He was cute, she allowed as she ran the charge and put the purchases in a bag. And single. Then she felt guilty for noticing he was cute. He was the second guy she’d noticed today and it wasn’t even noon yet.

“Well,” she said with a bright smile. “Good luck with that.”

He smiled back, signing his charge slip. “Nice store,” he said. “Just moved to the area. We’ll come again soon.”

“Great,” she said. “We’re open seven days a week.”

His name was Dexter, she noted, putting the slip away. Dexter Shirley Smiley.

Peach emerged from the basement and sauntered over to the counter, a wicked-looking Sawzall in hand. “Just need to check on something,” he said. “Okay if I go upstairs and take a look at the floor under the tub?”

“Sure,” she said, then turned back to Dexter and his kids. “Thanks for coming in.”

Peach headed upstairs with the big saw, tools clanking on his belt. For some reason, she had the impression he was watching over her. It was just a sense she had, maybe a false sense, but it helped her feel less alone. Working side by side day after day created a subtle, hard-to-define bond between them. She frequently reminded herself that he was not her friend. He was friendly. There was a difference. And the repair bills were adding up. She’d started writing book reviews for the Examiner, bringing in a small but steady stream of extra money.

At lunchtime, she went to check on Grandy. He looked cozy in his big reading chair, his feet close to the radiator and a pencil in hand as he read over the printed pages of the local history he and her mother had collected.

When she stepped into the apartment, he looked up, then took off his spectacles and wiped them on the tail of his shirt. “May I help you?” he asked.

Shoot. He’d seemed more lucid earlier today, but now his gaze was unfocused.

“I was about to ask you the same thing. What would you like for lunch? I was going to send out for Thai.”

“We always get the soup special on rainy days,” he said.

“That sounds good.” They decided on tom yum soup from a place nearby that made deliveries.

“I’m ordering Thai for lunch,” she told Peach and Cleo. “Do you want something?”

“My usual,” Cleo said. “I always get the same thing from that place—pad thai, three stars.”

“I’ll have the same,” Peach said affably. “Only make mine four stars.”

“Brave man,” Natalie said. “They like to go big on the spice.”

“I can handle it,” he said.

When the food arrived, she and Peach sat with Grandy in his apartment, enjoying the hot lunch while rain smeared the window, turning the view of the garden into a Monet painting. Her grandfather was in a talkative mood now, eager and energized by the family history project.