He loved bicycling. In LA, this had been one of his favorite exercises, taking his bike down to the beach paths and riding up and down the coast. This wasn’t quite the same as a good, hard workout. He had to ride at a pace slower than a snail stuck in peanut butter and maintain a careful eye on them at the same time, but he enjoyed it nonetheless.
“Do you have the package, Z?” he asked his daughter.
She gestured to her basket. “I’ve got it here. It’s all wrapped up.”
Andrew was aware of a tingle of awareness as they biked several houses down on their way to Rosie’s place.
He had only seen her sporadically since the party. She had stopped at Stormhaven a few times to check on the progress, but he had either been away from home or up in his office.
He wasn’t sure how but since she had taken over managing his renovation, the pace of the work seemed to have accelerated dramatically. At this rate, he hoped the house would be done in the next month, right around the time his book was due to his publisher.
“I hope she’s home,” Zara said.
“If she’s not, we’ll simply keep bike riding and stop on our way back.”
Their plan had been to head to a park on the other side of town they hadn’t yet visited, one he had heard had a fun playground as well as an easy path down to the beach.
Mostly, he wanted to take advantage of the nice weather to explore their surroundings. They crested the hill toward Rosie’s house and drove up her driveway. As they did, several chickens scurried out of their way.
“I hope Dottie is around,” Zara said. “She’s the funniest dog.”
Rosie’s little Dottie might quite possibly be the ugliest dog Andrew had ever seen, with her wispy fur and squat body, but somehow she was still adorable in spite of it. Or maybe because of it.
“I get to ring the doorbell,” Finn said, carefully grabbing the package out of Zara’s basket with both hands.
“Not if I get there first,” Zara said. She raced up the porch steps, but before she could ring the bell, Andrew heard a sound from around the side of the house.
Someone was singing. It was Rosie, he realized, singing along to a nineties pop group he remembered well, in a sweet alto voice.
He didn’t want to surprise her, but if she had headphones on, she wouldn’t hear them anyway.
“Guys, it sounds like she’s in the backyard. Let’s go around and find her.”
His children eagerly agreed and headed in that direction. The chickens seemed interested in their goings-on and followed close behind them. Zara was nervous about them, but Finn seemed completely comfortable.
When they rounded the house, they found her kneeling by one of her flower gardens, pulling weeds and deadheading old blooms.
“Hi, Rosie!” Finn exclaimed. She didn’t hear, so the boy moved closer. “Hi, Rosie!”
She squealed and whirled around, dropping her hand tools in the dirt. “Oh my word! You scared the life out of me.”
“Sorry,” Andrew said. “We tried to make noise so you’d hear us, but you seemed preoccupied.”
A hint of color crawled up her cheeks. She looked fresh and lovely, so pretty he wanted to simply stare at her.
He was fiercely drawn to her and wished he dared pull his phone out and take a picture of her, right here in her garden, surrounded by flowers and sunshine.
“We brought you a present,” Finn said. “I made it myself.”
“A present! That’s so kind of you.” She rose with a puzzled expression.
“This is completely Finn’s idea. He did all the heavy lifting. Zara and I just rode along.”
“Thank you,” she said, still looking confused as she accepted the hastily wrapped gift Finn handed to her.
“At art camp, we had to make a sculpture from clay. I didn’t know what to make and the teacher said I could make something for someone else who did something nice for me.”
“Okay,” she said slowly, looking no less baffled.
