"Here!" he hollered triumphantly from the middle part of a lodgepole pine near the bench. I absolutely hated seeing Arch climb those feeble-branched evergreens. As if in answer to my worries, he let out a shout.

"Help!" he cried. "I'm falling!" I could see his body toppling, hear branches snapping. I was too far away but my feet darted forward anyway.

With startling swiftness Pomeroy ran to the bottom of the tree, where he caught Arch by the arm and broke his fall. By the time I got to the pine, the two of them were laughing. I was not amused, as this was the second time in one day that I'd come close to coronary arrest worrying about my child's welfare.

I said, "Thanks, Pom." He had handed Arch his glasses and was brushing bits of bark off Arch's formerly white shirt.

"It's okay," he said, as much to Arch as to me. "Can't blame a kid for wanting to climb a tree, right?"

"No," Arch said.

"Yes," I said.

"Oh, Arch and I are buddies," said Pomeroy with that half smile. "Right, bud?"

Arch nodded and started toward the chokecherry bushes that lined Laura Smiley's driveway.

"Thanks for being nice to him," I said. "Thanks for being a good catcher."

"I like kids."

"So I see."

Pomeroy gave me another embarrassed look-not the pink-red of shyness, but a black-red that glowed from underneath his skin. I could not imagine what was bothering him, so I let it go.

Pomeroy sat back on the bench, then turned to me and smiled. He had recovered his composure, and the impish smile and splatter of freckles over his pale cheeks gave him the look of a child. But the dark good looks and brown mustache were unmistakably adult, as was the lanky body that spilled over the bench's slats. His brown eyes held mine, and I could not think of what to say next.

He said, "Before we were interrupted, Patty Sue here was telling me she can't drive."

"She's made a few attempts with her father's pickup, I believe," I said.

Patty Sue groaned. "I was thinking," said Pomeroy. "Maybe she could come to one of my driver-ed classes. At the high school." He gave a slight grin. "There's not much money from the county for this type of thing, and some of my cars are pretty old, but she could still learn."

"Sounds marvelous," I said with false cheer. My ex-husband might have been able to mine the high school faculty for dates. But with Pomeroy stuck on my housemate, it looked as if my chance to find social life from the same place was collapsing with the rapidity of a souffl‚. Schulz appeared at the end of the driveway and motioned me back down to the house with that thumb.

I said, "I have to go."

"I'll check on the liability and what not," Pom called after me. "Are you all free Friday afternoons?"