Free Touch Me and Tango by Alicia Street, Roy Street

going?”
    “Weather’s clearing. We could go tomorrow.”
    “I can’t go Saturday or Sunday.”
    “Monday then. I’ll pick you up at six.”
    “In the morning?”
    “Pardon me, Princess. Make it nine.”

Chapter Eight

 
 
    After three days of rain and last night’s thunderstorm, the
sun returned bright and hot on Saturday. Perfect day for planting his peach
trees. Parker finished digging the last hole and wiped the sweat from his brow.
Lifting each young tree at the base where its roots were covered in a ball of
soil, he set them carefully into the ground.
    He’d always wanted an orchard. And even though his skimpy
row of fruit trees could hardly be called an orchard, he smiled in satisfaction
at his latest addition to “Parker’s Paradise,” as his sister liked to call the
dilapidated farm he was gradually turning into a home.
    He brushed his hands against his faded, grass-stained jeans,
grabbed a garden hose and doused his naked torso before watering the new tree.
At the sound of a car pulling up, Reef and Skipper went bounding off. The shift
in their barks told him it was someone they knew and liked. He tried not to
hope it was Tanya, but he couldn’t help himself. That same old thing was
happening again. He had to pry his mind away from thinking about her every
minute.
    “Well, if it isn’t Robinson Crusoe.” His sister Casey
strolled toward him on a gravel path he’d made between spirea and butterfly
bushes, Skipper and Reef loping at her side.
    “Watch what you call me, chubalug. I’ve got a high powered
water pistol in hand.” Parker knew some folks in town called him Robinson
Crusoe because he lived alone here and spent more time talking to plants than
to people. But he didn’t really care. This life suited him. He had a couple close
friends, a few women he dated. Made a decent living caring for people’s lawns
and creating gardens to make their yards look handsome. What more could he
want?
    He pushed away the thought that came roaring to the surface.
An image of the tiny box still sitting in his dresser drawer. It held the
diamond ring he’d scrimped and saved to buy Tanya over a decade ago.
    Casey patted her protruding belly. “Okay, so I’m jealous
because your all bronzed and diesel-cut while I’m just pasty and pregnant.”
    He grinned and gave his sister a quick hug. “Actually, you
look cute. Kind of like a walking corn muffin.”
    She poked him in the ribs. “How about some iced tea for the
fat lady?”
    “Coming right up.” He shut off the hose and sauntered into
his L-shaped house.
    Casey took a seat at a picnic table beneath a large oak.
When Parker returned with two tall glasses of iced tea, he noticed his sister’s
creased brow.
    “You look worried. Something you need?”
    “It’s not me, bro. It’s you I’m worried about.” She took the
glass he handed her. “Natalie told me you had lunch with Tanya Gentilliano and
seemed to be planning something together.”
    Parker shook his head and straddled the maple bench next to
her. “Natalie is such a gossip.”
    “You’re a fool if you start hooking up with her again.”
    “I’m not. I’m working for her mother. She has this… special
job.” Even if he hadn’t promised Eva to keep it a secret, he wasn’t keen on
telling his sister about the search for Harry Rubikoff’s steamer trunk.
    “Oh, please. Eva Gentilliano and her daughter think they can
cajole every man into—”
    “Not the mother. All those years I took care of their yard
she’d never been anything but kind to me. And when I saw her laid up in the
hospital she seemed sort of stressed and lonely.” He tried to keep his tone
light, but his decision to help Mrs. Gentilliano hadn’t come without some
internal questions of his own. He’d once sworn a bitter oath to never again set
foot on the Gentilliano property. And Casey knew it.
    “Tanya’s going to be here for quite a while.”
    He gazed up at the lime green buds on the tree overhead