"You already did. My birthday was the day of Gert's funeral, and I thought it would be the saddest day of my life. Turned out I got the best present ever. A new neighbor and friend."

"I'm the blessed one," I said.

When the clock in the parlor struck twelve times, I finally let him go to his room after kissing him on the check once more, wishing I had the courage to really kiss him. But friends and neighbors didn't do that. Besides, I was so newly divorced that I sure didn't need to be looking at Billy Lee as any more than that.

He touched his cheek where I'd kissed it. "I enjoyed the day as much as you did."

"Impossible," I said.

it was dusk when we piled into Billy Lee's old truck and headed east to the football field for the fireworks show. He circled the parking lot twice, ignoring several open spots.

I pointed. "Right there is one. If you don't park soon, we're going to miss the whole show."

"But you can't see the fireworks from there. I'm looking for a good vantage point so you don't miss anything, and I want to be able to hear the National Anthem."

"We don't need to see from here. We're going to be sitting in the stands. Fifty-yard line, halfway up, if there's room."

Billy Lee parked and looked at me a long time. "You sure about that, Trudy?"

"Polish up that bulldozer. It's time for us to do some plowin'," I said with a light heart.

A few seats were left front and center, so we climbed the bleachers and claimed them. Billy Lee wore a red-and-whitestriped short-sleeved T-shirt under his overalls and looked almighty patriotic to me. I'd dragged out one of Aunt Gert's T-shirts decorated with the American flag done up in sequinsat least most of them were still attached-to go with my faded jeans, which I'd had to roll twice at the waist.

We listened to the National Anthem and heard a poem written by a local man, then a prayer from a preacher. It was after the prayer that Marty and Betsy settled in behind me. Daisy Black and her daughter were to my right. I pretended none of them were there. Maybe if I didn't officially see them and smell the smoke on Marty's breath, they'd all disappear.

It didn't work.

Daisy nudged me with an elbow. "I heard you're doin' a right nice job on Gert's house"

"Yes, we are," I said.

"Heard Billy Lee was helping you. What's that boy know about remodeling, anyway? Never knew him to work a day in his life."

"Billy Lee is a man, not a boy, and he's quite knowledgeable about carpentry, Miz Daisy," I whispered right back.

Billy Lee whispered, "Problem?"

"Miz Daisy was admiring my bulldozer."

"Bulldozer? I didn't know you bought a bulldozer. What are you going to do with a piece of equipment that big?" Daisy said.

Billy Lee and I both giggled.

"So you finally came to your senses and decided to bulldoze that place?" Marty asked from behind me.

Momma always said that a true lady never lets someone know when he's riled her; otherwise, she's giving away her power and her crown. My crown might be a bit tarnished, but I was not about to give it to Marty or Betsy. It was Independence Day: I was free. I could say whatever I wanted and live however I wanted. And I had a signed first edition of Gone With the Wind.

"No, I'm not thinking of tearing down the house. I plan to live in it. Billy Lee and I are working on refinishing every piece of woodwork in there. It's been fun."

"So you've been Dumpster-diving for friends since Drew divorced you?" Betsy said.

She and Marty both laughed as if she'd just cracked the next biggest joke to make the Internet rounds. Billy Lee stiffened beside me, and it hit me like a bolt of lightning. He had known there would be talk if we went to the fireworks together. That was the reason he'd wanted us to watch the fireworks from the parking lot. Chalk one up for Billy Lee. Take one away from smart old Trudy.

I pasted a big smile onto my face, not unlike that of a secondgrader when the school photographer urges her to grin, and I said, "Oh, no, Betsy, the only things I find when I Dumpsterdive are loudmouthed relatives."

Billy Lee let out a lungful of air and said, "You do a fine job of heavy-equipment operating, Miz Trudy."

"Thank you"

"I thought maybe you'd have gotten over that hateful spell by now," Marty said.

"I'm not sure I'll ever get over it," I told her as the first fireworks lit up the sky.

"Well, don't come around where I am until you do," Marty said.

"I was here first. If you don't want to be near me in this mood, maybe you'd best stay out of my space."

She hopped up and grabbed Betsy by the arm. They stomped down the bleachers just as a colorful red burst lit up the sky.

"Those are your cousins. You need to make peace with them, instead of taking up for a man who can't even hold down a job," Daisy scolded.

"Why, Miz Daisy, are you going to throw stones from your glass house?" I asked, all wide-eyed and innocent.

She snapped her mouth shut and watched the fireworks without saying another word.

Billy Lee, I mused, worked harder than ten men. He'd keep at it all day, then go out to that monstrous-sized shop behind his house. As I watched the fireworks explode, I wondered what went on in that building. Whatever it was, it had to bring in big bucks, because that book he'd given me for my birthday wasn't a dollar-store sale item. The one time I'd checked online at rare-book sites for a first-edition copy of Gone With the Wind, the price had boggled my mind.

After the fireworks display we went home to sit on the porch and have a cold Coke right out of the can. The past three days had been a fairy tale, and we'd driven the whole way home without a single argument as we discussed the ghost in the haunted hotel, the price of the quilts in the antiques store on the main street of town, and even the next step in our refinishing job. Billy Lee and I had become best friends, and we were happy sitting on the porch in each other's company, listening to the tree frogs and crickets in our part of the world. They didn't sound quite as southern as their bayou cousins, but the concert was lovely.

"Glad to be home?" he asked.

"I had a wonderful time. It was three days of indescribable wonder, but the closer we got to home yesterday, the more excited I got. Sitting here, right now, I just realized that this old house has become home to me. It gives me those warm, fuzzy feelings I read about in big old fat romance books."

"That's the reason I live in the house next door. I don't need anything bigger, and it's home. Sharing Jefferson with you was wonderful, Trudy."

"Sharing it with you was beyond wonderful, Billy Lee."

He tossed his soda can into the recycling bin.

"That's a three-point basket for you"

"It hit bottom. Last week it would have made more noise when it hit all the other cans in there"

"Oh?" I remembered the cans I'd tied onto the back of Drew's car.

"Had you forgotten about vengeance?" he asked.

"Guess I had, at that."

"That's good. See you tomorrow morning, then?"

"I'll be up and ready to go to work. Especially now that I've seen what lies beneath all that ugly."