One Summer’s Knight

Chapter 7

Riley’s home was his castle. There had been a time, just after he’d bought the place, when he’d gotten an almost baronial satisfaction out of driving up to his front gates, punching in his security code, delivering the password and watching the gates-the drawbridge-swing back to admit him to his castle keep. There’d been a purely visceral kickback then-call it pride, call it power-from all he’d achieved against so many odds. Power to insulate himself from the world’s dangers, pride in the zone of beauty he’d built around himself as a buffer against its ugliness. It had been a long time, though, since he’d felt that kick or, with the exception of April when the azaleas were in bloom, paid much attention to the beauty.

He was bemused, therefore, to discern a quickening of his heartbeat as he stopped the Mercedes beside the security box that evening, after a long-and curiously entertaining-afternoon spent in a suburban Charleston Wal-Mart. He wasn’t quite sure what was responsible for the phenomenon-apprehension, perhaps, but a touch of excitement, too, and even anticipation. He felt much like an explorer setting foot on an uncharted island possibly inhabited by headhunters.

But the most bemusing aspect of it was that he didn’t really mind-not the way he normally would have such an anomaly-such a huge glitch in his carefully orchestrated life. He didn’t care to ask himself why that was so, or what it was exactly that was responsible for his unanticipated lightness of heart. Or why, as he proceeded along the brick-paved drive shaded by old magnolias and live oaks festooned with Spanish moss, he was whistling under his breath, not Mozart or Bach but some popular ditty he didn’t know the name of that he’d heard over the loudspeaker at Wal-Mart.

What he did mind was being barked at by someone else’s dog when he attempted to enter his own house.

“I live here, you canine dimwit,” he growled, only to be answered in much the same tone, albeit nonverbally.

Choosing prudence over dominion, Riley halted and glared over his armload of shopping bags at the minuscule sentry standing stiff-legged and resolute in the kitchen doorway, bared white fangs and raised hackles steadfastly denying him entry. “Hey,” he growled back, “I’ve got shoes bigger than you. So back off.” About then the absurdity of the situation struck him, though he didn’t let the amusement he felt creep into his voice. “What do you think you are, a damned rottweiler?”

“I’m afraid she probably does,” Summer said with a sigh, coming from the kitchen to scoop the Chihuahua into her arms. “Yes…yes…what a good girl you are…my brave champion…” She paused to wipe her face. “I really believe dogs lack a sense of size. Oh, my goodness.” She broke off to stare openmouthed at the packages in Riley’s arms. “What is all that?”

For the first time, possibly because the kitchen light was behind her and as a consequence that distracting mouth of hers was hidden in shadow, it occurred to Riley that she had a very nice speaking voice-a California voice, devoid of any accent, but rather low-pitched and with a musical quality he found pleasant. The kind of voice that was probably calming to small children and animals-a useful asset for a vet.

She was laughing as she stepped aside to let him through the doorway. “No wonder Beatle didn’t recognize you.”

“There’s more,” he said as he deposited his load on the island countertop. “If you want to, you can give me a hand.”

“Oh-yes, sure.”

He paused, then, to watch her set the dog on the floor, noting that she was wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she’d come to see him at his office the day before-tan slacks and a pale green sleeveless shell-but that they looked clean and freshly pressed. As she bent over he noted, too, the slender lines of her back and arms, the way the fabric pulled taut over her buttocks and thighs. Things he didn’t normally allow himself to observe in a client.

She straightened, dusting her hands, forcing him to shift his gaze quickly He cleared his throat and said, “Where are the, uh…?” and held his hand out, palm down, waist high.

“The children? They were upstairs watching television, but I have an idea they must’ve fallen asleep.” Her mobile mouth gave him the briefest of smiles. “Otherwise, I’m sure they’d be here to welcome you. They didn’t get much sleep last night. And they spent a good part of the day in the pool. They were pretty worn-out.”

“Ah.” With a twinge of shame at the relief that news brought, he held up his index finger, adorned now with only a discreet flesh-toned bandage, and arched his eyebrows in question. “And the, uh…?”

The worry-crease sharpened between her brows. “Oh, I hope it’s okay-I put her in the living room. You know, the room that overlooks the pool? I put a sheet down on the floor to protect it-I’m sorry, there will be some mess. With birds it goes with the territory, you know.” Her smile flickered again, on and off, as if it had a faulty connection. “I’m sorry. I know this has got to be a terrible nuisance for you. But it was closest to where we all were for most of the day, and she needs the reassurance of being around people she knows and trusts.”

“Really.” Riley kept his voice neutral as he held the door for her and they went together into the warm, muggy evening. He glanced at her and she nodded.

“There’s been so much upheaval in her life.”

In the waning light he caught the sheen of humidity on her face, the tops of her shoulders and along her collarbones. The air around him seemed to thicken.

“Moving, you mean,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’d think a parrot would be somewhat difficult to travel with.” He glanced at her and frowned. “You mind if I ask why you didn’t just leave her behind in California? Seems to me it would have been easier on everybody.”

She was silent for a moment, watching her feet on the uneven brick paving. Then she leveled a look at him. “There are some things I’ve had to do in the past couple of years where I felt like I had no choice in the matter. My decision to keep the animals wasn’t one. Sure, I could have left them all of them. And yes, things would be a little easier for me now. And for you.”

She looked away, leaving him feeling diminished, somehow. A little ashamed. After a moment her voice came back to him, along with a laugh as soft and forgiving as a breath of the evening air.

“Peggy Sue-my cat?-I got her as a gift for my sixteenth birthday. I named her after an old fifties song-it was the seventies, but there was a big fifties revival at the time: ‘Pretty, pret-ty, pret-ty, Peh-he-gy Sue’-remember it?” Her voice grew husky. “She’s twenty years old now-do you have any idea how old that is for a cat? No wonder she’s ugly and cranky, huh? So, for that should I have put her down, or left her behind to finish her days with strangers?”

Again she paused, this time to kick absently at an uneven brick in the pathway. “And Cleo-parrots are very intelligent, you know? It’s like having a preschool child.” Riley saw her shoulders lift, then a moment later heard the sigh of an exhaled breath. “Her owner brought her to me after her mate had been killed accidentally. She was grieving, and they thought she’d die, too. She wouldn’t accept another mate, but she was beginning to bond with us-the children and me-when… all this happened. If I’d given her away she likely would have died.” She glanced at him, then as quickly looked away. “And poor little Beatle-we got her because one of my clients, a breeder, wanted me to put her to sleep. You know why? Because her ears are damaged and won’t stand up, so she’s no good to show. That little dog would give her life for any one of us…” She broke off suddenly. They’d reached the car. She stood and stared intently at it, her back rigid, arms folded across her waist.

Riley felt an urge to put his hand on the back of her neck and massage it until her shoulders relaxed and her body eased back and melded with his like a hand in a glove. Instead, he reached past her, opened the door and popped the trunk, then said gruffly, “Guess we should take the food in first.”

They each made two fully laden trips, mostly in silence, before the car was empty of all the shopping bags and varioussize boxes and plastic-covered clothes hangers.

After the last trip, Summer stood with her arms full of shoe boxes and garment bags and surveyed the already overflowing countertops. She gave a feeble-sounding laugh. “Do you do this for all your clients?” So many packages…the thought of what he must have spent gave her a horrified, panicky feeling.

“Only those I’m keeping locked up in protective custody,” Riley drawled, but with an edge to his voice.

She had no trouble taking the hint; obviously he didn’t want to talk about it He probably wasn’t any more comfortable with the subject than she was. Okay, so as difficult as it might be, it looked as if she was going to have to accept Riley Grogan’s generosity and swallow her pride-again. One more lump to add to the ones she felt sometimes would choke her. She wished she could feel grateful; instead she felt inadequate and ashamed.

Riley turned from the open refrigerator, frowning as he weighed a bag of peaches in one hand, a plastic package labeled Caesar Salad in the other. He held them both out to her, eyebrows arched in that querying way of his.

She took a breath, swallowed the lump and said, “Lettuce, yes, peaches, no-they should be left out to ripen. Here-just let me put these…” She gave up looking for a place to set down her armload and ducked into the hallway, where she dumped everything in a pile at the foot of the stairs. She returned to find Riley staring at a note she’d fastened with cellophane tape to the refrigerator door.

“What’s this?” He focused on the note and read, “Crayons-”

She felt herself blush scarlet. What must he think of her? And after he’d just spent a small fortune! Her chest constricted with shame. “After you left this morning I thought of a few things to add to the list-but there’s absolutely no hurry. I just thought it might help to keep the children occupied-you know, since they can’t go…” She stepped closer and raised her hand to snatch the note away.

But he eluded her by shifting slightly and bracing his arm against the door. “Lint roller?” He turned his head to give her a look along his shoulder, his expression, except for the elevated brows, impassive.

She coughed, her face on fire. “You know-for the cat hair.”

He went on looking at her, so close to her she could see the pores in his skin, the dark stubble of a day’s growth of beard. He’d looked at her much the same way that day in court, she remembered, with a distance of several yards, a lawyers’ table and a witness box between them. And if he’d made her feel trapped and impaled then, at close range like this he was even more intimidating. She couldn’t think. Could barely breathe. Because all at once she knew that she had gravely misjudged Riley Grogan.

Oh, she’d recognized him as a fighter that day, in spite of his elegance and polish, but now she knew that the image she’d carried away with her that day had been more make-believe than real. She’d seen him as an actor playing the part of action hero in a movie with herself as the director. She’d thought of him as a tool she could control-and dispense with, when her need of him was over, as easily as a director yells “Cut!”

Only now, facing him over salad makings in his brightly lit kitchen, did she realize how foolish she’d been. Riley Grogan was no movie actor or make-believe hero-he was the real thing, a flesh-and-blood man, a strong man made of muscle and bone and sinew. She could feel the heat from his body, smell his sweat and aftershave, hear the rasp of his breathing. And she suddenly knew that, if there was violence and passion in Riley Grogan, hidden away beneath the elegant facade he presented to the world, it would not be hers to command.

Wrenching herself away from such close proximity and unnerving thoughts, she turned to the pile of shopping bags on the island counter and began to paw through them, pulling in a breath that seemed to clot in her lungs like heavy cream. “All I can say,” she said huskily, “is that your secretary must have gone a little nuts. This is…” Her fingers, exploring the contents of one of the bags, came upon the silky coolness of nylon…the raspy luxury of lace. Too much. It’s just too much.

“I’m afraid you can’t blame her,” said Riley absently, still frowning at the contents of the refrigerator. “I didn’t ask her, after all.”

Summer’s fingers froze. Then, like someone peeking through her fingers at a scene in a horror movie, she lifted one edge of the bag. Her worst fears confirmed, she closed her eyes. “So,” she said faintly, after pausing to clear her throat, “you did all this yourself?” Lingerie. He did-he bought me underwear.

Even with his back to her, Riley could hear the dismay in her voice…the precarious quality of blown glass and soap bubbles. It occurred to him to wonder if she even knew how fragile she was.

To give her time, he reached into the refrigerator and got his fingers around the necks of two bottles of his favorite brand of imported beer. He carried them to the counter, opened a drawer, took out a bottle opener and popped the caps, then turned and held one out to her. She looked startled but took it, studied the label for a moment, then lifted it to her lips.

“Would you like a glass?” he asked politely.

She shook her head. “This is fine.” She took a sip and murmured, “Thank you.”

Riley leaned against the counter and indulged himself in a long swallow of his beer, then said in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone, “I didn’t ask my secretary to do the shopping, because it seemed best that the fewer people who know you’re here, the better.” He paused for another swallow and to give that sentence a moment to sink in, then grinned. “And frankly, I couldn’t think of a plausible explanation to give her for why I was needing women’s and children’s clothing all of a sudden. After all-” he frowned in mock seriousness “-I do have a certain image to protect.”

He was mystified by how pleased he felt when she smiled.

She took a hefty swig of beer that left her lips glazed, then frowned and tilted the neck of the bottle toward him to indicate a return to serious discussion. “Listen-I know you have an…active social life.” He heard what was unmistakably a small burp. “You mustn’t let us interfere with it.”

She looked startled when he chuckled. “You know that, do you? How come you know so much about me, Mrs. Robey?”

She shifted slightly, leaning one hip against the counter, and Riley felt his gaze being drawn slowly and inexorably downward by the movement and the subtly relaxing lines of her body. He couldn’t help himself.

She gave her head a toss, and he jerked his eyes back to her face almost guiltily to find that her lips were pursed and shiny with moisture, her eyes the fierce, burning blue of glaciers. “You don’t think I’d come to you without checking on you first, do you? With my children’s lives at stake?”

“Well…” For the first time in his memory his tongue seemed to have stuck to the roof of his mouth. He drank some more beer to loosen it. When, he wondered, had it gotten so warm in his kitchen? So heavy and humid? He hoped the air-conditioning wasn’t going out again. Oxygen-deprived, he suppressed a yawn and mumbled, “Well, the only excitement I have planned for this evening is an early bedtime. Your kids aren’t the only ones needin’ to catch up on sleep.”

He couldn’t keep his breathing even as he watched her walk toward him…until it occurred to him that her only purpose in doing that was to dispose of her beer bottle. Feeling vaguely foolish, he moved to one side to give her access to the sink, then watched her rinse out her bottle and extend a hand to ask silently for his.

He surrendered it, and again availed himself of the unforeseen pleasure of watching her hands as she held the bottles under the faucet’s stream…the seconds seeming to slow and elongate so that the flowing water became oil and each movement of her hands a slow and sensual caress. What was it about her hands, he wondered-her hands, the water, the freshsoap smell of her. He couldn’t for the life of him think why those things suddenly seemed so erotic to him. This simple domesticity, the casual intimacy of it, wasn’t at all his style. He’d always preferred the more stylized courtship rituals-flowers and candlelight, elegant dinners, weekends in the Bahamas…

“Do you recycle?”

He straightened and jerked his head toward the kitchen’s outer door. “I think Mrs. Abemathy has a bin…”

While she was disposing of the bottles, to give himself at least the illusion of useful occupation, he picked up the first thing at hand-a plastic-wrapped package of meat-and scowled at it. Returning, she reached around him to take it from him and in doing so brushed against his arm. He felt a charge go through his chest, a vibrating rhythm like the subsonic boom of bass speakers that he realized with a small sense of shock must be his heartbeat.

“Filet mignon.” She shook her head as she pulled open the freezer door. “I hope you didn’t buy this for us. The children and I are just as happy with mac ’n’ cheese.” She paused then, and he saw her shoulders slump. She looked at him over her shoulder, eyes dark with contrition. “I didn’t even think-of course you must be hungry. Can I make you something?”

Riley was not often at a loss for words-another of his gifts, and one reason he was such a success at his chosen profession. But at that moment his mind was a blank, his speech processing centers totally nonfunctional. And he knew why. Because, yes, he definitely was feeling pangs of hunger, but they weren’t located in his stomach. And because, yes, he’d have liked very much for her to make him something, but it wasn’t filet mignon. And because he knew very well that what he was feeling was absolutely unpardonable-the woman was a client, a recent crime victim, a protected government witness and an unwilling guest in his home. And because in spite of all that he knew, if she came one inch closer to him, he was probably going to kiss her.

The silence had already lasted too long. Long enough to become vibrant with unspoken suggestions and innuendo, long enough for the heat to gather in Summer’s cheeks and the questions in her eyes, long enough for the sweat to bead on Riley’s forehead and upper lip. Way too long for graceful exits, plausible explanations or any chance of redemption.

Still, what could he do but try? He gave his head a slight shake, cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry-” all of which he knew only made it worse “-what did you say?”

She touched her lips with the back of her hand, cleared her throat and murmured, “I said, you must be hungry. I can cook one of those steaks for you, if you-”

“Mom?”

Never had a child’s voice sounded sweeter to Riley. He turned to see the boy David standing in the doorway, blinking in the harsh kitchen light. He was wearing briefs and a dark T-shirt with the words The Truth Is Out There pointed on it. For some reason, he thought, the child’s knees seemed knobbier than they had in the oversize swim trunks, his legs spindlier, his shoulders narrower and more vulnerable.

He felt Summer brush past him, so closely he felt the tickle of her hair on his face, saying breathlessly, “Oh, honey-what’s the matter, can’t sleep?”

David nodded, at the same time throwing Riley a look that held a strange kind of appeal, but more, he thought, of mute embarrassment. The boy’s mother put an arm around his shoulders, forming a barrier of privacy with her body, but Riley could hear her voice murmuring words of comfort, David’s voice answering. He heard the words “bad dream.”

“Would you like Beatle to sleep with you?”

Again David threw Riley that unfathomable look, half wistful, half ashamed, then nodded. His mother walked him into the hallway, still talking to him in her low, soothing voice, her strong hands gentle on his shoulders and the back of his neck, ruffling and then smoothing his hair. Mother’s hands…

“Git up outta that bed, you little piece a…! What’d you do with it this time, huh? You got it hid, you better tell me where. Better not a’poured it out, or I swear I’m gonna beat the tar outta you. Don’t you dare run from me! Hey, boy-you come on, now, you git back here! Go on, then-sleep with the snakes, ya little weasel! Hey-yer gonna hafta come back some time-y’hear? I’ll be waitin’ fer ya. I’ll be waitin’…”

“He had a nightmare,” Summer said, coming back into the kitchen. She was wearing her worry lines again, and a flushed, defensive look that made Riley realize he must be frowning. He nodded and muttered something, he didn’t know what. He felt chilled, and there was a heaviness in his chest he couldn’t dislodge.

She brushed past him and began to take groceries out of plastic bags and arrange them on the countertop with rapid, almost angry movements. “Look-he probably wouldn’t want me to tell you this-it embarrasses him, okay? He had a…a bunny blanket. It was destroyed in the fire. He’s trying to be grown-up about it. He’s trying so hard to be grown-up…about a lot of things. And I wish-” She ducked her head and he saw her make a surreptitious swipe at her cheek with one hand. Then she lifted her chin and threw him a defensive look. “I know you must think he’s way too old to sleep with a security blanket. He probably is. But dammit-” she stopped to take a deep breath, and when he said nothing, continued in a deliberately calmer tone “-he’s a very sensitive little boy who’s had a lot to deal with, and if a lousy blanket could make him feel safer and more secure, I was damned if I was going to take that away from him. And now that those… thugs…have robbed him of that, I’m going to do whatever I can to make him feel safe without it, okay? I’m sorry if you think I’m babying him, or spoiling him-”

“Mrs. Robey,” Riley said stiffly, “I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood me.” Unbelievably shaken, he turned and stalked out of the kitchen.

Riley looked forward to spending his weekends quietly at home catching up on his reading, Saturdays and Sundays being the only days he had time to do justice to a newspaper. He saw no reason why this weekend should be any different just because he happened to have three extra people sharing his living quarters. His plan was to walk down the drive to the gate while it was still relatively cool, then barricade himself in his den with the papers and a large cup of coffee while Summer and the children were occupying the kitchen. Once the diminishing decibel levels informed him that they had adjourned to the pool, he would emerge from his lair just long enough to fix himself a hearty brunch-a nice omelet, perhaps-Mexican-style with plenty of salsa. Or, if his sweet tooth was in charge, French toast made with that cinnamonraisin bread he liked so much.

There was a reason Riley could feel optimistic about his plans for the weekend, in spite of the recent catastrophic changes in his household’s population and routine. The truth was, ever since the incident in the kitchen on Tuesday evening, it had been apparent that Summer was doing her best to avoid him. And doing a pretty good job of keeping the children and animals and their associated debris out of his way as well, with the help of the crayons and the lint roller, and a few other things she’d since added to the list-such as powdered pet deodorizer, and something in a spray bottle that seemed to work magic on the revolting puddles Peggy Sue habitually threw up on the carpets, almost always where Riley would be sure to step in them in his stocking feet. In fact, except for the samples of their artwork that now decorated the refrigerator and most of the windows in the kitchen and garden room, he saw little of the children. In the mornings, Summer contrived to keep them busy upstairs in their suite of rooms-showering, coloring or watching cartoons on television-until Riley had left for work. He had no idea how they spent their days, and truthfully, hadn’t given the matter a lot of thought. In the pool, he imagined. He did have a vague idea they might be constructing themselves some sort of hideaway out in the backyard. Summer had asked him about it, and since it seemed to him a relatively harmless way for the children to occupy themselves, as long as nothing already in existence was altered or destroyed in the process, he’d given his okay. But he’d seen no signs of such a project, and had heard nothing more about it since.

In any event, by the time he arrived home, which was customarily around eight o’clock in the summertime, Summer would already have fed her brood and hustled them off upstairs once more, leaving a place set for Riley at the table in the morning room, and his dinner on the counter, neatly covered with aluminum foil. He told himself he was pleased with this arrangement. The forced cohabitation was working out very well. And if it suddenly seemed unusually lonely to be dining, as he’d always done, with only Mozart for company, he told himself it was just as well, and much better for the health of the attorney-client relationship.

The first part of Saturday went according to plan. Riley retrieved his newspaper, stopped in the kitchen long enough to pour himself a cup of coffee and retired with both to his study minutes before he heard the first thump on the stairs. He had worked his way through the national and local news and was well into the business section when he heard a timid knock on his door. Lowering the paper to his desktop, he let the glasses he’d recently begun to wear for long, uninterrupted bouts of reading slide onto the tip of his nose, frowned over their tops and said, “Yes? Come in…”

The door opened silently, and the boy, David, stuck his head tentatively around it. “Hi,” he said, his eyes shifting to one side.

“Hey,” said Riley, and waited.

The boy’s eyes slid to the other side of the room. “Mom said to ask you if want some breakfast. She’s makin’ blueberry waffles.”

“Waffles, huh?” In spite of himself, Riley’s mouth began to water. “Uh… sure Tell your mother yes, thank you. That sounds good.”

The boy’s head disappeared, and a split second later came a bellowed “Mom, he said yes!” Riley picked up his newspaper.

Alerted by subtle changes in air currents, or a sixth sense, perhaps, he lowered it again to find that, instead of leaving and closing the door behind him, David had entered the room and was wandering silently, gazing around him in apparent awe. Riley watched him over the tops of his glasses, saying nothing.

Presently David sighed, craning his neck to take in the bookcases that filled the entire wall behind Riley’s desk from floor to ceiling, and said, “You sure have a lot of books”

“Mmm-hmm,” said Riley.

“Did you read all these books?”

“Most of them, yes”

David’s head swiveled and his jaw dropped. Then, lifting one shoulder in a belated attempt to look unimpressed, he sniffed and said, “I like to read books.” His gaze slid wistfully back to the shelves. “Maybe… you could let me read some of yours sometime.”

Riley coughed and harrumphed. “Oh, well, I don’t know about that These are probably too grown-up for you. I don’t think they’d be very interesting…” Then, to his astonishment, he heard himself say, “Now…I might have some books upstairs you’d like.” He rubbed at his unshaven chin and regarded the boy’s solemn but hopeful face. Damn, the kid did look like his mother… He cleared his throat. “How old are you?”

“I’m nine-almost ten.”

“Think you’re old enough for Tom Sawyer?”

Instead of answering, David heaved another sigh. “Mom reads us stories. She read us James and the Giant Peach, and she was reading Black Stallion-that’s about this horse that gets washed overboard in a shipwreck, you know, and this boy tames him? But anyway, I guess she can’t now because it got burned up in the fire.”

Once again, Riley found himself with nothing to say. After a moment David shrugged and went on with his artfully aimless exploration, head tilted to one side like a potential buyer in a not-very-interesting art gallery. When he’d made a complete circuit of the room, he put a hand on one hip, gave Riley a sideways look and inquired with a poor attempt at nonchalance, “Don’t you have a computer?”

“I do,” Riley responded with a nod. “I keep it at my office.”

“Oh.” David’s eyes shifted as he tried hard to hide his disappointment. “How come?”

“I keep it there because my secretary is mostly the one who uses it.”

“Oh.” The boy’s shoulders sagged, then hitched upward in another of those brave little shrugs. “I used to have a computer when we lived in California. My dad used to play with me all the time.” He turned suddenly, his face alight with an enthusiasm overpowering enough to carry him right to the edge of Riley’s desk. “You can do really cool things on a computer, did you know that? There’s all kinds of stuff, especially if you have a CD-ROM drive. Like, I had this encyclopedia, you know? And-oh, yeah, there’s Puzzle Wizard-I really like that one, there’s all kind of neat puzzles you can solve. And there’s games, too. My dad gave me a whole bunch of games one Christmas-Battle Beast, Mech Warrios-only Mom wouldn’t let me play with most of ’em. She said they were violent and gross, and she made my dad take ’em back. She was pretty mad at him.”

“Hmm,” said Riley, who was only half paying attention. He was watching, out of the corner of his eye, the evil-looking creature that had just slunk around the edge of the door-which David, naturally, had neglected to close. The boy’s monologue faded to a background hum; the focus of Riley’s attention had narrowed to the cat’s silent progress toward him across the Persian rug. The last thing he saw before it disappeared behind his desk was the moth-eaten tail held aloft like a plume waving over the head of a rather seedy potentate.

Riley felt himself tensing up. Where in the hell was the beast now? More important, what was it doing? A moment later, he had his answer. There came a horrid scratching sound and what felt like about a dozen needles pricking him in the legs. Something heavy landed squarely in the middle of his lap. Riley gripped the arms of his chair and pressed himself backward as the cat, her expression disdainful, casually sniffed his chest and then turned herself around, managing to trod heavily on some sensitive parts of his anatomy in the process. A loud wheezing, grinding noise began to emanate from her as she slowly stretched herself out and placed her front paws on the desktop. After carefully sniffing out the area, she swiped Riley several times in the face with her tail, then hauled her hind half stiffly up and onto his newspaper. There she crouched, staring intently at the door.

Riley had heard David’s mother calling but was holding his breath to avoid inhaling cat hair and couldn’t answer. While he sat frozen, not breathing, her advance guard, the dog Beatle, came dashing headlong through the narrow gap in the door, caught sight of the cat on top of the desk and skittered to a halt The cat lazily arched her back. The dog gave a yelp and scampered back the way she’d come, while the cat placidly arranged herself like a mildewed stole across Riley’s newspaper.

An instant later, Summer stuck her head through the door. The smile on her lips vanished like the sunlight when a cloud gets in the way, and she closed her eyes and softly breathed, “Oh, Peggy Sue…” She pushed the door wide and started forward.

Riley let his breath out and held up a hand like a traffic cop, stopping her there. He rose, one eye on the drift of cat hair that scuttled across his desk, blown by the breeze she’d made, and said briskly, “Never mind-I was done with it, anyway. David mentioned waffles?”

She stepped quickly back, giving him a lot more room than he needed. Oh, yeah, she was avoiding him, all right-why was that beginning to annoy him?

Her smile returned, though, as she gestured toward the kitchen. “I left some for you. But I was coming to ask you-where do you keep your lawn mower?”

“Lawn mower?” He had to stop and think for a moment. “Lord, I don’t know. In the gardener’s shed, I imagine-that’s the door down at the far end of the garage-but I couldn’t tell you what kind of shape it’s in. My gardener generally uses his own, I believe. Why on earth do you want to know?”

“Because,” she began in the same patient tone he’d heard her use with her children, “I noticed your lawn needs mowing. And since I figured your gardener was probably on paid vacation, too, I thought I’d mow it for you. If that’s okay.” And all the while she was saying that, a rosy flush was creeping across her cheekbones.