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“No hurry. I’m gonna go put the pics on Facebook.”
Wonderful. “My mother-in-law will phone me as soon as you do, so tell her I’ll call her back after I defrost the neighbor.”
“Cool.”
She followed the nonrobber into his house, where he made it clear she wasn’t welcome. He sank onto one of the two kitchen chairs and stared at his wet boots. Lucia paused inside the door and kicked her suede boots off. She walked gingerly around the little mounds of snow the stranger had tracked in and turned up the thermostat on the wall next to the refrigerator. “It’s cold in here. You were trying to get a fire going?”
“I wasn’t stealing wood.” He gestured out the window to the shed.
“Of course you were. You just didn’t know,” she said, hoping to comfort him.
“That’s not my shed?”
“Nope.”
He sighed, a deep heartfelt sound that was almost comical.
“I can see where you’d think it was,” she offered cheerfully. “The yards kinda blend. I’m going to build a fire so you have a little more heat in here. Go take a shower. Can you manage that? You need to warm up.”
“I don’t know you. I’m Sam Hove.”
“I’m Lucia Swallow. Your next-door neighbor. Your—”
“The pie lady?”
“Yes.”
“You smell like rum, your kids run wild and your dog attacked me.”
He looked so disappointed. Obviously she was not what he’d expected. If she hadn’t been so amused, her feelings would have been hurt.
“I smell like rum because I was at a bridal shower and there was punch. A really delicious punch.” She didn’t explain that she’d spilled some on herself while washing the punch bowl, or that she’d been too tired to have more than a token sip during the toast to Meg’s marital bliss. “My kids are boys. I try not to let them run wild, but they do...run. And the dog? Is not mine, but he’s not wild, either. I’m dog sitting for the groom.”
“Groom?”
“Who’s marrying the woman whose bridal shower it was, but he’s out of town. Now, go take a shower and I’ll make a fire.” She didn’t say she’d return with some lasagna and garlic bread leftover from last night’s dinner. He looked as though he could use something to eat.
“I can’t,” he said after a long moment.
“Why not?” She was as patient as she’d be with little Tony, who often stared at his feet and said “I can’t” in a pitiful voice.
“I can’t get my boots off.” He smiled, the barest of smiles on his tanned face. Her heart did a tiny—very tiny—flip.
“Ah, those cracked ribs.” She drew a chair up opposite him. “Come on, give me your foot.”
He hesitated, eyeing her as if she might be playing a joke on him.
“I’m a mother,” she said. “I do this kind of thing all the time.”
“Not to me,” he muttered, but raised his leg and rested the heel on her leg. In a matter of seconds she’d untied the snow-drenched knot, released the frozen laces and pulled his new boot off. She did the same for the other boot. “You were going to wear these until your ribs healed?”
“I didn’t think that part through.”
“Obviously.” She held the boots by two fingers. “I’ll put these by the stove so they’ll dry out.”
“You don’t—”
“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I thought you’d be a lot older.”
“I feel about ninety.”
“Jerry said you were some kind of professor. Retired. I pictured a frail, fragile elderly gentleman who liked soup and drank Earl Grey tea.”
“I thought pie ladies were old. Great-grandmothers wearing aprons.”
“Then I guess we’re both disappointed,” she assured him.
* * *
DAVEY SWALLOW NEVER meant to kill anyone, but for a few minutes outside in the snow he was awfully afraid he’d done it anyway. He and Matt had taken Boo outside to play in the snow after convincing Kim that their mother wouldn’t mind. Mom didn’t care if they made snowballs and built a snow fort as long as they didn’t leave the yard. Davey knew he was in charge of Matt and Matt knew it, too, though sometimes he griped. Most of the time Matt just followed him around and that was okay.
Sort of.
Except that Matty talked too much. Tony used to be quiet, but lately he’d started talking, too. Except he was only four and didn’t know any different. Davey thought that the world would be better if people didn’t talk so much. There were seven girls and four boys in his third-grade class and the seven girls never shut up. They talked about books and horses and television and video games and their older sisters. They talked about their dogs and their kittens and their favorite colors and when their mothers would let them get a cell phone.
They talked about homework. They talked about each other. They talked about the boys.
One time Davey wore ear plugs, but Mrs. Kramer caught him and made him take them out. She made him stay after school and asked him a lot of questions about whether he was happy or having a hard time or being bullied or having trouble at home.
He’d tried to tell her he liked being quiet. He told her he liked The Quiet, as if it was a place he could escape to: The Quiet, like The Beach. The Desert. The Mountains.
She wrote a note to his mom suggesting he have his ears checked.
When he told his mom about The Quiet, she’d listened very carefully. He liked that about his mom. She listened harder than anyone he knew. He bet his dad liked to talk to her. Sometimes, if he concentrated real hard, he could hear his dad’s voice. When he was in bed at night, he’d pretend he could hear the murmurs of his mom and dad talking. He’d remember his mother laughing a little bit, his father teasing her, the noise of the television or the water splashing in the sink as the dishes were washed.
He liked those sounds.
But now he was stuck with listening to Tony and Matt fight over who had the best Matchbox car while Tony’s favorite television show blared in the background. Kim’s thumbs were flying over her cell phone, which impressed Davey no end. At this rate he’d be twenty before he ever got his own phone.
And who was the man in the snow?
“I didn’t mean to knock him down,” he told Kim. “Boo kinda bumped me and I kinda bumped the man.”
“I know,” Kim assured him. “You’re not exactly the violent type.”
“What type am I?”
She glanced up from her phone and gave him the once-over. “You’re a cute, geeky boy, but geeky in a good way, you know?”
Davey guessed that was okay. “He said he broke his ribs.”
“Nah,” she said. “I think he was just being dramatic. He looked like the type.”
“You think this’ll count against me?”
Kim tilted her head and considered the question. She knew all about the third grade project, knew that Davey wanted to win the prize. “You have the rules somewhere?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me see.”
Davey pulled out his notebook and removed a carefully folded sheet of blue paper from the inside pocket of the binder. He unfolded it and handed it to Kim. “I don’t think it’ll count against me, but I’m not sure.”
Kim read it carefully, moving her lips a little as she did. She shook her head. “There’s nothing here about penalties.” She handed it back to him. “Just a warning that you can’t, well, arrange things so you can get a point.”
“Yeah. I didn’t get that part.”
Kim thought for a second. “It would be like making a big mess in the kitchen, without anyone knowing you did it. Then you clean it up, like you’re surprised there’s a mess. That doesn’t qualify as a Random Act of Kindness.”
“It has to be random,” he said, trying out the word on his tongue. “Random Acts of Kindness.”
“Yep.” She grinned. “Like when you see I don’t have a cookie and you know I like the ones with the red sprinkles and you sneak one in front of me when I’m not looking.”
Davey grinned back. “You talk a lot, but that’s okay.”
He gave her two, both with red sugar sprinkles, the biggest ones he could find in the plastic box.
* * *
SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL, but that was the least of his problems. He’d been around beautiful, black-haired women before, though this one was exquisite. Petite and delicate, with that waterfall of silky hair and greenish eyes that twinkled with good humor. The problem was his feeling that she was pure steel. Her sons had not argued with her when she’d told them to go home. The hellions had done what they were told, however reluctant they were to leave her with a firewood thief. He looked forward to meeting her husband. He pictured a soft-spoken giant who took orders well and behaved himself.
He’d never felt so helpless in his adult life.
She wasn’t getting the message to leave him alone. In fact, she’d ordered him to have a hot shower—after checking to make sure there was hot water, a slip-proof mat in the bathtub and fresh towels—and she’d carried his two duffel bags into the bathroom. She’d even unzipped them to save him the trouble of bending over to do it.
When she’d left the bathroom, he’d managed to kick out a clean pair of sweat pants and a long sleeved T-shirt.
“Are you okay?” she called from the hall. He locked the bathroom door because he wouldn’t put it past this woman to walk in and make sure he’d washed behind his ears.
“Yes, but you don’t—”
“Good.”
He’d heard nothing after that, so he carefully stripped off his clothes and, with some dexterous toe action, removed his thick wool socks. He adjusted the water, eased his cold body under the shower spray and realized the pain pill had eased some of the ache in his chest. Hallelujah.
He was going to survive this day after all. He retrieved the new bar of soap he’d noticed earlier and, after scrubbing himself with a faded purple washcloth, stood underneath the hot stream of water for at least ten minutes before carefully stepping onto the bath mat that Lucia Swallow had put in place. Both bath towels had violets embroidered on the edges. He rubbed his hair with one towel and wrapped another around his waist.
And he spotted the electric heater imbedded in the wall. Thank you, Mrs. Kelly, he thought, pushing the buttons until a blast of hot air hit him in the knees. He stood there for long, blissful minutes as the heat fanned his legs and warmed his feet.
“Mr. Hove?”
Damn. He drew a deep breath, then regretted the action when a now-familiar pain caught him in the right side of his chest. “Yes?”
“Just checking,” she said through the door, her voice as cheerful as a nurse’s. “You’re okay?”
“Fine.”
“No dizzy spells or anything like that?”
“No,” he declared, gingerly pulling the shirt over his head. “I thought you’d left.”
In fact, he’d hoped like hell she had. He stood half-naked in a purple bathroom. There was no sound from the other side of the door, so he hoped she’d finally taken the hint and gone home to her kids and her cowed, silent, pathetic husband. Sam finished putting his pants on, but decided not to struggle with socks. He unlocked the bathroom door and stepped out into the hall.
He smelled tomato sauce. Oregano. Coffee.
He inched down the hall and around the corner to the kitchen where Lucia Swallow stood in front of a microwave oven. Inside the oven a dinner plate rotated and sizzled, its wax paper tent flapping.
“I built a fire,” she said without turning around. She opened the microwave door and poked at the wax paper topping the food, then closed the door and turned the microwave back on. “It might take a while for the house to warm up, but the woodstove’s big and it should be fine for the night if you turn it down before you go to bed.”
“You carried wood?”
She turned and smiled at him. “How else would I fix the fire?”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“My kids knocked you down.” Her smile had disappeared.
“Your kids didn’t break my ribs.”
“So who did?”
“It was an accident.” She stared at him, waiting for more of an explanation. He felt about ten years old. “At work. I was hit by an Arapaima.”
“A what?”
“A fish.”
She frowned. “A fish broke your ribs?”
“A very large fish. And it cracked my ribs, not broke them. Three of them. Hurts like he—heck.”
“I’m sure it does.” A little furrow sprang between those delicate wing-shaped eyebrows.
“I’m actually doing fine. Healing according to schedule.”
“Even after falling in the snow?”
“Yeah. Even after that.” He didn’t feel any worse now than he had a couple of hours ago. In fact, after the hot shower and donning warm clothes, he felt better than he had in days. “The pain pill has kicked in.”
