bearings and turned on her heel.
“Right this way.” She did her best to sound breezy, as if she were talking to an amiable stranger instead of someone who had known her since she was almost as young as her triplets. “I don’t know why cats can go up trees, but they can’t come down.”
“Probably impulse makes them run up. They want to see how far they can get, maybe grab themselves something elusive. And they look down and stop to think about what they’ve done and what might happen if they try to get down again.” He slanted a glance at her profile. “Paralyzes them.”
Her eyes met his. “Are you still talking about the cat?”
He shrugged, as innocent as he had once been. “Sure, what would I be talking about?”
She dropped it. There was no point in going on. Melinda opened the back door and stepped out into the yard. “Nothing.” They walked over to the giant oak that stood like an aged companion near the house, its branches almost caressing the rear window that had once belonged to her bedroom. “He’s up there.”
Carl stood back, trying to get a better view of the upper portion of the massive tree. He could remember one summer when Melinda had wanted a tree-house built into its massive branches more than anything in the world. He’d set his mind to building it for her using wood he’d paid for with money he’d earned mowing lawns all summer—until her father forbade it, saying it would damage the tree.
Shading his eyes, he tried to make out the form of a cat and failed.
“You sure he’s there?” Maybe the cat had decided to be courageous after all and come down.
Tilting her head, with the triplets mimicking her every move, Melinda looked for the elusive feline.
“Yes, there he is.” She pointed to a section, then turned Carl’s head with her hands to position him better. “See? That glob of gray and white fur?”
He tried not to allow the touch of her hand take over all his senses. It was futile despite the best of intentions.
With effort, he forced himself to focus on the reason he was here. To rescue a cat, not resuscitate a friendship gone sour. Squinting, he could finally make out the furry form. The cat looked to be at least twenty feet off the ground.
“Yeah,” he snapped the word off, tension dancing through him. “I see him.”
She was having second thoughts about this rescue action. The cat belonged to the children, but she didn’t want to risk having Carl plummet out of a tree just to retrieve him.
“Maybe we’d better forget the whole thing, or call the fire department.” Damn it, she was stumbling over her own tongue, and she knew why. She was letting her guilt overwhelm her.
He waved a dismissive hand at the suggestion. “I’m here now.”
They weren’t kids anymore, shimmying up the tree like monkeys. She glanced at the garage. “Do you want me to get a ladder?”
Not that she knew if her father even had a ladder anymore. He’d long since given up doing chores around the place himself, hiring gardeners and handymen to do them instead.
Carl shook his head at the offer. The next moment he jumped up to grab the lowest branch, then swung himself up into the tree.
Melinda couldn’t help smiling again as another whiff of nostalgia drifted over her. “I forgot how agile you could be.”
He spared her one look before climbing up higher. “Seems to me you forgot a lot of things.”
She had that coming, too, Melinda thought, crossing her arms before her as she saw him make his way up the tree.
“Not really.” He climbed a few more feet up and she watched him, debating. Finally she said, “You know that argument we had? The one just before I left?”
He refused to look down at her, keeping his eyes trained on the cat. But he felt something tighten in his stomach.
“What about it?”
“I’m sorry, Carly—Carl. Damn, but it’s going to be hard to think of you that way after all this time.” She was digressing and she knew it. She forced herself back on the track. Otherwise, the apology wouldn’t count. “You were right, I was wrong.” She’d been wanting to get that off her chest for a very long time. “He wasn’t any good for me.”
She glanced at her children, but they seemed oblivious to what she was saying, which was just what she wanted. She deliberately avoided using Steve’s name. Though the triplets were still very young, she didn’t want to take any chances. She wasn’t going to be one of those divorced mothers who bad-mouthed her children’s father in front of them. Like her father had bad-mouthed her mother for years after her mother had left. Children deserved to hang on to some illusions, at least for a little while. Reality came through fast enough as it was.
This time, Carl did look down at her. Seeing the way the triplets were buffering her on all three sides, his mouth curved.
“Except in one way.”
She shaded her eyes again, trying to make out his face. She couldn’t. “How’s that?”
Holding steady with one hand firmly around a thick branch, he pointed down with the other. “Just look around you.”
Melinda looked down at her children. The children she wouldn’t have had had it not been for her marriage to Steve. They filled up her world and made things special. Carl had a point.
“You’re right. As usual.”
Carl continued to inch his way up. The cat, firmly entrenched amid two branches, looked down at him as if he were a royal being, smirking at the efforts of a mere commoner.
“You’re making it hard to stay angry at you, Melinda.”
“Good,” she called back up to him. “Because I can’t think of anything I hate more than having you angry with me. Especially now that I’ve moved back.”
He tested a branch before attempting to put his full weight on it. “For how long?”
“I’m not sure.” And she wasn’t. She was taking this one day at a time right now. “Maybe forever.”
And maybe not, he thought, taking hold of another branch. Melinda had never wanted to stay pinned down to anything for long. There was a wanderlust in her. He’d seen it in her eyes early on and had fooled himself into thinking that perhaps, once he’d made something of himself and could offer her his heart aloud, she’d change her mind and remain in Serendipity. Remain with him. But those had been the dreams of an eighteen-year-old. He knew better now.
Carl looked at the cat. The cat looked back at him. And moved to a higher branch. “What changed your mind about Serendipity?”
“You just met them,” she said, raising her voice. She didn’t like the way the branch swayed as he reached it. It took very little imagination to envision him toppling down and landing at her feet. The ornery cat wasn’t worth it. “Carl, maybe you should come down. I don’t want you getting hurt on my account.”
Too
