Anxious mother that she was, she walked as far as the front porch and stayed there while he pedaled down the driveway, turned right on the road then up Gabe Tennert’s nicely paved driveway. When he disappeared from sight behind the house, she figured he’d made it safely. Watson, nose pressed to the screen door, whined miserably. He’d wanted to go, and he didn’t understand why he couldn’t. Ciara shuddered at the thought of him in Gabe’s workshop.
He almost escaped when she opened the door, but swift use of her foot allowed her to slide inside and latch the door. “Not a chance,” she told him and went upstairs. He followed, of course, while Daisy lay at the bottom, watching sadly. She could barely handle the couple of steps from the back porch to the yard; a whole flight was out of her capability. Watson, on the other hand, would want to go in Ciara’s workroom, where he could do as much damage as he would in Gabe’s. The damage wouldn’t be as expensive, but Ciara couldn’t afford it.
She shut this door firmly in his face, too. He moaned but then subsided. As she plugged in her iron, she hoped her neighbor had a sweet tooth. Although she still found him alarming for reasons she hadn’t altogether figured out, ones that didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she also found him sexy, he’d so far been exceptionally nice to Mark. Oatmeal-raisin cookies were probably inadequate thanks, but she didn’t know what her next option would be.
Did he cook, or was he the kind of single guy who lived on microwave meals? Maybe tonight she’d bake bread. Everyone liked homemade bread. And if he kept letting Mark go over, she could invite him to dinner one of these nights. That would be the nice thing to do, wouldn’t it?
Steam puffed from her iron, and she gasped at the realization of how long she’d left it pressed on the delicate damask she was working on. Damn, had she burned it?
No, she saw in relief, but that was pure luck. She had to concentrate. Why on earth was she worrying about what a man she didn’t even know liked to eat? Mark’s sixth-grade teacher had been a man, and she’d never once considered sending him home-baked cookies.
Yes, but he’d been paid to teach her son. Nobody was paying the closemouthed, bearded guy next door to spend any time at all with Mark.
She winced, wondering what he’d think when Mark whipped out the geometry worksheet.
And then she wondered what Gabe Tennert would look like if he shaved off that beard.
“IT’S A HEXAGON,” Gabe said absently. “Six sides.”
The boy’s forehead crinkled. “I thought it was a polygon.”
“It’s that, too.” Gabe explained that a polygon was a closed shape that usually had straight sides. “A triangle is a polygon.”
“Tri.” Mark’s face brightened as if it were lit from within, like his mother’s did. “Three.”
“Right. Four sided is a...?”
“Quadrangle.”
“Five sides makes it a pentagon.”
“Cool,” the boy decided. “So how do I figure out the sum of the angle measures in a hexagon?”
“Do you know what the measures of the angles of a triangle add up to?”
“A hundred and eighty degrees,” he said triumphantly.
“Good.” Gabe got out a ruler and pencil and showed him how to divide the shape up into triangles, then watched as Mark divided it into four triangles. He was able to multiply 4 times 180 in his head and come up with the right answer, which Gabe thought was pretty good.
“I don’t remember getting to geometry until high school,” he commented.
“My school did it in eighth grade. Except, if you were ahead, you did the eighth-grade stuff in seventh. Then if you were pretty good, you could skip Algebra 1 and take geometry as a freshman.”
“Gotcha.” Gabe nodded. “You okay with the next problem?”
They talked about a couple more, after which he put the worksheet away but pulled out a lidded plastic container. “Mom made cookies. She thought you’d like some.”
Gabe’s fingers were peeling the lid back before his brain gave the order. “What kind—” He inhaled. “Raisin oatmeal. My favorite.”
“Really? I thought she should make chocolate chip. That’s my favorite. But she says these are better for us.”
“I like chocolate chip, too,” Gabe admitted. “I wouldn’t turn them down. But these are great.” He took a bite and closed his eyes to better savor the burst of flavor. “Really great,” he mumbled a minute later.
He gobbled two before he remembered he shouldn’t waste the time eating when he was supposed to be—teaching, he guessed. He turned his mind back to his woodworking class and said, “I want you to do some measuring, and then you can experiment with the saw.”
Having seen how clumsy Mark was, Gabe did a lot of talking about safety precautions but was still a little unnerved when they got to the stage of practicing first with a handsaw, then a jigsaw and finally a circular saw. Interestingly, he found that the boy was both careful and precise. His focus was as intense as Gabe’s was when he worked. Gabe began to relax. They talked about the options for corner joints and decided that for Mark’s first effort, they’d go for a rabbet joint, good-looking and relatively simple.
He did some marking, chose clamps for his scrap lumber and practiced cuts with various saws. They talked about woods, and Gabe explained what his next stage was for the three separate cabinetry jobs he had going. Mark eventually decided to use cherry for his box; he liked the rich color of a darker stain better than the look of light woods. Truthfully, Gabe did, too, although he especially liked being able to use contrast.
It felt companionable putting sandwiches together with the kid again, with the bonus today that they both ate a couple more cookies. Gabe carefully put the top back on the container. Ciara had sent a couple dozen. That would keep him in cookies for...well, that depended on how greedy he allowed himself to be, didn’t it?
He evaded the boy’s hints that he’d like to learn to ride, too—half the day was already shot—but he did allow Mark to feed a couple of carrots to the horses again before he sent him home.
Gabe pretended he was just giving himself a minute to decompress when he stood outside watching the boy pedal home, but he knew better. He felt some sense of responsibility. The road didn’t have much of a shoulder. It wasn’t ideal for bike riding.
He was disconcerted to find he was smiling when he walked back into his workshop.
* * *
“THAT DOESN’T SMELL very good.”
Ciara turned to see that Mark had appeared in the kitchen.
“Shut the door,” she said hastily—too late.
Watson burst into the kitchen, leaping to put his paws on her chest, his wet tongue catching her chin before she could take evasive maneuvers. She had to fend him off with an elbow. “Mark!”
Eventually, he propelled the reluctant dog out of the kitchen and latched the swinging door. Ciara hoped the young dog would learn enough manners soon so that they didn’t have to exile him from any room where they were cooking or eating, but for now, she was grateful for the door. In their previous house, she wouldn’t have had any way to keep Watson from putting his paws on the dinner table and snatching food off Mark’s plate.
Above the whine that penetrated the closed door, she said, “This is a new recipe. There’s nothing in it you shouldn’t like.” She carried the casserole dish to the table and set it on a hot pad. “Try it.”
“I