Jake stared at the wall in front of him. Next week, Zaney would be back to work and he’d have the demolition crews come in. Yeah, he’d have the crews come in, go do something else for a couple of days, and clear his mind of this stupid, crazy notion that anything could come from having a couple of things in common with a beautiful woman who lived in the Village.
He was revving up to abuse himself for being such an idiot all over again when he heard something that sounded like a body being dragged across the floor. What the hell was that? He turned abruptly and unexpectedly came nose to forehead with a round baldpate. Startled, he reared back a couple of steps.
“Well, what’s your name, son?” the old man standing before him asked.
“Uh . . . Manning. Jake Manning,” he stammered.
“You must be the contractor.”
“Yes,” he said, taking in the man’s siesta shirt and Forrest Gumperals.
The old man scratched his chest and peered up at the paned-glass window. “How much you charge?”
“Elmer!” A woman’s voice pierced Jake’s eardrum; she came rushing into the dining room from the kitchen. “Stop bothering that man!”
Elmer shook his head and shuffled out of the entry on a pair of enormous white sneakers. The old woman smiled and adjusted her thick glasses. “Mr. and Mrs. Stanton.” When Jake didn’t react to that, she added, as if he should already know, “We’re Robbie’s grandparents.”
“Ah. I thought you were burglars.”
Mrs. Stanton blinked. Then she laughed, her eyes crinkling very pleasingly beneath her cola bottle specs. “Did you hear that, Elmer? He thought we were burglars! Ha!”
“It’s not us he needs to worry about, is it? By the way, where is our little convict?” Mr. Stanton asked, then laughed loudly at his own joke. Jake was going to like the Stantons.
“She went out with a friend.”
“Lucy?” Mrs. Stanton asked as she set the grocery bag down on the dining table.
“No. A tall, blond woman.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Stanton clucked and shook her head in disgust. “Mia Carpenter!”
“Oh now, Lil, that’s been a good twenty years ago. You got to let bygones be bygones.”
A humph was all Mr. Stanton got in response. Mr. Stanton, incidentally, had already made his way back to where Jake was working. He stood, his hands clasped behind his back, peering closely at the solution Jake was using to clean the brick. “Did a little renovation myself when I was younger. Never had much talent for it. Now you, you’ve got talent. I guess you noticed that Robbie’s just like me, dumber than a hammer when it comes to stuff like this. I told her she couldn’t do this herself, and see if I wasn’t right. She damn near put a hole in every room before she finally gave up and hired you to do it.” The old man chuckled softly. “That girl’s been trying to tackle the world since she was a baby, and this is exactly what happens when she gets some wild hair up her—ah, nose. She leaves a mess a mile wide.”
Jake could definitely believe that was true.
“Elmer Stanton, come away from there and leave that man alone!” his wife insisted.
“Insufferable woman,” Elmer Stanton said cheerfully and shuffled away a second time.
When Mia saw the Ford Excursion in the driveway, she wiggled her fingers, engagement ring and all, toward the passenger door. “Hurry up and get out. I don’t want your grandma to see me.”
“God, Mia, that was twenty years ago,” Robin groused as she gathered her purse and bag from Jaeger, the shop to which Mia had forced her to go.
“It could have been a hundred years ago for all I care,” Mia snapped impatiently.
“You did wreck her new Buick,” Robin reminded her.
“Okay, but who in their right mind buys a Buick?” Mia argued. “Hurry up, hurry up! I don’t want to be late to the gym,” she added and shot Robin a sidelong glance. “You should really try and pay a visit to the gym, too.”
“Oh, thank you. Nice to know you are watching my butt for me,” Robin said and hoisted herself out of the Porsche, slammed the door, and adjusted her brand-new Hugo Boss shades to better glare at Mia. “I’ll call you later,” she said.
But Mia was already backing out of the drive, trying to get out before Grandma appeared in her Easy Spirits to kick a little ass. Robin watched her drive off, wincing at the screech of her tires, then turned and made her way up the drive.
As she approached the back of the house, she could see Grandpa on his knees in the backyard, his butt high in the air, busily digging. And there was Grandma, just around the corner of the guest house, pruning one of four azalea bushes they had obviously planted while she was gone, right where Robin imagined her pool would be.
“I was going to put my pool there!” she shouted at them.
“Hi, honey!” Grandma called cheerfully. “We planted some azaleas!”
Grandpa looked up from his digging. “Say, Robbie, how much is that fella in there charging you?”
“Okay! Well. Gotta get to work,” Robin responded nonchalantly and adjusted her grip on her shopping bag.