Elizabeth's, right?"
"Right. You're a good listener." He stretched his legs out in front of him, close to hers without touching, and tapped the swing into gentle motion. "Anyhow, when I was six, I got into some trouble."
"For what?" How much trouble could a six-year-old get into? Her mother-heart clenched at the possibilities.
"I put dish soap in the baptismal font, and when they cranked it up for morning mass..."
"Ohmigod."
"That's what Sister Nic said."
Her mama-heart clenched tighter at the picture of a grieving child no doubt acting out for attention. "What did they do?"
"I had to go to the chapel by myself and say a bunch of Hail Marys. Basically, I got a time-out to think about what I'd done wrong."
The tightness in her chest eased. "Appropriate."
"Yeah, and torture for a kid who really likes attention."
"The very reason you pulled the stunt in the first place."
"Spoken like a seasoned parent."
A parent whose child had nightmares and imagined illnesses. There went that Mother of the Year Award.
She set the swing in motion again with the tap of her toe, each creak, creak of the chain soothing her back into the moment. "What other stunts did you pull?"
"Released a couple of mice and garden snakes in the convent. Put a bra on a statue of St.
Francis."
"A bra?"
"Imagine my surprise when I went through Sister Esther Ann's drawers and found out she was a double-D."
She tried to hold back the snort. No luck.
"Then I poured fertilizer on the lawn so the dead grass spelled out hellfire." He continued to count down pranks with scarred fingers. "Spiked the punch with unconsecrated wine at nun-appreciation night so they all got schnookered."
Giggles bubbled up so hard they overflowed, probably much like those font bubbles.
"Okay! Okay!" She gasped until tears eeked out and her sides hurt. "I'm laughing. Don't think I can laugh any more without hurting myself."
He extended his arms and let them fall to rest on the back of the porch swing. "My work here is complete."
The heat of his arm scorched right through the leather of his jacket. Still the swing rocked with each nudge of his tennis shoe against the plank porch until the swaying assumed a slow lover's rhythm. Her eyes glided from his feet up his stretched legs. Thigh muscles rippled under well-washed denim.
Gulp.
She wouldn't flinch. Talk. Okay, swallow first, then talk. Paige yanked her gaze up to his.
"Did you make all that up?"
"Afraid not."
"You were a handful."
"Some say I still am."