“You do that,” Jane said.
Billie scurried between the hedge dividing the two properties, then stomped into the smaller house.
“She can be a trial,” Jane said, not meeting his eyes.
“But you love her.”
“Of course.She’s my daughter.”She bit her lip, then stared at the ground.“I should go, too.Thanks for dinner.”
She reached up and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek.Her perfume whispered around him, like a sensual ghost.
“You’re welcome.”
She walked down the steps and toward the hedge.“Oh, Adam, I’d love to go with you to the game.If you’re sure?”
He wasn’t.About anything.“Of course.”
“See you Saturday, then.”
“Saturday.”He watched her disappear into the night.
* * *
Rain fell from the sky.Sheets pounded into the earth as if a permanent rift had been created somewhere in the atmosphere.
“I can’t believe you went to all this trouble,” Jane said as she studied the contents of the refrigerator.Hot dogs and salads sat on the top two shelves.An assortment of sodas filled the door.A bottle of white wine rested on its side on the bottom.
“I’d promised the two of you a baseball game,” Adam said, pulling out the wine and closing the refrigerator door.“What else was I supposed to do?”
“But a barbecue in the rain?We could have rescheduled.”
“The porch is wide enough to handle the grill.Besides, did youwantto have Billie to yourself all day?She strikes me as the type of kid to go stir-crazy in this kind of weather.”
“She is a little trying.I was thinking about driving into town to catch a movie with her.It was that or lock her in a closet.”
He smiled.“We still can.The movie part.After we eat.”
“Sure.Unless you’ve made other plans for tonight?”She sounded to herself as sophisticated as the twelve-year-old who’d first fallen for him.Get a grip, she told herself.
“Not at all.”
When she’d woken up to a gray wet day, Jane had been convinced that Adam would excuse himself from seeing her and Billie today.Disappointment had flared, her distress muchstronger than it had a right to be.It had been almost a week since she’d seen him.Every day she’d strolled in her yard after he got home from work and had hoped he might come outside, too.He hadn’t, and she’d gone inside each night feeling foolish and lonely.It was worse than being a teenager again.Back then she hadn’t known what she was missing.
Billie had been almost as crushed as she was.Adam’s phone call had rescued them both from a case of the blues.
In concession to the muggy heat, he wore shorts and a T-shirt.She tried not to stare, but his long lean legs, tanned from his morning jogs, stretched endlessly down to deck shoes.The T-shirt wasn’t any safer to study, she thought, taking in the broad expanse of chest and rippling muscles.The man was a walking cliché.Tall, dark, handsome.How had she ever found the strength to walk away?
Upstairs, in the far reaches of the house, something thudded to the floor.Adam looked up.“Should we go investigate?”
“No.Knowing Billie, she’s found something to throw, or hit.”
“I must admit, I didn’t think she’d want to play dress up.”
Charlene had sent the girl up into the attic with the promise of chests of old clothes and secret treasure.
“She will.Only don’t expect her to come down dressed as a princess or movie star.She’d rather be a pirate.Maybe she’ll find the secret Barrington treasure lost during the Civil War.”
Adam opened a drawer in the center island of the kitchen and removed a corkscrew.“You’ve been gone too long.”
