The green Saturn slowed ominously, at the curb just between his house and the next one in this cul-de-sac. She looked so alone... and vulnerable.
His impulse was to run to her aid. Instead, he stood frozen. A snarl of indecision, perhaps mixed with regret.
Babes like this did not frequent their side of the sleeping Southern town. Green Saturns were not common any longer. Mixed emotions telegraphed from that perplexing face, but she sat... as if to give him all the time needed to swing into action.
His knees were pasted with damp humus, where he'd knelt by the ferns he tended in the shady half of the yard. His nails were caked with soil, and on his brow was a stripe left there by soiled fingers groping for pesky gnats. He introduced himself to the unlikely vision of continental beauty.
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She laughed at him. Her slim fingers touched his arm lightly... reassuringly. His speech became tentative, and a tremor spoiled his grip on the sterile fronds he'd removed from his transplants.
One of them dropped into the car's lowered window. It lay comfortably in her lap, where she studied its arrival. He stooped to gather the others.
When she tickled the bare spot open to her reach by his arched back, using the gifted frond like it was a nun's ruler, he knew.
His courage was unseemly, but he made a date with her to attend a judging at their Spring Festival. He'd have a bit more than a week to plot a few moves... more than enough time to lose his mind... and his attachment to Hannah.
