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know what the situation is with our kids.”
    She nodded, and immediately came through with her stash of baggage. “My ex is Thom. He has regular visitation rights, although he only makes it half the time. I had a job in advertising—we lived downtown Chicago—but after the divorce… Well, Molly’s about to start preschool, so I figured it was time to move to the suburbs, settle where there were good schools and families and other kids for Molly to play with.” She added wryly, “To be honest, I’m finding the move a little bit of a culture shock.”
    â€œHey, you’re not alone. I never envisioned living in suburbia, either. But I felt the same, for Teddy’s sake. Wanted the kind of neighborhood where he could grow up, go out and play, meet other kids, do the good-school thing. And the clincher for me was living closer to his grandparents.” Abruptly hestraightened, as if he feeling he’d shared too much. Or that he’d found too much in common with her. “Well, I’d better—”
    â€œMe, too,” she said instantly, and did a quick U-turn with the cart. “I need to move on. Just remember, lasagna tomorrow. If you’re not there at five, I’ll just leave it on the front porch. See you later.”
    She couldn’t seem to escape the store that fast, though. She just seemed to need so much stuff. The weight kept adding up, for the bricks, the mulch, the stone. And once she hooked on to one of the store’s employees, she asked for his help picking out a lawn mower. All the bulky and heavy stuff had to be delivered; there was just no way she could get it in and out of her car.
    By the time she edged into the checkout line, her cart was full, and she was daydreaming about some lunch and a nap. As she reached down for her purse, though, she noticed something odd. The items she’d chosen had somehow changed. Somehow, the pink gardening gloves she’d chosen had metamorphosed into a heavier, ugly gray pair. The pretty little spade she’d picked out had turned into a set of gardening tools with sturdy steel handles. Instead of one shovel, there was now both a pointy shovel and a flat blade, neither particularly huge, but definitely sturdier than what she’d originally picked up.
    For a second, she thought she had the wrong cart, but there were so many other things that sherecognized—like the matching dishtowels and the porcelain drawer pulls and the shoe organizers and the picture-hanger doohickeys. She glanced behind her, around her. Mike was nowhere in sight. He’d undoubtedly long finished his shopping before she did.
    But he was the only soul in the universe—at least, that she could imagine—who would have done this to her.
    He couldn’t keep pulling this white-knight thing on her.
    This time, there would have to be serious payback.
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    Mike should have known that putting in the new faucet would turn into a federal project. Bad plumbing always led to more bad plumbing, even in a new place. Conceivably, the work was hampered by his being a lot better lawyer than he was a handyman. And by the dog, who wanted to sleep on his foot while he was lying on his back under the kitchen sink. And by Cat, who crawled up his leg and sat purring on his damned stomach while he was trying to wrench in the new connection.
    Several phone calls interrupted him, adding more complications to the sweat-fest chore. The first call, he jumped for—hit his head, then his elbow. But it was Teddy. “Hey, Dad. Grandma said to tell you I’m being good and she wants me to stay overnight.”
    Mike could hear the tiny wobble in his son’s voice. Teddy wasn’t comfortable, being away from him at night. At least for now. “Not overnight, sport. I want you home. But if grandma wants you to stay for dinner, you can.”
    His son ran off, then called back three minutes later. “Okay. I’m having