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  “Kind of?”

  “Now you let me know, Viv, if you need any more help organizing. I left my card and a price sheet for you on the dining room table, with a discount, of course, since we’re buddies now. So when you’re ready to really get organized, you call me, okay?” Mimi asked as Ryan helped her into the backseat.

  “Buckle up, dear,” he said. “Nice you meet you again, Viv. We come up here a few times a year, so we’ll see you again. You’re coming down to San Francisco for the wedding, right?”

  “That’s a brilliant idea!” Mimi said. “Oh, Viv, you have to come! Oh my God, Ryan, that’s the best idea you’ve ever had. It’s going to be the prettiest wedding anyone has ever seen! And you can—”

  Ryan shut the car door and went around to the other side. As soon as he opened the door I heard:

  “—and the cake has seven tiers, can you believe it? All the attendants have to wear black, I’m the only one in white, of course, and . . .”

  Caroline told Simon, “Let’s get the jerky as soon as possible—it’s a three-hour drive.” She climbed into the front seat, leaving Simon and me standing there.

  “Wind-surfing lesson next time?” he asked.

  “Yup. Now get outta here.”

  He got in and they sped off, Mimi’s hands waving excitedly as they pulled away. I chuckled for a moment, then headed back inside. It was really quiet in the house now. I finished my coffee, put in my earbuds, and got back to work cleaning.

  And I noticed for the first time how big the house was for just one person.

  The rest of that day was weird, and ended even weirder. I spent the day clearing out the living room. I’d started to divide things into piles: keep, donate, trash. There was a lot in the donate pile; someone was going to be set for tube socks for years. Aunt Maude was an As Seen On TV shopper if I’d ever seen one. Slap Chops, the WaxVac, the Chillow (which I was keeping, what a great idea!), to say nothing of the entire shrine dedicated to Ron Popeil and his empire. Food dehydrators, rotisserie grills—I even found a box of old-fashioned hair spray in a can.

  I wondered again how Aunt Maude turned out the way she did. Fiercely independent, but also, it appeared, fiercely lonely. And not only did I wish that wasn’t the case, I also wished she’d not left quite so much crap behind for someone else to clean up. The Ronco knife sets were great and all, but really . . . five sets? And if she had the money for all this crap, why was there a leaky roof? Especially when she had seventeen tubes of Putty Friend, another As Seen On TV product Maude had ordered for herself and stockpiled . . .

  I knocked off cleaning a little early to cook myself a nice dinner. The stove and I were beginning to understand each other, and I wanted to take our relationship to the next level. Nothing fancy, mind you, but perhaps some chicken? A few vegetables? Could I swing some rice? We were going to find out.

  After a quick shower, I headed down to the kitchen. Within minutes I had a decent amount of vegetables chopped, a pot of water simmering for rice, and a couple of chicken breasts in the oven, planning to use the extra one later in the week for lunch or in a salad. No pizza this week, no way, no sir! Time to get into a normal routine!

  I opened up the windows in the kitchen, throwing the back door open wide to let in that last little bit of sunshine. The skies to the east were looking gray and the wind was beginning to kick up; it looked like we were going to get a storm. I said a silent thank-you to Ryan and Simon for tying the tarp down; the evening would be much nicer without the rain inside the house.

  But the air before a storm always smelled so fresh, so I let it all in. The house was finally beginning to lose that musty closed-up smell after a week of solid cleaning. I’d poured a glass of red wine to sip while I cooked, and with the radio tuned to the oldies station, it made for a cozy night to stay in and cook.

  Because I grew up in a large family, it was never a question of whether I would learn to cook or not, it was merely a question of when. For the record, I was eight when I started scrambling my own eggs and making my own toast. Cooking for one had been a bit of an adjustment, since my favorite family recipes were formulated to feed an army. But as I got older and was single longer, I learned that there was something a little special about preparing a meal just for yourself. Setting the table for one was just as important as setting the table for fourteen. So I dug up some pretty china plates, washed them, stacked them in the kitchen, and even lit a candle in the dining room.

  Pat on the back for me.

  Back in the kitchen, I sizzled and stirred, adding a pinch of this and a sprinkle of that. Rice was in, garlic and onions were sautéing, and I had just added some broccoli to the pan when I heard—

  Flap-flap-flap.

  Cocking my head sideways, I listened again. What was that? But after a moment, all I heard was vegetables cooking, so I went back to them. Another minute went by. My chicken should be almost done now, I should check it—

  Flap-flap-flap-flap

  Okay, what the hell was that? My slotted spoon and I headed into the dining room—all clear. Living room? All clear as well. Was I hearing things?

  The wind was beginning to really kick up, the curtains were waving in the breeze on either side of the fireplace. Maybe that was the noise I was hearing. But as soon as they were closed, I heard it again, coming from the dining room.

  Flap-flap-flap.

  I headed for the dining room. Dammit. What the hell was—

  A bat!

  It dove at me and I ran screaming out onto the front porch, slotted spoon in one hand, the other clasped over my head.

  Flap-flap-flap-flap.

  “Get out get out get out get out!” I screamed, stamping my foot and going through the rotten wood again. And this time? It got stuck.

  “Sonofawhore!” I cursed, setting down the spoon and trying to pull my foot clear. Nope, it was stuck on something but good. “Cocksucking fuck!” I swore again. Somewhere, my mother most certainly frowned at my choice of words.

  Thunder boomed nearby, and from inside the house?

  Flap-flap-flap.

  I instinctively ducked, even though I was out on the porch. The porch that had been trying to eat me piece by piece since I got here. I tried to calm down; getting frustrated wasn’t going to help. Think, Viv!

  I tried to keep my weight off my stuck foot, since every time I pushed down to try and get some leverage, it seemed to get even more wedged in. I started to think about what might be under that porch, what might have ahold of my foot.

  One of those dolls . . .

  That’s it! My phone was in my pocket, thank God—but who was I going to call? Simon was back in San Francisco by now, and I had no idea how to get hold of Hank. Mr. Montgomery? No, he was too old. I didn’t want to call 911, because while in my own head this constituted an emergency, in the grand scheme of things, it really wasn’t.

  You know who you have to call.

  Oh, man.

  And do it quickly, before the doll takes another bite.

  I called the librarian.

  “Well, well, well.”

  “Lookee what we have here,” I finished, peering up at Clark.

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” he answered, walking slowly up the steps.

  When I’d called him, he said he’d be right over. And he hadn’t laughed, just asked if I was all right and did I need anything. I told him a margarita would be nice. He’d ignored that request, but he had brought his toolbox. Rubbermaid. Red. Stamped with Clark Barrow on the side—in case someone tried to take it?

  Sunday Evening Clark was much more dressed down: faded jeans, running shoes, untucked plaid shirt over a white undershirt. I suddenly said a prayer that it wasn’t a tank-top undershirt, that he was the kind of guy who wore T-shirts, and then mentally slapped myself for giving a shit what he wore under his faded plaid shirt. That looked soft and co
mfortable and warm. I shivered. It was getting cold out here, playing buoy on the sea of porch.

  He knelt down in front of me and assessed the situation.

  “One would think it unwise, Vivian, knowing the condition of this rotten wood, to traipse about so carelessly,” he said as he poked at the wood around my left leg, which was buried to midthigh. I’d been sitting half on and half off the broken wood for the better part of twenty minutes, and was starting to get more than a little agitated.

  “One would think that after getting punched in the nose one would be unwise to provoke me,” I said sweetly.

  He turned his gaze from my leg to my face, his eyes calculating. “You’re the one stuck in the porch. You sure you want to pick a fight with me right now?”

  He had me there, dammit. “Okay, fine. No fight picking. But do something, Clark.”

  “I’m waiting for the magic word.”

  “Um, now?”

  “Really?”

  “Asshole?”

  “Come on.”

  “Clark!”

  “Vivian.”

  “Oh, fine. Please help me, Clark. Please, please, please?” I managed, gritting my teeth.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he smiled, his face lighting up.

  “Still not out of this porch here,” I said.

  He nodded. “As personally gratifying as it is to see you like this, there is a bit of storm coming and I’d rather not be out here when it hits. So let’s see what we can do here, shall we?”

  “Yes, shall we?” I repeated, leaning back so he could get a better look at how I was wedged.

  “Pardon me, I need to get a little closer here. I just—Ah, yes, I can see it there.” Clark had leaned across me, one arm on either side of me as he peered through the broken board to the ground below. His head was almost flush with the floor. And flush with what else was on the floor. Flush with my— Oh my. I unexpectedly felt his breath on my bare thighs. I was dressed in running shorts that left little to the imagination, and my imagination was bombarding my senses with the most inappropriate images.

  All I could think about was if he just moved about three inches to the left, he could probably get me off with his jaw alone. And how in world had I never noticed that it was so very strong, so very chiseled, so very lightly covered with Sunday-evening stubble? Stubble that could so very easily drag back and forth across the inside of my legs, up and down, and right and left, and then up, up, and away toward my—

  “I’m going to have to go down,” he said, and it took all the strength I had not to bury my hand in that flippy soft brown hair and take him at his word.

  “Sorry?” I asked, panting. I was panting, for Christ’s sake! Over a librarian?

  Mmmm, over a librarian . . .

  “I have to go down beneath the porch. Believe me, I’m not looking forward to it. Who knows what’s under there?” he said, turning toward me. All I could see was bandage, and the bruises that were fading from purple to yellow around the edges, and the spell was broken.

  Still breathing a little heavy, I warned him to watch out for dolls. And watched as he hurried down the steps, around the side of the house, and began removing the latticework cover on the side of the porch with the utmost care.

  What the hell! Lusting after a librarian, when there was a cowboy on the loose? It was clear that lusting after Hank had addled my brains. I was seeing things, imagining things, getting hot over the slightest touch, even from a guy like Clark.

  The wind blew more forcefully across the porch, and I shivered. What the hell was taking so long?

  “Hey! You want to put a little hustle on over there?” I finally called out, when the third piece of lattice was placed carefully onto the porch.

  His head popped up over the edge. “Do you have any idea how old this is?”

  “Do you have any idea how much it’s going to suck if you’re caught underneath there in the rain?”

  He looked at the sky, getting darker by the minute. “Point taken.” He pried off the last of the lattice, then disappeared.

  I could hear scrambling coming from beneath me, and then I could feel the ground shifting a little under my stuck foot.

  “Vivian? It’s just me. Don’t be alarmed.”

  “No kidding, Clark. Who else would it be?”

  “Well, pardon me all over the place. I was just concerned that if you were surprised, your first instinct would be to kick. So let’s see what we can do about getting this free.”

  Then he put his hands on my leg. Wrapped his hands around my ankle, turning it slightly. “Okay, it’s wedged into a cement block, but I think I can get it loose. Bear with me a moment, Vivian.”

  “It’s Viv. And be careful, huh?” I called down.

  “Impossible woman,” he muttered. His hands traveled a little farther up my leg, inside, and then around the back of my knee. And then I felt . . . well, it felt like . . .

  “Clark! Did you just lick—”

  “No!” he yelled, wrenching my foot free at that exact moment and pushing it up through the porch. I fell backward, my leg pulling clear of the wood and my heart pounding. I saw him crawl out from beneath the porch, dust himself off, and then walk toward me.

  I pointed at him. “You licked my leg.”

  “I did nothing of the kind,” he said. But the tips of his ears were red.

  Flap-flap-flap-flap.

  “Ah crap, I forgot about that.”

  “You’re kind of a two-crisis girl, aren’t you?” He laughed, reaching behind his toolbox and picking up a lacrosse stick.

  “That’s what you brought to kill a bat?”

  “It was either this or my squash racket.” He took a few practice swipes at the air. “Besides, we’re not going to kill it. We’re going to catch it, then let it go.”

  “There is no we. There’s a you, as in you are going to get the bat!”

  “It’s your house, you should be helping me,” he said. “And for someone who acts so tough, you sure are scared of a little thing like a bat.”

  “I’m not scared!”

  When he had the nerve to make a bowing gesture, as if to say well then, go ahead on in without me, I grumbled, “Okay fine—I’m a little scared. I’ll help you, but you’re going in first.” I stood up and brushed off my shorts. I now had another scrape to match the one on the other leg. Honestly.

  I rummaged in the garage until I found a rake and a bucket, then rejoined Clark on the porch. Stepping over the hole, I huddled behind him as he opened the front door. We went inside, alert and listening.

  “Is something burning?” he asked, sniffing the air.

  “Dammit, my dinner!” I wailed, rushing past him and into the kitchen. “Motherfucker!”

  “Vivian!” Clark exclaimed, hurrying past me to turn off the burners. Smoke billowed from the oven, my chicken breasts now charred beyond recognition. Rice? Now a cake in the bottom of the pan. And the vegetables? Crust. I started throwing the pots into the sink, probably slamming them a little harder than necessary. I was pissed at the porch, pissed at the house, pissed that my leg hurt, and pissed off that I still had a bat in the house. A bat in the house!

  “Were you expecting someone for dinner?” Clark asked from the doorway to the dining room. His face looked tight—hurt?

  I glanced past him and saw the candles burning on the table. “No, that was just for me,” I replied, pushing past him and blowing out the candle.

  “You lit candles just to eat alone?”

  “Yeah. So?” I asked, turning back to him. I saw the bat. It was perched on the lacrosse stick, just behind his head.

  “Oh. Boy. Um, Clark?”

  “I think if you want to light candles, even if it’s just you, that’s perfectly okay,” Clark said, nodding at me.

  “Right. Agreed. But right now? You need
to—”

  “I mean, after all, if you don’t think you’re good company, no one else will, right?”

  “Totally. Can I just—”

  “I eat most of my meals alone too, although I’ve never thought about lighting candles. Not sure a guy doing it would be seen as being quite as empowering as it is for a girl, rather sad actually. But shoot, I’ll try anything once I suppose. So good for you, Vivian. Light a candle why don’t you, you deserve it. Even if it is just chicken or—”

  “Duck.”

  “Or duck, exactly, even if it’s—”

  “Fucking duck, Clark!” I yelled, lunging in with my rake and swatting at the bat.

  Clark hit the deck and I knocked the bat off the back of the lacrosse stick. “Bucket! Bucket!” I yelled, and he slid it across the floor. Slamming it down on the bat, I sat on top of it, giving a war cry. “Wahoooooo!” I lifted the rake high over my head in victory.

  It caught in the chandelier and damn near ripped the entire thing out. And as it hung from the ceiling, swinging back and forth, I sat on a bucket in the middle of my dining room, with a bat under my butt, and a librarian under the table.

  Cue lightning and thunder.

  Cue crashing rain.

  There was nothing I could do but laugh.

  There were no leaks, though—so there was that.

  chapter nine

  Clark could rally, I gotta give him that. Twenty minutes later the bat was set free, the windows were all closed against the torrent of rain that was lashing at the house, and I was perched at my kitchen table with one Mr. Clark Barrow at the stove. Wearing an apron he’d found hanging in the pantry, he was scrambling me some eggs and making toast like it was his job.

  “Well, what else were you going to do?” he’d asked when he’d first suggested helping me make something else for dinner.

  “Order a pizza?”

  “You’ve got eggs and bread; how about I make us something to eat? It’ll give the rain a chance to slow up before I head home,” he said, and I agreed. And now here he was, cooking for us both.

  I’d warned him about how temperamental the stove was, but he had the hang of it. “My Nana used to have a stove just like this one, I’m used to it,” he said, expertly flipping the burners and lighting it just so.