“No, I don’t know him.”
He frowned. “But you recognized the name?”
She shrugged. “It’s a small town. Everyone knows the story about Liam Clooney stealing O’Malley’s Pub.”
“He didn’t steal it. He won it fair and square in a game of poker. Old O’Malley went back on the bet though, so my dad and my uncles had to strongarm him a bit.” He grinned as if it were some sort of rite of passage, the kind that put hair on a boy’s chest and made him an instant man.
She supposed there were two sides to every story. As an O’Malley by marriage, it was safer if she didn’t take one, especially with a rivalry as ancient as the one that forever changed the fate of O’Malley’s pub.
His head tilted and he squinted at her with remarkably bright blue eyes. “You look familiar. Did you go to school around here?”
She really just wanted to cut her grass and get on with her day. “Yup. Go bears.” She unscrewed the gas cap and added a touch more fuel to avoid eye contact. Her finger poked the starter again.
“Careful you don’t flood the motor.” He stepped closer, and she stepped back when his hand curled over the bar of the clutch. “What’s your name?”
She hesitated. She wasn’t looking for new friends, and she really didn’t want to encourage people to poke around in her private life. But, being neighbors, he’d learn her name eventually.
“Maggie … Harris.”
It was the first time she gave her maiden name in years, and she didn’t understand why. Maybe because he was a Clooney, and Clooneys and O’Malleys rarely got along. No need to form animosity where there wasn’t any.
“Maggie Harris,” he repeated, searching for a taste of familiarity in the sound. “Maggie… Maggie, Maggie, Maggie.” He clicked his fingers and she flinched. “Mrs. Sheffield’s biology, right?”
The name of her senior science teacher blasted her into the past. She suddenly recalled the scent of the lab and the view from those old metal-rimmed windows that barely let air in or out. Most of all, she remembered Nash sitting beside her, sharing her microscope and making her laugh when they should have been working. They both scarcely passed bio, but neither of them cared.
She looked at her neighbor again, waiting for a twinge of recognition. What was his name? Ryan? Yes, Ryan Clooney. Nothing.
“I had Sheffield, but...” She shrugged.
“I knew you looked familiar. We graduated the same year. What a small world.”
Too small. She rubbed the back of her neck then shot a thumb over her shoulder. “Well, it was nice meeting you—again—but I gotta get back to work.”
“Oh. Right.” He turned his inspection to the lawnmower, which at least took the attention away from her for a moment.
She was brutal when it came to social graces, but the normal back and forth that came so easily to others proved excruciating for her, especially since Nash died. It seemed the longer she lived alone, the worse she became at interacting with others.
“Is this the first time you’ve used it this winter? Sometimes if they sit awhile, they take some cajoling to start back up.” He flipped the mower on its side to inspect the undercarriage.
“I’m sure I can figure it out.”
He paused and glanced over his shoulder. “Really?”
No, not really, but if he fixed her lawnmower, she’d feel indebted to be friendly in return. She’d have to wave and be extra neighborly. What was wrong with her? Like waving was some incredible hardship.
Her mouth formed a tight-lipped smile. What she lacked in congeniality and manners, he had in spades. The grass wasn’t even that long. She just wanted to clean up the scraps she couldn’t get with the rake.
“It’s old. I should probably just put it on the curb.” Never. That lawnmower had been a gift to Nash on their first wedding anniversary, the same year he got her a pair of turquoise earrings—earrings she never wore anymore.
“I think it’s salvageable. It might just need a new—”
“It’s fine,” she blurted, her anxiety spiking out of her in disproportionate panic. “It’s fine,” she repeated more calmly and forced a more convincing smile.
He slowly tipped the mower right side up on the grass as he stood. “Okay.” He took a cautious step back. “Well, I’m right next-door if you change your mind.”
She nodded and turned her back to him, bailing on the niceties she couldn’t manage. Sensing his lingering presence, she tried to ignore him and the mower. She raked a tumble of leaves from the corner of the yard, but there seemed nothing left to do aside from cutting the grass.
Giving her nosey neighbor enough time to go back to his side of the fence, she raked a while longer, then tried the lawnmower again. Head down and focusing strictly on willing the damn thing to work, she gritted her teeth and gave the lawnmower cord three more yanks.