More Than She Expected

by Karen Templeton

  Her feet duly shoved into already-tied sneakers, she followed her neighbor around to her backyard, which desperately needed mowing. Yeah, she’d get right on that. Tyler pointed to a spot near the back corner where the wooden fence leaned especially badly. A lot worse than when she’d moved in, which was saying something. But, hey, it helped her negotiate a lower price, so there ya go.

  “Ah.” Laurel sighed. “Guess this means I need to finally fix my fence.”

  “Since he’s going under the fence, that wouldn’t help.”

  She frowned at her neighbor. Who actually glowed in the sunlight. Dear God. “You never noticed the hole on your side?”

  “Um...” He clasped the back of his neck. “I might have a slight...bush problem there. Anyway...here’s my idea. Even if I trim back the jungle, and you fix your fence, and we fill the hole back up, dog’s probably just gonna dig a new hole, right? So what I’m thinking is, how’s about I build a cinder block wall instead?”

  Laurel made a face. “Prison chic? I’m thinking no.”

  Tyler laughed. And, natch, he had a great laugh. And dimples. Right out of the devil’s toolbox, those dimples. “Doesn’t have to be gray, there’s all kinds of colors now. Since I’ve got brick, anyway, on the other two sides, maybe something that’ll kinda match? Then you can ditch that thing—” he nodded at the pathetic wood fence “—and not have to worry about another one for a long, long time. If ever.”

  Man had a point. “I suppose that might work. When could you do it?”

  “Next weekend, if it doesn’t rain?” Then he grinned at her. And winked. “You can help, if you want.”

  Oh, hell...he was flirting? Then again, flirting was probably his default mode. Part of his genetic makeup, like the surfer blond hair. And—she couldn’t help but notice—the gold-flecked hazel eyes, twinkling in the late-afternoon sunlight...

  Sighing—at her own foolishness, mostly—Laurel forced her gaze away from those twinkling eyes and back to the muddy hole. A symbol of her life if ever there was one. “Not sure I’d be much good,” she muttered. Which would have been true even if she hadn’t been pregnant. Upper body strength was not her strong suit. Then, mustering her courage, she looked at him again. “You can really build a wall?”

  Ty put his hand on his heart, looking stricken. “Aww...you don’t trust me?”

  “Since we’re talking many hundreds of pounds that could potentially topple over on my...” She caught herself. “On me, it seems prudent to ask.”

  “Fair enough. But yeah, I can. A damn good one, too. Got my start working construction, first year was doing masonry—”

  “Is there something you could show me? So I could see your work for myself?”

  “Wow. Tough customer. Nobody’s gonna pull one over on you, huh?”

  He should only know. “Just being practical. Well?”

  He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “Actually...I built one for...someone not that long ago. She doesn’t live too far away. I could take you over to see it, if you like. You could even push on it, make sure it stays put.” When she laughed, he added, “Afterwards, how’s about we go pick out the blocks together? So you get the color you want. Because I don’t care, frankly.”

  “Sounds like a plan. But...since it’s a shared wall, and you’re going to be doing all the work, at least let me pay for the blocks.”

  “And since we wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for my dog, I’m gonna have to say ‘no’ to that.”

  “Don’t be silly. If I can’t physically help, the least I can do is contribute to the cost. Which I would’ve done, anyway. No, I mean it,” she said to his snort. “I won’t feel right otherwise.”

  That got a long, assessing look before he finally said, “How about a home-cooked meal in exchange? Would that work?”

  A laugh pushed through her nose. “Considering my extreme lack of culinary skills? Probably not.”

  Ty looked so disappointed she nearly laughed again. “You don’t cook?”

  “As in, taking random ingredients and turning them into something palatable? Not so much.” She paused, then said, “But since I do eat—” Every hour, on the hour, these days. Not something he needed to know. Or that the idea of Tyler Noble sitting at her kitchen table made her slightly dizzy. “—I’m sure I can come up with something. That’s why God made delis, right?”

  He grinned. An endearing grin, the kind that probably turned his mother to goo when he was a kid. Since it was making Laurel more than a little gooey herself. “Absolutely.”

  She smiled back, then took a deep breath—because she had a hunch whatever was going on here had precious little to do with being neighborly, and what on earth was she supposed to do with that?—and said, “So...when can we go see this wall?”

  His smile dimmed slightly. But only for a moment. “I’ll give her a call, see if we can go over sometime tomorrow. If that works for you?”

  “Absolutely,” Laurel said.

  Because the sooner they got this little folderol over with, the better.

  * * *

  His butt-ugly face wedged between the bucket seats, Boomer alternated hot-breath panting with slurping in his drool as Tyler pulled his pickup into Starla’s short driveway. On the other side of the dog, Laurel sat with her giant purse on her lap, staring out the windshield. Ty didn’t think she’d said ten words in the past ten minutes, despite her having been chatty enough the day before.

  Normally this wouldn’t be a problem—his teachers used to say he talked enough for ten people, anyway—but her silence was a touch unnerving. Was it him? Had he done or said something to make her clam up? Not that he should care. They were neighbors, that’s all. Neighbors only going to look at a wall.

  And besides, he could tell this one was classy. Not in a la-di-da, designer duds kind of way, but for real. Something Tyler had never been and never would be. Not that he was scum—although he’d skirted close enough, from time to time, to make his parents despair, he was sure—but no matter how often you prune a wildly growing bush in an attempt to tame it, its roots stay the same. Meaning, left to its own devices, it’ll always revert to its wild nature. And while those wild roots didn’t seem to be an issue for a lot of the women he’d known over the years, he was pretty sure they would be for Laurel.

  So if his ego was whining because Laurel was apparently the first woman since his adoptive mother to be impervious to his blarney....well, his ego could shut the hell up, is what.

  “Cute house,” Laurel said, popping open the car door. Yesterday’s storm had left behind clear blue skies and a cool, brisk breeze, making it feel more like fall than early summer. Starla’s little white bungalow—a dream come true for her, he knew, thanks in no small part to a leg up from the state for first-time home buyers—gleamed in the strong afternoon sunshine, the new windows Tyler’d installed glimmering like diamonds.

  “Yeah. It is,” he said. Only he must’ve sounded funny, because Laurel gave him a weird look. But with a little shake of her head, she lowered herself from the passenger seat, the dog shoving past her and over to Starla, who’d come outside to greet them, all smiles as usual. She’d just gotten off work, still in jeans and a plain white polo shirt, her long blond hair pulled back from her still-pretty face. It was weird, how sometimes she looked far younger than her forty-eight years, while other times she seemed so much older.

  The drugs’ toll, he supposed.

  Now she untangled herself from the dog’s exuberant greeting to hold out her hand to Laurel. “So nice to meet you, honey! Can I get you something to drink? Iced tea? A Coke—?”

  “We’re only here to look at the wall,” Tyler said quietly, reminding her.

  Hazel eyes flashed to his. “What? She can’t sip on a soda while she looks?”

  Laurel smiled. “Thank you, but I’m fine. Really.
Except...would you mind if I used your bathroom?”

  “Not at all! Come on in...”

  Tyler frowned. It’d barely been ten minutes, if that, since they’d left Laurel’s house. And the plan—his plan—had been to show her the wall, let her shove on it, then get out again. Before anybody started asking questions. Questions he’d rather not answer, if he didn’t have to.

  His forehead still pinched, he followed the women—and his dog—inside, where Starla steered Laurel down the hall and Boomer moseyed on over to the sofa to mess with Mrs. Slocombe, Starla’s megasized gray tabby. Who’d been peacefully napping until this dumb dog stuck his nose in her face—

  “I take it she doesn’t know?” Starla said behind him.

  Tyler turned, leaving the hissing cat and barking dog to work it out between them. “Why should she? She’s only my neighbor.”

  Starla crossed her arms over her rib cage, her gaze razor-sharp. A helluva lot more than it used to be, that was for sure. But there was a sadness behind the sharpness he couldn’t deny. Especially because he’d put it there. At least partly.

  “You’ve done so much for me, Ty,” she said softly. “A lot more than I ever would have expected. So why can’t you get past this? I mean, seriously—what difference does it make? It’s not like it would change anything, right?”

  As often as the subject came up, you’d think by now he’d be inured to the pain. The guilt that he couldn’t let it go. And yes, the anger, since he’d told her why, every time she’d asked. And every time, they’d come to the same impasse, where she’d ask for forgiveness and he’d restate the conditions for her exoneration, and she’d give him the same, unsatisfactory answer—sometimes tearfully, sometimes wearily, often angrily—to the same nagging question:

  “Who’s my father?”

  And he was hardly going to get into it again with Laurel right down the hall. In fact, he heard the door open, sensed her stop to glance at one of the few photos Starla had from before. Nothing that would mean anything to Laurel, he wouldn’t imagine. Then she was there, in her skinny black pants and another floppy top in some blah color, no makeup, no jewelry, smiling at him—a friendly little grin, no biggee—and some crazy feeling that was almost unpleasant plowed right into his gut.

  “All better?” Starla said.

  “Much.” Then, to Tyler: “So lead me to this wall.”

  “Sure,” he said, taking her through Starla’s orange-and-aqua kitchen, the window over the sink so choked with plants the light could barely get through, and out the sliding glass door. Like his, the yard wasn’t much to speak of, the small, grassy plot balding in places. But Ty took a lot better care of Starla’s yard than he did his own—since he didn’t have time for both—and the blooming rosebushes crowded against the wall certainly seemed happy enough.

  Wordlessly, Laurel tramped across the damp grass and, yes, pressed both palms against the wall. Then she sidled close between his mother’s Mr. Lincoln and Chicago Peace and looked toward the far end—to check that it was straight, he assumed.

  Then she gave him a thumb’s-up, and he chuckled.

  He heard the patio door slide open, saw Starla come out onto the tiny patio with a tray holding a pitcher, some glasses, a plate of something. She’d changed out of her work clothes into something flowy and long, her hair hanging loose. What she called her “hippy dippy” look. An homage of sorts to her long-dead parents, he supposed.

  “I know, I know,” she said, setting the tray on a small glass-topped table. “But if somebody doesn’t help me eat these cookies, I’ll end up sucking them all down myself. And that would be very bad.”

  “Cookies?” Laurel said, hustling across the yard.

  “Butterscotch chocolate chip,” Starla said, and Laurel looked like she might cry.

  “You made these?”

  “I sure did, honey.”

  Almost reverently, Laurel lifted one from the plate and took her first bite. “Oh. My. God. These are incredible!”

  “Thank you!” Starla beamed. “It’s my own recipe! Please—take as many as you want!”

  Laurel laughed, that deep, genuine sound Ty was already coming to like way, way too much. “You might regret saying that,” she said, and picked up two more. Without even a single, “I really shouldn’t...”

  “Here, let me put some in a bag for you...”

  Starla scooted back inside, her dress billowing behind her, and Ty said, “You must be really hungry.”

  Laurel grinned...and chomped off another bite. “These are really good. I mean, insanely good. Here—” She held one out. “Taste it—”

  “Not a huge fan of butterscotch, but thanks. You, however, have made Starla’s day.”

  Her forehead crimped. “The cookies are wonderful. So I told her so. No big deal.”

  For her, maybe not.

  Tyler thought about the girls he usually went with, with their done-up hair and made-up faces and pushed-up boobs, and how he’d always liked that, how they’d make all this effort to look good for him. How they’d have a little fun, for a little while, only then somebody would get bored, and it’d be all “No hard feelings, ’kay?” and that would be that. Because life was just easier with built-in expiration dates.

  Except here comes this chick who clearly doesn’t give a crap how she looks, she’s not trying to impress anybody, especially not him, and suddenly it’s all wham-a-bam-ding-dong inside his chest? What the hell?

  Starla returned with a plastic zipper bag, filling it with most of the cookies as her instant fan kept on with the gushing. And Tyler had to admit, it wasn’t exactly breaking him up, to see how happy that made the older woman. Who he knew hadn’t had a whole lot of happy, for a very long time.

  Not wanting to think about that, however, he returned his attention to Laurel. “So. Does my work meet your exacting standards?”

  A breeze came up, sending a strand of hair into her mouth as she chewed. She yanked it out, making a face. “Not that I know from walls, really, but...sure. Let’s do this. You said the block yard’s not far?”

  “Maybe ten, fifteen minutes. Our houses are on the way, might as well drop off the dog. We can go ahead and order everything now, if you want.”

  “Sounds good.” She hesitated. “Soon as I take another potty break.” Another faint blush swept across her cheeks. “That’s what I get for drinking way too much tea earlier, sorry.”

  He watched her walk back into the house, thinking, this was somebody who was cool with who she was. What she was. Who could talk about peeing without getting all coy about it...who Tyler guessed never faked anything. Which, even more than all the surface stuff, was why this wham-a-bam business was for the birds.

  Because Tyler didn’t know who he was. Not entirely. His whole life...it was like one big lie, wasn’t it? Okay, maybe not a lie, exactly. A mystery, then.

  He looked at Starla, snapping the top back on the cookie container, the only person in the world, as far as he knew, who held the key that would unlock that mystery. And until that happened—if it ever did—the Laurels of the world were strictly off-limits.

  No matter how warm inside their laughs made him feel.

  Chapter Two

  “Mind if I put on some music?” Tyler asked when they got back in his truck. Because right now, his brain—among other things—needed to chill. And if he couldn’t make Laurel stop smelling so good, or her eyes less blue, or her laugh less arousing, maybe music would distract him from noticing. At least, not as much.

  “Not at all,” she said, clutching her giant purse like it might make a break for it if she didn’t. And yes, he caught the slight smile when, from his docked iPod, his favorite band started playing. Followed by an almost-imperceptible headshake.

  “You don’t like Green Day?” he asked.

  “It’s just been a
while since I listened to them,” she said, still with the irritating little smile. Tyler tapped the button on the steering wheel, turned the music off.

  “No, it’s okay, you don’t have to—”

  “Wasn’t in the mood, anyway.”

  They reached the end of the block, turned onto the main drag. Behind them, the dog panted. Laurel shifted a little in her seat. “Starla’s certainly a sweetheart, isn’t she?”

  Great. Now she decides to talk. When talking was the last thing he wanted to do. Being around Starla did that to him, never mind how annoyed he got for letting it—her—get to him. However, instead of taking his noncommittal grunt as her cue to drop the subject, Laurel said, “She reminds me a little of my mother. Although Mom would’ve been, let’s see...sixty-one by now. Wow. There’s a weird thought.”

  Tyler glanced over, frowning. “Would have been?”

  “Yeah,” she said on a sigh. But not one of those pouty, poor-me sounds that drove him nuts. “She died when I was eleven.”

  “Oh.” He looked back out the windshield. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, it was a long time ago. More than twenty years. Speaking of weird. They say time heals everything, but I’m not sure that’s true. Wears down the sharp edges, maybe, so they don’t hurt anymore. Or at least not as much...” She pressed her fingers to her lips. “And I’m rambling, sorry. Must be the sugar rush from the cookies.”

  “No problem.” Since as long as she talked, he didn’t have to. Or deal with the crazy thoughts swirling inside his head. But since she’d brought up the subject...

  “And your dad...?”

  She hesitated, then said flatly, “Heart attack when I was fifteen. But I didn’t see him much, anyway, after my mother died.”

  Pain flashed, like stubbing an already-sore toe. “Why not?”

  “Who knows? Wasn’t as if we ever discussed it. Although my guess is that he couldn’t see himself as a single father. Or any kind of father, frankly, since he’d never been real hands-on before.”