelling out someone’s name in the snow. It was trickier for the gals, of course, but we managed.” Arlene chuckled. That was an image Stacy didn’t particularly need. “I guessed at the spelling. My niece, Tanya, now she’s a whiz with names. Did I tell you about her? Beautiful, single, has a great job. Did I mention she’s a mechanic? How handy is that? You probably know how hard it is to find a good mechanic.” She glanced at the black Saab sitting in the driveway. “Are you having any car trouble at all? Any knocks or pings? I could have her come out and take a peek under your hood.”
Barrett’s mouth was slightly open, as though he wasn’t sure what part of that to address.
“Hi, Arlene, Barrett,” Stacy said, taking some delight in the relief that passed over his face when he took her in. Of course, he could have been eyeing her bucket of chicken.
“Tell him how beautiful Tanya is,” Arlene said, beaming as proud as a mother. “And didn’t she get the knock out of your engine just last month?”
Something bugged her about Arlene’s question, but Stacy couldn’t figure out what it was. “She did get the knock out,” she agreed, but let the beautiful part go.
“Exactly!” She turned to Barrett. “I’ll bring her over sometime. Tonight, maybe.”
“I’m not looking—” Barrett tried.
“Everybody says that,” Arlene said with a wave. “I mean, who admits they’re looking, only desperate people if you ask me. And it sure would be nice to have a doctor in the family. Do you know how much it cost me to have my corns removed? Let me tell you, it wasn’t cheap.”
Stacy stepped in for him since he was still obviously trying to get his mind around the corn removal. “He’s not that kind of doctor, Arlene. He does frogs.”
“Tree snails,” he said.
Arlene’s mouth dropped open. “You’re a doctor for tree snails? Good grief, they just have doctors for everything nowadays, don’t they? Maybe you can get a discount when the babies come. That’ll help with the expenses.”
Barrett’s expression bordered on horrified. Sort of like the one he’d had when Buddy had been eying him, only worse. “Babies?”
