Too Good to Be True

“Dogs are so gross.”

“I won’t dignify that with an answer, except to say that there are double coupons for Fresh Step at Stop & Shop.”

“Oh, thanks!” Kiki said. “I’m actually running low. Hey, Grace, did I tell you I met someone?”

As we walked to our cars, Kiki extolled the virtues of some guy named Bruce, who was kind, generous, soulful, funny, sexy, intelligent, hardworking and completely honest.

“And when did you meet this guy?” I asked, shifting my papers to open my car door.

“We had coffee on Saturday. Oh, Grace, I think this guy is it. I mean, I know I’ve said that before, but he’s perfect.”

I bit my tongue. “Good luck,” I said, making a mental note to pencil in some conciliatory time for Kiki about ten days from now, when Bruce would more than likely have changed his phone number and my friend would be crying on my couch. “Hey, Kiki, have you heard anything about Dr. Eckhart?”

She shook her head. “Why? Did he die?”

“No,” I answered. “Ava told me he’s retiring.”

“And Ava knows this because she slept with him?” Kiki, like Ava, lived on campus, and they hung out together sometimes.

“Now, now.”

“Well, if he is, that’s great for you, Grace! Only Paul has more seniority, right? You’d apply for the job, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s a little early to be talking about that,” I said, sidestepping the question. “I just wondered if you’d heard. See you later.”

I pulled carefully out of the parking lot—Manning students tended to drive cars worth more than my annual salary, and nicking one would not be advisable—and headed through Farmington back to the twisted streets of Peterston, thinking about Dr. Eckhart. If it was true, then yes, I’d apply to be the new chairman of our department. To be honest, I thought Manning’s history curriculum was too stodgy. Kids needed to feel the importance of the past, and, yes, sometimes they needed it jammed down their throats. Gently and lovingly, of course.

I pulled into my driveway and saw the true reason for my trip home, Angus’s bowels not withstanding. My neighbor stood in his front yard by a power saw or some such tool. Shirtless. Shoulder muscles rippling under his skin, biceps thick and bulging… hard… golden… Okay, Grace! That’s enough!

“Howdy, neighbor,” I said, wincing as the words left my mouth.

He turned off his saw and took off the safety glasses. I winced. His eye was a mess. It was open a centimeter or two—progress from being swollen completely shut yesterday—and from what I could see, the white of his eye was quite bloodshot. A purple-and-blue bruise covered him from brow to cheekbone. Hello, bad boy! Yes, granted, I’d given him the bruise—actually, make that plural, because I saw a faint stripe of purplish-red along his jaw, right where I’d hit him with the rake—but still. He had all the rough and sultry appeal of Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. Clive Owen in Sin City. Russell Crowe in everything he did.

“Hi,” he said, putting his hands on his hips. The motion made his arms curve most beautifully.

“How’s your eye?” I asked, trying not to stare at his broad, muscular chest.

“How does it look?” he grumbled.

Okay, so he wasn’t over that. “So, listen, we got off to a bad start,” I said with what I hoped was a rueful smile. From inside my house, Angus heard my voice and began barking with joy. Yarp! Yarp! Yarp! Yarpyarpyarpyarpyarp! “Can we start over? I’m Grace Emerson. I live next door.” I swallowed and stuck out my hand.

My neighbor looked at me for a moment, then came toward me and took my hand. Oh, God. Electricity shot up my arm like I’d grabbed a downed wire. His hand was most definitely a working-man’s hand. Callused, hard, warm…

“Callahan O’Shea,” he said.

Ohh. Oh, wow. What a name. Regions of my anatomy, long neglected, made themselves known to me with a warm, rolling squeeze.

Yarpyarpyarpyarpyarp! I realized I was staring at Callahan O’Shea (sigh!) and still holding on to his hand. And he was smiling, just a little bit, softening the bad-boy look quite nicely.

“So,” I said, my voice weak, letting go of his hand reluctantly. “Where’d you move from?”

“Virginia.” He was staring at me. It was hard to think.

“Virginia. Huh. Where in Virginia?” I said. Yarpyarpyarp yarpyarp! Angus was nearly hysterical now. Quiet, baby, I thought. Mommy’s lusting.

“Petersburg,” he said. Not the most vociferous guy, but that was okay. Muscles like that… those eyes… well, the unbruised, unbloodshot eye… if the other one was like that, I was in for a treat.

“Petersburg,” I repeated faintly, still staring. “I’ve been there. Quite a few Civil War battles down there. Assault on Petersburg, Old Men and Young Boys. Yup.”

He didn’t respond. Yarp! Yarp! Yarp! “So what were you doing in Petersburg?” I asked.

He folded his arms. “Three to five.”

Yarpyarpyarpyarp! “Excuse me?” I asked.

“I was serving a three-to five-year sentence at Petersburg Federal Prison,” he said.

It took a few beats of my heart for that to register. Ka-bump…ka-bump…ka… God’s nightgown!

“Prison?” I squeaked. “And um… wow! Prison! Imagine that!”

He said nothing.

“So… when… when did you get out?”

“Friday.”

Friday. Friday. He just got out of the clink! He was a criminal! And just what crime did he commit, huh? Maybe I hadn’t been so far off with the pit-digging after all! And I had clubbed him! Holy Mother of God! I clubbed an ex-con and sent him to jail! Sent him to… oh, God… sent him to jail the night after he got out. Surely this would not endear me to Callahan O’Shea, Ex-Con. What if he wanted revenge?

My breath was coming in shallow gasps. Yes, I was definitely hyperventilating a bit. Yarpyarpyarpyarpyarpyarp! Finally, the flight part of the fight or flight instinct kicked in.

“Wow! Listen to my dog! I better go. Bye! Have a good day! I have to… I should call my boyfriend. He’s waiting for me to call. We always call at noon to check in. I should go. Bye.”

I managed not to run into my house. I did, however, lock the door behind me. And dead bolt it. And check the back door. And lock that. As well as the windows. Angus raced around the house in his traditional victory laps, but I was too stunned to pay him the attention he was accustomed to.

Three to five years! In prison! I was living next to an ex-con! I almost invited him over for dinner!

I grabbed the phone and stabbed in Margaret’s cell phone number. She was a lawyer. She’d tell me what to do.

“Margs, I’m living next to an ex-con! What should I do?”

“I’m on my way into court, Grace. An ex-con? What was he in for?”

“I don’t know! That’s why I need you.”

“Well, what do you know?” she asked.

“He was in Petersburg. Virginia. Three years? Five? Three to five? What would that be for? Nothing bad, right? Nothing scary?”