Page 23 of Guarding My Love

Holy crap, it was three stories back here. It’s not like she couldn’t turn around and look at it.

And there was one nice sailboat in the dock. Somehow she wasn’t surprised he’d go for something he had to work at to be on the water rather than a motorized boat.

“What do you think of this, Marco?”

She walked closer to the beach, saw a bench, and sat with her dog to look at the water.

She could see other houses around but not close by. It was so quiet it was almost eerie.

But maybe quiet was what she needed in her life too.

8

START SOMEWHERE

The following Saturday, Charlotte was outside pulling the lawn mower out of the shed.

It had to be done. Her puppy was getting tickled on the belly just walking outside.

She stared the thing down. She had this. She watched enough videos on YouTube on how to start it. Then all you had to do was push it back and forth. Easy.

She checked to see if there was gas in it and thankfully there was so she didn’t have to worry about putting the can in the back of her car and getting it. Yet.

Little steps.

She grabbed the string and yanked.

Nothing. Hmm.

Maybe she had to be more forceful.

She did it again.

It wanted to start. It sounded as if it was just clearing its throat, but that was something.

Third time should be the charm.

Nope. This time it was more like a cough. But getting there.

Three more and it was rumbling to life and had her jumping back.

She did it!

Charlotte was pretty sure she did a little victory hip swirl and then looked around to make sure no one saw it.

There were neighbors across the street and only one on the other side. None on the other side of Foster’s driveway. At least not close by.

She walked up front with the mower to do that first, thankful it wasn’t that big of a piece of land.

She missed a lot of spots but was happy after several more passes that she shouldn’t have had to make if she knew what she was doing. There, the front was done.

By the time she got to the back though, there was smoke coming out of her little mower. She wasn’t even halfway done back here.

She started to run while she did it, hoping if she moved faster she’d finish.

She was out of breath when the thing just started to cough and spit out more smoke, then stopped where it was.

“What the hell?”

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