by Patt Marr
Her boss had ordered her to make sure all went well, and it had if she didn’t count having Brad by her side the whole time. Everyone seemed to be happy except her, and that was her own fault.
Whump…whump…whump.
If she hadn’t called Ry or left those two messages on his voice mail, she wouldn’t have been so disappointed when he didn’t call. Just because the butterfly troop thought that Ry was her guy, it didn’t mean that he saw her as more than a grown-up version of his Li’l Sis. He cared for her, she was sure of that, but she’d jumped the boundaries of their friendship, and she wouldn’t do it again.
Whump…whump.
“I can’t believe this guy,” she moaned, covering her head with her pillow. “Please, give it up.”
The twins said that New Guy had been so charming they’d learned nothing about him. All they could report was that he had great muscles, a great smile and a great big TV and an SUV. Meg wished he’d take that ball for a ride in his SUV.
Barb, the prior tenant, had been such a nice, quiet girl and just perfect for Tony, the good-hearted camera operator at work. Too bad she’d moved in with him when they got married.
Whump…whump…whump.
Her bridesmaid dress for Barb and Tony’s wedding had been yellow, her first yellow bridesmaid dress.
Whump…whump.
That was one of the problems, getting couples together. When they got married, they thought they had to express their gratitude by having her in their wedding party.
Whump…whump…whump.
She couldn’t seem to get it across that they didn’t need to honor her that way. It was expensive, being a bridesmaid, and demoralizing, never being the bride.
Whump! Whump! Whump!
He was louder than ever. “Hey, New Guy!” she yelled, for her benefit if not his. “There’s a woman trying to sleep down here! Did your mother teach you nothing?”
Whump! Whump! Whump!
He might be a great-looking guy, but that didn’t make him special, not in her book and not at Los Palmas. Hunks were everywhere—at the pool, the hot tub, the tennis courts, the parking lot. She’d recruited quite a few for the show.
Whump! Whump! Whump!
Good-looking men were way overrated. Her Mr. Right would have more brain than brawn. She wanted a guy who didn’t have to watch the Three Stooges for a laugh and who could name the books of the Bible faster than he could recite the Lakers’ starting roster.
Whump! Whump! Whump!
Meg threw the covers aside and came out of the bed with vengeance in mind. Enough was enough. Rounding the bed, she stubbed her toe on the corner of the bed frame.
Wow, did that hurt! Hopping around on one foot, holding her wounded toe, her shin connected with the sharp edge of the dresser. More pain! Tears in her eyes, she gritted her teeth.
Whump! Whump! Whump!
That was it. More than she could handle.
She hobbled to the utility closet, grabbed the broom and jabbed at the ceiling. Boomp! Boomp! Boomp!
“Don’t make me come up there!” she yelled.
Whump! Whump!
She jabbed again, repeating his double. Boomp! Boomp!
A second of silence, and then four rapid whumps even louder than before.
“What’s the matter? You need it in writing?” Jabbing hard, she repeated his sequence of four.
Silence again, then a single, hard…Whump!
“You heard me right.” She answered with a single, heartfelt jab.
A minute passed, then two. Blissful silence. Meg smiled. Victory was sweet. It would be sweeter still if that last jab hadn’t poked a hole in her ceiling.
And then it started, unending bounces of the basketball from hell. From bedroom to kitchen and back again until she wanted to scream.
She shimmied into a pair of jeans, left her nightshirt on and hobbled barefoot upstairs, so intent on confronting her tormentor that she barely felt the pain in her shin and her toe. Let New Guy see that a crazy woman lived in the apartment below. Let him worry about the heinous things that could happen if he weren’t a good neighbor.
How long would he have to keep bouncing this basketball? Nobody could sleep through racket like this. Maybe she wasn’t home, although the coffee cake twins assured him she was.
Those girls made really good coffee cake. He’d gone through half a cake, eating as he bounced the ball through his new apartment. A trail of crumbs attested to that.
The ferocious pounding on his door made him laugh out loud. Finally!
He peered through the peephole. Wooey! That was one mad lady outside. He grabbed a rose from the bouquet on the kitchen table, hid it behind his back and opened the door.
“I wondered how long it would take to get you up here,” he said, laughing at the expression in Meg’s big blue eyes.
“You!” She sagged against the door in complete shock.
“Did I wake you?” Ry didn’t really have to ask. Her sleep-tousled hair, wrinkled nightshirt and jeans said it all.
She nodded, apparently speechless.
Some girls weren’t very pretty until they were all made up, but he loved the way Meg looked, all sleepy-eyed and natural. “I’m sorry I woke you, Meg. Maybe this flower will say it better than I can.”
She took the flower, but held it, trancelike, as if she were stunned. He’d dreamed of her falling into his arms, but apparently she needed a moment to shift gears. That was understandable. The last time they’d talked, he’d ignored her hint that she would like to come to see him.
He’d hated doing that to her, though, on another level, it was wonderful to think Meg was missing him like he was missing her. If he hadn’t already turned in his notice and made plans to come here, he’d have paid her way to New York and given her a welcome she’d never forget. Some day he would take her back and show her the city he’d loved.
“So what were you hitting the ceiling with?” he asked conversationally, praying that he hadn’t judged this wrong.
“What are you doing here?” she murmured, ignoring his question and staring at him as if he weren’t real.
“I live here. I moved in yesterday.”
She looked at his unpacked boxes. “You live here?”
It probably was a lot to take in. “I sure do.”
She had that shocked, but happy look that a person has when friends yell, “Surprise!” It was all he’d hoped for.
The three weeks it had taken him to close down his life in New York had seemed like three years, but they were proof to him that Meg was the woman for him. He’d never missed anything or anybody the way he’d missed her. Only the anticipation of this moment kept him going, and this was only the beginning. He planned to make her happy the rest of their lives.
“We’re going to have fun being neighbors, aren’t we, Meg?” He hoped they wouldn’t be neighbors for long. They could go straight to a house with a white picket fence as far as he was concerned.
“I’m speechless,” she said unnecessarily. He could see that for himself.
“How about a ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ hug?” He opened his arms, inviting her to step inside the apartment, and much more, inside his life.
Without hesitation, she wrapped her arms around his waist, laid her head on his shoulder and squeezed him so tightly, he could have shouted for joy. He hadn’t been wrong. She wanted him here.
“I was worried that you might not be glad to see me,” he murmured, loving the soft feel of her hair against his face.
“I thought you were mad at me,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest.
“What for? When have I ever been mad at you?”
“But you didn’t answer my calls.”
“I didn’t want to risk spoiling the surprise.”
“Since when do I like surprises?” She glanced up at him with a frown.
“I know you don’t like bad ones, but don’t you like good surprises?”
“Not much. I like to know what’s going on.”
He probably ought to remember that.
“But I’m so happy to see you that there won’t be much retribution this time.”
Laughing inside, he tried to appear penitent. “Much?” he repeated. “Does there have to be any if I promise it won’t happen again?”
She cocked her head to one side, considering.
He wasn’t worried. He knew Meg, and she was his, whether she knew it right now or not.
“Just tell me how you managed to move in here,” she said, stepping completely out of his arms and edging past him to make herself at home on his new black leather sofa.
He’d imagined the two of them on that sofa when he told Beth to order it. He sank down beside her and dropped his arm around her shoulders, old-pal style. He couldn’t resist touching her. “Beth told me about the apartment,” he said. “She set everything up.”
Meg could hardly believe it. Beth was her lifelong best friend. They’d never had secrets from each other, yet she’d done all this? “When did all this happen?” she asked.
“Right after I got back to New York. I called and asked Beth to find me a place.”
“You knew then?” Was it possible for butterflies to execute rollover flips?
He nodded. “I couldn’t believe how much I missed…palm trees.”
“Palm trees,” she repeated, a bubble of excitement starting in her heart.
“Yes. Palm trees. Can’t get enough of ’em.”
“Is that right?” She laughed softly, delighting in the happiness in Ry’s gray-green eyes. “Then, you must be in the right place. We have lots of palm trees at Los Palmas.”
“I know! That’s why I wanted to live here.” His big, wide smile was contagious.
She had to laugh. “Lucky for you there was a vacancy.”
“That’s what Beth said, but I told her it was God’s timing, not luck. And she said she was starting to believe that herself. Isn’t that great?”
Meg nodded. It would be if Beth weren’t laughing at them both. She’d gone to a lot of trouble to prove that Meg and Ry were a “match made in heaven.”
“What reason did you give Beth for moving back here?” she asked, scooting out from under his arm to retrieve the basketball he’d left by the door.
“I told her that I wanted a chance to be a better son.”
A better son? Ry wasn’t the one in that family who needed improved behavior. Sure, he’d been a rebel, but he couldn’t agree to be his grandfather’s clone just to please his mother. And nothing less would satisfy her.
She passed Ry the ball, and he smiled, catching it and tossing it back. It took a couple of passes back and forth and the steady influence of Ry’s heart-lifting smile for Meg to feel her anger at his family ebb away.
He had asked if they would have fun, being neighbors. She would guarantee that. The love she felt for Ry was even bigger now than when they’d been kids. It was a crushing sensation, an overwhelming feeling she couldn’t begin to put into words, but his happiness was a top priority. No matter how his family treated him, he could count on her.
Ry wanted her to be his fun neighbor. She could play that part. “I think we ought to talk about good neighbor etiquette,” she said to get the fun going.
“What do you have in mind?”
“To begin with, people don’t bounce basketballs in their apartments.”
Ry had to laugh. That was Meg, giving him a lecture laced with sass.
“I think you need to make a significant gesture for waking me up,” she said sternly.
“Name it,” he said, smiling inside. Anything she wanted was hers.
“For starters, I think I’ll take this basketball.”
Well, maybe not. “What if I just promise to keep it in the closet until I take it outdoors?”
“What if you promise to let me play, too?”
The little shrimp thought she could play with him? “You’ll need some help.” He used to take on Meg and Beth…and let them almost win.
“I can get the help.”
“Who from? The coffee cake twins?”
She reached over and brushed crumbs from his T-shirt. “They said they’d met you.”
“They ruined my surprise?”
“No, they didn’t remember your name.” She seemed to enjoy that. “But they described you perfectly.”
“Tall, buff and handsome?”
“No, just tall…with a big TV.”
He chuckled softly. The woman would not give him a break, and he loved it. “Hey, I’ve thought of a way I can apologize for disturbing your beauty sleep.”
“It better be good.”
“It is.” She ought to love this. “I’m going to let you decorate my new apartment.”
She lifted her brow skeptically and scanned the cardboard boxes, the big-screen TV and black leather sofa. “How could I improve on this? You have the minimalist look down to perfection.”
“You don’t think it needs a woman’s touch?”
“Not this woman.”
He’d thought she would jump at the chance to show what she could do. Every other apartment he’d lived in, some woman had stepped in to make his place feel like home.
“I’ve got it!” she said. Her face lit up like he’d hoped it would when he opened the door. “It’s the perfect significant gesture, Ry.”
“Drop it on me.”
“You can be a Dream Date contestant! I’ll get you scheduled for the show right away.”
Not that again. Talk about a one-track mind.
“I’ve got an application downstairs.” She headed for the door. “I’ll get it, and we’ll fill it out.”
They could fill out the form or talk about the weather. It didn’t matter as long as they were spending time together. How soon could he make his move and kiss her the way he should have done the last time he was here? Their first real kiss was way overdue. The New Year’s Eve kisses were great, but they didn’t count. He hadn’t known then that she was meant to be his.
“You’re going to make a fabulous contestant, Ry!”
She seemed so happy that he almost felt bad, knowing he would never go on her show. He hadn’t moved three thousand miles to be with anyone but her. “Hurry back,” he said as she was almost out the door. “I could use some help unpacking these boxes.”
She looked back inside and lifted one brow, eyeing the mess. “On second thought, why don’t you come down to my place? I’ll make us breakfast.”
Now that was more like it. “Okay, but I don’t want you to go to any trouble.”
“No trouble at all. Why don’t you come down in a half an hour or so?”
He checked his watch. A half an hour. That meant she was going to do breakfast up right. Eggs, hashed browns, biscuits and sausage gravy, or his favorite— bacon and cinnamon French toast. He loved a good breakfast. “I’ll be there. Can I bring anything?”
She glanced at his kitchen table and the huge vase of roses topping it. “Maybe you’d want to share a few more of those roses. You seem to have plenty.”
“They’re yours.” For cooking such a good breakfast, she could have them all. Five dozen pink roses would look better in her apartment than in his.
Meg practically flew down the stairs to her apartment. Why had she given herself only thirty minutes? She could use that much time on the phone to tell Beth what a sneaky, conniving person she was.
Sure, this setup was Beth’s way of having tons of fun, but it really wasn’t right for Beth to mock Meg’s belief in God. Besides, her prayer had been that the Lord would drop Mr. Right on her doorstep, not Mr. Temptation. The butterfly troop didn’t seem to know the difference, but Meg definitely did. She’d been here before and knew this tingly sensation for what it was.
She’d been about thirteen when she first felt this way, and Ry had been fifteen with total bad-boy appeal. She’d loved it that he hadn’t cared if he got into trouble, that he hadn’t cared what people thought. This popular boy had listened to her and teased her
so much that she’d wondered if he didn’t see her as more than his Li’l Sis.
Now, it seemed that she would play the grown-up version of Li’l Sis, complete with the tingly crush. The thought was as exhilarating as it was daunting. Could she do that without losing her head over Ry?
It shouldn’t matter what she wore around him, but she could do better than ratty hair and a wrinkled nightshirt.
After a quick shower, a little makeup, jeans and her soft blue sweater, she was almost ready. And her hair? Up on one side with a silver clip or smoothed back from her face and tied with a blue scarf?
“Meg?” Ry knocked on the door.
She left her hair plain and hurried to the door.
Pink roses filled the opening. “Where would you like these?” he said with a happy smile.
“How about the coffee table, once I get rid of…well, everything.” It was the biggest bouquet she’d ever seen. “The roses are fabulous. Is it your birthday or something?”
“Or something.” His tone would have discouraged most people, but she loved a good mystery. Who would send Ry flowers like these?
“Would you like some coffee?” she said, watching how carefully he placed the roses on her table.
“I never turn down cof—” He stared at her with the look of a man who liked what he saw.
The butterfly troop flew so happily that she touched her stomach, willing them to settle down.
“Gorgeous,” she thought she heard him murmur.
“I beg your pardon.” She had to hear that again. It shouldn’t matter that Ry thought she looked pretty, but it did. It definitely did.
“Your apartment…it’s gorgeous.” He glanced about the room, his eyes lingering on her mother’s artwork.
Well, that was a letdown. What was the matter with her? Was she thirteen again?
“I’m sorry the place is a mess,” she said, regrouping the best she could while the butterfly troop danced for their guy.
He picked up her broom and eyed her ceiling. “Is this what you used to make that hole?”
