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help you?”
    The man smiled quizzically. “Um, well, not to be rude, but, uh, you can tell me what you’re doing in my house.” He was tall and incredibly good-looking, with thick black hair and green eyes with such dark lashes it looked as if he’d used eyeliner.
    “
Your
house? This is
our
house.”
    The man was young, younger than Sophie, and his clothes gave him an adolescent air, especially his rumpled T-shirt printed with the slogan
Geeks Do It with More Ram.
Politely, he inquired, “This house is the old Swenson guest cottage, right?”
    “It is. I’m renting it from Susie Swenson.”
    “Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere. I’m renting it from Ivan Swenson. Susie and Ivan are cousins. And not particularly communicative with each other, it seems.”
    Sophie stared speechlessly. Her unexpected piano tsunami had flushed away her usual, Capable Mommy persona. It didn’t help that the young man was jaw-droppingly handsome. She had to turn her eyes away from him in order to think. Her children frowned at her. “Maybe I’d better join you in the living room. We need to sort this out.”
    “Good idea.” The man approached Sophie with his hand held out, his small son clinging to his leg and gawking wide-eyed at Sophie as if she might explode at any moment. “I’m Trevor Black. From Boston. This is my son, Leo.”
    Trevor Black was relaxed, easy in his body, present but not pressing. Zack always came on strong—the blazing smile, the hearty greeting. Trevor’s hand was a bridge, not a rope to jerk her into Zack’s realm. She lightly touched his palm, and her heart leapt in her chest. Oh, good. She was physically attracted to some random young guy right in front of her children. Nice.
    She knew her cheeks were scarlet. She withdrew her hand and summoned up any dignity she could find. “Sophie Anderson, also from Boston. This is Jonah and Lacey. Come on, kids. Let’s all sit down and talk.” She gestured toward the living room like Vanna White, feeling silly.
    They sat on facing sofas. Lacey was almost on top of Sophie while Jonah, obviously embarrassed by his mother, sat at the end. Across from them, Trevor sat with his son squeezed next to him, leg to leg.
    “Where should we start?” Sophie asked.
    Trevor said, “I guess the first question to ask is whether or not you have some kind of legal contract.”
    It was as if the man had thrown a glass of ice water in her face. “Legal contract?”
    From his end of the sofa, Jonah muttered,
“Mom.”
    “Mommy!” wailed Lacey. “We haven’t even been to the beach.”
    Trevor held up his hands, palms out, reassuringly. “Hey, it’s okay—I don’t have a legal contract, either. Ivan phoned me from London and we made a verbal agreement for me to rent the house for two months this summer. All I have is a copy of the wire transfer of the money I paid him.”
    “All I have is a copy of the check I sent Susie,” Sophie admitted.
    Trevor frowned. “It looks like it’s up to us to come up with some sort of compromise. Like, you could have the house for July and I could have it for August. Except I’ve kind of given my apartment to someone for both months.”
    Sophie went numb. She didn’t want to discuss the sordid details of her marriage with this stranger, especially not in front of the kids.
    Leo whispered in Trevor’s ear. Trevor nodded.
    “We need to use the bathroom.”
    “I’ll take him,” Lacey offered.
    “Thanks, but I think I’d better do it. Can you tell me where it is?”
    Like a good miniature tour guide, Lacey announced, “There’s a bathroom off the kitchen on the first floor, and a cute one squeezed into the space beneath the staircase, but if you want more privacy, there are lots of bathrooms upstairs.”
    Trevor smiled. “Thanks.” Holding his son’s hand, he left the room.
    “Mom, what are we going to do?” Lacey asked.
    Jonah had sunk into himself, chewing on a thumbnail, staring at the floor.
    Sophie thought aloud,