“No, I mean, see you around.”
“I knew that.” He knew that. So why was this woman skewing his logic?
“Okay,” she said with slightly widened eyes. “See you—I mean, goodbye.”
And then she was gone, playing hide-and-seek around her orange and grapefruit trees with the horse dog. Okay, that was over. Now he could focus on his work and not be distracted by his next-door-neighbor who was not a floozy. Right?
Wrong. Twenty minutes later, he was still distracted by her. Still thinking about those pink shorts and her small but lush mouth. He didn’t have to imagine her voice or her laugh. She was working with Buddy, pleading, cajoling, praising.
“Sit! Good boy.” This in a honey-coated voice that sent that strange feeling spiraling through his insides again. “Down. Good boy! Smile. All right!”
Smile? Before he could ponder how a dog could smile, his thinking process came to a halt. She couldn’t be distracting him. Women didn’t fit into the equation of his life. He couldn’t quantify them, for one thing. There wasn’t one rule that delineated them, one formula that they fit into. They consisted of way too many variables.
In the scientific world, everything added up. He loved the predictability, the formulas, knowing it would always make sense. A plus B equaled C every time. Science was a beautiful thing.
Relationships were something else altogether.
His parents were a prime example of two different people who should have never married. His mother was a free spirit who followed her whims and didn’t have a clue as to what her life goal was—or a care about finding out. After the divorce, she followed her whims into and out of several different jobs. Now she was a blackjack dealer on a cruise ship.
His father—well, he was still professor and chairperson of the Department of Biology at the University of Miami and always would be. After watching his parents’ marriage disintegrate, Barrett wasn’t inclined to date women who didn’t have his interests. He’d dated women in his peer group and been intellectually stimulated. He’d met women outside his peer group who’d physically stimulated him. But never had a woman done both.
So he’d accepted that a woman wasn’t going to comprise one of the elements that made up his life. He was fine with that. He derived all the satisfaction he needed in life from his work. As soon as he figured out what field interested him, anyway. Then there wouldn’t be any vague sense of something missing. And that something wasn’t a woman. After all, the shortest distance between points A and B was a straight line…and women were all curves.
2
STACY TRIED to forget about that hole in the hedge and the handsome face that had been framed there a few minutes before and especially the flutter in her chest whenever she did think about that handsome face. She knew about the smart scientist-type guy working there—everybody knew everything in Sunset City—but she’d never imagined he’d be so young and yummy. Well, at least as much as she could see of him with the hedge in the way. Vivid blue eyes with a warm tilt to them, almost shaggy blond hair. Dimples! Who would have figured?
She wondered what the rest of him looked like.
Forget it. He’s way too smart for you. What guy’s going to be interested in a skinny chick who lives in a retirement community and has no career? A bit of a tomboy who can’t grow her wispy locks into anything even resembling a sexy mane of hair?
Not that she hadn’t been working on a career. She’d gotten roped into continuing Granny’s T-shirt business out of the garage. Every time she told her customers—mostly the residents of Sunset City—that she was going to sell the equipment and get a real job, T-shirt orders came in like mad.
Last year she stopped letting the orders keep her from looking for a job where she could find purpose in her life and meet people her own age.
“Down.” She pushed Buddy on his haunches to give him the idea. When he complied, she gave him a dog snack. “Good boy!” He pulled his lips back in a dog smile. “Smile,” she encouraged so he’d eventually do it on command. “All right!”
The problem was, she rarely got a chance to meet eligible men. Well, men who were under sixty-five, anyway. On the rare occasion when she did, as soon as he came to Sunset City, he suddenly developed a condition or life situation that kept him from seeing her again. She wasn’t sure if she was a thirty-one-year-old has-been or never-been.
On her last birthday, she was about to once again push back her having-a-baby deadline. At twenty, it had been twenty-five. When she’d approached twenty-four with no prospects, she bumped it to twenty-eight. Then to thirty. Then thirty-two.
She refused to bump it again. Thirty-two was it. She was taking the situation into her own hands.
When she sneezed, she was gratified to hear Barrett say “gesundheit” through the hedge. “Thanks!”
Then the phone rang.
It was Ernie across the street. “God bless you.”
“Thanks,” she said sweetly. “Now turn that sonic ear thing off and stop eavesdropping on people, you nosy old fart!” Ever since he’d gotten that listening device, no one had any privacy.
He chuckled. “I was born to spy. Back in the war, they used to call me—”
“The Black Weasel, I know.”
“Gopher, not weasel! You don’t know nothing ’bout spying.”
“I know I don’t like being spied on.”
“Sorry, Stacy. I won’t do it no more.”
He always sounded so darn sincere, and she always believed him. Until the next time.
“It’s all right. It’s not as if I ever do anything that interesting.” She thought of the interesting science dude and then stopped thinking about him.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Ernie muttered, and he had the nerve to sound disappointed in her!
“You still need help with finding that old book you’re after on the Internet?”
“Sure do. Been looking for the Tall Book of Tall Tales for years now. Appreciate you coming over and helping me climb the Web.”
“Surf the Web, Ernie.”
“How can you surf a Web, now tell me that? I’m climbing it.”
“Fine, climb it,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll be over tomorrow—oh, got another call coming in. Bye!” She pressed the talk button twice and said, “Hello? This is Stacy Jenkins.”
“This is Bob over at Mary’s Grooming. You applied for the grooming position?”
Her heart started thumping. She was a shoe-in! She helped Arlene with her poodles and Betty with her miniature schnauzer. They would give her glowing references, along with her boss over at the shelter. “Yes, yes, I did.”
Finally, a job. A real job with a regular paycheck and benefits. Direction.
“I’m afraid we hired someone else. Now, it’s nothing personal, you’ve got to believe that. We chose someone more qualified, that’s all. Good luck with…finding something else. Just remember that we were real nice about it.”
She dropped the phone on the grass, feeling as deflated as the beach ball Buddy had popped with his teeth earlier. She’d failed again. Not that she necessarily needed the money. Granny’s house was paid off, and her expenses were minimal. The folks at Sunset City always paid her for her help, even though she always refused. What she wanted was purpose and a college fund for the baby.
What she had was a drooling dog staring at her with the phone in his mouth. “Give that to me!”
Buddy took off, ready