Private Lives. Gwynne Forster

through the welded-wire fence and hook it with a heavy-duty padlock. He brushed something from his shorts and went back into the house without knocking.

      Allison looked up at him. “Mind if I clean my hands somewhere?” he asked, barely able to control his urge to laugh. “Oh, yeah, and if we’re going to have a picnic, please fix a couple of extra hot dogs. I’m starving,” he said over his shoulder, aware that he’d unsettled her.

      “Thanks for replacing the locks and fixing that fence,” she said, when he came out of the bathroom. “I feel a lot safer.”

      “My pleasure. If I were you, I wouldn’t leave food scraps in that trash can back there. It’s a good idea to put it on the road around nine in the morning. The garbage collector passes here at ten. You’ll attract fewer wild animals, although that’s hardly avoidable in the cold months.”

      “How long have you been coming up here?” she asked Brock.

      “This will be my sixth summer, but it’s the first time I planned to spend the winter here as well.”

      Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Why?”

      Brock explained that he was trying to finish a book, but didn’t tell Allison what it was about.

      “If you need peace and quiet while you write, this is definitely the place for it,” she said.

      He hated small talk and he could see that she was comfortable with it. “Want me to help you prepare the food? I’m handy in the kitchen.”

      “It’s about ready. I suspect you’re handy with a lot of things,” she said and winced, apparently realizing the embarrassing double entendre.

      He rewarded her with a grin and a wicked wink. “Like I said. I’m real handy around the house.” He would stop meddling with her if she’d come down off her high horse, but he had a feeling she didn’t plan to do that, so he said, “Are you going to make me call you Mrs. Sawyer forever? I’d be a lot more comfortable eating your hot dogs if you’d call me Brock.” He looked around. “Where’s Dudley?”

      “Out back on the deck with Jack. I’d better check. I don’t want Dudley near that fire.”

      “If he went too close to it, Jack would bark. My dog knows the danger of fire.” And he could feel a different kind of fire circling around them, hemming them behind an emotional barrier from which they might never escape.

      “Are you married?” he blurted out, even though he knew it wasn’t the time for that question.

      “Not any longer.” She looked up at him, open and vulnerable. “Are you?”

      “I’ve never been married.”

      “But you must be—”

      He interrupted her. “I’m thirty-four, and we’d better get to that picnic before things change here.”

      “Yeah.” She handed him a plastic tablecloth and napkins. “There’s a table on the deck,” she said, and headed for the kitchen. At least she hadn’t denied the heat between them.

      As he set the table, he marveled at Dudley’s affection for Jack and the gentleness with which the dog played with the child. “Don’t ever get rough with him, Dudley. Treat him the way you want him to treat you.”

      “Oh, I won’t hurt him, Mr. Lightner. He’s my friend.”

      Allison put strips of carrots, sliced tomatoes, warm hot dog rolls, potato salad and sliced hard-boiled eggs on the table, and removed the hot dogs and toasted marshmallows from the grill and put them on the table. She looked at him. “I don’t have any beer. Would you like some white wine?”

      “Thanks, but I don’t drink anything alcoholic midday. Lemonade or something like that will do the trick.” He didn’t say that he rarely drank anything, other than wine at dinner; for the time being, she’d learned enough about him. She brought iced tea for them and ginger ale for Dudley.

      “What can I give Jack?” Dudley asked them.

      He didn’t allow anyone to feed his dog, because he didn’t want Jack to obey anyone but him. “He’s not hungry. I fed him a short while before we left home.” He beckoned to Jack. “Sit here.” Jack settled on the floor beside Brock and closed his eyes.

      “We have raspberries for dessert,” she said and served them with a dollop of whipped cream. “I bought them yesterday morning, so they’re still fresh.”

      As he ate the berries, he looked at her, hoping for a hint as to the direction she wanted their relationship to take, but she looked everywhere except at him. He wished she wouldn’t be so nervous, that she’d feel comfortable with him. He figured that because she’d been married, at least long enough to produce a child, she should know how to hold her own with a man. He’d get to the bottom of that, but he sensed that she was not a worldly woman and he’d better tread with care. He took his plate to the kitchen, rinsed it and put it in the dishwasher. As he turned to leave the kitchen, he saw that Dudley had followed him.

      “Can I clean my plate, too, Mr. Lightner?”

      “Absolutely. Little boys should do everything they can to help their mother, and that includes obeying her.”

      “Yes, sir.” He stood on tiptoe to rinse the plate and then put it in the dishwasher. “Will you come to see us again, Mr. Lightner?”

      “If it pleases your mother, I will.” At that moment, he saw from his peripheral vision that she stood just behind him and made a snap decision to go home. He didn’t crowd women, especially if they weren’t on equal footing with him. He was in her house and he wanted her to know that he knew he didn’t belong there.

      “Thanks for your hospitality, Allison. If you need me for anything at all, you have my cell-phone number.” To Dudley, he said, “Be a good boy and obey your mother. Don’t go out of this house unless she’s with you. Got that?”

      “Yes, sir. I got that.” The boy hugged Jack and then looked up at him. He hunkered in front of the child and put his arms around him. “Thanks for inviting me to your picnic. I enjoyed it. Bye for now.” He stood, looked down at Allison, winked at her and left.

      Brock left Allison in a dilemma. If he’d moved to Indian Lake at the behest of her ex-husband, would he make it impossible for him to get into her house without her permission, and would he have to remain in that tiny hamlet for eight or ten months in order to accomplish his mission? It didn’t seem likely, but she had learned that Lawrence Sawyer would go to great lengths to get what he wanted. Brock Lightner had a worldly, almost jaded, demeanor that fascinated and excited her. Young, strong, muscular and sensitive, too. What was it like to have that kind of man make love to you?

      She’d married a man twenty-two years her senior. In her youthful innocence, their long and romantic walks in Washington, D.C’s Rock Creek Park had seemed idyllic. And his delight in reading to her beside her parents’ fireplace on cold evenings had seemed to her like domestic bliss. It had not occurred to her that his willingness to postpone sexual intimacy until after their marriage wasn’t necessarily a good thing; her married girlfriends didn’t discuss their sexual experiences with her. But once married, she learned that Lawrence considered sex his right no matter how she felt about it, and that in their bed, he took selfishness to the extreme. She bought some books on the subject and confirmed her belief that she wasn’t getting her due. He didn’t want children, and after she had Dudley, he showed no interest in her, other than to parade her at his social and business affairs. He had no patience with their son, and when Dudley should have been reprimanded or corrected, Lawrence abused him with physical punishment. Although she had long since stopped loving Lawrence and realized after little more than a year that their marriage could not last, it was for his treatment of Dudley that she divorced him.

      “Mommie, can Mr. Lightner come to see us again?” Dudley asked her, interrupting her reverie of the past. “I like Mr. Lightner.”

      “We’ll see,”