When she was finished, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve, smearing mascara on the cuff. For several minutes, she sat there not thinking of anything, really, until slowly it dawned on her: she felt better. Less stuffed, like a hall closet after spring cleaning, purged of last season’s broken umbrellas and single mittens.
Rising, she tested her legs. Shaky, but not bad.
Walking more sedately down the remaining two flights, Elaine allowed images to waft through her mind, images she’d kept at bay for months. During the years she had wanted desperately to be a mom, she’d had a recurring dream about a female child with toffee-colored hair and light eyes. In the dream the little girl held a bouquet of wildflowers out to Elaine, but each time Elaine reached for the gift, the girl would slip farther away, as if she were being pulled back, and a high but lovely voice would whisper, “Whatever you decide is all right.”
Elaine had never been able to decipher the meaning of those words, but she’d always known that in the dream the sweet girl was her daughter.
Today for the first time, the message made sense.
Whatever you decide is all right. “I can still choose.” The simple but crucial realization nearly made her stumble again. Having a child was no longer anyone’s decision but hers. Sitting on a concrete stairwell, crying into her sweater, she had cleared space in her heart, and she knew without having to think twice how she was going to fill it. Could there be any question?
Family was still her dream. She would not give it up. The head count at her breakfast table might be different than she’d originally planned, but one way or another, she was going to have her baby.
A converted Craftsman in the southeast section of Portland had been Elaine’s home for the past nine months. With its pillared front porch and etched glass built-ins, the two-bedroom duplex suited her well—better, she sometimes thought, than the rambling five-bedroom contemporary she had shared with Kevin. And the rent was amazingly low.
Walking up the broad porch steps, Elaine stuck her key in the lock and let herself in.
Crying had left her with a dull ache behind her eyes and nervous hunger, so she went to the kitchen for aspirin and carbohydrates. Quickly she downed two Extra-Strength Bayers then opened the freezer and summoned a smile for her old pals Ben & Jerry, the only men she’d had in her apartment in the time she’d lived here. Grabbing a carton of Cherry Garcia and a soup spoon, she took the ice cream with her into the bedroom while she changed out of her work clothes. Outside the window, she could hear the rumble of a gas-powered motor.
At first the sound seemed out of context, and she couldn’t quite place it. Then her brain made the connection: power motor…backyard…
Gardener!
Elaine hadn’t seen a gardener in all the while she’d lived here. Her absentee landlord offered outstanding rent and a twelve-month lease, but little in the way of home improvements. The only landscaping was a row of pansies Elaine herself had planted and a lone ornamental cabbage that listed drunkenly to one side, courtesy of one of the neighbors.
Now the presence of a gardener seemed like kismet. If she was going to raise a child here, she wanted the duplex to look and feel like home.
Quickly Elaine stripped off a teal green T-shirt with a huge smiling mouth silk-screened across the front and a pair of stark white, how-wide-can-my-hips-look? nurse’s pants. Reaching down to a dresser drawer, she pulled out a simple cotton jumper and slipped it over her bra and panties. Hopefully, her landlord wouldn’t mind if she had a little tête-à-tête with the gardener regarding fall planting. This would be Step One of “The Baby Preparation Plan.” Granted, it wasn’t as proactive as taking extra folic acid or visiting a sperm bank, but home enhancement felt like a good solid place to start. Very Earth Mother.
Grabbing her Ben & Jerry’s, she hurried to the laundry room and the door that led to the backyard. A lacey half curtain only partially blocked her view.
With a spoon of ice cream stuck in her mouth, she peeked out. The large rear yard still had enough life in it to look fairly decent when it wasn’t totally overgrown.
Hmm. The gardener had done a nice job so far. Most of the weeds were gone, half the lawn was trimmed in neat even rows, and he—
Whoa.
Craning her neck for a better look, Elaine blinked in surprise.
Oh…whoa.
Gardener Guy was half-naked. He had removed his shirt and tied it around his hips. Pushing a power mower toward the far fence, he afforded Elaine a clear view of broad, well-defined shoulders, a trim waist and a jeans-clad tush.
Oh, my. Elaine hadn’t spent much time ogling males, so she was no expert, but as tushies went, this one seemed…darn-near perfect.
He reached the end of the yard, backed up and precisely aligned the machine with the row of lawn he’d just cut. There was something in his manner—in the way he marched across the lawn, the dedication in his bearing, that seemed comforting.
Swirling more ice cream onto her spoon, Elaine allowed her gaze to wander enjoyably up his body again, taking note of lightly tanned skin and a very pleasing amount of dark chest hair over an equally pleasing chest. She sensed she shouldn’t be doing this—it was hardly polite—but what the heck? She’d earned a few ogling privileges! And it was curiously fun. Like live TV for divorcées. When the man paused, raising his hand to wipe his brow, Elaine felt her body flush with a tingly sense of familiarity as she saw his strong neck and clean jaw, a nose with handsome character and—
Oh, dear Lord. That was no ordinary afternoon fantasy trimming her grass, it was—
Mitchell Ryder, Esquire. Chocolate cherry ice cream splattered the window in a fine spray as she choked.
She could only stare, surprised to the point of confusion. It couldn’t be, she thought as he lowered his hand, arched his back in a stretch and looked right at the door.
She didn’t pause to think. With a sharp “Yipe!” Elaine ducked below the level of the smeary window, her back to the door, knees tucked up, Ben & Jerry’s carton clutched against her.
“Calm down,” she whispered to herself. “Calm down.” Her heart was pounding a mile a minute. That was Mitch Ryder, all right, über divorce lawyer, the man known in legal circles—and to anyone he wasn’t representing—as “The Eel.” His reputation for calm, emotionless litigation made him a favorite among judges, a real lawyer’s lawyer. The last time Elaine had seen him he’d been about to make partner in the same firm her ex-husband belonged to.
No, wait a minute. That wasn’t the last time she’d seen him.
Elaine shook her head. Silly her. She had seen Mitch Ryder again in divorce court when he had represented her husband, and managed to make her own hundred-and-fifty-dollar-an-hour attorney look like a very expensive prelaw intern!
It had been so humiliating to have her marriage dissected by someone with whom she’d once shared aperitifs.
Mitch had been to her house several times for cocktail parties and business dinners. What she remembered was that he’d arrived promptly, left early and always thanked her personally as he did so. The year she and Kevin hosted a madrigal-themed Christmas brunch, Mitch had come to the kitchen, where Elaine had been sponging spilled mead off her Italian tiled floor. Wordlessly he had grabbed a towel and bent down to help, literally waving away her protests. Crouched near him on the ceramic tile, their knees almost touching, she’d felt her face flame.
“You like this, don’t you?” he asked when the floor was cleaned.
Elaine released a little puff of inappropriately breathy laughter as she reached for his wet towel. “Wh-what? Wiping spills?”
“Inviting people in.” He held on to the dish towel, surprising her, until she looked