The Prodigal Valentine. Karen Templeton

him go, Luis,” his mother said softly. “He has to do this his own way.”

      Ben sent silent thanks across the kitchen, then left before his father’s confusion tore at him more than it already had.

      For maybe an hour, he walked around the neighborhood, his hands stuffed in his pockets, until the crisp, dry air began to clear his head, until the sun—serene and sure in a vast blue sky broken only by the stark, bare branches of winter trees—burned off enough of the fumes from the morning’s disastrous reunion for him to remember why’d he come home. That he’d made the decision to do so long before he’d gotten the call from his father, asking for his help.

      So even if everything he’d seen and faced and overcome during his absence paled next to the challenge of trying to piece together the real Ben out of the mess he’d left behind, he still felt marginally better by the time he turned back on to his parents’ block…just as Mercy’s garage door groaned open.

      From across the street, he watched her drag a small step stool outside, wrench it open. Now dressed in jeans and a bright red sweater small enough to fit one of his mother’s dogs, she plunked the stool down in the grass in front of her house. She jiggled it for a few seconds to make sure it was steady, then climbed and started to take down the single strand of large colored Christmas lights at the edge of the roof. In a nearby bald spot in the lawn, that Hummer-sized cat of hers plopped down, writhing in the dirt until Mercy yelled at it to cut it out already, she’d just vacuumed. Chastened, the beast flipped to its stomach, its huge, fluffy tail twitching laconically as it glared at Ben.

      Speaking of a mess he’d left behind. If he knew what was good for him, he’d keep walking.

      Clearly, he didn’t.

      “Need any help?”

      Mercy grabbed the gutter to keep from toppling off the step stool, then twisted around, trying her best to keep the And who are you again? look in place. But one glance at that goofy grin and her irritation vaporized. Right along with her determination to pretend he didn’t exist. That he’d never existed. That there hadn’t been a time—

      “No, I’m good,” she said, returning to her task, hoping he’d go away. As if. All too aware of his continued scrutiny, she got down, moved the step stool over, got back up, removed the next few feet of lights, got down, moved the step stool over, got back up—

      “Here.”

      Ben stood at her elbow, the rest of the lights loosely coiled in his hand. A breeze shivered through his thick hair, a shade darker than hers; the reflected beam of light from his own truck window delineated ridges and shadows in a face barely reminiscent of the outrageous flirt she remembered. Instead, his smile—not even that, really, barely a tilt of lips at once full and unapologetically masculine—barely masked an unfamiliar weightiness in those burnt wood eyes. An unsettling discovery, to say the least, stirring frighteningly familiar, and most definitely unwanted, feelings of tenderness inside her.

      She climbed down from the stool. “You started at the other end.”

      “Seemed like a good plan to me.”

      “Creep.”

      That damned smile still toying with his mouth, he handed the lights to her.

      On a huffed sigh, she folded up the stool and tromped back to the garage. The cat, wearing a fine coating of dirt and dead grass, followed. As did Ben.

      She turned. “If I told you to go away, would you?”

      He shrugged, then said, “How come you’re taking down your lights already? It’s not even New Year’s yet.”

      Mercy and the cat exchanged a glance, then she shrugged as well. “I have to help Ma take her stuff down on New Year’s day, I figured I’d get a jumpstart on my own, since the weather’s nice and all. And they’re saying we might have snow tomorrow. Although I’ll believe that when I see it. Not that there’s much. Which you can see. I still have my tree up, though—”

      Shut up, she heard inside her head. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Her mouth stretched tight, she crossed her arms over her ribs.

      “And why are you over here again?”

      “I’m not really over here, I’m out for a walk. But you looked like you could use some help, so I took a little detour. Damn, that’s a big cat,” he said as she finally gave up—since Ben was obviously sticking to her like dryer lint—and dragged a plastic bin down off a shelf, dumping the lights into it.

      “That’s no cat, that’s my bodyguard.”

      “I can see that.”

      Mercy glanced over to see the thing rubbing against Ben’s shins, getting dirt all over his jeans, doing that little quivering thing with his big, bushy tail. Ben squatted to scratch the top of his head; she could hear the purring from ten feet away. “What’s his name?”

      “Depends on the day and my mood. On good days, it’s Homer. Sometimes Big Red. Today I’m leaning toward Dumbbutt.”

      The cat shot her a death glare and gave her one of his broken meows. Chuckling, Ben stood and wiped his hands, sending enough peachy fur floating into the garage to cover another whole cat.

      “Because?”

      “Because he’s too stupid to know when he’s got it good. If he sticks around, he’s got heat, my bed to sleep in and all the food he can scarf down. But no, that would apparently cramp his style. Even though the vet swore once I had him fixed, he wouldn’t do that. She was wrong. Or didn’t take enough off, I haven’t decided. In any case, he periodically vanishes, sometimes overnight, sometimes for days at a time. Then he has the nerve to drag his carcass back here, all matted and hungry, and beg for my forgiveness.”

      Silence.

      “You wouldn’t be trying to make a point there, would you?”

      Mercy smiled sweetly. “Not at all.”

      “At least I’m not matted,” he said, his intense gaze making her oddly grateful the garage was unheated. “Or hungry. My mother made sure of that.”

      “How about fixed?”

      He winced.

      “Yeah, that’s what I figured.” She turned to heft the lights bin back up onto the shelf. “But you’re not getting back in my bed, either.”

      Funny, she would have expected to hear a lot more conviction behind those words. Especially the not part of that sentence.

      “I lost out to the cat?”

      There being nothing for it, Mercy faced him again, palms on butt, chest out, chin raised. As defiant as a Pomeranian facing a Rotty. “You lost out, period.”

      They stared at each other for several seconds. Until Ben said, “You know, I could really use a cup of coffee.”

      “I thought you were out for a walk?”

      “Turned out to be a short walk.”

      More gaze-tangling, while she weighed the plusses (none that she could see) with the minuses (legion) about letting him in, finally deciding, Oh, what the hell? He’d come in, she’d give him coffee, he’d go away (finally), and that would be that. She led man and cat into her kitchen, hitting the garage door opener switch on the way. Over the grinding of the door closing, she said, “I’m guessing you needed a break?”

      The corner of his mouth twitched. “You could say.”

      “I don’t envy you. God knows I couldn’t live with my parents again. What are you doing?”

      He’d picked up her remote, turned on the TV. “Just wanted to check the news, I haven’t seen any in days. You get CNN?”

      “Yeah, I get it. And you’re gonna get it if you turn it on.”

      On