sweetheart …”
Lani’s shoulders drooped. “And then you left and Michael came over and I thought what a nice guy he is … but I couldn’t go on with him. Because he’s not the guy.” She laughed a little, shaking her head. “Do you know what I mean?”
Sydney reached out. Lani sagged against her and they held each other. “Yeah,” Sydney whispered into her friend’s thick, fragrant hair. “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.”
The next morning, the doorbell rang at seven-thirty on the nose.
“I get it!” Trevor fisted his plump hand and tapped the table twice. “Knock, knock!” he shouted. “Who’s there?”
Sydney kissed his milk-smeared cheek. “Eat your cereal, Bosco.”
“Banana!” Trev giggled. “Banana who?”
Lani said, “The coffee’s ready and the frittata’s in the oven. Answer the door, Syd.”
“Orange. Banana.” Trevor was totally entranced with his never-quite-right knock-knock joke. He banged his spoon gleefully against the tabletop. “Orange your … banana …”
Lani took his spoon from him. “Well, I guess I’ll have to feed you, since you’re not doing it.”
“Lani, no! I eat. I do it myself.”
“You sure?”
“Yes!”
She handed him back the spoon. “Go,” she said to Sydney, canting her head in the general direction of the front door.
Her heart doing somersaults inside her chest, Sydney went to let Rule in.
“Hi.” She said it in the most ridiculous, breathy little voice.
“Sydney,” he replied in wonderful melted-caramel tones. Could a man get more handsome every time a woman saw him? Rule did. The bright April sunshine made his hair gleam black as a crow’s wing, and his smile had her heart performing a forward roll. He had a big yellow Tonka dump truck in one hand and a red ball in the other.
“I see you’ve come armed for battle,” she said.
He shrugged. “In my experience, little boys like trucks. And balls.”
“They do. Both. A lot.” She stared at him. And he stared back at her. Time stopped. The walls of her foyer seemed to disappear. There was only the man on the other side of the open door. He filled up the world.
Then, from back in the kitchen, she heard her son calling out gleefully, “Orange. Banana. Banana. Orange …”
Lani said something. Probably, “Eat your cereal.”
“It’s the never-ending knock-knock joke,” she said, and then wondered if they even had knock-knock jokes in his country. “Come in, come in …”
He did. She shut the door behind him. “This way …”
He caught her elbow. Somehow he had managed to shift the toy truck to the arm with the ball in it. “Wait.” He said it softly.
She turned back to him and he looked down at her and …
Was there anything like this feeling she had with him? So fine and shining and full of possibility. He pulled her to him.
She went willingly, eagerly. Close to him was where she wanted to be. She moved right up, snug and cozy against his broad chest, sharing his strong arms with the red ball and the yellow truck. “What?”
“This.” And he kissed her. A brushing kiss, tender and teasing. Just right for early on a sunny Saturday morning. She felt his smile against her own.
When he lifted his mouth from hers, his eyes were soft as black velvet and full of promise. “May I meet your son now?”
“Right this way.”
Trevor was shy with Rule at first.
Her little boy stared with big, solemn dark eyes as Sydney introduced Rule to Lani.
“And this is Trevor,” Sydney said.
“Hello, Trevor. My name is Rule.”
Trevor only stared some more and stuck a big spoonful of cereal in his mouth.
“Say hello,” Sydney instructed him.
But Trevor turned his head away.
Rule sent her an oblique glance and a slight smile that said he knew about kids, and also knew how to be patient. He put the ball and the truck under the side table against the wall and accepted coffee, taking the empty chair between Lani and Sydney.
Lani served the frittata and they ate. Rule praised the food and said how much he liked the coffee, which Lani prepared to her own exacting tastes, grinding the beans with a top-quality grinder and brewing only with a French press.
He asked Lani about her degree in literature. The two of them seemed to hit it off, Sydney thought. Lani was easy with him, and friendly, from the first. She told him her favorite Shakespeare play was The Tempest. He confessed to a fondness for King Lear, which had Lani groaning that she might love Lear, too. But she had no patience for thickheaded, foolish kings. Sydney didn’t know a lot about Shakespeare, but it did kind of please her, that Rule seemed well-read, that he could carry on a conversation about something other than the Mavericks and the Cowboys.
He turned to her. “And what about you, Sydney? Do you have a favorite Shakespeare play?”
She shrugged. “I saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream once. And I enjoyed it. Everybody falling in love with the wrong person, but then it all worked out in the end.”
“You prefer a happy ending?”
“Absolutely,” she told him. “I like it when it all works out. That doesn’t happen often enough in real life.”
“I like trucks!” Suddenly, Trev was over his shyness and back in the game.
Rule turned to him. “And do you like balls?”
“Red balls! Yes!”
“Good. Because that truck and that ball over there beneath the table? They’re for you.”
Trevor looked away again—too much attention, apparently, from this intriguing stranger.
Sydney said, “Tell Rule ‘thank you.’“
“Thank you, Roo,” Trev parroted obediently, still looking away, the soft curve of his round cheek turned down.
But Rule wasn’t looking away. He seemed honestly taken with her little boy. Her heart did more wild and lovely acrobatics, just to look at the two of them, Rule watching Trev, Trev not quite able to meet this new guy’s eyes.
Then Rule said, “Knock,
