Husband Under Construction. Karen Templeton

top, Noah snorted. “Roxie? Doubt she even likes me.” Which, judging from her reaction to him the few times they’d run into each other since her return to Tierra Rosa a few months back, probably wasn’t that far from the truth.

      Never mind that the first time Noah’d clapped eyes on her he’d felt as if somebody’d clobbered him with a telephone pole. A reaction he’d never had to another female, ever. He didn’t understand it, he sure as hell didn’t like it, and no way was he about to admit that after a lifetime of rushing headlong into potential danger without a second thought—or, in most cases, any thought at all—the idea of working with Roxanne Ducharme made him break out in a cold sweat.

      “There some reason you get up her nose?” Gene said, in the long-suffering way of a man whose sons had more than tested the concept of unconditional love.

      “Not that I can recall.” Which was the truth. And you’d think her completely unexplained antipathy would at least somewhat mitigate the telephone-pole-upside-the-head thing. You’d be wrong.

      “Not even back in high school?” said Mr. Dog-with-a-Bone across from him, and Noah thought, And you’re going down this road why? They were talking a dozen years ago, for cripes’ sake.

      “She was only there for that one year. And ahead of me at that.”

      “Never mind that you lived right across the street from each other.”

      “Doesn’t matter.” Noah handed back the open bottle, thinking that even with his crazy schedule back then, working afternoons and weekends at the shop whenever he didn’t have practice or a game, he must have seen her at some point. But damned if he could remember. “I doubt we exchanged two dozen words the entire time. She’s a potential client,” he said, directly meeting his father’s eyes. “Nothing more.”

      After an I-wasn’t-born-yesterday look, Gene tipped the bottle into his palm, shook out a couple of antacids. “Just remember—” he popped a pill into his mouth, crunched down on it “—the past always comes back to bite us in the butt.”

      Meaning, Noah wearily assumed, the string of admittedly casual relationships which somehow translated in his father’s mind into Noah’s overall inability to commit to anything else. Like, say, the business. Noah’s knowing it backward and forward—having never worked at anything else from the time he was fourteen—apparently counted for squat.

      Before he could point that out, however, Gene said, “Now, if you want to get Eli in on this one, too—”

      “Forget it, Eli’s so sleep-deprived on account of the new baby he’s liable to pass out on Charley’s sofa. Dad, I can handle it. And hey—what’s up with popping those things like they’re candy? You okay?”

      Rubbing his breastbone, Gene softly belched before palming the few valiant, light brown strands combed over an age-spotted scalp. “Other than having two weeks’ worth of work left on a project due in six days? Sure, couldn’t be better. That burrito I wolfed down an hour ago isn’t doing me any favors, either.” Then he sighed. “And your mother’s about to drive me nuts. And don’t you dare tell her I said that.”

      Aside from the fact that his parents’ making each other nuts was probably the glue holding their marriage together, considering how aggravated Noah was with his father for refusing to admit he needed help, he could only imagine how his mother felt. Still, sometimes playing dumb was the smartest choice. “About what?” he asked mildly.

      Gene pulled a face. “About taking some time off.” Releasing another belch, he rattled the Tums. “Days like this, a guy needs his buddies. But it’s not like this is the first tight deadline I’ve pulled off.”

      “And if you don’t start taking better care of yourself it might be your last.”

      “Oh, Lord, not you, too—”

      “You even remember the last time you went on vacation?”

      “Sure. When we went to visit your mother’s sister in Dallas. Couple years ago.”

      “Five. And visiting family does not count. And you called home a dozen times a day to check up on things.”

      “I did not—”

      “Got the cell phone records to prove it. And anyway, whether you think you need down time or not, you ever stop to think maybe Mom might like to get away? With you? Alone?”

      After giving Noah a “Who are you?” expression, Gene grunted. “Donna’s never said one word to me about wanting to go anywhere.”

      “When does Mom ever ask for anything for herself?” Noah shot back, suddenly annoyed with both of them, for loving too much and asking too little and putting up with far more crap from their kids than any two parents should have to. At which point he wasn’t sure who he was, either. “Frankly, I don’t think she even remembers how. If she ever did.” Emotion clogged Noah’s throat. “Yeah, she’s worried about you. With good reason, apparently,” he said, nodding toward the Tums.

      Father and son exchanged a long look before Gene said, “I had no idea you cared that much.”

      Honest to God. “Maybe if you looked past your own issues with me every once in a while,” he said softly, “you would.”

      Leaning back in his chair again, Gene regarded Noah with thoughtful eyes, as a light November snow began to halfheartedly graze the grimy office window. Then, on a punched-out breath, he said, “I just don’t understand—”

      “I know you don’t. And sometimes I’m sorry for that, I really am. Other times…well. It’d be nice if you’d find it in yourself to accept that I’m not like you. Or the others. Now,” he slipped his hands into his front pockets, “what time’s that appointment? At Charley’s?”

      After another long moment, his father said, “Two.”

      Noah checked his watch, then snatched his worn leather jacket off the rack by the office door, grabbed a clipboard from the table under it. “Then I’d better get going.”

      As he walked away, though, his father called behind him, “You call me if you’ve got any questions, any questions at all. You hear?”

      Only, as he struck out for Charley’s house—barely two blocks from the shop—the glow from the small victory rapidly faded, eclipsed by the reality of what he’d “won.”

      Lord, Roxie would probably laugh her head off—assuming she’d find humor in the situation at all, which was definitely not a given—if she knew Noah’s brain shorted out every time he saw her.

      That his good sense had apparently gone rogue on him.

      Not that Noah had anything against family, or kids, or even marriage, when it came down to it, he thought as he rounded the corner and headed up the hill he and his brothers had sledded down a million times as kids. For other people. If his brothers and parents were besotted with wedded bliss, cool for them. As for his nieces and nephews…okay, fine, so he’d kill for the little stinkers. But since, for one thing, he’d yet to meet a gal who’d hold his interest for longer than five minutes, and for another, he was perfectly okay with that, his reaction to Roxanne Ducharme was off-the-charts bizarre.

      God knows, he had examples aplenty of healthy, long-term relationships. Knew, too, the patience, unselfishness, dogged commitment it took to keep a marriage afloat. Thing was though, the older he got, the more convinced he became he simply didn’t have it in him to do that.

      To be that, he thought with another spurt of gut juice as he came to Charley’s dingy white, 1920s-era two-story house, perched some twenty feet or so above street level at the top of a narrow, erratically terraced front yard. In the fine snow frosting the winter-bleached grass and overgrown rosebushes, it looked like a lopsided Tim Burtonesque wedding cake. Even through the snow, the house showed signs of weary neglect—flaking paint, the occasional ripped screen, cement steps that looked like something big and mean and scary had used