Grabbing a light sweater off the hook behind her closet door, glad to have an urgent purpose that would help her to escape her own thoughts, Kayla moved through her darkened, and still faintly unfamiliar, house and out the back door into her yard.
Hers.
Despite the loss of the dog and her undisciplined thoughts of earlier, the feeling of having a place of her own to call home calmed something in her.
She became aware it was a beautiful night, and her yard looked faintly magical in the moonlight, not showing neglect as it did in the harsh light of day. It was easy to overlook the fact the grass needed mowing and just appreciate that it was thick and dewy under her feet. There was a scent in the air that was cool and pure and invigorating.
She heard, again, some slight noise around the corner of her house, and her heart jumped. Bastigal. He had come home after all!
She rounded the corner of her house, and stopped short.
“Mrs. Blaze?”
David’s mother turned her head and looked at her, smiling curiously. And yet the smile did not hide a certain vacant look in her eyes. She was in a nightgown that had not been buttoned down the front. She also wore a straw gardening hat, and bright pink winter boots. She was holding pruning shears, and a pile of thorny branches were accumulating at her feet.
Kayla noticed several scratches on her arms were bleeding.
It occurred to her she hadn’t really seen Mrs. Blaze since taking up residence next door. She had meant to go over and say hello when her boxes were unpacked.
In a glance she could see why David’s mother had not told him who had moved in next door. She was fairly certain she was not recognized by the woman who had known Kayla’s husband all of his life, and Kayla for a great deal of hers.
“It’s me,” Kayla said, gently. “Kayla Jaffrey.”
Mrs. Blaze frowned and turned back to the roses. She snapped the blades of the pruners at a branch and missed.
“It used to be McIntosh. I’m friends with your son, David.” Why did I say that, instead of that I was Kevin’s wife?
Not that it mattered. Mrs. Blaze cast her a look that was totally bewildered. A deep sadness opened up in Kayla as she realized she was not the only one in Blossom Valley dealing with major and devastating life changes.
She stepped carefully around the thorny branches, plucked the dangerously waving pruners from Mrs. Blaze’s hands and set them on the ground. She shrugged out of her sweater and tucked it lightly around Mrs. Blaze’s shoulders, buttoning it quickly over the gaping nightie.
“Let’s get you home, shall we?” Kayla offered her elbow.
“But the roses...”
“I’ll look after them,” Kayla promised.
“I don’t know. I like to do it myself. The gardener can’t be trusted. If roses aren’t properly pruned...” Her voice faded, troubled, as if she was struggling to recall what would happen if the roses weren’t properly pruned.
“I’ll look after them,” Kayla promised again.
“Oh. I suppose. Are you a gardener?”
What was the harm in one little white lie? “Yes.”
“Don’t forget the pruners, then,” Mrs. Blaze snapped, and Kayla saw a desperate need to be in control in the sharpness of the command.
She stooped and picked up the pruners, then took advantage of the budding trust in Mrs. Blaze’s eyes to offer her elbow again. This time Mrs. Blaze threaded her fragile arm through Kayla’s and allowed Kayla to guide her through the small wedge of land that separated the two properties. They went through the open gate into the Blaze yard.
Kayla had assumed, looking over her fence at it, that Mrs. Blaze gardened. The lawn was manicured, the beds filled with flowers and dark loam, weed free. Now she realized there must be the gardener Mrs. Blaze had referred to.
Kayla led David’s mother up the stairs and onto the back veranda. Again, she had been admiring it from her own yard. Everything here was beautifully maintained: the expansive deck newly stained, beautiful, inviting furniture scattered over its surface, potted plants spilling an abundance of color and fragrance.
She had been holding out the hope her own property was going to look like this one day. Now she wondered just how much time—or staff—it took to make a place look this perfect. Once she had her own business, would she be able to manage it? She tried not to let the thought make her feel deflated.
Kayla knocked at the door, lightly, and when nothing happened, louder. She was just about to put her head in the door and call out when from within the house she heard the sound of feet coming down the stairs.
She knew from the sound of the tread it was likely David—and who else would it be after all—but still, she did not feel prepared when the door was flung open.
David Blaze stood there, half-asleep and half-naked, unconsciously and mouthwateringly sexy, looking about as magnificent as a man could look.
DAVID’S CHOCOLATE HAIR was sleep tousled, and his dark eyes held faint, dazed amusement as he gazed at the two nightie-clad women in front of him.
Kayla gazed back. He stood there in only a pair of blue-plaid pajama pants that hung dangerously low over the faint jut of his hips.
He didn’t have on anything else. His body was magnificent. He was deeper and broader than he had been all those years ago when he had been a lifeguard. The boyish sleekness of his muscle had deepened into the powerful build of a man in his prime. There was not an ounce of superfluous flesh on him.
In the darkness of the night he looked as if he had been carved from alabaster: beautiful shoulders, carved, smooth chest, washboard abs on his stomach.
Kayla gulped.
David came full awake, and the faint amusement was doused in his eyes as he took them both in, lingering on Kayla’s own nightie-clad self a second more than necessary. It occurred to her the nightie, light as it was and perfect for hot summer nights, was just a little sheer for this kind of encounter. Her shoulders felt suddenly too bare, and she could feel cool air on the thighs that had already been way too exposed to him.
David seemed to draw his eyes away from her reluctantly. Kayla could feel her pulse hammering in the hollow of her throat.
“Mom,” he said gently, swinging open the screen door, “come in the house.”
His mother looked at him searchingly and then her expression tightened. “I don’t know who you are,” she snapped, “but don’t think I don’t know my wallet is missing.”
“We’ll find your wallet.” His voice was measured, and the tone remained gentle. But Kayla saw the enormous pain that darkened his eyes as his mother moved toward him.
“And the roses need pruning,” Mrs. Blaze snapped at her son.
He winced, and at that moment, a woman came up behind them, dressed in a white uniform.
“Mr. Blaze, I’m so sorry. I—”
He gave her a look that said he didn’t want to hear it, and passed his mother into her care. “It looks like she has some scratches on her arms, if you could tend to those.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was something faintly shocking about hearing David—the boy who had romped through the days of summer with her, and played tricks on their teachers, and sat in with her at bonfires licking marshmallow off his fingers—addressed in such a deferential tone of voice.
The door shut behind