Chapter Three
Thor, Evan’s nine-month-old Husky, was all over my rocky road flavored toes as soon as I opened the door. I nearly tripped over him, but the boys shoving past me to get into the house smashed me against the door and kept me from falling over. Maybe luck hadn’t abandoned me completely quite yet. The night was still young, though.
Colby left his baseball gear in a trail behind him as he ran off through the house. He and Evan returned a few minutes later, still running, leash in hand. I was tired, grumpy, and exhausted, but Thor was whining at my feet now that the ice cream had mostly been licked off. “All right, clip his leash on and let’s go.”
Whooping in excitement even though it meant going back out into the too-warm weather, Evan waved the poop collection bag around happily. We’d been home for barely a minute before heading back out. It was just a walk to the park, though. Simple. Low-stress. I could handle this. We’d done the park plenty of times before without incident. I felt myself relaxing as I locked the front door and started back down the walkway.
We were halfway to the park when Evan yanked on my arm. “Look, Auntie Greenly, that’s where Sammy lives!”
“What?” I spun around, as if Roman and Sammy were going to jump out of the bushes at us.
“Right there,” he said, pointing with his whole body. “In that blue house. They have a pool table in their basement.”
Nodding slowly, I watched the house for any sign of its owners. “Uh huh, nice.”
Distracted by something else, Evan turned away from the house and the conversation died. I kept one eye on the Carpenter house, just in case. It wasn’t until we made it to the park, a block away, and Thor did his business that I was forced to stop spying on the blue house and clean up some poo. After that it was pushing kids on swings, playing fetch with Thor, rescuing Evan from the monkey bars when he got two rungs in and started screaming that he was going to fall, and losing to Colby in a slide race. Finally, Evan decided he was hungry and it was time to head back.
We hit a familiar spot in the street when Evan yanked me to a stop and pointed at the blue house again. “Yeah, I know, Ev. It’s Sammy’s house.”
“We have to go!” he shouted.
“What? Why?” I was already shaking my head against his request. I couldn’t think of any possible reason he could come up with that would change my mind.
Evan’s free hand pointed at my head. For a minute I thought he was reminding me about the gum in my hair. Then he said, “You forgot to give Mr. Sammy’s Dad his hat!”
My hand subconsciously went to the hat, which was indeed still planted on my head. I sighed, but a hat was not enough to convince me to alter my path. Leaving it with Lydia to return at a later date—when I wasn’t present—sounded like a much better option.
“It’s his favorite hat,” Colby said with less animation than his brother. “His dad gave it to him.”
I felt my stomach sink.
“Maybe Sammy and his dad could eat pizza with us,” Colby offered. “You could give him back his hat and invite them at the same time.” He looked up at me pleadingly. “Sammy’s my best friend. Please?”
Evan began hopping up and down. “Mr. Sammy’s Dad is my friend, too. And Thor’s. He’s my favorite babysitter after you. Please?”
“But,” I sputtered, “this was supposed to be our special weekend together. I’ve missed you guys so much since I haven’t seen you as often lately. Don’t you want it to be just us tonight? You two were going to be my Valentines, remember?”
Both boys screwed up their faces. “Valentines are gross, Aunt Greenly.”
“Yeah. Gross!” Evan stuck out his tongue and made gagging sounds.
“Can’t Sammy’s dad just be your Valentine so we can play with Sammy?” Colby asked hopefully.
I’d almost think Lydia put them up to this if I didn’t know it would have been impossible for either boy to pull off something this complicated with their limited attention spans. “I…but…”
What could I really say to that? Apparently one date night with their aunt was enough. Who could blame them, though? I really wasn’t that exciting. Pizza together would be what, like an hour, two tops? If I was showered, de-gummed, and in a familiar space, I could handle that without making a fool of myself, right?
I would have preferred taking the chicken way out and text a half-hearted invitation to Roman, but I didn’t have his number. Big surprise he hadn’t offered it up. Both boys had on their begging faces, and even Thor seemed to be in on it, looking over at Roman’s house and whining. Good gracious, even the dog had been won over. I couldn’t stand to tell either of my nephews no in regular situations. This was ten times worse.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Let’s go.”
We looked both ways before crossing the street. Both boys held my hand and Thor stayed right at my heel with the leash wrapped around my wrist. The second we set foot on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, the boys took off and Thor made a valiant attempt at following them. Problem was, his leash was still looped around my wrist so I could hold the boys’ hands more easily. So when he lunged forward to follow, I didn’t have any control of the leash to stop him from taking me down.
Pain blossomed in more than one spot as my elbows and palms hit the cement and my head whacked into the decorative stone edging that lined the grass. Thor yelped as my dead weight kept him from getting any farther, then doubled back to see what was wrong and stomped all over me at least three times before settling on my head. By the time my senses cleared, I was so tangled in leash and puppy I couldn’t even figure out where to start. My head and arms throbbing didn’t help at all.
“Thor, get off,” a firm voice said.
I thought I wanted to die when I got gum in my hair, or soda ice down my shirt, or an ice cream pedicure. Those were nothing compared to having to be rescued from an over-enthusiastic puppy by Roman Carpenter while covered in dirt, grass, and blood. It was a miracle I didn’t give up right then and just start crying. I loved my nephews, but I was never going to be able to show my face in this neighborhood again.
The heavy weight of the squirming—and rather large—puppy was finally removed from my face. I heard Roman ask one of the boys to hold the leash, but I kept my eyes closed out of pure shame. Not until a pair of hands pressed against my face did I even dare to breathe. Even then, it was a gasp at the urgency behind the touch.
“Greenly, are you okay?” Roman demanded.
The hint of worry in his voice forced me to peel my eyelids apart. I peeked up at him through half-opened eyes and was startled not to find him laughing at me again. There was real, honest fear in his expression and it left me speechless.
“Are you okay?” he repeated.
Breathe, Greenly. “Yeah, uh huh. Yep.”
He stared at me for a moment. Probably because I sounded ridiculous. “Are you sure?” he asked.
I tried to sit up in order to prove I was just fine. The sting of putting my hands on the ground made me hiss and I felt a little woozy when I tried to move.
“Whoa, whoa,” Roman said, which made me feel a little like a horse. “Don’t move. Let me help you.”
Great, just great. I tried again to sit up on my own. “Really, I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” Roman said as his arms slid beneath my arms and legs.
I experienced an irrational moment of panic, not because the idea of Roman carrying me off somewhere was frightening, but because being this close to him would expose everything about me I hadn’t already managed to bare. He lifted me easily and my breath caught as he adjusted his arms and I felt momentarily unsupported. Then his grip rolled me against his chest, to a place of absolute security. I don’t think I took a single breath as he walked up to the house.