Sugarplum Homecoming. Linda Goodnight

frayed above white tennis shoes, Lana was standing on a ladder sweeping leaves from the gutters. One end of the gutter hung loose. A mishmash of building supplies was scattered on the porch.

      Instead of turning toward his house, he pulled into Lana’s driveway and got out. Both his kids hopped out, chattering like chipmunks.

      When the car doors slammed, Lana turned her head. The brown hair that mesmerized his son was pulled back in a tail and held with a skinny red headband.

      “Looks like you’ve got gutter problems,” he called. Not exactly scintillating conversation but an easy opening.

      “I hope not.” She frowned and glanced back to the roofline. “You think so?”

      “Maybe not. If you’ll come down I’ll take a look.”

      “Would you?”

      “Sure.”

      She was already backing down the ladder.

      As he took her place, she said, “I’m trying to learn as much as I can about this remodeling business, but it’s a sharp learning curve.”

      He squinted down at her. “YouTube?”

      Her mouth curved. “How did you guess?”

      “I’ve gone there myself a few times. There’s some good advice and some really bad advice. Be careful.” He tugged at the loose strip of gutter.

      “What do you think?”

      “The hangers need to be replaced but the fascia wood is in good shape.”

      “Are they expensive?”

      “Under ten bucks apiece. An easy fix.”

      “Whew.” Her face was tilted upward, so he was staring down at dark mink eyelashes that reached all the way up to equally dark eyebrows, the smooth, pretty curve of her neck and her full lips. “That’s a relief. So far, it’s the only thing less expensive than I’d hoped.”

      “What have you gotten done so far?”

      “If you have a minute, I’ll show you.”

      Davis twitched a shoulder. “Okay.” He turned to tell the kids, but they’d heard and were already on the porch, ready to barge in. “Hey, you two. Slow down,” he said coming down from the ladder.

      “Is Sydney home? Can she play?”

      “She’s inside doing homework.”

      “Which is where you two munchkins should be,” Davis said, grabbing them both in a headlock from the back.

      “Da-ad!”

      “Please, Daddy, can we play for a minute while you talk to Lana?” She measured with her thumb and finger. “One teeny-weeny minute?”

      “We can’t stay long,” he warned.

      Taking that as a yes, they barreled inside and up the staircase, thundering like prairie buffalo.

      “Sydney!” he heard Paige yell.

      Lana laughed as they, too, went inside. “I’m beat from battling this house all day and they still have energy to run.”

      “Remodeling is a big job.” He looked around the living room. “Nice. I didn’t expect you to have the walls covered already.”

      She’d not only painted the ugly green walls and ceilings, she’d scrubbed the windows and fireplace and tossed sheets over the old furniture. The room was, at least, now livable.

      Next to the fireplace, an acoustic guitar leaned against the wall, classic Lana. He remembered how good her voice had been. Anyway, she’d impressed their small town.

      “I couldn’t stand the graffiti,” she was saying. “Some of the writing wasn’t exactly family fare. I didn’t want Sydney to read it.”

      “I hear that.” And he liked it, too. If she didn’t approve of rough language, she had changed. “The color is nice. Sort of a pale chocolate milk.”

      “I still have to paint the wood trim. What do you think of white enamel all around?”

      “White’s always nice. A good accent to the soft brown.”

      “That’s what I was thinking, but the trim will have to wait until the true basics are done. Time has taken a toll on a lot of things, and the vandals didn’t improve matters.”