Right Next Door

by Debbie Macomber

  Once the salad was ready, Robin ventured outside.

  Jeff waved enthusiastically when he caught sight of her on the porch. “Isn’t she a beaut?” he yelled.

  It looked like an ordinary car to Robin, but she nodded enthusiastically. “Wonderful,” she answered. “Afternoon, Cole.”

  “Robin.” He returned her greeting absently.

  He wore a sleeveless gray sweatshirt and she was surprised by how muscular and tanned his arms were. From a recent conversation with Heather Lawrence, Robin had learned Cole was a prominent attorney. And he seemed to fit the lawyer image to a T. Not anymore. The lawyer was gone and the man was there, bold as could be. Her awareness of him as an attractive virile male was shockingly intense.

  The problem, she decided, lay in the fact that she hadn’t expected Cole to look so…fit. The sight of all that lean muscle came as a pleasant surprise. Cole’s aggressive, unfriendly expression had been softened as he bantered with Jeff.

  Blackie ambled to her side and Robin leaned over to scratch the dog’s ears while she continued to study his master. Cole’s hair was dark and grew away from his brow, but a single lock flopped stubbornly over his forehead and he had to toss it back from his face every once in a while. It was funny how she’d never noticed that about him until now.

  Jeff must’ve made some humorous remark because Cole threw back his head and chuckled loudly. It was the first time she’d ever heard him laugh. She suspected he didn’t often give in to the impulse. A smile crowded Robin’s face as Jeff started laughing, too.

  In that moment the oddest thing happened. Robin felt something catch in her heart. The tug was almost physical, and she experienced a completely unfamiliar feeling of vulnerability….

  “Do you need me to roll out the barbecue for you?” Jeff shouted when he saw that she was still on the porch. He’d turned his baseball cap around so the bill faced backward. While he spoke, his arm continued to work feverishly as he buffed the passenger door with his rag.

  “Not…yet.”

  “Good, ’cause Mr. Camden needs me to finish up this side for him. We’re on a tight schedule here, and I don’t have time. Cole’s got a dinner date at five-thirty.”

  “I see.” Standing on the porch, dressed in her old faded jeans, with a mustard-spotted terrycloth hand towel tucked in the waistband, Robin felt as appealing as Ma Kettle. “Any time you’re finished is fine.”

  So Cole Camden’s got a date, Robin mused. Of course he’s got a date, she told herself. Why should she care? And if watching Jeff and Cole together was going to affect her like this, it would be best to go back inside the house now.

  Over dinner, all Jeff could talk about was Cole Camden. Every other sentence was Cole this and Cole that, until Robin was ready to slam her fist on the table and demand Jeff never mention their neighbor’s name again.

  “And the best part is, he paid me for helping him wax his car,” Jeff continued, then stuffed the hamburger into his mouth, chewing rapidly in his enthusiasm.

  “That was generous of him.”

  Jeff nodded happily. “Be sure and save some shortcake for him. He said not to bring it over ’cause he didn’t know exactly when he’d get home. He’ll stop by, he said.”

  “I will.” But Robin doubted her neighbor would. Jeff seemed to be under the impression that Cole would show up at any time; Robin knew better. If Cole had a dinner date, he wasn’t going to rush back just to taste her dessert, although she did make an excellent shortcake.

  As she suspected, Cole didn’t come over. Jeff grumbled about it the next morning. He was convinced Cole would’ve dropped by if Robin hadn’t insisted Jeff go to bed at his regular time.

  “I’ll make shortcake again soon,” Robin promised, hurrying to pack their lunches. “And when I do, you can take a piece over to him.”

  “All right,” Jeff muttered.

  That evening, when Robin returned home from work, she found Jeff playing with Blackie in Cole’s backyard.

  “Jeff,” she cried, alarmed that Cole might discover her son on his property. He’d made it clear Jeff wasn’t to go into his yard. “What are you doing at Mr. Camden’s? And why aren’t you at Heather’s?” She walked over to the hedge and placed her hands on her hips in frustration.

  “Blackie’s chain got all tangled up,” Jeff said, looking sheepish. “He needed my help. I told Heather it would be okay with you and…” His voice trailed off.

  “He’s untangled now,” Robin pointed out.

  “I know, but since I was here it seemed like a good time for the two of us to—”

  “Play,” Robin completed for him.

  “Yeah,” her son said, nodding eagerly. Jeff was well aware he’d done something wrong, but had difficulty admitting it.

  “Mr. Camden doesn’t want you in his yard, and we both know it.” Standing next to the laurel hedge, Robin watched with dismay as Cole opened his back door and stepped outside. Blackie barked in greeting, and his tail swung with enough force to knock Jeff off balance.

  When Cole saw Jeff in his yard, he frowned and cast an accusing glare in Robin’s direction.

  “Jeff said Blackie’s chain was tangled,” she rushed to explain.

  “How’d you get over here?” Cole asked her son, and although he didn’t raise his voice it was clear he was displeased. “The gate’s locked and the hedge is too high for him to jump over.”

  Jeff stared down at the lawn. “I came through the gap in the hedge—the same one Blackie uses. I crawled through it.”

  “Was his chain really tangled?”

  “No, sir,” Jeff said in a voice so low Robin had to strain to hear him. “At least not much…I just thought, you know, that maybe he’d like company.”

  “I see.”

  “He was all alone and so was I.” Jeff lifted his eyes defiantly to his mother’s, as if to suggest the fault was entirely hers. “I go to Mrs. Lawrence’s after school, but it’s all girls there.”

  “Don’t you remember what I said about coming into my yard?” Cole asked him.

  Jeff’s nod was sluggish. “Yeah. You said maybe I could sometime, but not now. I thought…I hoped that since you let me help you wax your car, you wouldn’t mind.”

  “I mind,” Cole said flatly.

  “He won’t do it again,” Robin promised. “Will you, Jeff?”

  “No,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, Mr. Camden.”

  For a whole week Jeff kept his word. The following Monday, however, when Robin came home from the BART station, Heather told her Jeff had mysteriously disappeared about a half hour earlier. She assumed he’d gone home; he’d said something about expecting a call.

  Unfortunately, Robin knew exactly where to look for him, and it wasn’t at home. Even more unfortunate was the fact that Cole’s car pulled into the driveway just as she was opening her door. Throwing aside her briefcase and purse, she rushed through the house, jerked open the sliding glass door at the back and raced across her yard.

  Her son was nowhere to be seen, but she immediately realized he’d been with Blackie. The dog wasn’t in evidence, either, and she could see Jeff’s favorite baseball cap on the lawn.

  “Jeff,” she called, afraid to raise her voice. She sounded as though she was suffering from a bad case of laryngitis.

  Neither boy nor dog appeared.

  She tried again, taking the risk of shouting for Jeff in a normal tone, praying it wouldn’t attract Cole’s attention. No response. Since Jeff and Blackie didn’t seem to be within earshot, she guessed they were in the fort. There was no help for it; she’d have to go after him herself. Her only hope was that she could hurry over to the fort, get Jeff and return to her own yard, all without being detected by Cole.

  Finding the hole in the laurel proved difficult enough. The space was little more than a narrow gap between two thick plants, and for a distressing moment, Robin doubted she was slim enough to squeeze through. Finally, she lowered herself to the ground, hunched her shoulders and managed to push he
r way between the shrubs. Her head had just emerged when she noticed a pair of polished men’s shoes on the other side. Slowly, reluctantly, she glanced up to find Cole towering above her, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, striving to sound as though it was perfectly normal for her to be crawling into his yard on her hands and knees. “I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing here….”

  “The question did cross my mind.”

  Three

  “It was the most embarrassing moment of my entire life,” Robin repeated for the third time. She was sitting at the kitchen table, resisting the urge to hide her face in her hands and weep.

  “You’ve already said that,” Jeff grumbled.

  “What possessed you to even think about going into Mr. Camden’s yard again? Honestly, Jeff, you’ve been warned at least half a dozen times. What do I have to do? String barbed wire between our yards?”

  Although he’d thoroughly disgraced himself, Jeff casually rotated the rim of his baseball cap between his fingers. “I said I was sorry.”

  A mere apology didn’t begin to compensate for the humiliation Robin had suffered when Cole found her on all fours, crawling through his laurel hedge. If she lived to be an old woman, she’d never forget the look on his face.

  “You put me on TV, computer and phone restriction already,” her son reminded her.

  That punishment could be another mistake to add to her growing list. At times like this, she wished Lenny were there to advise her. She needed him, and even after all these years, still missed him. Often, when there was no one else around, Robin found herself talking to Lenny. She wondered if she’d made the right decision, wondered what her husband would have done. Without television, computer or phone, the most attractive form of entertainment left open to her son was playing with Blackie, which was exactly what had gotten him into trouble in the first place.

  “Blackie belongs to Mr. Camden,” Robin felt obliged to tell him. Again.

  “I know,” Jeff said, “but he likes me. When I come home from school, he goes crazy. He’s real glad to see me, Mom, and since there aren’t very many boys in this neighborhood—” he paused as if she was to blame for that “—Blackie and I have an understanding. We’re buds.”

  “That’s all fine and dandy, but you seem to be forgetting that Blackie doesn’t belong to you.” Robin stood and opened the refrigerator, taking out a package of chicken breasts.

  “I wish he was my dog,” Jeff grumbled. In an apparent effort to make peace, he walked over to the cupboard, removed two plates and proceeded to set the table.

  After dinner, while Robin was dealing with the dishes, the doorbell chimed. Jeff raced down the hallway to answer it, returning a moment later with Cole Camden at his side.

  Her neighbor was the last person Robin had expected to see—and the last person she wanted to see.

  “Mom,” Jeff said, nodding toward Cole, “it’s Mr. Camden.”

  “Hello, again,” she managed, striving for a light tone, and realizing even as she spoke that she’d failed. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thanks. I’d like to talk to both of you about—”

  Not giving him the opportunity to continue, Robin nodded so hard she nearly dislocated her neck. “I really am sorry about what happened. I’ve had a good long talk with Jeff and, frankly, I understand why you’re upset and I don’t blame you. You’ve been very kind about this whole episode and I want you to know there won’t be a repeat performance.”

  “From either of you?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, knowing her cheeks were as red as her nail polish. Did he have to remind her of the humiliating position he’d found her in earlier?

  “Mom put me on TV, computer and phone restriction for an entire week,” Jeff explained earnestly. “I promise not to go into your fort again, Mr. Camden. And I promise not to go in my backyard after school, either, because Blackie sees me and gets all happy and excited—and I guess I get all happy and excited, too—and that’s when I do stuff I’m not supposed to.”

  “I see.” Cole smiled down at Jeff. Robin thought it was a rather unusual smile. It didn’t come from his lips as much as his eyes. Once more she witnessed a flash of pain, and another emotion she could only describe as longing. Slowly his gaze drifted to Robin. When his dark eyes met hers, she suddenly found herself short of breath.

  “Actually I didn’t come here to talk to you about what happened this afternoon,” Cole said. “I’m going to be out of town for the next couple of days, and since Jeff and Blackie seem to get along so well I thought Jeff might be willing to look after him. That way I won’t have to put him in the kennel. Naturally I’m prepared to pay your son for his time. If he agrees, I’ll let him play in the fort while I’m away, as well.”

  Jeff’s eyes grew rounder than Robin had ever seen them. “You want me to watch Blackie?” he asked, his voice incredulous. “And you’re going to pay me? Can Blackie spend the night here? Please?”

  “I guess that answers your question,” Robin said, smiling.

  “Blackie can stay here if it’s okay with your mom,” Cole told Jeff. Then he turned to her. “Would that create a problem for you?”

  Once more his eyes held hers, and once more she experienced that odd breathless sensation.

  “I…No problem whatsoever.”

  Cole smiled then, and this time it was a smile so potent, so compelling, that it sailed straight through Robin’s heart.

  “Mom,” Jeff hollered as he burst through the front door late Thursday afternoon. “Kelly and Blackie and I are going to the fort.”

  “Kelly? Surely this isn’t the girl named Kelly, is it? Not the one who lives next door?” Robin couldn’t resist teasing her son. Apparently Jeff was willing to have a “pesky” girl for a friend, after all.

  Jeff shrugged as he opened the cookie jar and groped inside. He frowned, not finding any cookies and removed his hand, his fingertips covered with crumbs that he promptly licked off. “I decided Kelly isn’t so bad.”

  “Have you got Blackie’s leash?”

  “We aren’t going to need it. We’re playing Sam Houston and Daniel Boone, and the Mexican army is attacking. I’m going to smuggle Blackie out and go for help. I can’t use a leash for that.”

  “All right. Just don’t go any farther than the Alamo and be back by dinnertime.”

  “But that’s less than an hour!” Jeff protested.

  Robin gave him one of her don’t-argue-with-me looks.

  “But I’m not hungry and—”

  “Jeff,” Robin said softly, widening her eyes just a bit, increasing the intensity of her look.

  “You know, Mom,” Jeff said with a cry of undisguised disgust, “you don’t fight fair.” He hurried out the front door with Blackie trotting faithfully behind.

  Smiling to herself, Robin placed the meat loaf in the oven and carried her coffee into the backyard. The early evening air was filled with the scent of spring flowers. A gentle breeze wafted over the budding trees. How peaceful it seemed. How serene. All the years of pinching pennies to save for a house of their own seemed worth it now.

  Her gaze wandered toward Cole Camden’s yard. Jeff, Kelly and Blackie were inside the fort, and she could hear their raised voices every once in a while.

  Cole had been on her mind a great deal during the past couple of days; she’d spent far too much time dwelling on her neighbor, thinking about his reputation in the neighborhood and the son he’d lost.

  The tranquillity of the moment was shattered by the insistent ringing of the phone. Robin walked briskly to the kitchen, set her coffee on the counter and picked up the receiver.

  “Hello.”

  “Robin, it’s Angela. I’m not catching you at a bad time, am I?”

  “No,” Robin assured her. Angela worked in the same department as Robin, and over the years they’d become good friends. “What can I do for you?” she asked, as if she didn’t already know.

  “I�
��m calling to invite you to dinner—”

  “On Saturday so I can meet your cousin Frank,” Robin finished, rolling her eyes. Years before, Angela had taken on the task of finding Robin a husband. Never mind that Robin wasn’t interested in meeting strangers! Angela couldn’t seem to bear the thought of anyone spending her life alone and had appointed herself Robin’s personal matchmaker.

  “Frank’s a really nice guy,” Angela insisted. “I wouldn’t steer you wrong, you know I wouldn’t.”

  Robin restrained herself from reminding her friend of the disastrous date she’d arranged several weeks earlier.

  “I’ve known Frank all my life,” Angela said. “He’s decent and nice.”

  Decent and nice were two words Robin had come to hate. Every man she’d ever met in this kind of arrangement was either decent or nice. Or both. Robin had come to think the two words were synonymous with dull, unattractive and emotionally manipulative. Generally these were recently divorced men who’d willingly placed themselves in the hands of family and friends to get them back into circulation.

  “Didn’t you tell me that Frank just got divorced?” Robin asked.

  “Yes, about six months ago.”

  “Not interested.”

  “What do you mean you’re not interested?” Angela demanded.

  “I don’t want to meet him. Angela, I know you mean well, and I apologize if I sound like a spoilsport, but I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to nurse the fragile egos of recently divorced men. Most of the time they’re emotional wrecks.”

  “But Frank’s divorce was final months ago.”

  “If you still want me to meet him in a year, I’ll be more than happy to have you arrange a dinner date.”

  Angela released a ragged sigh. “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  There was a short disappointed silence. “Fine,” Angela said in obvious frustration. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Right.” Because she felt guilty, Robin added, “I’ll bring the coffee.”

  “Okay.”

  Robin lingered in the kitchen, frowning. She hated it when her friends put her on the spot like this. It was difficult enough to say no, but knowing that Angela’s intentions were genuine made it even worse. Just as she was struggling with another attack of guilt, the phone rang again. Angela! Her friend must have suspected that Robin’s offer to buy the coffee was a sign that she was weakening.