And Billy Lee gathered the apricots.

The small orchard behind the garage had one apple tree, one peach, an apricot, a pear, and two pecan trees. Peeling little-bitty apricots was not my idea of a fun evening after putting in a final hard day of getting everything ready for the floor man. My fingers were stiff from using steel wool in every little crevice on the banister rails. It was asking too much to wrap them around a paring knife.

"Why in the devil are you gathering apricots this evening, and what are we supposed to do with them?" I asked when he brought them in the back door.

"Gert said last year that she had enough apricot preserves to last ten years, so I reckon we'll just peel them, throw in some sugar and Fruit-Fresh, and bag them for the freezer."

"And we have to do this tonight?"

"I reckon so. They're ripe, and they won't keep three days"

I must have looked puzzled, because he said, "Trudy, the floor man is coming to do your bedroom, the hall, and the stairs tomorrow morning, bright and early."

He set the bushel basket on the kitchen table, found two paring knives in a drawer, and started sharpening the blades. I'd never seen Drew sharpen a knife, but then, Drew had never gathered apricots, either. It mesmerized me: the quick motions, the way his rock-hard biceps tightened as he flipped the blade back and forth across the whetstone.

"Would you get a big bowl of water to wash them in? Then we'll each need two bowls-one to put the peelings in, the other to slice them into. I'll get the plastic bags, sugar, and Fruit-Fresh from the pantry. This won't take an hour with both of us working. We can't let this fruit go to waste."

This had to be a ritual he and Gert had adhered to. Bring in the apricots and either make preserves or freeze them for fried pies. I'd never made a fried pie in my whole life. Maybe Momma would have a good thirty minutes in the next few weeks and could tell me how to go about it. I set two serving bowls and a slightly bigger crock on the counter.

"Not a bowl like that. The white dishpan hanging on the nail beside the back door is what we wash them in," he said.

"What's three days got to do with anything?" I fetched it and filled it with water.

His look was one of pure exasperation. "I told you. The floor man is coming tomorrow. Spar varnish is an old product, but it's marine grade, which means it'll keep its shine even when you mop it. It's a long time drying and a longer time smelling. Everything will be wet for seventy-two hours," he said.

I was glad he didn't roll his eyes, or I might have slapped him.

"So?"

He grinned. I could have thrown an apricot at him or maybe the paring knife.

"So where is your bathroom?"

"Oh," I gasped.

The only bathroom was upstairs, off the landing, which would be wet for three days. Why hadn't I thought about that? But what did that have to do with the kitchen, where we could put up apricots whether the stairs were wet and smelly or not?

"That's right. You've got to clear out of this place for three days each time the floor man puts down varnish."

"Every single time?" I heard the whine in my tone and couldn't do a .thing about it.

His lightning hands sliced the small fruit into the bowl. "Maybe not when he does Lonnie's room ... I mean, your office ... or Gert's old room, which will be a guest room. We could shut the door and chink it with pillows to keep the smell out of the rest of the house fairly well. But when he does the downstairs, yes, you'll have to leave."

Where was I to go? Momma's house had been sold years ago. Crystal hadn't returned any of my calls this past month. Marty and Betsy thought I'd caught a terminal disease, possibly from Billy Lee. All my old friends and acquaintances had avoided me like I had the plague. I'd attended church on Sundays, but I didn't know anyone well enough to ask if I could sleep on their sofa for three nights.

"Where do you have in mind?" he asked.

"Got a spare room over at your house?" I said before I thought.

"Yes, I do, but I've got another idea. I should have told you before now. I just figured you'd already made some kind of plans. Like a big shopping trip or off to see your friends. You've been awfully busy this past month. You might like three days to visit family."

"Friends and family are overrated. I'll check into the Western Inn motel," I said bluntly.

"I need to make a run to Dallas to pick up some specialty lumber, and there's a little town over by the Louisiana border that's pretty neat. Want to go with me?"

Could I go away for three days with him?

"I threw my cell phone into a ditch and haven't replaced it. I don't have a way for Momma's nursing home to get in touch with me other than this landline."

"Give them my cell number in case of emergencies, or go down to the dollar store and buy one of those prepaid GoPhone things."

I tried to think of the last time I'd been away from Tishom ingo on an overnight trip. We'd gone to see Disney On Ice when Crystal turned seven. Then there was a trip to Washington, D.C., the year she was caught up in American historywhen she was eleven. After that she didn't want to go anywhere in the summer. She'd wanted stay home and swim in her own pool with her friends.

He went on. "I thought maybe we could stop at the Galleria Dallas before we pick up the lumber, if you'd like to shop a little. Jefferson, the town I mentioned, is only a little over two hours east of Dallas, so we could drive there, stay a couple of nights at a nice B and B I know, and drive home on the Fourth of July. Probably get here in time to go see the fireworks at the football field. Yes or no?"

"Yes," I said quickly.

"Then let's get these apricots done so we can pack."

By the time we washed up the knives and bowls, I was getting plumb giddy at the prospect of going out of town on a three-day jaunt. When we finished, we went to the dollar store and bought a disposable, prepaid cell phone that included three hundred minutes with the purchase. Billy Lee brought over his laptop and took care of programming it. I didn't even know he was computer-literate, but then, there were lots of things I didn't know about him.

He went on back to his house once he had the phone working; he'd told me to be ready bright and early the next morning. The floor man would be there by eight, and we'd need to be ready to leave right after that. I didn't tell him that I'd probably wake up every hour all night long to check the clock.

I was in the tub, bubbles up to my chin, thinking that I might have time to run to a salon at the Galleria and have my hair trimmed, when suddenly I remembered I'd left my old house without a suitcase. All I had was a multitude of plastic grocery bags. But I'd use them before I gave up a shopping trip to Dallas.

Surely somewhere up in the attic I could find a suitcase. It might not be a seven-hundred-dollar Samsonite Black Label like the one I'd left behind, but it would hold enough clothes to last two days. I jumped up from the bathtub. I dried quickly so I wouldn't leave footprints on the sanded floor and raced to my bedroom, where I pulled on underpants and a nightgown.

I should not have opened that attic door after dark. There I stood, barefoot, waving a hand back and forth, searching for the light cord, when a mouse ran across my toes. My screams sent it scurrying down the steps in a blur. I jumped straight up and tried to Velcro my hands to the ceiling. Gravity sucked me back down to the floor with a thud. Adrenaline sent me into a second jump, which is when I found the light cord. The light came on, but the old cord broke, and -I fell on my butt.