Love, Suburban Style (8 page)

“I graduated a year behind you. I’m Meg Addams.”

“Really?”

“Really. Ring a bell?”

“No… but I have a lousy memory.”

Total lie. He has a great memory.

That’s why it’s so shocking that he doesn’t remember her.

Another clap of thunder, startlingly close, then fat raindrops begin splatting abruptly all around them.

“No!” Meg turns and hurries back toward the sidewalk.

“Isn’t everything broken?” he calls, watching her scramble to pick it up.

“Not all of it. I’m going to save what I can. My daughter made most of it when she was little.”

Daughter. Oh.

Well, maybe she doesn’t have a husband.

His next thought:
Why do I care?

The one after that:
How can I find out?

“You have a daughter? Where is she? What about your husband? Did you hire movers? You aren’t trying to do this entire move on your own, are you?”

Too many questions.

But he was trying to make the one about the husband a little less obvious.

And you did it so well it just got buried.

Meg looks up, apparently not sure what to answer first. “I, uh, no, they’ll be back in a while, but I’ve got to—”

Lightning flashes. She jumps a little.

“Wait, I’m coming to help you,” Sam calls, and stops at his Trailblazer first, mulling over her reply as he hurriedly rolls up the windows.

They’ll be back in a while.

So she is married, with at least one kid.

Oh, well, Sam thinks, crossing to the gate to help her. It’s not as though he’s interested in dating her… or anyone.

Just…

For a moment there…

Well, he could have sworn when he looked at her that something stirred to life in a long-neglected, shadowy place deep inside him.

Chapter
4

H
e doesn’t even remember me.

Wow.

But at least they had a real conversation.

All those years ago, when Meg was obsessing about Sam Rooney, it never occurred to her that it would take twenty years before she managed to connect with him.

Connect,
as in,
talk to.

Not connect as in…

Well, in the way a dreamy, infatuated young girl yearns to connect with the good-looking, athletic, charismatic student council president.

Sam Rooney.

He looks exactly the same.

Well, in a more manly way. He’s still tall…

Of course he’s still tall. Did you expect him to shrink?

Meg is utterly irritated with herself for even noticing his looks.

After all, he’s a dad now. He must be, because when she and Geoffrey arrived for the walk-through on Friday morning, she saw a young girl riding aimlessly up and down the adjacent driveway on her bike, and several teenaged boys shooting hoops beneath the net on the detached garage.

Geoffrey, of course, had to comment on the scene. “Oh, happy joy, it’s Kinder Kamp right in your own backyard.”

“That’s not
my
backyard.”

“It might as well be.” He looked around distastefully, hands tucked into the pockets of his black Armani silk slacks as though afraid he might contaminate them otherwise. “This is all very…”

“Suburban?” she supplied, when he couldn’t seem to find the right word.

“I was going to say frightening.”

Now, surreptitiously watching Sam Rooney stride toward the U-Haul, where she’s pretending to survey the towers of boxes, she
is
a little frightened.

Of herself.

Of the strange, fluttery eruption in her stomach.

He looks the same as he did back in high school—tall, yes, and also lean and muscular. He’s wearing his wavy brown hair a little longer and shaggier than he did back then.

And those killer blue eyes are just as piercing.

Looking at him, Meg is fifteen all over again.

Terrific. Is she doomed to go around with perpetual butterflies in her stomach whenever she sees the Dad Next Door?

Watching him approach, she wonders what his wife is like and is sure that
she
would never go around in ancient red shorts and an orange T-shirt. No,
she
probably looks as though she stepped out of a J. Crew catalogue.

Then again… Sam doesn’t.

His no-frills wardrobe has seen better days: a plain old athletic-looking gray T-shirt (which reveals impressive biceps), blue running shorts (which reveal tanned, muscular, masculine-hairy legs) and white Nikes without socks (which reveal that he’s been painting something in a reddish maroon color).

He looks like… a guy. That’s the beauty of it. He’s just a regular Joe, handsome through no conscious effort of his own.

In Meg’s world—or rather, in Astor Hudson’s world—guys like him simply don’t exist.

The life she’s about to leave behind is populated by beautiful men, yes. Some are gay, some are married. Most of the ones who aren’t, she’s fallen for—and been dumped by. Some are in show business and some aren’t. What they all have in common is a highly motivated physical appearance.

They’ve got hundred-dollar haircuts; they’ve been waxed, massaged, manicured. They use
product
as opposed to plain old soap and shampoo to maintain their hair and skin. They knock around in designer clothes and wear custom-made shirts, and when they go without socks, their bare, pedicured feet are clad in Italian leather loafers. Their muscles are buff, strictly courtesy of the gym.

Somehow, Meg knows that Sam’s aren’t. No, he got them the old-fashioned way. Which is…

Well, how
do
regular guys get muscles?

She has no idea, but she really should stop looking at them.

Sam’s muscles.

Stop.

She really should stop looking at
him.

Even though
he’s
looking at
her.

Looking at her as though…

Well, as though he’s interested.

At last.

Oh, sure.

Now that he’s a married dad, he’s finally,
finally
noticed her?

Unless…

Meg sneaks a peek at his left hand.

Bare ring finger!

Red alert: bare ring finger!

Wait a minute.

Is he just one of those guys who eschews jewelry of any kind?

Or can he possibly be…

Single?

A single dad?

Earth to Meg… come in, Meg. Did you forget that you’ve sworn off men?

“So… we’d better get busy,” he says, reaching her side.

Busy.

Yes…

Oh. The boxes. He’s talking about the boxes.

Right.

“Are you sure you don’t mind helping me?” Amazing how laid-back she’s managing to sound. “I wouldn’t even accept the offer if I didn’t have to get the truck back…”

“I don’t mind at all. I’ll carry the big stuff; you just direct me where you want it to go when we get it inside.”

He doesn’t even flinch as he reaches into the truck and lifts out a large, book-filled box that took all three of them—Geoffrey, Meg, and Cosette—to hoist into the truck.

Meg grabs a smaller carton and leads the way through the gate, which she has already propped open with a big rock. Plenty of those lying around the disastrous yard.

“Wow. I still can’t believe it,” she says mostly to herself, shaking her head at the looming monstrosity before them.

“Believe what?”

“That I just bought the old Duckworth place.”

“So you remember it? Don’t tell me—you didn’t
live
in this neighborhood, did you?”

“No, but…”

But I spent a lot of time here. A few years, pedaling and strolling up and down this very street, hoping for a glimpse of you.

“Every kid in town knew about the haunted house,” she says instead.

Following her up the walk, he asks, “Did you really believe it was haunted?”

Something in his overly casual tone makes her turn to look at him.

God, he’s handsome.

He also seems to be holding his breath for her reply to his inane question.

“Did
you
think it was haunted?” she returns, unsettled by the memory of that glint she saw—or thought she saw—in the attic window a few minutes ago.

He grins at her across the boxes in their arms. “I asked you first.”

“I sure did,” she admits. “Whenever I went past it I used to—”

She breaks off. Oops.

“You used to what?” he asks, and starts up the uneven steps, eyes cast downward to avoid tripping.

Good. Then he can’t see how red her face must be.

And he doesn’t seem to realize that she had no legitimate reason to pass the Duckworth house,
ever.

“I used to just rush by it and get away from it as fast as I could,” she says briefly, and reaches for the doorknob. “Oh, careful when we go in… I don’t want my cat to escape.”

“Cat?” He doesn’t exactly make a face, but…

“You don’t like cats?”

Sam shakes his head with an unapologetic, “Nope.”

A-ha! Definite deal breaker.

Even if Sam Rooney
did
turn out to be single and available—which he probably isn’t—she could never fall in love with a man who doesn’t like cats.

Fall in love?

Who said anything about love?

You’re not allowed to fall in love.

Or even think about falling in love. Remember?

Yeah, well, anyway…

He’s probably married.
Is
he married?

“Do you want to let your wife know where you are, or anything?” she offers lamely.

A strange look comes across his face. It takes him a moment to say, “My wife is… I’m not married.”

He’s not married.

But he hates cats.

But he’s not married.

But she’s sworn off men like him. Charming, gorgeous men who can cause her to lose her head and her heart—and, ultimately, her mind.

She can’t risk investing her emotions in another dead-end relationship. She’s gone more than six months without falling in love, and six months without anyone breaking her heart.

It feels good. It feels healthy. She feels strong and independent at last.

So she’s going to stick to her resolution.

Balancing her box on her raised knee propped against the jamb, Meg opens the door wide.

No sign of Chita Rivera.

She looks at Sam. “Come on in.”

“Ladies first.”

She shakes her head and smiles slightly. “Men bearing enormously heavy boxes first.”

Watching Sam Rooney cross the threshold into her new home, Meg can’t help but wonder just what she’s gotten herself into.

Sam is about to unload the last box from the van in the pouring rain when he hears tires splashing down the street behind him.

Turning around, he sees the familiar domed Park Pizza roof sign on the car pulling toward the curb in front of his house.

That’s right—he forgot all about the pizza he ordered for his solitary dinner.

He strides over and recognizes the kid behind the wheel as he opens the car door.

“Hey, Mr. Rooney, how’s it going?” Jason Capellini is a former student of Sam’s, now working his way through community college.

“It’s going just fine. How about you? Still in school?”

“Yeah, but after this semester I’m thinking of enlisting. My mother’s freaking out.”

“Mothers do that.”

“Yeah, I know how it is.”

With a pang for Ben and Katie, who will never know how it is, Sam fishes a twenty and a couple of ones out of his damp pocket and exchanges them for the pizza box.

“Did somebody move in there again?” Jason eyes the Duckworth place. “That’ll last, what? A few weeks at the most?”

“Give or take.” But Sam can’t help wishing things could be different this time.

Why? Because you’re attracted to the latest desperate housewife next door?

Jason drives away, and fat raindrops are falling on the red-and-white pizza box. Sam is about to carry it into his house before he moves that last carton for Meg, when he suddenly thinks better of it.

Wouldn’t it be neighborly of him to bring it over there, instead? She’s probably hungry, and her husband and kids might be, too.

He balances the pizza on top of the moving box and carries them both up onto the porch, noticing that dusk is falling.

He can see Meg through the screen door in the shadowy front hall, grouping the boxes. He admires the curve of her bare legs as she bends, back to him, and picks up her cat. Then she opens the door for him.

“I don’t remember packing that.” Her tone is the driest thing in the room as she eyes the soggy pizza box.

“Well, I’m glad you did. It even has sausage and pepperoni, my favorite. You guys aren’t vegetarians, are you?”

She looks down at the cat in her arms. “Me and Chita Rivera? She prefers seafood, but I’m a carnivore.”

He grins. She’s sharp-witted. He likes that in a…

Married woman?

Only one way to find out for sure.

“When I said you guys,” he clarifies, “I actually meant you and your kids and your husband. Nothing against your cat.”

“Other than that you don’t like her.”

“Not just her.”

“So you just hate all cats in general.” She sets Chita Rivera on her feet and watches her trot away.

He opens his mouth—either to make a feeble protest about his newly acquired cat-hater reputation or to rephrase his inquiry about her family, he isn’t sure which.

It doesn’t matter; she speaks first, looking down at the tall carton she’s sliding toward a pile by the stairs. “I guess it’s just me. For pizza, I mean.”

“What about the rest of your family?”

“My daughter went out to eat with my friend. He’s supposedly bringing me back a burger. But God knows when that will be, so I won’t wait for it.”

So she didn’t mention a husband, but her friend is a he. What does that mean?

Sick of dancing around the issue, Sam decides to come right out and ask. “Is your friend—you know…”

Even in the rapidly dimming light, he can see her eyes flash indignantly as she looks up at him. “Yes, he is. Why? Is that a problem?”