Pride and
Pregnancy
Karen Templeton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

To Gail, for trusting me

To Jack, for believing in me

To Jane Austen, for inspiring me (and every other romance writer who’s ever trod the globe!)

Chapter One

By the time she was thirty, Karleen Almquist had signed three sets of divorce papers, at which point she decided to make things easier on herself and just get a hamster.

After all, hamsters didn’t leave their clothes scattered all over kingdom come, watch endless football or stay out till all hours. And their itty-bitty paws were too small to mess with the remote. True, they weren’t of much use in the sack, but then the same could be said of most of her husbands.

Unfortunately, also like her husbands, hamsters didn’t exactly have a long shelf life. Which was why Karleen was burying yet another of the critters underneath the huge, gnarled cottonwood at the back of the large yard of the aging Corrales adobe she’d kept after her last divorce, seven years ago. Each tiny grave was marked by a miniature cast-stone marker engraved with the rodent’s name, ordered from this place online that promised a two-day turnaround, if you were willing to pay extra for FedEx overnight service.

Karleen sank the marker into the soft soil, praying the neighborhood cats wouldn’t disturb Mel’s rest, although he was probably fairly scavenger-proof in the little metal floral can from Hobby Lobby. Then she stood, making a face as she peeled off her gardening gloves. Fond of Melvin as she’d been, it had taken the better part of an hour to glue on these nails and damned if she was going to ruin them for a dead hamster.

A cool, dry breeze shuddered through the veritable orchard of apple trees lining the far wall, sending a shower of white blossoms drifting across her dusty pool cover. The peaches, apricots and cherries would bloom in a few weeks. By mid-summer, the ground would be a holy mess with rotting fruit. But right now, her heart lifted a little at the sight of all those blossoms glowing against the brilliant New Mexico sky, the twittering of dozens of redheaded finches scouting out the assortment of brightly colored birdhouses suspended from the branches—

What was that?

At the giggling, she swung around in time to see a pair of pale blond heads vanish behind the low wooden fence separating her yard from the one next door.

“Boys!” boomed an off-stage male voice. “Get over here!”

Karleen zipped as fast as her beaded slides would carry her back to the house, dumping the gloves on a tempered-glass table on her flagstone patio as she went. Once inside, she scurried across the brick floor through the house, twisting open the slightly warped verticals in her living-room window to get a better view. And indeed, through the assortment of glittery, spinning porch ornaments hanging from the eaves, she saw a great big old U-Haul van backed in the next driveway.

The house was the largest of the four on their little dead-end road, a two-story territorial/adobe mutt centered in a huge pie-shaped lot crammed with a forest’s worth of trees—cottonwoods, willows, pines, silver maples. The property hadn’t been on the market more than a few weeks (the old owners had gone to live with one of their kids in Oregon or Idaho or someplace), so the new owners must’ve paid cash for it, for closing to have gone through that quickly.

The little boys—twins, it looked like—raced around the side of the van, roaring in slightly off-sync unison (and loud enough to be heard through a closed window), “Daddy, Daddy! The house next door has a pool!”

Just shoot her now.

Karleen thought maybe they were a little older than her best friend Joanna’s youngest, around four or so. Jumping up and down like that, it was hard to tell. God bless their mother, was all she had to say.

Then a Nordic god walked out from behind the truck, sunlight glinting off short golden hair, caressing massive shoulders effortlessly hefting a giant cardboard box, and her brain shorted out.

Not so much, however, that she couldn’t paw for the pair of long-neglected binoculars on the bookshelf crammed with paperbacks and doodads behind her. She blew off the dust, then held them up to her eyes, fiddling with the focusing thingy for a second or two before letting out a soft yelp when The God’s face suddenly filled up the lens.

Lord, it was like trying to pick a single item off the dessert cart. The jaw…the cheekbones…the heavy-lidded eyes…the mouth.

Oh, dear God, the mouth.

She licked her own, it having been a long, long time since she’d had a close encounter with one of those. Although this mouth was in a class by itself. Not too thin, but not one of those girlie mouths, either. Just right, Goldilocks, she thought with a snort.

Karleen lowered the binoculars, shaking her head and thinking, Well, doesn’t this suck toads? only to brighten considerably when she remembered there was, in all likelihood, a Mrs. God. So he was somebody else’s problem, praise be.

While she stood there, trying to hang on to her newfound cheer, an SUV rumbled past, parking behind the van and disgorging a pair of dark-haired hunks. Or rather one hunk and one hunk-in-progress, a teenager not yet grown into his long arms and legs. The two men did the buddy-palm-slapping thing, then got to work unloading the van while the little boys concentrated on staying underfoot as much as possible and being cute enough to get away with it.

For the next, um, twenty minutes or so, she watched as plaid Early American wing chairs and sofas and brass lamps and sections of a dark wood four-poster bed and one of those bland landscape paintings people hung over their sofas marched from van to house. Occasionally she caught snatches of flat, midwestern speech and thought, Yeah, that figures. And as the minutes passed, she wondered…so where was this wife, already? Shouldn’t she be flitting about, directing the men where to put everything?

About this time Karleen noticed the mail truck shudder to a stop in front of her mailbox at the edge of her yard. The carrier got out, took stuff out of the box, slammed down the painted gecko flag, stuffed stuff into the box, then walked around to the back of the truck and retrieved a package. Which, instead of carrying up the walk to Karleen’s front door, she tucked into a nest of weeds at the base of the post. Oh, for pity’s sake.

Karleen yanked open her front door and headed toward her mailbox, blinking at the dozen or so jewel-toned pinwheels bordering her walk, happily spinning in the breeze. Halfway down, however, she realized that all movement had ceased next door. While she had to admit she felt a little spurt of pride that, at thirty-seven, she still had what it took to render men immobile, there was also a ping of annoyance that she couldn’t go to her damn mailbox without being gawked at. However, if she didn’t say anything, she would be forever branded as The Stuck-Up Bitch Who Lived Next Door.

And that would just be wrong.

So she fished her mail out of the box and the box out of the weeds, then wound her way over to the fence through her ever-growing collection of lawn ornamentation.

“Hey,” she said, smiling. “I’m Karleen. You guys my new neighbors?”

She might even have pulled it off, too, if it hadn’t been for the eyes.

Bimbo.

The word smacked Troy between the eyes like a kamikaze bee. Followed in quick succession by blonde, stacked and oh, crap.

It wasn’t just the eighties retro hair. Or the Vegas makeup. Or even that she was dressed provocatively, because she wasn’t. Exactly. The stretchy pants rode low and the top rode high (and the belly button sparkled like the North Star), but the essentials were more than adequately covered. No cleavage, even. A delicate gold chain hugged her ankle, but that was pretty much it. She was just one of those women that fabric liked to snuggle up to.

Men, too, no doubt.

Beside him, Blake cleared his throat. Troy came to and extended his hand; Karleen shifted everything to one arm to reciprocate, an assortment of fake gemstone rings flashing in the sunlight. Jeez, those fingernails could gut and fillet a fish in five seconds flat, a thought that got a bit tangled up with the one where Troy realized that her breasts seemed a little…still.

“And I’m Troy. Lindquist.” Her handshake was firm and brief and he suddenly got the feeling that she wished this was happening even less than he did, which irked him for some reason he couldn’t begin to explain.

“You’re kidding?” She hugged her mail with both arms again, her deep blue eyes snaring him like Chinese finger traps. “My maiden name’s Almquist.”

“Swedish,” they both said at once, and everybody else looked at them as though they’d totally lost it, while Troy noticed that Karleen’s mouth said friendly and her eyes said pay no attention to the mouth.

“Anyway,” Troy said. “These are my boys Grady and Scott, and this is Blake Carter, my business partner, and his son Shaun.”

She said all her hello-nice-to-meet-yous, very polite, very careful…and then she turned that glistening smile on the boys, and Definite Interest roared onto the scene, huffing and puffing. Because people tended to have one of two reactions when confronted with his sons: They either went all squealy and stupid, or got a look on their faces like they’d stumbled across a pair of rattlesnakes. Karleen did neither. Instead, Karleen’s expression said, Anything you can dish out, I can take and give back ten times over, which Troy found disturbingly attractive and scary as hell at the same time.

“Hey, guys,” she said in a perfectly normal voice, with a perfectly normal smile, which was when he realized she was around his age and that she hadn’t had any work done that he could tell. Not on her face, at least. “Let me guess—y’all are twins, right?”

Scotty, slightly smaller than his brother, stuck close to Troy’s leg while the more outgoing Grady clung like a curious little monkey to the post-and-rail fence separating the yards. Still, clearly awestruck—and dumbstruck—they both nodded so hard Troy was surprised their heads didn’t fall off. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Blake elbowing Shaun. “Breathe,” he said, and the sixteen-year-old turned the color of cranberry juice.

“How old are you guys?” Karleen asked, not looking at Shaun.

“Four!” they chorused. Then Grady leaned closer and asked, “You got any kids?”

Karleen shook her head, tugging a straw-colored hair out of her lipstick. “No, sugar, I sure don’t.”

“Then how come you gots all that stuff?” Grady said, jabbing one finger toward her yard. Which looked like an annex for Wal-Mart’s lawn-and-garden department. And no, he did not mean that in a good way. Surely all those whirligigs and stone raccoons and such hadn’t been there before? Was that a gnome over in the far corner?

“’Cause it’s fun,” Karleen said with a shrug. “I like sparkly stuff, don’t you?”

More nodding. Then Scotty piped up. “You got a pool, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said, wrinkling her nose. Disconcertingly cute, that. “But I haven’t used it in years.”

“How come?”

“Okay,” Troy said, slipping a warning hand on the boy’s shoulders. “Too many questions, bud.”

“It’s all right,” Karleen said, meeting his gaze, apparently forgetting to switch from kid-smile to I’m-only-doing-this-because-that’s-how-I-was-raised smile, and his lungs stopped working, painfully reminding him how long it had been since he’d done the hokeypokey with anyone. Then, thankfully, she returned her attention to the child. “It just got to be too much of a bother, that’s all.”

“Oh. Daddy said we couldn’t have a pool ’cause we’re too little an’he didn’t wanna hafta to worry ’bout us. But if we learned to swim, then he wouldn’t hafta worry ’bout us.”

“Yeah,” Grady put in with another enthusiastic head nod, after which, as one, both blond heads swiveled to Troy with the attendant you-have-ruined-my-life-forever glare. But then Troy pulled his head out of his butt long enough to realize that that was the most Scotty had ever said to anyone, ever, at one time.

Karleen laughed. A low, from-the-gut laugh. Not a ditzy, tinkly, bimbo laugh. Definitely not a laugh Troy needed to hear right now, not with this many neglected hormones standing at the ready to do what hormones do. He glanced over to see Blake looking at him with a funny, irritating smirk, and he shot back a What? look. Chuckling, Blake poked Shaun—twice, this time—to help him unload the leather sofa for the family room, as Karleen said, “Your mama must sure have her hands full with you two,” and Troy thought, Oh, hell.

“We don’t got a mama, either,” Scotty said, but with less regret than about the pool. “She died.”

Karleen’s eyes shot to Troy’s, even as her cheeks pinked way beyond the makeup. “I am so sorry—”

“It’s okay,” he mumbled. “They’ve never known her.”

“But you did,” she said, then seemed to catch herself, the flush deepening.

“Hey, Troy,” Blake called from the house. “You wanna come check out the sofa, make sure it’s exactly where you want it?”

“Yeah, sure, be right there.” He turned again to Karleen, who was already edging back toward her house. “Really, it’s okay,” he felt compelled to say, and she nodded, said, “Well. It was nice to meet you, welcome to the neighborhood,” and hotfooted it back across her yard.

“I like Karleen,” Grady said, still hanging over the fence. “She’s pretty.”

“Yeah,” Scotty said. “She’s nice, too.”

But Troy didn’t miss that she hadn’t said to feel free to ask if he needed to know anything about garbage pickup and the like.

He also didn’t miss the lack of panty lines underneath all that soft, smooth, snuggly fabric.

A couple of hours later, he and Blake sat on Troy’s redwood deck, legs stretched out in front of them, nursing a couple of Cokes as well as their sore muscles. The twins and Shaun were gone, off on an exploratory hike of the new neighborhood. If it hadn’t been for the Sandia Mountains on the other side of Albuquerque peeking through the just-budded-out trees, he could almost imagine he was a kid again, on vacation at the Wisconsin lake where his parents would drag him and his brothers every summer. Letting his eyes drift closed, Troy took advantage of the moment to sink into the padded patio chair, soaking up the spring air, and the peace.

“That neighbor of yours is something to behold,” Blake began in his Oklahoma drawl, and Troy thought, So much for peace.

He scrunched farther down in the chair, his Coke resting on his stomach. “I suppose. If you like that type.”

“Not talking about me. Obviously. I got me my woman,” his partner said with a noisy, satisfied stretch. “Now we need to start thinking about plugging up the gap in your life. And don’t even think about giving me some crap about how you’re just fine, the boys are all you need, it’s not time yet, blah-blah-blah.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Troy said quietly, his eyes still closed.

He could tell he’d caught Blake off guard. After more than ten years of working together, a rare occurrence.

“You saying you’re ready to move on?” Blake finally said.

“You sound surprised.”

“Try flabbergasted.”

“Why? It’s been four years.” Giving up on dozing, Troy sat forward, his Coke clasped in both hands between his spread knees. “I loved Amy. I’ll always love Amy. But I’m tired of being alone.”

“And you miss sex.”

Troy’s mouth pulled tight. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

Blake was quiet for a moment. Understandable, considering how wrecked Troy had been after his wife’s death, how adamant he’d been that there’d never be anyone else. Even now, the pain still lurked, even if these days it tended to stay curled up in its corner, like an old, weary dog. But for every inch the grief receded, emptiness rushed in to take its place.

“Sounds like you’ve been chewing this over for a while,” Blake said.

Troy held up his soda can, squinting at the shiny metal in the late afternoon light. “A year or so. Ever since we started talking about relocating the business down here.” He lowered the can. “I don’t know, I guess the change finally rattled something loose. That maybe I’d like to think about another relationship while my working parts are all still in order.”

The dark-haired man crossed his arms, fixing Troy with a far-too-astute gaze. “Any idea what you intend to do about that?”

Troy released a weighty sigh. “None whatsoever. Amy and I were together for thirteen years. And she’s been gone for four.” He shook his head. “Saying I’m a little out of practice is a gross understatement.”

“It’ll come back to you, I’m sure,” Blake said dryly.

“I’m not talking about that, dirtwad. I’m talking about dating. Starting a new relationship. It was bad enough in my teens when at least I had youth to hide behind. Now I’m supposed to know what I’m doing.”

One side of Blake’s mouth tilted up. “You’re not exactly indigent and you still have all your teeth. My advice? Leave it up to the women. They’re born knowing what to do.”

Both men jumped when overloud country music knifed the silence; just as suddenly, the volume receded. Not, however, fast enough for Troy.

“Like that one, for instance,” Blake said when Karleen appeared in her yard, practically hidden by an umbrella-sized straw hat. A minute later, she was walking back and forth, head down, pushing something—a spreader, maybe?—singing enthusiastic backup with the female vocalist. Her cell phone rang; she stopped, answered it, that damned low, warm laugh carrying over the fence on the slightly chilly breeze.

Staring, borderline miserable, Troy shook his head.

“Why the hell not?”

“Her front yard?”

“At least there’s no junkers on cement blocks. Or toilets.”

“That we can see. Anyway, then there’s the hair. And the nails. And the…” He rolled his hand. “Attributes.”

Blake frowned. “I’m not following.”

Her call finished, Troy waited until he heard the rhythmic groan and squeak of the spreader before he said, “The woman’s not real, Blake, she’s a hallucination brought on by sexual deprivation. And I’m not looking for a hook-up. Which is all that would be. If anything.”

“Oh, believe me, buddy, anything it would be.” Blake took a swig of his soda, chuckling. “Something is what that would be. I half expected the grass between the two of you to ignite.”

“That’s crazy. And do not—” he jabbed his soda can in Blake’s direction “—shake your heading pityingly at me.”

“I’ll shake my head any damn way I want. I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I should go back and double check the van, make sure you didn’t leave your brain inside it. The woman’s pretty, likes kids, seems reasonably conversant in the English language and looked like she had her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth for a while there. No, wait—that was you.” Blake pushed himself back on the chair, grinning. “Not real sure I see what the problem is.”

“Just because she doesn’t have kids doesn’t mean she’s single,” Troy said before he caught himself.

Blake tapped his own wedding ring. “No ring.”

“So she could still have a boyfriend, you know. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m not interested. Oh, come on, Blake…you know as well as I do that ‘opposites attract’ stuff is a crock. Yes, she strikes me as a nice enough woman, but I’m looking for something with some substance to it.”

“Like you had with Amy.”

“Exactly. What?” he said when Blake shook his head again.

Dark-brown eyes met his. “They call it starting over for a reason, dumb-ass. There’s never gonna be another Amy, and thinking that’s even possible isn’t fair to anybody. Especially you. But aren’t you jumping the gun a little here? Thinking you’re gonna find the next Mrs. Lindquist right off the bat without taking a couple of test drives first? Why limit your options by automatically tossing out any woman who doesn’t immediately make you think wedding bells?”

“Because it’s a waste of time? Because…” He glanced toward Karleen’s house, then lowered his voice even further. “Because the enhanced look has never done it for me?”

“Must’ve been one helluva trick of the light, then, that poleaxed look on your face. And anyway, what makes you so sure they’re not the genuine article?”

“Educated guess.”

“Huh. Never realized MBA stood for Master of Boob Authenticity. Hey!” Laughing, he ducked when Troy threw his empty soda can at him, the crushed aluminum making one hell of a racket as it bounced across the wooden deck. Karleen jerked her head in their direction. They both waved. She waved back. A little reluctantly, Troy thought.

“And anyway,” Blake said, “haven’t you always wondered what fake ones feel like?” only to laugh again as he dodged Troy’s smack upside the head. Then, hearing the boys’ voices as they trooped around the side of the house toward the backyard, Blake stood, checking his watch. “I need to get back, I told Cass I’d be home by five. You ready to drop off the truck and pick up your car?”

“Might as well.”

Which Troy had fervently hoped signaled the end of the discussion. Except, after the U-Haul had been returned and Blake dropped Troy and the twins back by their old apartment to pick up the Volvo, Blake called Troy back to his car.

“So, you gonna put out feelers with Karleen or not?” Blake said quietly over Shaun’s hip-hop on the stereo, and Troy glared at him.

“This is payback for all the grief I gave you when you were trying to get back with Cass, isn’t it?”

Chuckling, Blake put the SUV in reverse, then gave Troy one final, concerned glance. “No. But I am wondering how you think looking for another Amy is being open to possibilities. Just something to think about,” he said, then backed out of the driveway.

Twenty minutes later, Troy pulled up in front of his new house, the boys springing themselves from their car seats the instant he cut the engine. “Stay in the backyard!” he yelled out the window, a moment before they vanished in a cloud of dust and giggles. Then he sagged into the leather seat, his head lolling against the rest as he looked at his new home, waiting for the dust storm of memories to settle inside his head.

Several years before, when Troy had finally felt confident enough that the business wasn’t going to disintegrate out from under him, that he and Amy could actually apply for a mortgage with a straight face, they’d driven the poor Realtor in Denver nuts, looking at house after house after house. But it had been their first and it had to be perfect. Especially since they’d start raising their family there.

Meaning, the minute they’d walked inside, it had to say home. And the way his and Amy’s tastes had dovetailed so perfectly had almost been spooky. They’d both craved clean lines, openness, light woods and walls—a house nothing like their parents’ slightly disheveled, suburban two-story pseudo Colonials. The house they’d finally fallen in love with had smelled of fresh plaster, new wood, new beginnings, even if they’d filled it with the comforting, muted colors and traditional styles of their childhood.

After Amy’s death, Troy had assumed he wouldn’t be able to bear staying there. He’d been wrong. Instead, the familiar, the routine, had succored him in those first terrible weeks, months, after the unthinkable had happened. The house, and their beautiful, precious babies, had saved his butt. And his sanity. Leaving it hadn’t been easy.

So after the move, he’d again taken his time, driving another Realtor crazy, looking for a new home for him and his boys. Another new start. He could have bought pretty much any house he wanted in Albuquerque. But he hadn’t wanted any house; he’d wanted the right house. Only, who knew “right” would be this quirky, lopsided grandmother of a house, mottled with the patina of mold and memories? That his new definition of home would include bowed wooden floors and a wisteria-and-honeysuckle choked portal, weathered corbels and windows checkered by crumbling mullions and pockmarked wooden vigas ribbing the high ceilings?

Damn thing was twice as big as they really needed, even after getting everything out of storage. And he’d have to buy one of those John Deere monsters to mow the lawn. Still, he thought as he finally climbed out of the car, hearing the boys’ clear, pure laughter on the nippy breeze, this was a house that exuded serenity, the kind that comes from having seen it all and surviving. A house that begged for large dogs and swing sets and basketball hoops and loud, boisterous boys.

Troy walked over to inspect what turned out to be a loose, six-inch thick post on the porch, shaking his head. And, because he’d clearly lost his mind, smiling. The house needed him. Right now, a good thing.

A flimsy wooden screen door whined when he opened it, the floorboards creaking underfoot as he walked through the family room to check on the boys in the backyard. The French doors leading outside were suffocated underneath God-knew-how-many coats of white enamel paint; Troy dug his trusty Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and scratched through to the wood: maple. Maybe cherry. Pocketing the knife, he pushed the doors open, his lips curving at the sight of the kids chasing each other around and around the trees, their yells competing with doves’ coos, the occasional trill of a robin.

“You guys want pizza?” His voice echoed in the half-empty house, the emptiness inside him.

“Yeah!” they both hollered, running over, their faces flushed under messy, dirty hair. Find towels, he thought. Wash kids.

“C’n Karleen eat wif us?” Grady said, five times louder than necessary, and Troy thought, What? even as he stole a please-don’t-be-there glance at her yard.

“She probably has other plans, guys. You go back and play, I’ll call you when it gets here.”

God, kids, Troy thought as he tromped back into the house, thumbing through the phone book for the nearest pizza delivery. After ordering two larges—one cheese, one with everything—a salad and breadsticks, he soldiered on upstairs to the boys’ new room. Since it faced the back, he could work and still keep an ear out. Blake and Shaun had helped him set up the bunk bed, but the boxes of toys and clothes and heaven knew what else had clearly multiplied in the last two hours.

Shaking his head, he got to it, only to discover a couple boxes of his junk among the kids. After another glance out the window at the boys—huddled together underneath a nearby cottonwood, deep in some kind of twin conspiracy, no doubt—he stacked the boxes and carted them to his bedroom across the hall, no sooner dumping them on the floor at the foot of his (unmade) bed when his cell rang.

“Just called to see if you were settled in yet,” his mother said in his ear.

“In, yes,” he said, shoving one of the boxes into a corner with his foot. “Settled?” He glowered at the pile of boxes sitting in front of him, silently jeering. “By the time the boys graduate from high school, if I’m lucky.”

“Which is where a woman comes in handy. Although listen to me,” Eleanor Lindquist hurriedly added, as if realizing her gaffe, “I’ve still got unpacked boxes in the garage from when we moved in here when you were five! At this point, I think we’re just going to leave them for you and your brothers to ‘discover’ after we’re dead.”

“Can’t wait.”

Eleanor laughed softly, then said, “I’m sorry, Troy. About the woman comment—”

“It’s okay. Forget it.”

A brief pause preceded “Anyway. Your father and I are thinking about coming down there for a visit. In a couple of months, we thought.”

Troy stilled. “Oh?”

“We’ve always wanted to see the Southwest, you know—” News to him. “But we thought we might as well wait until you got your housing situation straightened out. Of course, we can certainly stay in a hotel if it’s inconvenient—”

“No! No, of course not, there’s plenty of room here.” Good one, Mom. “But…how’s Dad? Is he up to the trip?”

“Of course he’s up to the trip, it’s been more than five years, for goodness sake!”

The doorbell rang. Wow. Domino’s must be having a slow night. “Pizza guy’s at the door, I’ve got to run,” he said, digging his wallet out of his back pocket as he thundered down the stairs. “My best to Dad.” He clapped shut his phone and swung open the door, only to jump a foot at the sight of Karleen on his doorstep.

Bookended by a pair of slightly smudged, grinning, yellow-haired boys.

“Lose something?” she said.

Chapter Two

Troy allowed himself a quarter second’s worth of sexual awareness—the perfume alone was enough to make him light-headed—before the hindsight terror thing kicked in nicely and he grabbed two skinny little arms, yanking the bodies attached thereto across his threshold.

“What’s the big idea, leaving the yard? You know you’re not supposed to go anywhere without a grown-up! Ever,” he added before Scotty could snow him with the pouty lower lip.

“We didn’t cross the street or nothin’,” Grady said, his defiance trembling at the edges. “We only went to Karleen’s.”’

“Why on earth did you do that?”

“’Cause we wanted her to come over, only you said she prob’ly had plans. ’Cept she doesn’t. Huh?” Grady said, twisting around to look up at her.

“I am so sorry,” Troy said, following his son’s gaze, which was when it registered that Karleen was wearing one of those painted-on exercise outfits that left little to the imagination, and that her skin was flushed—From exercise? From being pissed?—and her lipstick was eaten off and she’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail, leaving all these soft little bits hanging around her face and her eyes huge underneath her bangs and—

“We were coming right back,” Scotty said softly, cruelly derailing Troy’s train of thought.

Kids. Right.

Troy straightened up, forking a hand through his hair. Giving them the Dad-is-not-amused face. “That’s not the point. You’re too little to be by yourselves, even for a minute.”

Grady’s little forehead crumpled. “Then how come you always tell us what big boys we are?”

“Yeah,” Scotty said, nodding, looking impossibly tiny and vulnerable. Not for the first time, responsibility walloped Troy square in the chest.

So he pointed a hopefully stern finger in their faces. “You’re not that big,” he said, just as a compact sedan with a Domino’s sign clamped to the roof screeched up in front of the house, and the kids started hopping around like grasshoppers, chanting, “Piz-za! Piz-za! Piz-za!”

“No, wait,” he said to Karleen as she made her getaway (he couldn’t imagine why), breathing an oddly relieved sigh when she stopped, biding her time while Troy paid the pizza guy. After the very well-tipped teen loped back toward his car, Troy focused again on Karleen. Her arms were crossed underneath her breasts, her lips curved in a Mona Lisa smile as she watched the boys. The sun had begun to go down in earnest, soft-edging the shadows, leaving a chill in its wake. He wondered if she was cold…

“Good Lord, honey…how long has it been?”

Troy’s head snapped up. “What?”

Bemusement danced in her eyes. “If you stare at my chest any harder, my bra’s gonna catch fire.”

“I—I’m sorry, I don’t usually…” He blew out a breath, his face hotter than the pizza. “I didn’t mean…” She laughed. Troy sighed again. “Okay, so maybe I did. But I’m not a letch, I swear.”

“Oh, don’t go gettin’ your boxers in a bunch. You’re just bein’a man, is all. No harm, no foul. It’s kinda cute, actually.”

Cute. Not exactly the image he was going for.

Oh, God. He was staring. Again. Not at her breasts, at least, but still.

“Uh…thanks for bringing the guys back,” he said, shifting the pizzas.

One eyebrow lifted. “I hadn’t exactly planned on keepin’ ’em.”

“More’s the pity,” Troy muttered, then shook his head. “Honestly, I have no idea what got into them, they’ve never gone off like that before. But you really are welcome to stay. If you haven’t eaten, I mean.” He hefted the two boxes, which he now realized were slowly melting his palms. And probably the salad on top. “There’s plenty. I’ll even promise to behave,” he said, remembering to smile.

Now it was apparently her turn to stare, in that thoroughly assessing way women had that made men feel about six. “So the boys really came all on their own? You didn’t send them over?”

Troy jerked. “What? No! Why would you think that?”

“Sorry. I just…” For one small moment, wisps of regret floated between them, only to spiral off into nothingness when she said, “Thanks for the offer, anyway. But I can’t.”

She pivoted and again started back toward her house.

Let her go, let her go…

“Another time?”

Karleen turned. “You’re not serious?”

“Well, yeah, actually I am.” What? “Was. I mean, we’re neighbors and everything…” He shrugged. Lamely.

“Yeah, well, it’s the and everything part of that sentence that worries me.”

“Figure of speech,” Troy muttered, fighting another blush. Bad at this didn’t even begin to cover it. “I promise, Karleen, I’m not coming on to you.”

“Well, no, you haven’t reached salivatin’ stage yet, maybe. But you are definitely coming on to me.”

Troy snagged the Really? before it got past his lips, then thought, Hey, maybe this is easier than I thought. Or maybe she is.

Then he remembered she was the one walking away.

“And…that would be inappropriate because you probably have a boyfriend or something.”

“Or maybe I’m not interested.”

“Or that.”

That got a head shake, which made the ponytail, if not the breasts, bounce. “You know, you really are sweet,” she said, and again those wistful wisps cavorted in the chilly early evening air, more visible this time, although no less phantasmagorical. “As it happens, I haven’t had a boyfriend since I was…” She cleared her throat. “A long time.”

“You’re into other women?”

She burst out laughing. The kind of laugh that made him smile, even around the size thirteen in his mouth. “Oh, God, you are too much! No, honey, I just meant boyfriend sounds kinda…juvenile or something. I’ve had lovers, and I’ve had husbands—”

“Husbands?”

“Three, if you must know. And three is definitely this girl’s limit. Anyway. I’m trying to make a point, here—no, there’s nobody in my life right now. By choice. Because if you ask me, it’s all far more trouble than it’s worth. Which is why I’m turnin’ down your invitation. For tonight or any other time. Because you are sweet and there’s no use pretending we’re not attracted to each other, but some things just aren’t meant to be.”

She nodded toward the boxes. “Your pizza’s gettin’ cold, sugar,” she said, then spun around, this time making it all the way across his yard.

Troy stared after her for several seconds as it all came flooding back. The part about how much it sucked to get rejected. Even when the woman wasn’t someone you really wanted to get tangled up with, anyway.

He went inside, slamming the door shut with his foot, and called the boys to dinner.

“What’s his name again?”

“Troy Lindquist,” Karleen tossed in the direction of the speakerphone while she pedaled her butt off on her exercise bike. It had been two days since Troy and his Tiny Tots had moved in next door. Two days since Karleen had walked away from an invitation that she’d known full well had included a lot more than pizza, Troy’s insistence otherwise notwithstanding.

Two days since she’d answered her doorbell to find a plastic-wrapped Chinet plate on her doorstep, heaped with two slices of pizza—one cheese, one supreme—a bread-stick and salad. And taped to the top, a note:

It’ll only go to waste. Enjoy. T.

And in those two days, she’d put in enough miles on this bike to give Lance Armstrong a run for his money. If nothing else, she was gonna have thighs you could bounce a rock off.

Slightly crackly, fuzzy clicking filled the room as Joanna tapped away at her computer keyboard, the rhythmic sound occasionally punctuated by her dog Chester’s barking, the occasional squawk, scream or “Mo-om!” from one of her four kids. Clearly ignoring them all, Joanna said, “Huh.”

“Huh, what?” Karleen said, panting and daubing sweat from her neck and chest with the towel around her neck. Of course, she could have Googled the guy herself, but Joanna beat her to it.

“Blond, you said? Late thirties? Blindingly gorgeous?”

“That would be him. Why? You find something?”

“Well,” Jo’s voice croaked over the speaker, “there’s a photo of some blond hottie named Troy Lindquist, with a dark-haired hottie named Blake Carter—”

“Yes! He was there, too!”

“Yeesh, I’m surprised your retinas didn’t melt. Anyway, there’s a caption under the photo—oh, for God’s sake, Matt, let the baby have the ball, already! And put the dog back outside, his feet are all muddy!—about their company. Ain’t It Sweet.”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

“No, Ain’t It Sweet. The frozen desserts people?”

Karleen stopped pedaling, her heart beating so hard she could hardly hear herself talk. “As in, The Devil Made Me Do It Fudge Cake?”

“The very same.”

“Troy owns it?”

“Apparently so. Well, he and this Blake person are partners. It says here…” Karleen waited while Joanna apparently scrolled. “They recently moved their headquarters from Denver to Albuquerque…. Main ice-cream plant still in Denver…holy moly.”

“What?”

“‘Analysts say, with its steadily increasing sales figures and healthy profit margins, as well as a huge projected franchise growth within the next three to five years, Ain’t It Sweet is poised to bolster its North American market share by as much as fifty percent, with plans to increase its overseas distribution in the works. Already, this upstart company is routinely among the top five high-quality frozen confections brands Americans name when polled in market surveys.’”

“It sure as hell’s the brand I think of when I think of…whatever you said.”

“Yeah,” Jo said. “Me, too. Their Yo-Ho-Ho Mocha Rum Truffle cheesecake…”

“Oh! And their Everlasting Latte Cinnamon Swirl sorbet…”

Stupid names. Fabulous stuff. Holy moly was right.

“Hot and filthy rich,” Joanna cackled. “And single, you say?”

“Don’t go there.”

“I’m not going anywhere. You, on the other hand, have an unattached, lonely, rich hottie living on the other side of your west wall. A single, lonely, rich hottie with a direct link to the best ice cream in the entire freaking world.”

Rolling her eyes, Karleen climbed off the bike and grabbed the phone from its stand, walking out to her kitchen for some water. “Why do you assume he’s lonely?”

“I can see it in his eyes in the photo.” Which, coming from anybody else, would have sounded weird as hell. But Jo was like that. And besides, much as it pained Karleen to admit it, she’d seen it, too. Up close and personal. “For God’s sake, Karleen, pay attention! Ice cream! Sex! Money! Ice cream!”

She had to laugh. “I got it, Jo. I’m not interested.”

“Are you insane? I’m interested, and if I were any more happily married my brain would explode. Maybe you better check your pulse, make sure you’re still alive.”

Karleen released a long, weary breath. “And you do know you are beating a very dead horse, right?”

After a pause, Jo said, “You never used to be like this.”

“I think that’s the point, honey,” she said softly. “And yes, I’m very aware of how attractive he is. And nice. And he’s got two adorable little boys. But his expression when he first saw me far outweighed whatever hormones were playing dodgeball between us—”

“There were hormones playing dodgeball?” Jo said on a squeak, and Karleen rolled her eyes.

“Jo. Even if I was thinking about followin’ through, these lashes do not flutter at someone who looks at me the way Troy Lindquist did. You could practically see the ‘trailer trash’ lightbulb go on over his head.”

“Karleen. Blond hair and a Texas accent do not trailer trash make.”

“The boob job comes pretty damn close.”

“Then half of L.A.’s trailer trash, too. And would you stop beating yourself up over that? You were thrilled when Nate gave them to you for your birthday.”

“Uh-huh. Until I realized what’s gonna happen at some point when they’ll have to come out and I’m gonna end up with a pair of deflated balloons on my chest. I’ll be regretting them for the rest of my life. Just like my marriages.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Jo said in a voice Karleen had heard far too often since the first day in seventh grade when they’d sat next to each other in Social Studies, and for some bizarre reason the daughter of a hotshot attorney and one of Albuquerque’s most successful car dealers had taken a liking to a little hick from Flyspeck, Texas. “Dammit, Kar—you’re smart, you’ve got your own business, you don’t owe anybody anything. So your marriages didn’t work out. It happens.”

“Three times?”

“So you’ve had more practice than most people. Big whoop. But if being alone is what you really want, hey…go for it—”

Karleen’s call waiting beeped in her ear. “Sorry, I’m waiting on a client’s call, I need to take this. I’ll talk to you later, honey, okay?”

At that point, she almost didn’t care who was calling. That is, until she heard “Leenie? Is that you?” on the other end of the line.

A fireball exploded in the pit of Karleen’s stomach. The phone pressed against her ear, she wobbled out to the family room, dropping onto the worn Southwest pastel sofa. Well-meaning friends, rich hunky neighbors, all forgotten in an instant. Not even the glass menagerie sparkling on the windowsill—usually a surefire defense against the doldrums—could withstand the all-too-familiar tsunami of irritation and guilt.

“Aunt Inky?”

“Well, who else would it be, baby? Shew, what a relief, I was afraid you might’ve changed your phone number or somethin’!”

Definitely an oversight on her part. Karleen resisted the impulse to ask her mother’s younger sister what she wanted. Because she only ever surfaced when she did want something. “Well. This is a surprise.”

“I know, I’ve been real bad about keepin’in touch. And it would’ve been hard for you to contact me, since I’ve been doing so much, um, traveling and all.”

“Uh-huh.” Inky didn’t sound drunk, for once. But then, it was only ten o’clock in the morning. The slurring wasn’t usually noticeable until mid-afternoon. “So where are you now?”

“Lubbock. Been here for a couple months now. It’s okay, I guess. God knows I’ve lived in worse places.” A pause. “You take up with anybody new yet?”

Karleen shut her eyes. “No, Aunt Inky. I told you, I prefer being alone.”

“What fun is that?”

“It’s not fun I’m after, it’s peace. You should try it sometime.”

“Well, each to his own, I suppose,” her aunt said. “You doing okay, then? Money-wise, I mean?”

Ah. Karleen had wondered how long it would take. “I get by.”

“Well, that’s good. You always were a smart little thing, though—sure as heck a lot smarter than your mama or me—so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You still livin’ in the same place, that house with all the trees around it?”

Ice immediately doused the fire in her belly. And oh, she was tempted to lie. If not to pack her bags and make a run for it. Except Inky was the only family she had left, for one thing. And for another, Karleen was done running, done believing that whatever she needed was always right over the horizon.

“Yes, I’m still here.” She hesitated, then added, “It’s all I’ve got, really,” even if that was stretching the truth a little.

Sure enough, Inky came back with a soft “Then I don’t suppose you could spare a couple hundred dollars? Just a loan, you understand. To tide me over until I get back on my feet.”

Karleen nearly laughed, even as she again resisted temptation, this time to point out to her aunt that if she spent less time in a horizontal position—either in the company of men of dubious character or out cold from cheap booze—she might actually stay on her feet for more than five minutes. But it wasn’t like Karleen had a whole lot of room to talk, so who was she to judge? And anyway, it had been nearly a year this time, so maybe this really was an emergency.

“I guess I can manage a couple hundred. As long as you pay it back,” she added, because she wanted her aunt to at least think about it.

“Of course, baby! Let me give you my address, I’m stayin’ with a friend right now—” oh, brother “—but I should be here for a while….”

Karleen scribbled the address on a notepad lying on the coffee table. “Okay, I’ll send a check for two hundred dollars in the next mail—”

“Could you make that a money order, baby? And if you could see clear to maybe make that two-fifty, or even three, I’d really appreciate it.”

Karleen sighed. But, she thought after she hung up, at least her aunt hadn’t asked to come stay with her.

A thought that made her feel prickly all over, like the time she’d lifted up a piece of wood in the backyard after a rainstorm and a million great big old waterbugs had scurried out from under it. Even though it had been probably twenty years since she’d spent any significant time with her aunt, just talking to the woman disturbed a swollen, never-quite-forgotten nest of skin-crawling memories.

Karleen sucked in a lungful of air, then glanced over at the big mirrored clock by the entertainment center. Plenty of time before her afternoon appointment to do some digging in the garden, work off some of this negative energy.

She traded her bicycle shorts for jeans, shoved her feet into a pair of disreputable sneakers, plopped her silly straw hat on her head and went outside, where she was greeted by that brain-numbing music Troy liked so much. She half thought about going back inside, only to decide she couldn’t become a recluse simply because her new neighbor made her uncomfortable in ways she didn’t want to think about too hard. The music, though, might well drive her right over the edge.

So she rammed a Garth Brooks CD into the boom box on the deck, hit the play button and tromped over to her shed. Honestly, she thought as the metal doors clanged open, she doubted Troy was even forty yet. How he could like music that reminded Karleen of meat loaf and black-and-white television, she had no idea. Eighties rock, she could have understood. She wouldn’t ’ve liked it any better, but at least it would’ve made sense.

But then, there was a lot about Troy Lindquist that didn’t make sense. Like why, if he was so well off, he’d bought a fixer-upper out in Corrales when he could’ve easily bought one of those flashy McMansions up in the foothills. Why there didn’t seem to be a nanny or housekeeper in the picture.

Not that any of it was her business, but it was curious.

After shaking out her thickest gardening gloves in case somebody with too many legs had set up housekeeping inside, she yanked them on, then batted through a maze of cobwebs to find her shovel, which she carted over to a small plot that, unfortunately, was next to Troy’s fence. But that was the only spot in the yard that wasn’t in shade half the day, or plagued with cottonwood roots.

The pointed steel bit into the soft soil with a satisfying crunch. By the third thonk, two little pairs of sneakered feet suddenly appeared on the lower rail, followed by two little faces hanging over the top. Two little eat-’em-up faces that she bet looked exactly like father’s when he’d been that age.

“Whatcha doing?” the shorter-haired twin, clearly the appointed spokesperson of the duo, now said. The babies reminded her of leaves fluttering in the breeze, never completely still.

“I’m gettin’ the soil ready so I can plant a garden.”

“Whatcha gonna plant?”

“Tomatoes,” she said, breathing a little hard as she jabbed the shovel into the soil. Most people would use a rototiller and be done with the chore in no time flat, but Karleen liked doing it the old-fashioned way. “Cucumbers. Squash. Maybe cantaloupe.” For some reason, she couldn’t grow flowers to save her soul, but vegetables, she could handle.

“C’n we help?”

“Yeah,” the second, smaller one said, his voice like a butterfly’s kiss. “C’n we?”

“Oh, I’m not planting anything today,” she said, secure in the knowledge that by the time she did, they would have in all likelihood forgotten this conversation. “It still gets too cold at night. So not for weeks yet.”

“Oh,” the first one said again. “But when you do, c’n we help?”

Then again, maybe she’d have to plant by moonlight this year.

Then the littler one said, his eyes like jumbo blue marbles in a face that was all delicate angles, “Yeah, we never, ever had a garden before.”

Oh, Lord.

“Tell you what,” she said, straightening up and shoving her hair out of her face with the back of her wrist, which was when she noticed Troy, his damp T-shirt molded to his torso, standing on his deck, watching her as intently as a cat stalking a bird. “When it’s time, you can ask your father, and we’ll see,” which of course sent both boys streaking away shouting, “Daddy! Daddy! C’n we help Karleen plant her garden?”

Troy swung the first child to reach him up into his arms, making the little boy break into uncontrollable giggles as he blew a big, slurpy kiss into his neck. Chuckling, he squeezed a few more giggles out of the kid before setting him down to scoop up his brother and repeat the process. “You two are going to be the death of me yet,” he said, the top notes of amusement and exasperation in his voice in perfect harmony with the deep, almost unbearably tender melody line of unconditional love.

The ache that bloomed inside her was so sweet it clogged her throat, even as, from thirty feet away, she caught the apology in his eyes. “It’s okay,” she pushed out, but he shook his head. He said something to the boys, who scampered off to the other side of the yard, before he stepped inside his house. A second later he reappeared and headed her way, a bottle clenched in each fist.

Karleen jerked her head back down and plunged the shovel into the soil again like she was inches away from striking oil.

Chapter Three

Troy’d been watching Karleen off and on for ten minutes or so, going after that poor plot of dirt as though it had offended her deeply. Especially after the boys had accosted her. Not that he could hear the conversation over that god-awful country caterwauling. But after more than a decade of dealing with bank managers, suppliers, advertising agencies and potential investors, he was no slouch at deciphering body language.

A dialect in which his new neighbor was particularly fluent.

The cold, wet bottles soothed his heated palms as he crossed the fifty feet or so. A good thing, since the closer he got, the more agitated her digging became. Well, tough. She still wasn’t his type, but he wasn’t the bogeyman, either. And it bugged him no end that she seemed to think he was. So, okay, maybe he wasn’t exactly racking up the bonus points by invading her space, but considering she’d come out of her house looking ready to bite somebody’s head off, he sincerely doubted he was more than a fly on an already festering wound.

The brim of her hat quivering, she glanced up at his approach. And sure enough, worry peeked out from behind the aggravation simmering in her expression, and he thought, See? Told ya, followed by the inevitable pang of empathy whenever confronted by someone in trouble. Amy used to tease him unmercifully about it, about his always getting far more personally involved in other people’s messes than he should. Some things, he thought as he held out one of the bottles, can’t be helped.

“It’s hotter than it looks. You’ll get dehydrated.”

“Thanks, but I’m good,” she said, stabbing the dirt again. Her jeans sat intriguingly low on her hips, allowing an occasional glimpse of that sparkly belly-button stud, companioned by one of those stretchy tops that were basically just big, blah bras. Although on her, not so blah. In fact, the way the sun licked at the moisture sheening her skin…

Nope. Not blah at all.

“It’s a bottle of water, Karleen. Not my fraternity pin.”

Panting slightly, she shifted her gaze toward him again; fireflies of sunlight danced over her face through the straw brim. He wiggled the bottle. She reached over and snatched it out of his hand. “Fine,” she said, twisting off the top and taking a swallow. “Now will you go away?”

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”

Surprise flickered across her features, followed by a head shake. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Bull.”

Now her brows lifted, as well as one corner of her mouth. “You don’t know me from Eve. Why would you care?”

“Consider it a character flaw.”

She met his gaze with a startling intensity that jolted his sex drive awake like a fire alarm. Underneath her T-shirt, her sigh took her breasts for a little ride.

“It’s not you,” she said after a moment, breaking the spell before his tongue started dragging in the dirt. Jeez. “I got a phone call that rattled me, is all.” She shrugged, then set the bottle down by the fence before she went back to work. “Family stuff, nothin’ too serious, and not to put too fine a point on it—” she attacked a particularly obtuse dirt clod “—but it’s none of your business.”

The haze nicely cleared now, Troy took a sip of his own water, then propped the bottle on the top rung of the fence. “Okay, so I didn’t come over here soley to make sure you wouldn’t die of thirst.”

A tiny smile made a brief appearance. “No?”

“No. You were right the other night, when you made that comment about it having been a long time for me. I haven’t even gone out with another woman since my wife died.”

The dirt clod exploded like a supernova; her gaze touched his. “You’re kidding?”

“Nope.”

She stilled, clearly on the alert. “And what does this have to do with me?”

“Well…Blake—the guy who helped me move in?—suggested that maybe I needed someone—a woman, I mean—to practice on before I plunged back into the dating scene.” He lifted the bottle in her direction. “And since you live right next door, he thought maybe you might be that woman.”

Karleen barked out a laugh, then said, “And I can’t believe you’re dumb enough to say that to a woman with a shovel in her hands.”

“I mean to talk to, what did you think I—? Oh.” His mouth flatlined. Maybe the haze hadn’t cleared as much as he’d thought. Good to know the hormones were still flowing, but the perpetual leaky faucet sucked. “Sorry. That didn’t come out exactly the way I heard it in my head.”

She stabbed the shovel into a hard section of ground, balancing on it like a pogo stick until it sank. “Well, if that boneheaded attempt you just made is any indication, your conversational skills could definitely use some fine-tuning. But why me, exactly? Besides the convenience factor, that is.”

“Because I figure if I can handle a conversation with you, I can handle one with anybody.”

That got another laugh, this one a little less scary, and the faucet started dripping harder. After living with a woman for nearly ten years, not to mention four years of celibacy since, Troy knew damn well he wasn’t one of those men who thought about sex 24/7. But as he watched Karleen bend over to snag the water bottle and his eyes went right to her soft, round backside, he realized that it definitely hummed in the background like a computer operating system—unseen but always on.

Her lips glistened from her sip of water. Yeah, that was helping. “You mean to tell me,” she said, “that you haven’t so much as talked to another woman in all this time.”

“Not in the man-woman sense, no.”

“And what’s really pathetic,” she said with a smile that only underscored her words, “is that I actually believe you.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“Although…you’re not doing so bad right now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Got off to a bit of a bumpy start, but you recovered nicely enough.” She took another swallow of the water, then made a face. Troy frowned.

“It’s bottled water, how bad can it be?”

“It’s not the water, it’s that wussy music you’re listening to.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Other than I keep thinkin’ somebody’s about to say, ‘The doctor will see you now’? Not a thing. Music’s supposed to get your juices flowin’, sugar, not put you to sleep.”

Troy let out a slightly pained laugh. “Trust me, between my work and keeping track of my sons and…other things—” uh, boy “—my juices flow just fine, thank you. I want something to calm my nerves,” he said with a pointed glance over at the loud country music issuing from her patio, “not frazzle them more than they already are.”

She’d picked up her shovel again; now she leaned both hands on the end of the handle, striking a pose that could only be described as sassy. Troy didn’t do sassy.

He didn’t think.

“You got somethin’ against country?” she said.

“When it’s loud enough to rattle windows in Phoenix? Yeah.”

Karleen looked back over her shoulder, considering. “I suppose I could turn it down. But…” Then she glanced up at him, the sassiness half melted into something that, once again, sent all those crazy hormones running for cover. “The CD’s almost done, you mind if I let it run out?”

“No, of course not.”

“Thanks. But tell you what…how about we agree not to play music outside at all? Unless the other one’s not around, I mean?”

“Deal. Oh, and sorry about the kids earlier.” When she frowned, he prompted, “About the garden?

The shovel stabbed at the dirt, but she glanced up from under the hat’s brim. “They’re just bein’ little kids, it’s no big deal. And anyway, since it’s not even an issue for at least another month, I’m not worried.”

“You should be. Trust me, those two take bugging to a whole new level. They work as a team—one stops to take a breath, the other one effortlessly fills the gap.”

She laughed, then straightened up, looking in the boys’ direction. “Which one’s which?”

Troy studied her face for several seconds, as if to commit what he saw there to memory. Deciphering could come later. Then he followed her gaze. “Grady’s the bigger, more outgoing one. The instigator. Scotty’s always been more cautious. Unlike his brother, he tends to at least think about things before getting in trouble.”

“Aww…they sound a lot like my friend Joanna’s twins. Real different personalities.” She twisted around, one hand clamped around the handle, the other pointing to a spot a few feet away. “How about we give them their own garden, over there? They could plant a pumpkin vine, kids always get a kick out of that.”

Troy frowned. “You don’t have to do that. I mean, it’s a great idea, but I could easily do a garden for them, too. It looks like the former owners had a plot over against the back wall.”

“Forget it. That soil’s crap, they could never get anything to grow. And I don’t mind. Really. It’ll be fun.”

The conversation stalled. She kept digging. Troy picked up his water bottle. “Well, I guess I’ll be going,” he said, turning away.

“You tryin’ to dig up those old roses along the back?”

He wheeled around far more eagerly than he should have. “Trying being the operative word.” The ancient bush had sent out dozens of treacherous, thorn-smothered runners into the yard. “I’m beginning to think nothing short of napalm’s going to work. But things growing wild bug me. And I want to get as much done around here before I have to go back to work next week.”

She tossed him a funny look, then said, “I was wondering how somebody in your position was able to take so much time off.” When he frowned, she shrugged and said, “Google. And a nosy best friend.”

“Ah,” he said, then responded, “state-of-the-art home office. And besides, I can take so much time off now because I had basically no life for the first five years we were trying to get the business off the ground.” Then boldness struck and he asked, “And what do you do?”

One shoulder hitched. “I’m a personal shopper.”

“Really?” He looked at her house, which while much smaller than his, still wasn’t exactly a mud hut. The overzealous outdoor kitsch notwithstanding. “You must do pretty well yourself.”

Her eyes followed his. “I do okay.” Her brows knitted together for a moment, then she said, pain faintly pin-pricking her words, “Ex Number Three apparently decided letting me stay after the divorce was worth bein’ rid of me.”

“He didn’t like country music, either?”

A laugh burbled from her throat, producing a small glow of triumph in the center of Troy’s chest. A second later, the boys popped up on either side of his hips, positively caked with dirt and looking damned pleased with themselves about it.

A grin, this time. “You sure those’re your kids?”

“Heck, I’m not sure they’re kids at all,” Troy said, using the hem of his T-shirt to wipe the top layer of dirt from Scotty’s forehead. “Mud puppies, maybe. Hard to tell until I hose them down.”

The boys giggled; then, hanging onto his hands, they launched into the we’re-gonna-starve-to-death moans, and Troy looked down into two sets of trusting blue eyes, and his chest twinged, as it did at least a dozen times a day. When he met Karleen’s gaze again, however, the clouds had rolled back across her expression. Heavy, leaden things that promised days and days of unrelentingly miserable weather.

“I think Nate and I had more issues than differing musical tastes,” she said, and her eyes touched his, and a great, big whoa went off in his brain.

A whoa he’d only heard once before, when a certain sleek-haired brunette had glided across his path in front of Northwestern’s library, nearly two decades before.

A certain sleek-haired brunette who wouldn’t have been caught dead with bleached hair, or her midriff exposed, or a belly-button stud, or listening to country music.

“Go feed your babies,” Karleen said softly, jerking Troy back to Planet Earth.

“Uh…yeah. Would you like to—?”

“We’ll talk about the garden when it gets warmer,” she said, then turned her back on him, ramming the shovel into the dirt so hard he could have sworn the ground vibrated underneath his feet.

At 6:00 a.m. three days later, Karleen had stumbled out of bed, slammed shut the window against the din of birdsong and stumbled back to bed. Where now, at eight, daylight sat on her face like an obnoxious cat, prodding her to get up.

Then she remembered that Troy still lived next door and she grabbed her pillow and crammed it over her head, only to realize it was impossible to suffocate yourself.

She tossed the pillow overboard, frowning at her beamed ceiling. Of all the houses for sale in Albuquerque, Troy Lindquist had to buy the one next door to hers. Was that unfair or what? Good-looking, she could ignore. Sweet, she could ignore. Sexy…she could ignore. But all three rolled into one? Lord, she felt like she was running to stay ahead of a raging wildfire—one trip, and she’d be barbecue.

Oh, sure, she could go on about her resolve to stay unattached until her tongue fell out, but neither history nor biology were on her side. Because the whole reason Karleen had ended up with the three husbands—not to mention an appalling number of “gap guys” in between—was her complete and total inability to resist a handsome, sweet-talking, testosterone-drenched male. Especially considering her very healthy sex drive. Which had been sorely neglected for far longer than she’d thought was even possible.

Yeah, it was definitely easier to keep replacing the hamsters. But now she wondered if her singlehood had less to do with any resolve on her part and more to a lack of any real temptation.

And that, she decided as the sun continued its relentless ascent, must’ve been why Mr. My-Mouth-Says-One-Thing-but-My-Eyes-Are-Saying-Something-Else-Entirely had moved in next door. You know, to test her. See if all her talk about reforming was only so much hot air. Still, maybe she couldn’t undo the past, but she sure as heck could learn from it. Although the neglected-sex-drive thing could be a problem.

Especially if it got too close to Troy’s neglected-sex-drive thing.

Karleen kicked off the wadded-up floral sheets and dragged herself out of bed, tugging at her boxer pj bottoms as she padded to the bathroom. Her cheek was creased, her eyes were puffy and her hair stuck up around her head like it’d been goosed. Lovely. She grabbed her toothbrush and squeezed out enough toothpaste for an elephant—

Wait. Was that a knock? She stepped out of the bathroom, toothbrush in mouth.

Rap, rap, rap.

Karleen quickly spit and grabbed her robe, yelling, “Who is it?” as she stomped down the hall, pulling the sash tight. One of these days she was really going to have to do something about fixing the doorbell—

“It’s Troy,” came from outside.

She made a silent Lucille Ball face, rammed her hands through her nutso hair and opened the door. And yep, there he was, even taller and more solid and—dammit—cuter than she remembered. And here she was, looking like a half-molted canary with overachieving hooters. The Volvo was parked in her driveway, full of twins. Who both waved to her, the little buggers. She waved back.

“Oh, hell,” the father of the twins said, “did I wake you?”

“Uh-uh,” she said, yawning, searching his face for signs of revulsion. Revulsion would be good. Revulsion had a way of dampening libidos. And things.

“Sorry to bother you,” Troy said, not looking terribly revulsed, “but I’ve got a huge favor to ask…no! Not to take the kids,” he said when her eyes darted back to his car. “But I’ve got an appointment to check out the Bosque View Preschool and the Home Depot guys were supposed to deliver the new washer/dryer this afternoon, only they called about five minutes ago and said they were coming this morning instead, and I don’t know if I’ll be back by the time they get here. So I wondering if you could possibly let them in…?”

Then a breeze made her shiver, and two layers of thin jersey were no match for the Twin Peaks on her chest, and Troy didn’t even try to avert his gaze and Karleen didn’t even try to pretend not to notice, and his eyes lifted to hers and things got real quiet for several seconds while everybody contemplated what was going on here.

“It’s—” She cleared the dozen or so frogs out of her throat. “It’s okay, scandalizing the Home Depot delivery-men isn’t on my list this morning,” she said, and he said, “Their loss,” and she said, “I don’t have any appointments until after lunch, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Silence. Then: “You’re a lifesaver.”

“So I’ve been told,” she said, and they stared at each other until one of the kids yelled, “Dad-deeee!” and Troy seemed to shudder back from wherever men go when their blood has shifted south and said, “I just didn’t want to rush things. Checking out the school, I mean.”

He glanced back at the boys, totally reverted to Daddy-mode. The mixture of worry and adoration in his expression made her tummy flutter. Or maybe that was hunger. Then his gaze returned to hers. Nope. Not hunger. Not that kind, anyway. “This will be their third day-care situation in six months,” he said, reeking of guilt. “I’m hoping this one will be the last until they start kindergarten. They’ve been real troupers, but I know it’s been rough on them, constantly having their routine disrupted.”

A philosophy to which Karleen’s mother had obviously not subscribed, she thought bitterly.

“Did you say Bosque View?” she now said. “Joanna’s got her youngest there, he loves it. If that makes you feel any better.”

“It does. It sucks, being the new guy in town.”

Tell me about it, she thought as Troy dug a house key out of his pocket and handed it over. “I’ve left a note on the door that you’ll let them in,” he said, backing away. “The machines go in the garage,” he called out, then ducked behind the wheel, and she waved, and then they were gone and she stared at the Troy-warmed key in her hand and felt that wildfire about to singe her pj bottoms right off her butt.

The Home Depot truck was still in Troy’s driveway when he returned, sans children, around ten. Meaning that, he presumed, Karleen was still there, as well.

One of those good news, bad news kind of things.

Troy sat in the car for a good ten seconds, his chin crunched in his palm, mentally ticking off all the reasons why he needed to get over this idiotic attraction to the woman. Why acting on some chemically induced urging was pointless. If not downright stupid.

He glanced back at her pinwheel-and-stone-critter-infested front yard. The plastic roses stuck incongruously along the base of the front porch. The birdhouses. The five million sparkly, twirly things dangling from her porch. And he shuddered. Mightily.

Then he remembered the sight of her fresh out of bed this morning, all rumple-haired and makeup-free, her sleep-graveled voice, and he shuddered again. Even more mightily.

Okay, he thought, getting out of the car and slamming shut the door, so she was cute and sexy and helpful, and she wasn’t holding silver crosses up in front of the kids, but he didn’t know anything about her, except for her penchant for excessive lawn ornamentation and that caution muddied her eyes. And besides, she wasn’t interested, he wasn’t interested (okay, so he was interested, just not that interested), end of discussion, case closed.

He could do this, he thought as he walked inside his open garage and through the maze of boxes and crap he’d yet to figure out what to do with, and there was Karleen, in some kind of flippy little skirt and a soft, hip-grazing sweater practically the color of her skin, and she was wearing a pair of backless, high-heeled shoes that were like sex on a stick, pink ones, with glittery, poufy stuff across the toes, and his mouth went dry. She looked about as substantial as cotton candy.

Only five times tastier.

And she was clearly driving the poor, mountainesque delivery guy insane as she made him put both machines through their paces.

“Okay,” she said as she took the clipboard from him, “I just wanted to be sure, because the last time I got a new washer—not from y’all, but I’m just saying—they didn’t hook it up right and I ended up with a lake on my garage floor…. Oh! Troy! You’re back! Sign,” she said, thrusting the clipboard at him. And that first, full impact of her perfume, the vulnerability trembling at the edges of her self-confidence, nearly shorted out his brain.

He gave the machines a cursory glance to make sure they were indeed the ones he’d bought before scribbling his signature on the bottom of the form. The delivery guy tore off his receipt, said, “Have a good one,” and lumbered off, leaving Troy staring at a pair of control panels clearly modeled after the space shuttle.

Karleen stepped up beside him, her arms crossed. Her perfume nanny-boo-boo’d him. Her still hanging around confused the hell out of him. Way too many whys and whatchagonnadoaboutits floating around for his comfort. Then she reached out and—there was no other word for it—caressed the front of the washer, sliding two fingers along the smooth, cool porcelain edge, and Troy’s mind went blank.

“I hate to admit this,” she said on a soft rush of air, “but I am having serious appliance envy. My washer’s one step up from a rock in the river.”

“Right now,” Troy said, forcing his attention to the gleaming white appliances in front of him and away from the fragrant blonde at his elbow, “a rock in the river isn’t looking half-bad.”

He could feel her bemused, incredulous stare. “Please don’t tell me you’ve never used a washer before.”

“Only three times a week for the past four years,” he muttered. “But believe me, my expertise begins and ends with shove clothes in, dump in detergent, turn machine on, take clothes out.” He squinted at the panel. “I’m guessing I’ll never have to use the delicate cycle.”

“Not unless you’ve got silk boxers.”

“Uh…no.”

She giggled, and his insides flipped. “Stick with normal and you’ll probably be okay.”

“Always been my motto,” he said, and turned, and she was far too close, and it had been far too long, and it was far, far too soon to be feeling this far gone.

“How come you’re still here?” he asked softly, and her gaze flicked to his before she shrugged. Just one shoulder. Sadness radiated from her like sound waves.

“Where’re the kids?” she asked.

“Still at the school.” Troy leaned one hip against the dryer, his arms folded over his chest. Watching her not looking at him. Trying like hell to figure out what was going on here. “They wanted to stay for a little while, so I’m picking them up after lunch. If all goes well, they’ll start full-time on Monday. It seems like a great place.”

Another quick glance. A small smile. “Feel better now?”

“A bit. It’s a challenge, doing this on my own. I worry constantly about whether I’m making the right choice.”

Her silence enfolded him, half soothing, half unnerving. “At least you do worry about them.”

“That’s what parents do.”

“Not all parents,” she said, the sadness turning more acidic. Without thinking, he slipped his hand around hers. Her head jerked up, her eyes wide. But not, he thought, particularly surprised.

“Thanks,” he whispered, frozen, staring at her mouth. “For, you know. Being here.”

“No problem,” she said, equally frozen, staring at him staring at her mouth. “Um…don’t take this the wrong way, but are you thinkin’ about kissing me?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m thinking about doing a lot more than kissing.”

Outside, birds twittered, breezes blew, gas prices continued to yo-yo. Inside, life-altering decisions hovered on the brink of being made.

“What happened to just wanting to talk?” Karleen finally said.

“Apparently, I’ve moved on.”

The planet hurtled another few thousand miles through space before Karleen at last lifted her hand to trace one long, pale fingernail down his shirt placket.

“So I guess this means we’re gonna have sex.”

Somewhere, way in the back of his buzzing brain, Troy heard a resignation in her voice that, under other circumstances, might have tripped his sympathy trigger. At the moment, however, the safety on that particular trigger was firmly in place.

As opposed to other triggers, which were cocked and very, very ready.

“That’s bad, isn’t it?” he said. Still not moving. Away, at any rate.

“It sure as heck isn’t good.”

“Because…of everything you said.” He lifted one hand, cupping her neck. Her breathing went all shaky. So did his.

“Uh-huh.” She made a funny little sound in her throat when he touched his lips to her forehead.

“One of us should walk away,” he whispered into her hair, which was a lot softer than he’d expected.

“I know,” she said, and tilted her head back, and he lowered his mouth to hers, and his entire body sighed in relief, as though he’d been waiting for this moment for five years instead of five days. He knew it was wrong and foolish and pointless and he didn’t care, didn’t give a damn about anything except that brief shudder of surrender when their mouths met, the soft heat of her tongue against his, the softer, hotter press of her breasts against his chest. And, of course, the ever-popular collision of her pelvis against the aforementioned good-to-go trigger.

In fact, he was enjoying the whole kissing-pressing-colliding thing so much, it took a while before it sank in exactly where all this kissing and pressing and colliding was going on.

“For the record,” he said, “I don’t generally go around seducing women in my garage. Especially ones I’ve only known for less than a week.”

“Somehow,” she said, trickling her fingers down his arms, “I knew that.”

His pulse thudding nicely in several crucial pressure points in his body, he took her face in his hands. “So how come you’re not walking away?”

“Because…” Six inches from his face, her breasts rose as she sighed. “I guess I figure, since you have moved on, you may as well do that moving on with me.”

“O-kay…” Troy shook his head, but the ringing was still there. “But why?”

Karleen linked her hands around his neck, toying with the bristly hair at the nape, and little flickers of happiness erupted all over his skin. “Because I can handle this for what it is—a man who’s gone without for too long who needs…an outlet. Somebody to take the edge off, to ease you back into things.” She shrugged, and the little flickers flickered more earnestly. “The way I see it, I’m actually doing the women of Albuquerque a favor. So when you go out there for real, you’ll be able to see what you’re actually looking for without sex cloudin’ your brain.”

She had a point. Except that, as murky as things definitely were in the old gray matter, he wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t catch the tiniest hint of self-deprecation in her voice. “How…altruistic of you,” he said, letting his hands slide down to cup her sweet little backside.

She snorted. “Not exactly. Because it’s been a while for me, too, so I’m not gonna lie, I want this as bad as you do. But, see, I’m not lookin’ for anything serious, and you’re not lookin’ for somebody like me—and don’t deny it, you know it’s true—so this way, we both get what we need out of the deal. And anyway, we could both tiptoe around this thing for God knows how long until one or the other of us combusts…” Her gaze lowered to his neck, which she stood on tiptoe to—oh, man—lick. “Or,” she murmured, her breath cooling the moist spot, “we could get this out of the way and be done with it.”

He gripped her ribs, bringing her startled gaze up to his. “I’m overdue. Not desperate. Trust me, there’s not going to be anything quick about this.”

One eyebrow arched before, slowly, her mouth stretched into a smile that was pure challenge.

“Guess we’ll have to see about that,” she said, then took him by the hand and led him back to her house, as his garage door groaned closed behind them.

Chapter Four

If nothing else, nobody could accuse Karleen of not being able to think fast on her feet.

Because, even after Troy’d kissed her, and her blood had gone all syrupy in her veins, she’d realized she was in far more control of the situation than she’d expected to be. Or that she’d ever been before. That she could have walked away, if she’d wanted to. And that her not wanting to had nothing to do with her being powerless, or weak, or over-sexed; it had to do with realizing she had a duty to pry open this guy’s eyes before things got out of hand.

Because, she thought as clothes flew about her bedroom, once they got over the momentary sex crazies, he’d remember his mission, which was all about finding someone to share the rest of his life with. And Lord knew, that wasn’t gonna be her—

Mouths crashed, tongues tangled, bedsprings creaked as they fell backward onto the unmade bed she’d pulled together only an hour before.

—because, see, she’d taken a little peek into his house while she’d waited for the Home Depot guys. Not that she’d gone upstairs or done any serious snooping or anything, only enough to confirm what she’d pretty much figured, which was that Troy Lindquist liked things safe and predictable and traditional to the point of mind-numbing. Lots of browns and beiges and tans, relieved by the occasional splash of navy-blue. She wouldn’t last five minutes. So she figured—

“Condoms, top drawer,” she murmured when he unhooked the front clasp to her bra, but he said, “Thanks, but I’m in no hurry.”

—she, uh, figured…where was she? Oh, right. She figured one good look at her place would pretty much wipe the goony look right off his face. Although it might take a while before he noticed much of anything except what was going on between them right at the moment, men not being generally known for their ability to multitask. In fact, right now, all he was getting a good look at were her breasts. With, it pained her to notice, an expression not dissimilar to the one he’d been giving the washer control panel a little while ago.

Oh, hell. He knows.

Karleen straddled him, still in her pale pink embroidered silk high-cuts. Then she leaned over (shyness in these situations having not been an issue for a very long time), knowing the hazy sunlight filtered through the lace curtains showed the darlings off to perfection. “I got the good ones,” she said. “Trust me, they won’t leak, deflate or pop.”

Troy frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake—” She grabbed his hand, planting it on her boob. His mouth pulled into a not bad expression before he tentatively gave it a little squeeze, and she went slightly cross-eyed.

“So…I’m guessing you can feel that?”

“Of course I can feel that, I’m not a blow-up doll. Think of this like…booster seats for breasts. The same, just taller. So could we please get on with it?”

He laughed. And cupped the other breast, flicking his thumbs over her nipples, and it was like first sinking into a warm bath. With candlelight. And Elvis crooning “Love Me Tender” in the background. “What’s the rush? I’m having fun—” clearly getting into things now, he moved on to light plucking “—right here.” He grinned. “Aren’t you?”

“Mmm, yeah.” Hissed breath. “But we only have an hour.”

“Oh, honey,” he said, flipping her onto her back, “you’d be amazed what I can accomplish in an hour.”

“You bragging?”

“No. Warning.” Troy shifted to lean his head in his hand, circling one nipple with his knuckle. “I have to admit, they’re very pretty.”

Karleen started to look down again, only to remember she got a terrible double chin when she did that. “They should be, considering how much they set Nate back,” she said, and he laughed and tugged her in for another kiss. And oh, my, the man could kiss, like he wanted to get to know each nerve ending one at a time…and then he started on a lazy, meandering journey, nibbling and kissing and licking and sucking his way up…and down…first one rarely explored back road…then another…and another…

And she thought, Hmm, not what I expected, and from somewhere down by her knees, he said, “Why are you so tense?” which of course tensed her, even as she said, “I am not!” and he chuckled and moved up, stroking the insides of her thighs, cupping her bottom, lowering his mouth, and she was gone.

“Not tense now,” she said a minute later, and he said, “Where are those condoms again?” and she limply flailed one arm toward her nightstand, vaguely considering when she’d last restocked. Although she didn’t suppose it was that big a deal, since she seriously doubted disease was an issue and she’d just finished her period a week ago and besides, nothing had ever happened before….

Then Troy grinned, and she thought, What now? and he sat up, settling her in his lap, filling her to somewhere around her eyeballs, and she gasped, startled, even though by rights she should have been way past being startled. But the skin-to-skin was good, he was so good, his gentleness breaking her heart, bringing unexpected tears to her eyes.

And they stilled, him inside her, her surrounding him, each reflected in the other’s eyes, and she thought, I don’t even know this man, and he wrapped her up tight, and she felt safe, and thought, Damn.

He moved, still gently, still pushing, and she pushed back, not so gently, and they didn’t so much find their rhythm as it swallowed them alive, swallowed up everything, everyone, that had come before. She hung on like she was almost afraid of being thrown, as the sweetness built and built and built and built….

Karleen arched, cried out, collapsed…and he tangled his fingers in her hair and brought their mouths together in a hard, fierce kiss, all the nerve cells colliding in a victory rumble, and another shudder of need ghosted through her, like the gradually diminishing thunder from a finished storm. Then she carefully lifted herself off, and after he got up to take care of business, she wrapped the sheet around herself, oddly self-conscious, although she could not have said why.

Well, that was different, she thought, although she couldn’t pinpoint that, either.

And for sure there was nothing even remotely Muzak about the way the man made love, a thought that sent a shiny, tender green garden snake of regret slithering through her, that they wouldn’t be doing this again.

Sitting tangled up in her sheets, she watched Troy—not a drop of self-consciousness in his veins, obviously—stroll back to the bed, naked as the day he was born and with a look on his face like he was half contemplating jumping up on something and beating his chest. Brother.

He sat beside her, slinging one arm around her shoulders and tugging her close to rest his cheek in her hair. “Thank you,” he whispered, and Karleen heard herself ask, “What was your wife’s name?”

Being sensitive was one thing. Clairvoyance was something else entirely. So while Troy had pretty much figured out that Karleen’s tough-girl persona was so much BS, he had no clue what was behind it. So he’d watched, in the reflection from her bathroom mirror, as she’d pulled that sheet around herself, seen an almost pained confusion crumple her features, thinking, What the hell?

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