Free Love, Suburban Style by Wendy Markham Page A

as I could,” she says briefly, and reaches for the doorknob. “Oh, careful when we go in… I don’t want my cat to escape.”
    “Cat?” He doesn’t exactly make a face, but…
    “You don’t like cats?”
    Sam shakes his head with an unapologetic, “Nope.”
    A-ha! Definite deal breaker.
    Even if Sam Rooney
did
turn out to be single and available—which he probably isn’t—she could never fall in love with a man who doesn’t like cats.
    Fall in love?
    Who said anything about love?
    You’re not allowed to fall in love.
    Or even think about falling in love. Remember?
    Yeah, well, anyway…
    He’s probably married.
Is
he married?
    “Do you want to let your wife know where you are, or anything?” she offers lamely.
    A strange look comes across his face. It takes him a moment to say, “My wife is… I’m not married.”
    He’s not married.
    But he hates cats.
    But he’s not married.
    But she’s sworn off men like him. Charming, gorgeous men who can cause her to lose her head and her heart—and, ultimately, her mind.
    She can’t risk investing her emotions in another dead-end relationship. She’s gone more than six months without falling in love, and six months without anyone breaking her heart.
    It feels good. It feels healthy. She feels strong and independent at last.
    So she’s going to stick to her resolution.
    Balancing her box on her raised knee propped against the jamb, Meg opens the door wide.
    No sign of Chita Rivera.
    She looks at Sam. “Come on in.”
    “Ladies first.”
    She shakes her head and smiles slightly. “Men bearing enormously heavy boxes first.”
    Watching Sam Rooney cross the threshold into her new home, Meg can’t help but wonder just what she’s gotten herself into.
    Sam is about to unload the last box from the van in the pouring rain when he hears tires splashing down the street behind him.
    Turning around, he sees the familiar domed Park Pizza roof sign on the car pulling toward the curb in front of his house.
    That’s right—he forgot all about the pizza he ordered for his solitary dinner.
    He strides over and recognizes the kid behind the wheel as he opens the car door.
    “Hey, Mr. Rooney, how’s it going?” Jason Capellini is a former student of Sam’s, now working his way through community college.
    “It’s going just fine. How about you? Still in school?”
    “Yeah, but after this semester I’m thinking of enlisting. My mother’s freaking out.”
    “Mothers do that.”
    “Yeah, I know how it is.”
    With a pang for Ben and Katie, who will never know how it is, Sam fishes a twenty and a couple of ones out of his damp pocket and exchanges them for the pizza box.
    “Did somebody move in there again?” Jason eyes the Duckworth place. “That’ll last, what? A few weeks at the most?”
    “Give or take.” But Sam can’t help wishing things could be different this time.
    Why? Because you’re attracted to the latest desperate housewife next door?
    Jason drives away, and fat raindrops are falling on the red-and-white pizza box. Sam is about to carry it into his house before he moves that last carton for Meg, when he suddenly thinks better of it.
    Wouldn’t it be neighborly of him to bring it over there, instead? She’s probably hungry, and her husband and kids might be, too.
    He balances the pizza on top of the moving box and carries them both up onto the porch, noticing that dusk is falling.
    He can see Meg through the screen door in the shadowy front hall, grouping the boxes. He admires the curve of her bare legs as she bends, back to him, and picks up her cat. Then she opens the door for him.
    “I don’t remember packing that.” Her tone is the driest thing in the room as she eyes the soggy pizza box.
    “Well, I’m glad you did. It even has sausage and pepperoni, my favorite. You guys aren’t vegetarians, are you?”
    She looks down at the cat in her arms. “Me and Chita Rivera? She prefers seafood, but I’m a carnivore.”
    He grins. She’s