for me. Bringing Travis and Austin to help, working around here, all of that. It’s been great. But you and I have nothing in common. It would be best if we were just neighbors.”
“Sandy, I understand. You don’t have to give me a reason.”
“But I want to. I want you to know it’s not personal.”
It felt pretty damn personal to him. She was calling the game on account of rain and he hadn’t even got to bat.
She walked over to the trash bag by the entrance to the foyer and dumped the deli papers inside. “I’m not your type, and you’re not mine,” she told him.
What was her type? Someone like her late husband? Thomas, the philosophy professor. Someone intellectual. Someone who preferred opera to football, thick nonfiction books with footnotes to the latest spy thriller. Someone steady and dependable. Someone not like him.
“I hate for you to feel responsible for us. You don’t have to keep coming over here and taking care of things. I’m really okay on my own.”
In other words, get lost.
“I think you’re right,” he said.
“You do?” She looked doubtful.
“Sure. We’ll be neighbors. Friends. We can look out for each other, but pretty much stay out of each other’s lives. It’s a good plan.”
“Great.” She smiled.
He thought his heart might start bleeding right then and there, but he didn’t let on. Instead, he headed for the stairs. Friends. Neighbors. He’d sure lost his touch. He’d been thinking romance and she’d been putting him in the same class as the neighborhood golden retriever. Friends. What would Sandy say if she knew he’d been thinking, as well as friends they could also be lovers?
He kept his word. Once the house was painted, Kyle disappeared from their lives as completely as if he’d never been there in the first place. He took his ready smiles, his quick wit and that way he had of looking at her that made her feel as if her bones were melting.
Sandy told herself she was pleased. It would be easier for both of them if they didn’t risk getting involved. As she’d told him three days ago, he wasn’t her type, she wasn’t his. So what if she went up in flames every time she was near him? She would get over it. And she had. Which didn’t explain why the house seemed so quiet without him and his brothers around helping.
Sandy stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked around. Her kids has been so good about helping—despite a few complaints—she’d given them a break and called in a service to clean the windows. Sunlight shone brightly through the freshly washed glass. All the rooms had been painted, the bathrooms scrubbed. Nichole and Blake had even weeded the rose garden out back. All they needed now was for their furniture to arrive.
She walked into the kitchen, then through the utility room and out the back door. Her kids were sitting on the back porch drinking sodas. They were much too quiet.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Lindsay studied the toe of her right athletic shoe. “Nothing. We finished papering the kitchen cupboards.”
“Thanks.”
Sandy took a seat next to her oldest. With Kyle no longer a daily fixture in their lives, Lindsay hadn’t bothered to wear her nicest summer clothing. Today she’d pulled on a torn pair of shorts that had once been light blue but that had faded to a sort of institutional gray. Her T-shirt wasn’t much better. There was a juice stain over the pocket, and one sleeve was coming off at the shoulder. Even her brown hair seemed limp, just lying on her back instead of bouncing with each step.
As usual, Blake sat off by himself, over in a corner of the porch with his back pressed against the house. Her son was playing with one of his hand-held video games for the first time since they’d moved. As she watched, his fingers moved nimbly over the buttons, destroying electronic bad guys and making his private world safe once again. His glasses slipped down his nose. Absently, he pushed them into place, then took a sip of his drink before returning his attention to his computer game.
Nichole scooted over to lean against her. “I’m hot, Mommy,” her youngest told her. “Can we go swimming?”
Sandy shook her head. “We have to wait for the movers, honey. They called and said they would be here later today.”
“If they don’t break down again,” Lindsay said.
“You’re grumpy all of a sudden. What’s going on?”
“I hate this place,” Lindsay told her. “There’s nothing to do. There are no kids my age, or anything. I can’t believe you moved us here.”
Mutinous brown eyes glared at her. Lindsay had Thomas’s eyes. She had her father’s sense of adventure. Unfortunately, she had her mother’s temper. Sandy recognized a lot of the unfocused adolescent rage from her own youth in her daughter. Her little girl was growing up fast.
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