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numbers as she was with motors. She enjoyed cars; she didn't want to turn them into a job.
    She wheeled her lawn mower past her dad's car, taking care not to touch it. The canvas tarp protected it from the ground up, but she didn't take any chances where that car was concerned. Opening one of the garage doors only enough to let her get the lawn mower out, she ushered her new baby out into the sunlight. The red paint gleamed; the chrome handlebars glistened. Oh, it was pretty. At the last minute, she remembered something about the mowing ritual, and moved her car to the street; one had to be careful about accidentally slinging a rock that could break a window or chip a paint job. She looked at the jerk's car and shrugged; he might notice BooBoo's paw prints, but he'd never notice another dent in that thing. With a happy smile, she fired up the little motor. The thing about cutting grass, she discovered, was that you had an instant sense of achievement. You could see exactly where you had been and what you had accomplished. Her dad and David had always taken care of that chore when she was growing up, much to her relief, because mowing the lawn had looked boring. Only as she had grown older had she seen the lure of having your own grass, and now she felt as if she had finally, at the age of thirty, stepped into full adulthood. She was a home owner. She mowed her lawn. Cool.
    Something tapped her on the shoulder.
    She shrieked and released the lawn mower handles, jumping to one side and whirling to face her attacker. The mower stopped in its tracks.
    The jerk stood there, bloodshot eyes, snarl on his face, dirty clothes: his usual presentation. He reached over and slid the lever on the mower to the off position, and the efficient little engine growled to a stop.
    Silence.
    For about half a second.
    "What in hell did you do that for?" she roared, her face turning red with temper as she stepped closer, unconsciously balling her right hand into a fist. "I thought you were trying to quit cussing," he taunted. "You'd drive a saint to cussing!"
    "That let's you out, doesn't it?"
    "You're damn right!"
    He eyed her right hand. "Are you going to use that, or are you going to be reasonable?"
    "What –?" She glanced down and saw that her arm was half-cocked, her fist already drawn back. With great effort she uncurled her fingers. They immediately assumed the fight position again. She really, really wanted to slug him, and she got even angrier because she couldn't. "Reasonable?" she yelled, stepping even closer. "You want me to be reasonable? You're the one who scared the hell out of me and turned off my mower!"
    "I'm trying to sleep," he said, enunciating the words with clear pit stops between each one. "Is it asking too much for a little consideration?"
    She gaped at him. "You act as if I'm out here mowing at dawn. It's almost ten o'clock! And I'm not the only one who's committing the high crime of cutting grass. Listen," she commanded, as the muted roar of neighborhood mowers hummed up and down the street.
    "They aren't mowing right outside my bedroom window!"
    "So get in bed at a decent hour. It isn't my fault you stay up most of the night!"
    His face was getting as red as hers. "I'm on a task force, lady! Irregular hours are part of the job. I sleep when I can, which, since you moved in, hasn't been very damn often!" She threw up her hands. "All right! Fine! I'll finish the job tonight, when it cools down." She made a shooing motion. "Just stagger on back to bed. I'll go inside and sit for the next eleven hours. Or will that disturb your beauty rest, too?" she inquired sweetly.
    "Not unless you have firecrackers in your ass," he snapped, and stalked back into his house.
    There was probably a law against throwing rocks at someone's house, she thought. Fuming, she wheeled her lawn mower back into the garage, carefully padlocked the doors, then retrieved her car from the curb. She'd like to show him what she could do with a few