Page 9 of Trophy

On Sunday Allison woke up feeling good.

She’d had a great day with Vicki yesterday, and she felt like she’d almost recovered from the week before. Today she needed to work on her yard. It was looking worse than ever, and she really didn’t want the neighbors to be secretly complaining about her.

She also didn’t want Rob thinking she wasn’t capable of taking care of things on her own.

So after drinking a cup of coffee and catching up on her emails, she put on a pair of shorts and a black tank top and braided her hair to keep it out of the way.

There was an old riding mower in the shed, and she’d gotten gas for it on her way back into town yesterday.

If the mower still worked, she was going to cut her grass today.

She’d never cut grass before in her life, but the mower wasn’t difficult to operate.

It made some grumbling sounds when she started it, but the engine still worked.

She felt very strange as she climbed on and started to ride around.

She kept looking behind her to make sure the grass was actually getting cut.

She had no idea how to change the settings, so she kept everything exactly as it was.

When she’d mowed a line across her front yard and she could see the difference in the grass heights, she couldn’t help but feel a little thrill of victory.

Look at her. Allison Davies, formerly Collins. Mowing the grass.

The yard was pretty large, so she was grateful for the riding mower.

It would have taken her forever if she’d had to use a push mower, and she couldn’t imagine how tired she’d have been at the end of it.

As it was, she wasn’t tired at all when she finished the yard an hour later.

It wasn’t perfect, but it looked basically neat. Not bad for a beginner.

Since it was still just ten in the morning, she decided to tackle a few of the beds that were overgrown with weeds. She could at least do the two beds in the front of the house, which people would see when they drove by.

Pulling weeds wasn’t nearly as fun as mowing.

A lot of them were prickly, so she had to go back inside and spend twenty minutes looking for gloves.

She finally found a pair of leather riding gloves.

They didn’t fully stop the prickles, but they helped.

Some of the weeds were so big and deep that they were nearly impossible to get up, even when she tried to dig down to their roots.

She’d only worked for forty minutes and gotten half of one bed done when she was drenched in sweat and breathless, her thighs and back hurting.

Mowing had been a lot more fun.

“You want some help?” a voice came from behind her, startling her so much she jumped up from where she was leaning over, tugging at a stubborn weed.

It was Rob, of course, standing behind her in worn cargo shorts and a white T-shirt, looking like he hadn’t shaved. He was smiling, and she had the uncomfortable knowledge that her butt had been in the air, so he would have had a very good view of it.

“I’m fine,” she said with a smile. “Don’t you have your own yard work to do?”

Rob looked across the street at his perfectly manicured yard. “I think mine will do for the time being.”

Allison sighed and shook her head. She’d seen him working outside on his yard on a couple of evenings, and she couldn’t help but wonder how he had the energy. He must not be as tired as she was after a day of working.

“You did a good job mowing,” Rob said, eyeing her grass.

Allison felt a ridiculous bloom of pride at this compliment. “It was the first time I’ve ever done it.”

“Really?” He looked at her curiously.

He must think she was some kind of freak, twenty-seven years old and never having mowed a yard before. “I lived in downtown Charlotte,” she explained.

“Oh yeah, of course.” He glanced down at her hands. “You need better gloves for that.”

“I know. But I don’t have any.”

“I’ve got a spare pair. I’ll go get ’em.” He examined the little shovel she’d found in the shed. “I’ve got some other tools that might help too.”

Before she could tell him again she was fine on her own, he’d stridden back down her driveway and across the street.

He was dead set on helping her, and Allison told herself it was fine. It didn’t mean she was helpless or dependent. Rob was just being neighborly.

She did wish she looked a little more attractive, but she reminded herself that didn’t matter either.

She was still working on the same obstinate weed when he came back over with two pairs of thick gardening gloves, a pair of clippers, and a couple of other tools she didn’t recognize. He showed her how to use them, and she was delighted by how much easier it was to get up the big weeds.

They worked for about forty-five minutes, until both of the front beds were weeded.

They only talked about the work they were doing, with Rob giving advice on how to keep the weeds from coming back like this.

She was hot and exhausted when they were done, but she’d enjoyed working with him a lot more than she had the first forty minutes.

It was almost noon now, and the day had gotten a lot hotter.

Rob was sweating even more than she was, and he kept raising the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe the perspiration off his face.

Allison couldn’t help but see a tantalizing little trail of dark hair that led down beneath his low-riding waistband on his flat abdomen, although she immediately gave herself a mental lecture about looking.

“Do you want something to drink?” she asked as they took off their gloves, deciding it was only polite after he’d worked so hard on her yard.

“Sure. Thanks.”

It was only as they were going inside that Allison remembered Rob would see how empty her house still was, since she couldn’t get the rest of the furniture up from the basement.

Rob didn’t say anything as he accepted the water she offered him, but she could see him looking around. The kitchen connected to the dining room—which was empty except for a card table and two chairs—and off of that was a mostly empty living room.

He took a swig of water, turning his eyes back to her.

She waited for it, strangely nervous.

He finally said, “I thought you said you’d gotten the stuff from the basement.”

“I’d said I was fine and didn’t need you to help me.” She shouldn’t feel defensive but she did. She kept waiting for a condescending comment—like she’d always gotten from Arthur when she tried to do something he didn’t think she could do.

He lowered his eyebrows. “What’s still in the basement?”

“All kinds of stuff, but most of it I’m not bringing up. There’s a big ugly dining table and a monstrous china cabinet and a lot of stuff I just don’t need.”

“Is there a couch?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go haul it up, then.”

She stared at him. “You think you and I can do it?”

“Why not?” He looked bland, slightly curious, as if he couldn’t quite understand her.

She wasn’t at all confident in her ability to hold up half a couch, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “Okay. Let’s do it, then.”

They went down into the basement, and Rob looked around at the motley collection of furniture while Allison took the curtains and tablecloths off the couch so they could get at it. “So how are we going to do this?”

He showed her how to lift one side of the couch so she wouldn’t hurt her back, and then he went to get the other side. Allison was surprised how well she could carry it until they started going up the stairs.

Rob went first—and backward—but the strange angle and the need to watch where she was putting her feet made the task very difficult for Allison.

More than once she almost lost it, and once she had to call out for Rob to stop so she could lower the couch to the stairs and catch her breath.

He didn’t complain or patronize her, though—just occasionally gave her instructions about lifting it higher or turning it slightly.

And finally they managed to get it up the stairs.

After that it was no trouble to carry the couch into the living room and set it against the long wall that faced the windows. Allison was so breathless and exhausted that she collapsed onto the couch, wheezing. “I can’t believe I did that.”

Rob laughed, wiping his face. His eyes were softer than usual as they rested on her. “You’re a real trooper.”

She wasn’t sure what to make of that comment but decided it had to be a compliment. She remained sprawled out, trying to recover, while Rob went back down to the basement.

“What are you doing?” she called out.

He didn’t answer, but she saw the answer for herself when he came back up a few minutes later. He was walking slowly, and she saw why when he turned the corner into the living room, carrying a leather wingback chair.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, straightening up.

Before she could even get up, he was heading back down to the basement.

“Rob!” She stood at the top of the stairs looking down. “You don’t need to bring anything else up.”

“Just one more thing,” he replied, starting up the stairs with a small wooden television console that had been too heavy for her to move herself.

She watched him carrying it up. It didn’t even look like he was exerting much effort, but she knew for a fact how heavy that thing was.

He was slightly out of breath when he placed it against an empty wall and then leaned over to pick her TV up off the floor and set it on the console. “There,” he said, clearing his throat. “Now the room isn’t so empty.”

It looked a lot better now. Almost like a real room. Allison couldn’t help the surge of pleasure she felt at the sight. “Thank you,” she mumbled. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because it was my job.”

“But you couldn’t do it, and I could. No big deal.”

She let out a breath, telling herself not to make an issue about it. “Well, thanks,” she said, not knowing what else to say.