PARKED HIS work truck in the driveway and released a weary sigh. Even though it was just a little after three, it had been a long day.
Two of his men hadn’t shown up for work that morning. Thankfully the jobs had been residential mows and trimming, so Troy had taken care of them himself. But this was the third time the two had missed an early Saturday morning job and now he needed to decide if they needed to be let go.
Troy always hated firing anyone, but he did expect his employees to be dependable. Thankfully the men were young and unmarried, so at least Troy didn’t have to worry about them having families they were supporting.
He got out of his truck and glanced next door. Instantly a bit of adrenaline filled him as he thought of Eliza. There was no question he found her intensely physically attractive. He’d also found her charming and nice, but he hadn’t missed a few times when her beautiful gray eyes darkened with emotions that had intrigued him. He was also impressed by her strength. It must be tough to be a single mother of two young kids, especially with one of them being blind.
He’d said he’d plant the peony bush, and he was vaguely surprised to realize the idea of seeing Eliza again today swept a pleasant warmth through him. He should plant it right now before he took a shower and cleaned up. But first what he wanted to do before anything else was go inside and get a tall glass of something cold to drink.
He walked into his hallway of gleaming wood floors. He’d bought the big three-story house a year and a half ago. It had needed a ton of work, but he’d been looking for a new start and the remodeling had been a project he’d desperately needed to take his mind away from the torment of his past.
He’d stripped floors and painted walls. He’d updated the bathrooms and had all the windows replaced. He’d considered every dollar he spent and all his sweat and hard work a good investment. And the work had definitely kept him from losing his mind.
The kitchen had been updated with all the bells and whistles. As he headed toward the refrigerator he glanced out the back window...and froze.
The two kids, Katie and Sammy, were in his yard and standing over the place where he’d buried the gun. What the hell? What were they doing in his yard, in that place? Thirst forgotten, he ran toward the back door.
He unlocked it and flung it open, and at the same time Eliza appeared, running toward her children. “Katie! Sammy! What on earth are you doing over here?” She flashed him an apologetic glance and then glared at her children once again. “You both know the rules. You are never, ever to leave the house without telling me. And you especially should not be over here in Mr. Anderson’s yard. What were the two of you thinking?”
“We just wanted to have a funeral for the dead cat,” Katie said, her lower lip trembling ominously as she looked first at her mother and then at Troy.
“We’re sorry, Mommy,” Sammy said. “We thought it would be good to have a cat funeral.”
For the first time Troy realized Katie was wearing what appeared to be a black dress that belonged to her mother and Sammy wore some kind of a black curtain draped over his shoulders. Katie held a small bouquet of plastic flowers and Sammy held a cardboard sign that read RIP Cat.
Jeez, the kids wanted to have a funeral for the cat that didn’t exist. What damned can of worms had he opened with his lie about the cat? He frowned thoughtfully. Maybe by allowing them to do this, they’d forget they saw him bury anything out here.
“It’s all right,” Troy said to Eliza. “Every dead cat should have a funeral.”
Eliza looked charmingly flustered. Her cheeks were flushed as she blew a strand of hair off her face. The grateful look she gave him warmed him.
“Okay, you can have a funeral, but when we get home there are going to be consequences for you breaking the rules,” she said to her children. “And you can thank Mr. Anderson for not chasing you out of his yard with a broom.”
“Thank you, Mr. Anderson,” Katie said with a sweet smile that suddenly reminded him of Annie.
For a brief moment a deep, rich pain ripped through his very soul. Thankfully at that moment Katie instructed them all to close their eyes. He squeezed his eyelids closed and tried to will away the memories that attempted to assault him.
He’d spent the last three years of his life trying not to remember, because remembering had the power to cast him to his knees in the very depths of hell. He drew several long, deep breaths and managed to snap himself out of the past.
“We come together to say goodbye to Cat,” Katie began.
“We decided that Cat was a good name since we didn’t know his real name,” Sammy added. “Mr. Anderson, was Cat a boy or a girl?”
“A boy,” Troy replied.
“We all pray for boy Cat to go straight to heaven where the trees are made of catnip and cats are happy all the time,” Katie said. “We can open our eyes now.”
He opened to see Katie bending down and placing the little flower bouquet on the ground. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I don’t know what that means but they always say it at funerals,” Katie said. She turned toward her brother and took the makeshift cardboard tombstone from him. “We don’t know why people write RIP on tombstones, but we’ve seen it in movies so we wrote RIP Cat.”
“It stands for rest in peace. You know, that sign is going to get all wet when it rains and it won’t take much time for the writing to fade. Why don’t I buy a nice birdbath to put here?” Troy said. “Cats like birds.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful,” Katie exclaimed, and jumped up and down with excitement.
“Troy, you don’t have to do that,” Eliza protested.
“It’s all right,” he assured her. “I’ve been wanting a birdbath out here anyway.” And he hoped that placing a birdbath there would halt any further interest in the “dead cat.”
“That’s the end of the funeral,” Sammy said.
“And the beginning of your consequences.” Eliza pointed toward her house. “I want you two to march yourselves right back home and go to your rooms. We’ll discuss your punishment when I get back inside.”
When the children were out of earshot she turned to look at Troy. “I’m so sorry. I promise you they have never done anything like this before.”
“It’s okay. Have they been to a lot of funerals?” he asked.
“Not a one, which makes me question what they’ve been watching on television when I’m not paying attention. Anyway, I apologize once again and I certainly don’t expect you to go out and buy a birdbath.”
“Actually, they just prodded me to do something I’d been thinking about doing for some time.” She looked so pretty with the sunshine playing in the dark strands of her hair and her eyes the gray of a dove’s wing. Did her eyes darken to a smoky gray when she was in the throes of passion?
The totally inappropriate thought shocked him and he mentally shook himself. “If it’s okay with you I thought I’d grab my shovel and plant that peony.” Maybe a little physical activity would stop any more lustful thoughts he entertained about his pretty
