“Petersburg,” he said. Not the most vociferous guy, but that was okay. Muscles like that…those eyes…well, the unbruised, unbloodshot eye…if the other one was like that, I was in for a treat.

“Petersburg,” I repeated faintly, still staring. “I’ve been there. Quite a few Civil War battles down there. Assault on Petersburg, Old Men and Young Boys. Yup.”

He didn’t respond. Yarp! Yarp! Yarp! “So what were you doing in Petersburg?” I asked.

He folded his arms. “Three to five.”

Yarpyarpyarpyarp! “Excuse me?” I asked.

“I was serving a three-to five-year sentence at Petersburg Federal Prison,” he said.

It took a few beats of my heart for that to register. Ka-bump…ka-bump…ka… God’s nightgown!

“Prison?” I squeaked. “And um…wow! Prison! Imagine that!”

He said nothing.

“So…when…when did you get out?”

“Friday.”

Friday. Friday. He just got out of the clink! He was a criminal! And just what crime did he commit, huh? Maybe I hadn’t been so far off with the pit-digging after all! And I had clubbed him! Holy Mother of God! I clubbed an excon and sent him to jail! Sent him to…oh, God…sent him to jail the night after he got out. Surely this would not endear me to Callahan O’ Shea, Ex-Con. What if he wanted revenge?

My breath was coming in shallow gasps. Yes, I was definitely hyperventilating a bit. Yarpyarpyarpyarpyarpyarp!

Finally, the flight part of the fight or flight instinct kicked in.

“Wow! Listen to my dog! I better go. Bye! Have a good day! I have to…I should call my boyfriend. He’s waiting for me to call. We always call at noon to check in. I should go. Bye.”

I managed not to run into my house. I did, however, lock the door behind me. And dead bolt it. And check the back door. And lock that. As well as the windows. Angus raced around the house in his traditional victory laps, but I was too stunned to pay him the attention he was accustomed to.

Three to five years! In prison! I was living next to an ex-con! I almost invited him over for dinner!

I grabbed the phone and stabbed in Margaret’s cell phone number. She was a lawyer. She’d tell me what to do.

“Margs, I’m living next to an ex-con! What should I do?”

“I’m on my way into court, Grace. An ex-con? What was he in for?”

“I don’t know! That’s why I need you.”

“Well, what do you know?” she asked.

“He was in Petersburg. Virginia. Three years? Five? Three to five? What would that be for? Nothing bad, right?

Nothing scary?”

“Could be anything.” Margaret’s voice was blithe. “People serve less time for rape and assault.”

“Oh, good God!”

“Settle down, settle down. Petersburg, huh? That’s a minimum security place, I’m pretty sure. Listen, Grace, I can’t help you now. Call me later. Google him. Gotta go.”

“Right. Google. Good idea,” I said, but she’d already hung up. I jabbed on my computer, sweating. A glance out the dining-room windows revealed that Callahan O’ Shea had gone back to work. The rotting steps of his front porch had been removed, the shingles mostly gone. I pictured him stabbing trash along a state highway, wearing an orange jumpsuit. Oh, shit.

“Come on,” I muttered, waiting for my computer to come to life. When the Google screen came on, finally, I typed in Callahan O’ Shea and waited. Bingo.

Callahan O’ Shea, lead fiddler for the Irish folk group We Miss You, Bobby Sands, sustained minor injuries when the band was pelted with trash Saturday at Sullivan’s Pub in Limerick.

Okay. Not my guy, probably. I scrolled down. Unfortunately, that band had quite a bit of press, recently…they were enraging crowds by playing “Rule Britannia” and the clientele wasn’t taking it well.

It was then that my Internet connection, never the most reliable of creatures, decided to quit. Crap.

With another wary glance next door, I let Angus into the fenced-in backyard, then went back into my kitchen to scare up some lunch. Now that my initial shock was wearing off, I felt a little less panicky. Calling on my vast legal knowledge, obtained from many happy hours with Law & Order, two blood relatives who were lawyers and one ex-fiancé of the same profession, I seemed to believe that three to five in a minimum security prison wouldn’t be for scary, violent, muscular men. And if he had done something scary…well. I’d move.

I swallowed some lunch, called Angus back in, reminded him that he was the very finest dog in the universe and not to so much as look at the big ex-con next door, and grabbed my car keys.

Callahan O’ Shea was hammering something on the front porch as I approached my car. He didn’t look scary.

He looked gorgeous. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous, but still. Minimum security, that was reassuring.

And hey. This was my house, my neighborhood. I would not be cowed. Straightening my shoulders, I decided to take a stand. “So what were you in for, Mr. O’ Shea?” I called.

He straightened up, glanced at me, then jumped off the porch, scaring me a little with the quick grace of his move. Very…predatory. Walking up to the split rail fence that divided our properties, he folded his arms again.

Ooh. Stop it, Grace.

“What do you think I was in for?” he asked.

“Murder?” I suggested. May as well start with my worst fear.

“Please. Don’t you watch Law & Order?”

“Assault and battery?”

“No.”

“Identity theft?”

“Getting warmer.”

“I have to get back to work,” I snapped. He raised an eyebrow and remained silent. “You dug a pit in your basement and chained a woman there.”

“Bingo. You got it, lady. Three to five for woman-chaining.”

“Well, here’s the thing, Callahan O’ Shea. My sister’s an attorney. I can ask her to dig around and uncover your sordid past—” already did, in fact “—or you can just come out and tell me if I need to buy a Rottweiler.”

“Seemed to me like your little rat-dog did a pretty good job on his own,” he said, running a hand through his sweat-dampened hair, making it stand on end.

“Angus is not a rat-dog!” I protested. “He’s a purebred West Highland terrier. A gentle, loving breed.”

“Yes. Gentle and loving is just what I thought when he sank his little fangs into my arm the other night.”

“Oh, please. He only had your sleeve.”

Mr. O’ Shea extended his arm, revealing two puncture marks on his wrist.

“Damn,” I muttered. “Well, fine. File a lawsuit, if a felon is allowed to do that. I’ll call my sister. And the second I get back to school, I’m going to Google you.”

“All the women say that,” he replied. He turned back to his saw, dismissing me. I found myself checking out his ass. Very nice. Then I mentally slapped myself and got into my car.

RECALCITRANT CALLAHAN O’SHEA might not be too forthcoming about his sordid past, but I felt it certainly behooved me to know just what kind of criminal lived next door. As soon as my Twentieth Century sophomores were finished, I went to my tiny office and surfed the Net. This time, I was rewarded.

The Times-Picayune in New Orleans had the following information from two years ago.

Callahan O’ Shea pleaded guilty to charges of embezzlement and was sentenced to three to five years at a minimum security facility. Tyrone Blackwell pleaded guilty to charges of larceny… The only other hits referred to the ill-fated Irish band.

Embezzlement. Well. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Not that it was good, of course…but nothing violent or scary. I wondered just how much Mr. O’ Shea had taken. I wondered, too, if he was single.

No. The last thing I needed was some sort of fascination with a churlish ex-con. I was looking for someone who could go the distance. A father for my children. A man of morals and integrity who was also extremely goodlooking and an excellent kisser who could hold his own at Manning functions. Sort of a modern-day General Maximus, if you will. I didn’t want to waste time on Callahan O’ Shea, no matter how beautiful a name he had or how good he looked without a shirt.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“VERY GOOD, MRS. SLOVANANSKI, one two three snap, five six seven pause. You got it, girl! Okay, now watch Grace and me.” Julian and I did the basic salsa step twice more, me smiling gamely and swishing so my skirt twirled. Then he twirled me left, spun me back against him and dipped. “Ta-da!”

The crowd went wild, gingerly clapping their arthritic hands. It was Dancin’ with the Oldies, the favorite weekly event at Golden Meadows Retirement Community, and Julian was in his element. Most weeks, I was his partner and co-teacher. Also, Mémé lived here, and though she was about as loving as the sharks who ate their young, a Puritanical familial duty had been long drilled into my skull. We were, after all, Mayflower descendants. Ignoring nasty relatives was for other, luckier groups. Plus, dancing opportunities were few and far between, and I loved to dance. Especially with Julian, who was good enough to compete.

“Does everyone have it?” Julian asked, checking our couples. “One two three snap…other way, Mr. B.—five six seven, don’t forget the pause, people. Okay, let’s see what we can do when the music’s on! Grace, grab Mr.

Creed and show him how it’s done.”

Mr. and Mrs. Bruno had already taken the dance floor. Their osteoporosis and artificial joints couldn’t quite pull off the sensuality the salsa usually required, but they made up for it in the look on their faces…love, pure and simple, and happiness, and joy, and gratitude. It was so touching, so lovely, that I miscounted, resulting in a stumble for Mr. Creed.

“Sorry,” I said, grabbing him a little more firmly. “My fault.” From her chariot of doom, my grandmother made a disgusted noise. Like a lot of GM residents, she came each week to watch the dancers. Then Mrs. Slovananski cut in—she’d had her eye on Mr. Creed for some time, rumor had it—and I went over to one of the spectators as Julian carefully dipped Helen Pzorkan so as not to aggravate her weak bladder.

“Hey, Mr. Donnelly, feeling up to a turn on the dance floor?” I said to one of the many folks who came to watch, enjoying the music from eras gone by, but a little shy or stiff to venture out.

“I’d love to, Grace, but my knee isn’t what it used to be,” he said. “Besides, I’m not much of a dancer. I only looked good when my wife was with me, telling me what to do.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” I reassured him, patting his arm.

“Well,” he said, looking at his feet.

“How did you and your wife meet?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said, smiling, his eyes going distant. “She was the girl next door. I don’t remember a day that I didn’t love her. I was twelve when her family moved into the neighborhood. Twelve years old, but I made sure the other boys knew she’d be walking to school with me.”

His voice was so wistful that it brought a lump to my throat. “How lucky, to meet when you were so young,” I murmured.

“Yes. We were lucky,” he said, smiling at the memory. “Lucky indeed.”

You know, it sounded so noble and selfless, teaching a dance class to the old folks, but the truth was, this was usually the best night of my week. Most nights I spent home, correcting papers and making up tests. But on Mondays, I put on a flowing, bright-colored skirt (often with sequins, mind you) and set off to be the belle of the ball. Usually I went in early to read to some of the nonverbal patients, which always made me feel rather holy and wonderful.

“Gracie,” Julian called, motioning for me. I glanced at my watch. Sure enough, it was nine o’clock, bedtime for many of the residents. Julian and I ended our sessions by putting on a little show, a dance where we’d really ham it up.

“What are we doing tonight?” I asked.

“I thought a fox-trot,” he said. He changed the CD, walked to the center of the floor and held out his arms with a flourish. I stepped over to him, swishing, and extended my hand, which he took with aplomb. Our heads snapped to the audience, and we waited for the music. Ah. The Drifters, “There Goes My Baby.” As we slow-slow-quickquicked around the dance floor, Julian looked into my eyes. “I signed us up for a class.”

I tipped my head as we angled our steps to avoid Mr. Carlson’s walker. “What kind of class?”

“Meeting Mr. Right or something. Money-back guarantee. You owe me sixty bucks. One night only, two-hour seminar, don’t have kittens, okay? It’s sort of like a motivational class.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” I said.

“Quiet. We need to meet people. And you’re the one faking a boyfriend. Might as well date someone who can actually pick up the check.”

“Fine, fine. It just sounds kind of…dumb.”

“And the fake boyfriend is smart?” I didn’t answer. “We’re both dumb, Grace, at least when it comes to men, or we wouldn’t be hanging out together three times a week watching Dancing with the Stars and Project Runway with this as the highlight of our social calendar, would we?”

“Aren’t we grouchy,” I muttered.

“And correct.” He twirled me swiftly out and spun me back in. “Watch it, honey, you almost stepped on my foot.”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I’m meeting someone in half an hour. So there. I’m way ahead of you in the dating game.”