Page 11

B link, you fool, blink!

Nico’s eyelids would not cooperate. He’d only meant to keep Ginny from clonking her stubborn noggin on the ground, but his simple chivalry was about to doom him entirely.

Before now, he’d been so fixated on the millions she might cost him that he’d only allowed himself cursory glances her way.

Whenever he’d looked directly at her, she’d been smirking or rolling her eyes or saying something to piss him off.

Sure, he’d been aware she was cute (as Monique and her brother had each taken pains to point out), but only in the way a barking chihuahua is cute.

But with their faces this close, and with her expression so unguarded, it was like seeing her for the first time.

And truly, the word “cute” might as well be struck from the English language as be applied to Ginny Heppner.

She was a breathtaking, one-in-a-million, natural beauty—not standard beautiful, but uniquely beautiful.

Her almond-shaped eyes were the green of a clear woodland pool.

Her skin velvet perfection. Her well-defined lips had a delicate pout and the sweet pink freckles dusting her nose begged to be kissed…

one at a time. He had never been attracted to freckles before on anyone, but in that moment, he couldn’t promise to stop himself from attempting a tiny peck.

Could he pretend it was accidental? A brush of his nose?

Fortunately for him, his dignity, and his business prospects, she was the one to blink, breaking the spell.

“Are you okay?” he asked as time resumed moving in a forward direction and he began pivoting her chair back upright.

As soon as her feet neared the ground, she hopped from the chair so fast it looked like she’d received an electric shock. “I’m fine.” Her cheeks pinked as she added, “Guess I should have listened to you this time.”

He returned the chair to its original spot, then sat down and wiggled his weight around in it, checking its stability. “What I was trying to say was, the lawn is like Swiss cheese except for right along the sidewalk here.”

She looked around at the grass, then pressed her toe into a little mound, which flattened easily. The lawn was so full of little hillocks it would’ve made a perfect dirt bike track for motorcycle-riding mice. “Guess I’ve got a few moles.”

“A few? You’ve got a metropolis.” He stood up, then moved over and lowered himself carefully into the lefthand chair. “But they’ve probably been here at least five years so…squatter’s rights, huh?”

A wave of panic shuddered through him. Why had he gone and said that? His little “joke” was going to send her huffing back into his house with a slam of his front door.

But instead, she sat down and offered him the impish smile that was fast becoming her trademark.

“Absolutely, they do. Did you know that the first known mammal was a little mole-like creature? Morganucodon. They predate us by over 150 million years, which I’d say gives them squatters rights to everything. ”

Nico gave a hearty laugh of relief as he reached for the cooler to the left of his chair. “You are full of surprises.” Opening the lid, he pulled out the packages of veggie dogs and set them on the table between them.

Without being asked, she picked up one of the packages and started pulling at a corner to open it. “What surprises?”

“I was afraid my snark might have offended you, but instead you come at with me with a bit of evolutionary trivia!”

“I can take a joke. I can even take a prank…” The little pink tip of her tongue protruded from the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on the veggie dog package.

“…when I’m not being threatened.” She struggled a few more moments with the plastic before tossing it back onto the table with a grunt of frustration.

“What I can’t do is open these veggie dogs without scissors! ”

Nico reached for it. “Allow me, m’lady.” He placed his thumbs and forefingers onto the corner she’d already worked a little free and gave it a tug—too strong a tug.

“Oh!” he exclaimed as rubbery, imitation meat tubes filled the air.

They rained into the grass and bounced along the sidewalk like children’s toys.

Ginny began to giggle, then to laugh. She laughed so hard she nearly fell out of her chair, but this only made her laugh harder. The tinkly freeness of it invaded Nico’s brain like confetti hitting a fan, and he started to laugh too.

They continued laughing as they searched around on their hands and knees, squashing mole hillocks as they collected the free-range veggie dogs. Nico couldn't remember the last time he’d laughed so hard. It was probably the last time his family had lived all together in this house.

“Guess these are the ones our furry friends are getting,” she said from somewhere behind him.

He turned his head as he started to reply, but his words caught in his throat when she came into view.

Face radiant from laughter and lit by the golden lowering sun and the flickering flames, she knelt in the grass, a bouquet of plant-based spam clutched in her outstretched hands as if they were rare, exquisite flowers.

It made Nico think of some modern version of an old Dutch painting: Peasant Girl with Veggie Dogs .

Soon the bucolic scene contained a real dog, who had once again vaulted over the fence. Nico just had time to yank the dirt-coated doggy treats from Ginny’s grasp and hold them high out of its reach.

“Should we wash them?” he said, while the dog tried in vain to climb his legs.

Ginny stood up. “Nah. Dirt is one of their favorite food groups.”

Together, they fed wieners to the dogs, making sure everybody got the same number.

“But now I’m scared to open the ones we’re supposed to be eating,” Nico said as the white dog chomped down her last treat.

“We could get some scissors from inside,” Ginny said.

Nico looked over at her with one raised eyebrow. Did she mean they could both go and get the scissors? Even a quick look around inside the house would be a start to maybe finding it…

But she corrected herself. “I mean, I can get some scissors. Be right back.”

By the time she returned, he’d gotten everything else for their dinner out and ready, including a container of potato salad, another of fresh berries, and a selection of beverage options.

They opened and skewered their veggie dogs in relative silence, then sat in their chairs as they held them over the fire.

The recent Santa Ana had scrubbed the skies clean, and the night was crystal clear.

Stars began popping out all over with unusual brightness for Los Angeles.

In the grass nearby, the dogs lay in a pile.

The muted roar of the nearby freeway was frequently interrupted by grunts and snores of happy doggy satisfaction.

Ginny checked her veggie dog for doneness, then returned it to the fire. “It’s stupid embarrassing how much I’m enjoying a cookout in my front yard.”

“Why embarrassing?”

“I mean, we're surrounded by chain link fences and dilapidated houses but, I can’t help it. It’s been years since I sat around a fire.

My dad used to insist we all go camping twice a summer.

He was about as organized as me, so there was always something essential that he forgot, but that only made it more fun.

One year we spent a whole evening whittling spoons so we’d be able to eat our morning oatmeal.

Another time we fell asleep in the car making up stories about how happy our tent was that it got to stay home. ”

A flame licked at Ginny’s veggie dog, and it caught fire. “Oh, watch out,” Nico said, gesticulating toward it.

“Oops!” she said and laughed as she pulled it away. “Guess it’s done now!”

“You can donate it to the dogs.”

She slipped the partially charcoaled wiener into a waiting bun and began adding ketchup. “It’s fine. I love the way imperfection tastes.”

“Well, okay then,” he said, wondering what the heck that meant as he pulled his perfectly browned link from the fire. “But, somehow, I can’t imagine Monique camping.”

“When we were little, we all enjoyed it, but the older she got, the more she seemed to dislike it,” Ginny said around a mouthful of her dinner. “By the time she was a teenager, she hated it. Spent most of her time in the car reading. Now she hates nature in general.”

“I guess that gave you more quality time with your dad, though.”

“I had my mom and younger sister too.”

“You have another sister?”

“I do. You actually know her. You just don’t know that you know her.”

Nico froze, his fully loaded veggie dog midway to his mouth. “Oh, no,” he groaned. “Is she my accountant? My home insurance agent? Do you Heppner sisters secretly run my life?”

Ginny laughed again. She laughed a lot, Nico was realizing, and her laugh was relaxed and easy, not forced or anxious. “Nothing like that. You know her because she’s famous. My little sister is Sadie Mason.”

“The surfer movie actress?”

“The very one. She took Grant’s last name.”

He sat back in his plastic chair hard enough to make it creak in complaint. “Wow. So, like, your older sister is this high-powered attorney, and your younger sister is a Hollywood up-and-comer, and?—”

She slid gaze toward him. “And I’m the loser filling in an overachievement sandwich?”

He sat forward again, his eyebrows tented together in worry and alarm. “No, I didn’t mean that.”