Then, miracle of miracles, a handsome man had entered her world—and he was all wrong for her. Too smart, too handsome, too temporary. Bummer. That was all right. She’d gotten used to the reality of not finding a soul mate. Well, mostly. And she had three successful men vying to give her what she really wanted—a baby. A software engineer, five foot eleven with blond hair and blue eyes. An artist who painted landscapes and portraits, six feet with brown hair and blue eyes. Or a model, six foot one with brown hair and eyes.
The fact that she didn’t know their names or what they looked like hardly mattered. No, not at all. Oh, there was a fourth candidate, and she did know his name—Ricky Schumaker, the maintenance engineer at Sunset City. He’d seen the three profiles of the sperm donors taped to her dresser mirror when he was fixing a leak in her bathroom. He’d been bugging her ever since to be the father of her child.
When ferrets flew.
For some reason, that face in the hedge popped into her mind as Celine crooned about everlasting love. No, he wasn’t going to be an everlasting love. He’d be a nice distraction for a while, nothing more. The best thing to do would be to forget he was there. Yeah, that’s what she’d do, put him right out of her mind. Not another thought.
She put the car in gear. He probably wasn’t much of a cook. Maybe he was too busy to worry about food. All right, she’d be a good neighbor and bring him dinner. No harm in that. And after that, not another thought.
Decision made, she pulled out onto the highway, images of homemade biscuits, ham and cheese soufflé and apple pie in her head. Unfortunately, she wasn’t much of a cook, so she pulled into a fast-food chicken joint and ordered a bucket of extra crispy.
AFTER NAVIGATING the ten speed bumps leading to her street—some of the residents liked to race down the main drag—Stacy pulled into her driveway. Balancing the bucket and the side containers, she headed next door.
The first sign of trouble was the golf cart parked in the driveway. It, like most of the golf carts and cars in Sunset City, had a poofy flower atop the antenna. That thanks to Granny, who had given one to all her friends one Christmas. Because the flower was blue, she knew it belonged to Arlene of the blue poodles. Said poodles—their silvery-blue fur tinted the exact shade of Arlene’s hair—were sitting in the golf cart in a car baby seat. Arlene also had a niece with a curvy figure. A single niece she’d been trying to find a husband for, because her only offspring had become a priest and wasn’t likely to produce any grandchildren for her. That left Tanya as her only hope for sort-of grandchildren.
Hugging the warm bucket to her belly, Stacy advanced up a walkway lined with pink flamingos—they lit up at night. Arlene was standing at the doorway talking to Barrett.
“It’s called Pissin’ in the Snow, one of my specialty dishes. See, it’s coconut gelatin, that’s the snow part, and the lemon drops spell out your name.” The white mold jiggled obscenely. “Where I was born in the Appalachian mountains, that was a compliment, spelling out someone’s name in the snow. It was trickier for the gals, of course, but we managed.” Arlene chuckled. That was an image Stacy didn’t particularly need. “I guessed at the spelling. My niece, Tanya, now she’s a whiz with names. Did I tell you about her? Beautiful, single, has a great job. Did I mention she’s a mechanic? How handy is that? You probably know how hard it is to find a good mechanic.” She glanced at the black Saab sitting in the driveway. “Are you having any car trouble at all? Any knocks or pings? I could have her come out and take a peek under your hood.”
Barrett’s mouth was slightly open, as though he wasn’t sure what part of that to address.
“Hi, Arlene, Barrett,” Stacy said, taking some delight in the relief that passed over his face when he took her in. Of course, he could have been eyeing her bucket of chicken.
“Tell him how beautiful Tanya is,” Arlene said, beaming as proud as a mother. “And didn’t she get the knock out of your engine just last month?”
Something bugged her about Arlene’s question, but Stacy couldn’t figure out what it was. “She did get the knock out,” she agreed, but let the beautiful part go.
“Exactly!” She turned to Barrett. “I’ll bring her over sometime. Tonight, maybe.”
“I’m not looking—” Barrett tried.
“Everybody says that,” Arlene said with a wave. “I mean, who admits they’re looking, only desperate people if you ask me. And it sure would be nice to have a doctor in the family. Do you know how much it cost me to have my corns removed? Let me tell you, it wasn’t cheap.”
Stacy stepped in for him since he was still obviously trying to get his mind around the corn removal. “He’s not that kind of doctor, Arlene. He does frogs.”
“Tree snails,” he said.
Arlene’s mouth dropped open. “You’re a doctor for tree snails? Good grief, they just have doctors for everything nowadays, don’t they? Maybe you can get a discount when the babies come. That’ll help with the expenses.”
Barrett’s expression bordered on horrified. Sort of like the one he’d had when Buddy had been eying him, only worse. “Babies?”
“Tanya’s a healthy woman in the prime of her life. She’ll give you lots of babies.”
“I…don’t do babies.”
Arlene’s optimistic smile faded. “What do you mean, you don’t do babies?”
He waved his hand as though refusing a pushy cookie salesperson. “All those noises, and the crying, and they can’t tell you what they need or what’s wrong. There’s no rhyme or reason to them. I just don’t do babies.”
Stacy narrowed her eyes. “Are you afraid of babies?”
He took in both their puzzled expressions. “Not in a Godzilla or unknown-bacterial-virus way. It’s more of an extreme-discomfort thing.”
Arlene dismissed that. “You just haven’t been around babies enough, is all.”
“Oh, yes, I have. My sister’s had four of them. In fact, there are two in my condominium right now. She tried to acclimate me, but it hasn’t worked. She’ll take me by surprise, put it in my lap when I’m not paying attention. There it sits, looking up at me wanting something, and then it starts bawling.” He shuddered. “It’s better to keep my distance.”
Arlene was clearly at a loss for words for a moment, a rare thing. Then it dawned on Stacy. Barrett was even smarter than she gave him credit for. Afraid of babies, indeed.
Arlene shook her head and turned to Stacy. “You still working on those T-shirts for my sweetie pies?”
“I’m having trouble finding a size small enough for your poodles, but I’m working on it.”
“That’s going to be so cute, blue shirts with their names on them—Blue, Suede and Shoes.” She winked at Barrett. “I’m a big Elvis fan, long live the king. So, Stacy, heard about that job at the dog salon?”
She felt her shoulders sag and perked them up again. “Not yet. Did they even call you for a reference?”
“Sure did, and I just went on and on about you, how you get the exact right shade of blue and everything, using natural ingredients even. I can’t believe they haven’t called you. Maybe soon, hon.” She patted Stacy’s head, then touched Barrett’s arm. “You enjoy my gelatin, now. Bet you’ve never had anything like that before, course you haven’t. It’s my own creation. I’ll just let you go back to your work, and we’ll be by to see you soon.”
Arlene greeted her three poodles with kisses on their noses when she got in her cart. She tooted her horn and backed out of the driveway.
“That