He unclenched his teeth and expelled a long breath. "No, I'm not mad at you. I'm just glad you didn't kill him. It would take a forklift to get him out of here." He unbuckled his carpenter's belt. "Lunch, everyone."

Matt sat back and waited until the men had dispersed. When he was alone with Lizabeth, he stared at her for a long time before speaking. He was torn between wanting to take her in his arms and hold her close, and wanting to shake her until her teeth rattled. "Lizabeth…"He was at a loss for words. What the hell was he supposed to say to her? He'd known her less than a week, and his heart had stopped when he saw her disappear down the stairwell. "Lizabeth, you really scared me." He gave a frustrated shake of his head, because what he'd said was so inadequate. If there had been more privacy he would have liked to make love to her. It was desire born of caring rather than passion. He wanted to join with her, share every intimacy, give her more pleasure than she'd ever imagined, let her see how precious she'd become to him. He pulled her to him and took her face in his hands while he slowly lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her with infinite tenderness, slowly deepening the kiss while his hands roamed along her back, pressing her closer, needing to feel her soft warmth, needing to be reassured that she was all right… that she was his, at least for the moment.

Lizabeth tilted her head back so she could look at him. "That felt like a serious kiss."

"Mmmm. I'm having some pretty serious thoughts."

"I don't know if I'm ready for serious thoughts."

The pain went straight to his heart. He clapped a hand to his chest and grunted. "Boy, that hurts. The first time I have long-term plans for a relationship and look where it gets me. Heartbreak City."

He was a flirt, Lizabeth decided. The nicest man she'd ever met, and also the most outrageous. Long-term plans probably meant an hour and a half. She thought about his offer to take her to Paris and smiled, wondering what he would have done if she'd accepted.

"Sorry, I never get serious in the first four days."

"I suppose you're right," he admitted. "Four days isn't a lot of time. How long do you think it will take?"

'To get serious?" Lizabeth smiled. "I don't know. I don't mean to be insulting, but it's not high on my list of priorities. I have to find myself."

"I didn't know you were lost. Maybe you've been looking in the wrong places."

"Easy for you to joke about it," Lizabeth said. "You have a secure personality. You didn't grow up as 'Mac Slye's Kid.' And you didn't spend ten years as Paul Kane's wife and Jason and Billy Kane's mother. I used to buy T-shirts with my name written on them, hoping once in a while people would call me Lizabeth."

"You're exaggerating."

"Not by very much. I liked being a wife and mother, but when I got out on my own I realized my image had been much too closely tied to others."

"Seems to me you have a good grip on your image."

She studied his face, decided he meant it, and felt a rush of happiness. There were times, toward the end of her marriage, when she wasn't sure if there was any Lizabeth left at all. It was wonderful to know she'd survived.

"Well, we could be friends for a while," she said. "We could see how it turns out."

Three

"Mom's home!" Jason yelled, looking out the front window. "She's with Mr. Hallahan, and he's helping her up the sidewalk."

"What's the matter with her?" Elsie called from the kitchen. "Why does she need help?"

"I dunno. She's all wet, and she's walking funny."

Elsie went to the door and watched her niece slowly make her way up the porch stairs. "Now what?"

Matt tried to look concerned, but his mouth kept twitching with laughter. "She lost her balance and fell into a freshly poured cement driveway. We had to hose her down before the cement set, but there were a few places we missed… like her shoes and her underwear."

"I didn't lose my balance," Lizabeth snapped. "I was signing my initials in the wet cement and one of your workmen snuck up behind me and got fresh."

Elsie shook her finger at her niece. "I told you, you gotta be careful about bending over when you're around them construction workers."

Lizabeth swiped at the wet hair plastered to her face. "I don't want to talk about it."

Elsie looked at Matt. "Well? Is that the whole story? How come she lost her balance?"

"She lost her balance when she punched him in the nose," Matt said, smiling broadly. It had been a terrific punch. Square on the snoot. He couldn't have done it better himself.

"No kidding?" Elsie was obviously pleased. "That comes from her mother's side of the family. We're a feisty bunch. So how about this guy's nose-did she flatten it?"

"Wasn't exactly flattened," Matt said, "but it was definitely broken."

"Wow," Jason said, "that's so cool. Wait'll I tell the guys. My mom broke someone's nose!"

"It was an accident!" Lizabeth said. "I reacted without thinking, and his nose got in the way. Now if you'll all excuse me I'm going to take a shower. If I'm not out of the shower in half an hour send up a chisel. And don't you dare invite Matt to supper. He smirked at me all the way home."

"She don't mean it," Elsie said to Matt. "We're having pot roast. Well eat at six."

Matt stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "Sounds good to me. Ill pull the tile up in the downstairs bathroom while I wait. Tomorrow's Saturday. I'll come first thing in the morning and put down a new sub floor."

Lizabeth kicked her clothes into a corner of the bathroom and dragged herself into the shower. Laying plywood was a lot more tiring than painting trim. Chances were, if she hadn't been so tired, she wouldn't have fallen into the cement, she decided. If she hadn't been so tired, she would have sensed Oliver Roth sneaking up behind her. And if she hadn't been so tired, she might have had more patience with Roth's groping. She lathered up and watched the last vestiges of cement sluice down the drain. Thank heaven it hadn't hardened on her. She washed her hair and winced when the water beat against the back of her neck. She was sunburned. Occupational hazard, she told herself, wondering about the statistics on skin cancer for construction workers. The statistics probably weren't good. On the other hand, after another week of pounding nails she'd be so physically fit she'd be able to forget about cardiovascular disease. And there were other things she was learning. Elsie was wrong about carpenters. Most of the men were extremely courteous to her, going out of their way to make her feel comfortable. She shut the water off, wrapped a towel around her head, shrugged into her threadbare terry-cloth robe, and stumbled into her bedroom. She flopped facedown onto the bed and instantly fell asleep.

At six, Jason shook Lizabeth awake. "Mom, it's time for supper. You better hurry up."

Lizabeth opened her eyes halfway and looked drowsily at her youngest son. "Huh?"

He put his face down next to hers, nose to nose, and shouted. "It's time for supper!"

"Gotcha," Lizabeth said. "I'm moving."

"You better move fast. Aunt Elsie doesn't like people being late for supper. She’ll whack you one with her wooden spoon. She’ll make you eat the stalks on the broccoli." He backed off and ran out of the room. "Ill meetcha down there."

Lizabeth pulled a faded T-shirt over her head, stepped into a pair of old running shorts, and combed her fingers through her hair. She was doing her best to hurry, but her muscles weren't cooperating. Everything ached. Matt had been right. She was a wimp. She was thirty-two years old, and she was falling apart at the seams. She took the stairs one step at a time, mumbling as she went. She stopped grumbling when she saw Matt watching her. "Oh jeez, what are you doing here?"

"Elsie invited me for supper."

"What a nice surprise." About as nice as bubonic plague. She could barely move without screaming in pain, her hair looked like World War III, and she wasn't wearing a bra. As she descended the stairs, she decided it was the last fact that caused his look of rapt fascination.

"You seem kinda tuckered out."

"I'm fine," she said, shuffling past him. "I'm not at all tired. And I'm not the least bit sore."

"Guess you're tougher than I thought."

Jason took a scoop of mashed potatoes. "Good thing you're not tired. Matt said he'd play soccer with us after supper, and you could play too."

Lizabeth noticed it was no longer "Mr. Hallahan." She supposed that was okay. Matt didn't seem to mind the familiarity, and the boys needed to have male friends. She would have preferred someone without a tattoo advocating sex with the animal kingdom, but she wasn't in the mood to quibble. She stared at her fork, wondering if she had the strength to pick it up. "Soccer? That sounds like fun," she said absently. "I could use some exercise." She could use some exercise in the year 2000. Anything before that was going to be a major imposition. Not to worry, she thought. Soccer was at least a half hour away. Right now she had more immediate problems. She needed to figure out a way to eat her meat. Cutting and chewing seemed like insurmountable obstacles.

"Something wrong with the meat?" Elsie asked Lizabeth. "You keep staring at it."

"It's fine, but I'm thinking of becoming a vegetarian. I'm worried about my cholesterol."

"Don't be a ninny," Elsie said. "You're nothing but skin and bones, and you have bags under your eyes. You need meat. How do you think I've kept my looks all these years? I eat right. Except for that time when I tried living in the old people's home. Worst food I've ever seen. Everything got squeezed through a strainer."

"Yuck!" Jason said. "Like baby food." He accidentally tipped over his milk, and it spread, like a flash flood, across the table.

Elsie jumped to her feet and ran for a kitchen towel. Lizabeth mopped up milk with her napkin. And Ferguson seized upon the opportunity to run off with the remainder of the pot roast.

"Ferguson's got the pot roast!" Billy shouted. He reached out for the dog, caught his elbow on the gravy boat, and the gravy boat slid into Matt's plate and smashed, dumping a cup and a half of semi-congealed gravy into Matt's lap.

"Oh, gross," Jason said. "One time Ferguson got sick and made a mess on the rug and it looked just like that."

Elsie watched the pot roast disappear around the corner. "There goes tomorrow's lunch," she said. "Damned if you don't have to be on your toes in this house."

"I guess we should postpone the soccer game until tomorrow," Matt said. "If I play soccer in these clothes, I'll have every dog in the neighborhood following me."

Lizabeth leaned back in her chair and managed a weak smile. She was saved. God bless Ferguson.

There were four bedrooms on the top floor of the old Victorian. Lizabeth had chosen a back bedroom for herself and had meagerly furnished it with a double bed and a secondhand oak dresser. One window looked out at the side yard, the view partially obscured by a mature stand of Douglas fir trees that served as a privacy fence. The other window in Lizabeth's room overlooked the backyard, which was, for the most part, packed dirt. Ferguson had littered the yard with punctured footballs, soccer balls, half-chewed baseballs, and a few mangled shoes. A redwood picnic table and two benches had been left by the previous owner.

The table was seldom used for picnics, since Lizabeth didn't have a grill. Instead, it served as the collection point for half-filled jars of soap bubbles, used boxes of crayons, a handful of Matchbox cars, empty juice glasses, plastic water pistols, and whatever other flotsam accumulated from two boys at play. Since the yard was dominated by several large trees, it was continuously cast in shade. By moonlight the yard seemed solemn and spooky, and usually only Bob the Cat ventured into its black shadows.

This evening a human form picked its way around the footballs, soccer balls, and baseballs. He cursed when he stepped on a shoe and stood still for a minute to get his bearings. He moved back a few feet and took a handful of small stones from his coat pocket.

As Lizabeth pulled herself up from the drowse of sleep, she thought it must be sleeting. She lay absolutely still, very quietly listening to the "tik tik tik" of something hitting against her window-pane, and realized, as she became more awake, that it was summer and sleet wasn't possible. It almost sounded as if someone was throwing stones at her window! There was a brief stab of alarm and then she relaxed. Matt. The thought brought a smile to her lips. Poor guy was really smitten with her. Another stone pinged on the glass and Lizabeth swung her legs over the side of the bed. It was two in the morning, and obviously Matt hadn't been able to sleep. She imagined him thrashing around in his bed, feverish with pent-up passion. And now he was here! What was she supposed to do with him? She could hardly invite him up to her bedroom. Maybe he would want to take her back to his apartment. Maybe he wouldn't be able to wait that long. Maybe he'd drag her off into the bushes or lay her out on the picnic table. She hated to admit it, but the picnic table sounded incredibly erotic. She rolled her eyes in the dark bedroom and groaned. What was wrong with her? She was a mother, and mothers didn't go around rutting on picnic tables. Lord, what would her children think? What about Elsie? Lizabeth, she told herself, you're getting weird. That's what happens when you've had a whole lifetime of sexual deprivation. Lizabeth pulled the curtain aside and squinted into the darkness. "Anybody out there?" she called.