But damn, I’m torn. I have a dozen young men on payroll. It would feel like raiding a high-school basketball game when my boys were playing. I try to stay away from the jobs because I don’t want my foreman to think I’m second-guessing him, but I do so love to watch them wrestling balled and burlaped trees into holes they’ve been digging. Especially in mid-summer, when they take off their T-shirts because they’re so hot and sweaty, watching those muscles bunch and strain, well, it’s enough to make me want to go for it. I can just see the next ad I place in the paper: “Landscaper with twenty years’ experience looking for hard-bodied men not afraid to sweat or expend energy. Must be between 25 and 35.” But suppose I do find someone way younger? What would my employees think? That I’m robbing the cradle? That I’m fair game? Eeek! They’ll send the State Police after me. Giselle Sheridan took a deep breath and posted her note. She was now an official member of the cougar challenge, a group of women who’d met at an erotic romance conference and decided to spice up their lives by having affairs with younger men.
