"'Cause the weather's nice?" Phoebe sagged a bit. "All right, so it's not a great plan. Got a better one?"

"Hmm." Frannie distributed the cat food among her herd of felines, her brow furrowed in thought. Then she smiled. "Ah, I know. This will be great."

Phoebe watched, curious, as Frannie selected among her pets one half-grown Siamese kitten. She picked it up and cuddled it, though it protested at being taken away from the food. "Igor loves to climb trees, don't you, baby?" She grabbed a can of cat treats from the top of the refrigerator and headed toward the back of her apartment. "Follow me."

Phoebe couldn't wait to see what her resourceful neighbor had planned. Frannie made it a point to know everything about everybody who lived in Mesa Blue, their condo complex. But Wyatt Madison, who was house-sitting while his grandparents were away on a month-long cruise, had proved quite a challenge. No one had seen him. All they knew about him was that he'd moved recently from Chicago to Phoenix to produce a nationally syndicated talk show, "Heads Up," and that his grandparents thought he walked on water.

"You'll be sweet to Wyatt, won't you?" 80-year-old Helen Madison had asked, as Phoebe helped her with the last-minute packing for her European cruise, the vacation she and her husband Rolland had planned for years. "He's such a dear, but he needs some, er, female guidance, if you know what I mean."

Precisely the reason Phoebe was so curious about the man.

"You know," Frannie said as she led the way through the living room and to her large patio, where a couple more cats lazed in the sun, "I don't blame you for trying to meet Wyatt before any of the other girls in this building get their hooks in him. It's about time you took an interest in romance."

Phoebe laughed. "I'm not interested in romance with Wyatt Madison. Please!" She'd sworn off men for the foreseeable future.