Bonnie busied herself with setting the table, her mind tumbling with this information. She trusted her husband's instincts-always had-so if Ned said Joe Mills was a cop, he was probably a cop.

But then that meant Joe Mills had lied to everyone. She set out two napkins and two sets of silverware. That meant he wasn't the man he proclaimed to be. That meant he might not be the safest person to be living next to Charlotte and the kids.

Yes, Bonnie had promised Charlotte she would never breathe a word of what had happened thirteen years ago, but if Ned was right, what was the responsible tiling to do?

"So, honey…" She brought two steaming bowls of soup to the table and passed the plate of corn bread to Ned. She watched him slather the triangle with cholesterol-free spread. "Do you think Joe Mills might be hiding something? Like the real reason he's here?"

Ned took a huge bite and shrugged. "Hell if I know."

Bonnie brought the soupspoon to her mouth and took a sip. She was aiming for a casual tone of voice but didn't know if she could hide her anxiety from the man who knew her so well. "I just wonder, honey…"

Ned was dipping his corn bread into his soup. "About what?"

"Well, that maybe Joe Mills's real reason for being here is to be near Charlotte."

Ned stopped dipping and looked across the table at his wife. "Go on."

"Well, I think they might have met each other a long time ago." Bonnie waved her spoon through the air. "I think I remember Charlotte saying something or other about that" She took another sip of soup, cringing when she heard the seriousness of Ned's voice.

"Let's have it, Bon "

"Oh, I can't!" Bonnie jumped up from her seat, the ladder-back chair scraping along on the floor. She pulled her arms around herself, her back to Ned. "It's just that now I'm worried that it isn't a coincidence."

"When did she meet him?"

"Thirteen years ago, right before she graduated from nursing school in Maryland." Bonnie turned back to Ned. "Right before Kurt proposed to her."

Ned frowned but still ate. "I'm listening."

"They didn't exchange names."

Ned looked up at Bonnie with a quizzical expression. "You mean they passed each other in a 7-Eleven or something?"

"Well, no. Not exactly."

"Did they have some kind of fling or something?"

"I can't really say."

Ned laughed, corn-bread crumbs dribbling into his soup. "This sounds hot."

"Ned, it's Charlotte's private business. I'm just worried about her-why that man is really here." Ned put down his spoon. "So how hot was it?" Bonnie bit her lip. "Side-of-the-road hot"

"What?" Ned stopped chewing and blinked. "Are we talking about Charlotte Tasker, the good girl we know and love?"

"The same."

"And she's sure it was him?"

Bonnie nodded soberly. "Oh, my. She's sure."

Charlotte checked her watch. She had fifty-two minutes until she had to pick up the kids at school, and with a quick survey of the yard she calculated she could finish mowing and still have time to use the power trimmer along the driveway.

It was truly hot today-the first hot day of spring- and the sun felt deliriously good on her skin. She checked her chest to make sure she wasn't getting red, hoping the SPF 20 would do the trick, and could almost hear the freckles popping to life between her boobs. She adjusted the cups of her swimsuit top for modesty's sake.

Charlotte bumped along, rock music blaring from her earphones, and she grinned with pleasure. She didn't mind mowing the lawn. Kurt had always done it, so she'd only recently discovered how relaxing it was. It was like meditating, only with engine noise. And what a sense of accomplishment a freshly mown lawn provided! All those straight green rows! It was infinitely more satisfying than housework. With housework, no matter how many hours you put in, the kids could erase any evidence of your labor in minutes. But lawns stayed mown up to a whole week! Not even two kids and a dog could unmow a lawn.

Charlotte breathed deep, loving the smell of cut grass, the feel of the sweat beading on her forehead under the brim of her ball cap. As she rounded the side of the utility shed, she cocked her head in surprise. Now that was odd-what in the world had happened to her honeysuckle bush?

Charlotte turned off the riding mower, pulled off her headset, and charged over toward the flowering vines. It looked like it had been run over. Mutilated.

She stomped into the Connors' yard and bent down for a closer examination. At least half of it had been chopped to the stalks!

"Sorry about the bush."

Charlotte jumped. She spun around, saw Joe, and immediately checked to see if he was armed. No gun today. Then she checked to see if LoriSue was with him. She wasn't. Then she let her eyes move to his face. And she stared at him in awe.

The man standing there in the sunshine, his hands at his sides, his bare toes wriggling in the grass, was indeed the man she'd known all those years ago. But he was no longer young. His eyes were deeper. They had mellowed. They were maybe just a little sad.

Joe smiled, and she tried to place what was different about that smile. Maybe it was the addition of the little goatee, which provided a neat frame around that wide, provocative mouth of his. She liked it In fact, Charlotte could still feel how the short whiskers had brushed against her lips when he kissed her. The longer hair that curled at the nape of his neck and behind his ears-that suited him, too. It gave him that just-rolled-out-of-the-sacklook.

Talk about overkill.

This man seemed so out of place just inches away from her, right there in broad daylight. She was used to seeing him only in the dark recesses of her imagination, at night, through a fog of desire.

"You've got a nice singing voice, Charlotte."

"Huh?"

"Just now. When you were mowing."

"You could hear me sing over the mower? I had no idea I was that loud."

Joe's mouth quirked into a half smile. "Well, I couldn't tell if it was Ozzy Osborne or the Osmonds, but I heard you all right."

Charlotte became painfully aware of her own clothing choice for the afternoon: denim cutoffs, grass-stained sneakers, a pink bikini top, and Hank's yellow Minton Little League hat. She didn't know what to do with her hands, so she grabbed onto a decapitated honeysuckle twig,

"You did this to my bush?

He winced. "Sorry about that."

"But I love honeysuckle! Why did you do that?"

Joe took a step closer to her. "Do you have a minute?

"For what?" She watched him run a hand through his hair like he was mustering his courage. It seemed that thirteen years ago he'd been a hell of a lot more sure of himself than he was today.

'Talk. I think maybe I need to explain something to you."

"Explain what? LoriSue's little welcome-to-the-neighborhood visits?"

He tilted his head and stared at her. "You know about those?"

Charlotte was getting steamed. "Sure do, Joe. I saw her leaving your place yesterday. Hope you're getting everything you want."

Joe chuckled and shrugged. "It's generous of her, I suppose, but I can't use half of what she's giving me."

Charlotte let out a loud hoot, amused at what an insensitive jerk her fantasy boy had turned out to be. It didn't seem to bother him one bit that he'd pushed her away and then turned right around and done the deed with Lori Sue! What had happened between them thirteen years ago meant nothing to him, obviously. It was a godsend that LoriSue got to him first, because the guy was bad news.

Not to mention that he was a liar-Charlotte knew too well that Joe Mills could handle anything a woman might give him.

Joe shrugged. "I mean, a man can only take so much chutney."