High Noon Page 0,66

as he liked adjusting, shifting and altogether changing them from conception to completion.

He had plans for Phoebe.

But right now, he had plans for something else altogether.

Before he turned up the walk to MacNamara House he spotted the woman with the strange little dog across the brick road. Today's doggy bow tie was red-and-white-striped, to match the wide-brimmed hat the lady had perched on her head. It set off, he supposed, her blindingly white suit and red sneakers.

The little dog currently sniffed happily, by all appearances, at the butt of a puffy pink poodle held on the end of a gold leash by an enormously fat black man in a blue seersucker suit.

The scrawny lady and the huge man chatted away under the shade of a live oak even as the hairless dog struggled mightily to hump the pink poodle.

God, Duncan thought, he loved Savannah.

He rang the bell, admired the pots and baskets of flowers on the veranda while he waited. It was Ava, he remembered, who had the gardening talent. He wondered if he could talk her into...

"Hey." He offered Essie a smile when she opened the door. "Got time for a bad penny?"

"You're no bad penny, and I've always got time for young handsome men."

They'd progressed over his occasional visits to cheek-kissing. He bussed hers now, caught the subtle scent of her perfume.

What was it like, he wondered, to get up every day, dress and groom, knowing you'd never go out the door?

"How'd you know I was baking cookies?" she asked him, so his smile spread to a grin.

"What kind?"

"Chocolate chip."

"Come on, really? All the way from scratch? Good thing I came by so you'd have a taste tester."

"Let's get you started on that. Phoebe won't be home for a couple hours yet," she added as she led the way back. "Ava, she's running errands. She'll be swinging by school to pick Carly up after play practice.

Our Carly's one of the wicked stepsisters in Cinderella. She loves getting to be mean and bossy."

"I was a frog once. Not the turn-into-a-prince kind. Just a frog. I had to belch on cue. It was a shining moment in my life."

She laughed, shooed him toward the kitchen table. "I bet your mama was so proud."

He said nothing to that. What could he say? Instead he sniffed the air. "Smells like heaven in here."

"I got some still warm from the oven. You want coffee or milk with them?"

"Cookies and milk? I'd suffer through school again if I could come home after to you and cookies and milk."

Pleased, she pinked up. "You're a charmer, aren't you? What've you been out and about doing today?"

"Talking to people, mostly. And actually, I was hoping to finish up that part of the day talking to you. There's this property I was looking at. It's in the Victorian District, not far from a piece of the campus. Savannah College of Art and Design?"

"You don't say." She could barely remember what was outside the house and where it was set. All of that, the streets and buildings and open spaces, were a jumbled maze of squares and lines in her mind. "What kind of property?"

"Kind of a mess, actually. Like one of those Victorian ladies who fell on extremely hard times. You can still see the elegance under the neglect." He picked up a cookie, bit in. Then forgot everything in pure sensory pleasure.

"Oh God. Marry me."

She didn't laugh this time. She giggled. "If a woman can have you for a cookie, I'm surprised the bakeries all over the state of Georgia aren't working overtime." She reached across him, picked up one herself. And her eyes twinkled. "But they are damned good cookies."

"If I beg, will you give me some to take home? How can I settle for Chips Ahoy! now?"

"I believe we can spare some for you."

She moved to the stove to take out a tray, slide in the one she'd prepared.

"I lost my train of thought in cookie nirvana. This sad house off campus."

"Mmm-hmm. You're thinking of buying it and fixing it up."

He followed warm cookie with cold milk, and figured that was the sum total of heaven on earth. "That kind of depends on you." Puzzlement lifted her eyebrows as she turned away from the stove. "On me?"

"I'm thinking of buying it and fixing it up, yeah. What I've got in mind is a shop. Now... " He gestured with the last bite of the first cookie before popping it into his mouth. "I know what