walked over and pulled it from Apple’s mouth. She grinned up at him as if a game of fetch was about to commence.
“Hey, that’s mine.” The voice came from the left.
Brent turned to find two brown eyes peeking over the wooden fence. They belonged to a boy whose leg crept over the top of the fence. The boy hoisted himself up and straddled the two yards, his eyes portrayed wariness.
Brent motioned the kid to come on over and the boy tumbled down, dropping like a sack of potatoes onto the bag of mulch his mother had left in the corner.
Apple trotted close and sniffed him.
“Hey,” he said to the dog, rubbing her head before standing up and brushing himself off.
Brent felt like an alien had beamed down. But it wasn’t a little green person. It was a boy who looked to be about seven or eight years old.
Brent flipped the ball to the kid. He caught it with one hand. Impressive. Apple wondered off to find more frogs and lizards to chase.
“Clean up the mess,” Brent said, pointing to the dirt covering the brick path.
The boy looked at the broken pottery and spilled soil. “Oh, sorry. My hand got sweaty.”
Brent nodded. “It happens.”
The boy didn’t say anything more. He knelt and used a finger and thumb to lift a broken shard.
“You staying at the bed-and-breakfast?” Brent asked.
The boy nodded and picked up the upended planter and started stacking the shards inside. “Yep. My mom made us come here. Right at the beginning of my baseball season. It’s absurd.”
Something about the boy’s disgust and vocabulary made Brent smile. He knew how that felt. He’d loved baseball season. Especially in early April. The smell of the glove, the feel of the stitches of the ball against his hand, the first good sweat worked up beneath the bill of the baseball cap. Sweet childhood.
“Well, it’s just for the weekend,” Brent said, toeing the spilled soil with his bare foot.
The boy sighed, dropped to his knees and began scooping up the dirt. He tossed it out into the grass. “I wish. She’s making us live here. I don’t even know for how long.”
“Oh,” Brent responded, watching the boy as he labored. His reddish-brown hair was cut short, almost a buzz cut. Freckles dotted his lean cheeks and for a kid his age, his shoulders were pretty broad. He’d moved with a natural grace, like an athlete. Like Brent had always moved. “What’s your name? Since we’re going to be temporary neighbors.”
“Henry.”
“Hmm…I wouldn’t have taken you for a Henry.”
The boy gave him a lopsided smile. “My mom likes Henry David Thoreau. I got my name from that dude.”
“You look more like a Hank,” Brent said offhandedly, picking up the base of the broken planter, stuffing the flower’s roots into the scant soil and setting it aside.
“Like the baseball player I saw a show on. Hank…”
“Aaron?” Brent finished for him.
“Yeah, that’s the guy. Cool. I can use that name here. No one knows me yet.”
“Well, you better ask your mom about that. You know moms.” Henry was funny. Brent liked kids better than he liked most adults.
Henry picked up the ball and rolled it around in his hand before sending it airborne. He caught it neatly. “Yeah, my mom can be crazy about stuff like that. About sports and stuff. She doesn’t think sports are important.”
Brent feigned horror. “What’s wrong with her?”
The boy shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m good at them. I play football, baseball, basketball and soccer. I even took karate before my dad died. I liked kicking boards and stuff. It’s pretty cool.”
The boy tossed the ball as easily as he’d tossed out information. He’d lost his dad. Tough for a boy like Henry. He seemed headstrong and sturdy, the kind of boy who needed a firm hand. A good mentor. A man to toss the ball with.
The boy threw the ball and caught it in one hand, slapping a rhythm Brent couldn’t resist.
“You know, I could get my glove, and we could toss the ball around,” Brent offered. “But first you better make sure it’s okay with your mother.”
The boy’s eyes lit up. “Awesome.”
“So go ask.”
Something entered Henry’s eyes. A sort of oh, crap look. “Um, it’s okay. She’s making bread or something like that.”
The boy’s gaze met Brent’s and a weird déjà vu hit him. The kid’s eyes were the color of cinnamon. Like eyes Brent had stared into a million times. He glanced at the gate that had been locked for over ten years. The gate that led to the Tulip Hill Bed-and-Breakfast on the other side of the fence the boy had climbed.
“Your mom, is she by any chance—”
“Henry Albright! Where the devil are you?” The woman’s voice carried on the wind into the Hamiltons’ backyard.
“Oops, that’s my mom. She’s gonna be mad. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” Henry said, scrambling toward the fence.
Brent closed his mouth and watched as Henry ducked beneath the redbud tree before grasping one branch and swinging himself toward the brace on the fence. His worn sneaker hit perfectly and he arched himself so the other landed beside it. But the boy hadn’t been fast enough.
The gate opened with a shove because the grass had grown over the once well-worn path.
Henry froze and so did Brent.
A woman stood in the opening. Her curly red hair streamed over a blue apron that was streaked with flour and she wore a frown. Brent allowed his eyes to feast on her, for she was sheer bounty. Her cinnamon eyes flashed, her wide mouth turned down, but the body outlined in the apron was lush and ripe from the long white throat to the trim ankles visible beneath the flowing skirt. Bare feet anchored themselves in the healthy St. Augustine.
Rayne Rose.
Brent swallowed. Hard.
“Hey, Mom,” Henry said, dropping to his feet. “This is—” Henry turned to him. “Hey, I don’t know your name.”
Brent didn’t move, just watched Rayne as she registered his presence. He could see her tightening. See her shock. See her try to recover.
“Brent,” she said.
Something tugged within him at his name on her lips. Her sweet lips. The first ones he’d ever kissed.
“Oh, you know him. Good. We were gonna play a little baseball,” Henry said, trying to slide past Rayne into the yard of Tulip Hill. She caught his
