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didn’t he?
    Unless he planned on moving back here and taking over her apartment. His life had sort of come unglued. Beth looked around her little bedroom. The blue bedspread with the purple trim and the purple pillows. A faux window painted on the wall. Her apartment was cozy, but it did only have real windows on one side and it was still a basement. If he could take care of the girls, she would gladly leave him to it, but he needed more training before he could take over that task.
    It would be nice if he stayed. He had the bearing of an action hero. Someone who was prepared at any moment to save the day. Light brown hair and dark brown eyes, trim build. He had to work out. He was an accountant, not a landscaper, but he certainly had the build of one. Once word got around town that an eligible man had arrived, there would be a feeding frenzy.
    If he planned on staying. She wasn’t going to be ousted just so his mother could get her grubby paws on the property. What kind of greedy shrew would put her own mother into a nursing home just to get her hands on the cash value of the estate? Beth set the timer beside her bed for five minutes. For five minutes she would fume about Donna and then no more. If she didn’t put a time limit on it, she’d be angry all through dinner, and tonight was their weekly trip out.
    By the time she got upstairs, dressed in her pink sundress and white sandals, she’d put Donna out of her mind. James sat on the couch channel-surfing. Nonie was sleeping in her chair. Beth studied her for a minute to make sure she was still breathing. One of these days she was going to come upstairs to find that Nonie wasn’t breathing, and that thought scared the bejeezus out of her. Jean had taken off her bandages so she didn’t look as frightening. Jean had also reminded Nonie to change into going-out clothes. “Jean went to get dressed?” Beth asked.
    “Get dressed for…” James looked up and his mouth stopped working. His lips remained puckered around the “for.”
    Beth held her breath for his response. She hadn’t picked the dress to impress him, but she had been pondering the size of the single female feeding frenzy when she pulled it out of the closet. He didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t look displeased either. It was taking a long time for him to pick a side.
    “For what?” he finished.
    Beth let her breath out. Still not pleased or displeased, he seemed to have fallen on the fence of not caring. “Dinner. We usually go out on Thursday. We go to the library and the diner. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. But you’ll have to move your car. You’re blocking me in.”
    “I’ll drive.” He stood up. “You’ll have to tell me where to go.”
    Beth couldn’t resist raising an eyebrow to that.
    He rolled his eyes at her. “Is this a dressy affair?”
    “No, but we do run into students.” Beth smoothed her hands over her skirt. “I try to look nice.”
    “For Nonie’s students?”
    “For my students, who are usually the children or grandchildren of Nonie and Jean’s students.”
    “And this is what you do for fun?”
    Beth shrugged, glancing at Nonie. Still breathing. “This summer. Last summer, Nonie was still good enough that I could leave her and Jean alone. Up until the end of this school year they were all right as long as someone checked on them during the day while I was at school.”
    The front door opened, and Jean tottered in. She stopped at the door, beaming. “Aren’t you two just adorable together?”
    “Are you ready, Jean?” Beth asked before Jean could go on.
    Jean had changed into a prim tan skirt and sleeveless white blouse. In her hands, she held her library bag and her purse. She gave Beth a heavy sigh in response. “Let’s get the old lady up so we can go. Are you coming, James?”
    “Sure. But you have to tell me where to turn.”
    “We’re only going to the diner. You know where the diner is.”
    “No, I don’t. I didn’t grow