by Elaine Fox
The woman, he concluded immediately, was a man-eater.
Or was he just getting paranoid?
“Brady Cole,” he said, straightening. He held out one hand, businesslike, and leaned toward her.
She stretched a languorous hand out to take it. Her grip was soft and hot.
“Georgia Darling.” She didn’t shake, she just held his hand a long moment. “Yes, indeed. Lily had it right. You are trouble.” Her lips curved as if trouble were exactly what she was looking for.
Brady took a moment answering, holding her gaze. “I guess I can understand why she said that. We had a kind of…scene the day I moved in. But that’s over.”
“So I heard.” She dropped his hand and leaned forward, both hands on the railing in front of her. “So, looking for a replacement? Something to, ah, do here in the Burg?”
Her lips curled and her eyelids drooped and he honest-to-God felt like an injured bird being studied by a cat. There wasn’t much of a chance that he’d ever have taken this she-wolf up on her offer, even though it was obvious there’d be no strings attached, but on the heels of recent events there was even less possibility. He was a new man, and even if he hadn’t turned over that new leaf, there was Lily. Virtually his landlord and already unimpressed with him. He’d rather not start off what should be a friendly relationship between very close neighbors with the tension of doing something stupid with her friend.
His eyes must have strayed to Lily’s door because Georgia laughed, a low, sultry sound that was, in its way, mocking.
“It’s like that, is it?” she purred.
“I got off to a bad start with my landlord’s daughter,” he said. “I’d rather not screw it up any further. At least not until she gets to know me better.”
“I can be very discreet. Just ask the mayor,” she said, then laughed in a way that made him think of a witch over a cauldron. She stepped back from the railing and lifted her hood over her curls again. “You think about it, Brady Cole, and let me know if you change your mind.”
She stepped off the porch and started down the front walk. Halfway to the curb, she turned back.
“And if you’re thinking of anyone else”—she tipped her head in the direction of Lily’s door—“all I can say is, beware of Doug.”
With that, and another wicked cackle, she continued down the walk to a large black SUV on the street.
A moment later she was gone.
The following day was Saturday, and a blustery one it was. Gone was the warmth of Thursday and the gentle spring rain of last night. Today was a screeching moody bitch of a day, despite the dainty accessories of budding trees and brave crocuses.
Brady closed the door of his house behind him, headed down the stoop into the wind, and started to turn up Lily’s stoop to her door when he saw the neighbor—what was his name? Stephen? no, something formal—come out his front door.
The neighbor stopped when he saw Brady, so Brady raised a hand to him. After a second, the guy returned a wave and started down his front walk.
After a second’s thought, Brady changed course, heading across the lawn toward the neighbor. The wet earth sank under his weight and sucked at his shoes, but he continued on. Might as well cover all his bases while the opportunity was in front of him.
The guy wore all black, from his tee shirt to his jeans to his Converse hightops. He looked like he wanted to be a rock star instead of a guy who lived on a quiet street in a small town with his mother. Even his house didn’t seem to go with the rest of the houses on the street. It was a one-story brick affair that looked closer to 1960 than 1860, and had a chain-link fence around the backyard instead of the picket or wrought-iron that most of the others sported.
Brady remembered the look on his—damn, Ethan? maybe—the guy’s face when he’d introduced himself on Thursday, and then again after Tricia had gone. Or rather, vaporized in a scalding cloud of steam. The guy had without question decided he did not like Brady.
Brady hated being disliked.
He turned from Lily’s walkway and headed for—he could call him “buddy.” That’s what he did with most guys. But he lived two doors down, how long could that go on?
Brady strolled down the sidewalk, taking his time, thinking, moving toward—Nathan! Yes! Jesus, no wonder the guy didn’t like him. He could tell Brady was the kind of person who forgot men’s names and needed to go on a date diet.
“Hey, Nathan, how are you doing today?” Brady smiled and held out a friendly hand.
For a second he thought he’d gotten the name wrong, because Nathan just looked at his hand as if hoping he wasn’t expected to do anything with it. Then he gave a smile that wasn’t happy and shook it.
“Not bad.” Nathan gave him a hard look, as if Brady might be trying to pull something over on him. He jerked his chin in the direction of Lily’s house. “Going to see Lily?”
The only thing to do was ignore it, Brady knew, but the guy clearly didn’t like him. Was determined not to, in fact. He wondered if it had anything to do with Lily.
Lily, the delicate beauty with the devil in her eye. He’d bet anything old Nate had a crush on her. He was posturing like the lone stallion in a herd of mares.
Brady pushed a hand through his short, thick hair, and the wind pushed back. “Yeah, I thought I’d explain to her about the other day. I should probably explain to you, too.”
Nathan shook his head. “No need.”
“Actually, there is a need. That woman, Tricia, she’s…uh…”
He really ought to be better at explaining this, he thought. He’d had to do it so many times.
He took a fortifying breath. “Well, she’s ill. Under a doctor’s care, actually. For, ah, obsessive behavior. About me, for some reason. She follows me, see, and usually makes a scene and conjures up all kinds of accusations that aren’t true.”
Well, mostly not true. They’d had one evening of inadvisable sex, and he’d paid for it for months. Fortunately, the relevant people knew what was really happening, understood that she had latched on to him and created a whole scenario that was vastly different than the one that was real. Her parents, her doctor, his family, the people she’d regularly harassed, all knew that she’d spent time in Chestnut Lodge and that her parents were eager to keep her from having to go back.
And hell, he was fine with helping them help her. He really was. He didn’t need to see her locked up. It was just that she’d made his life a lot more complicated. Dating alone had become something he didn’t want to risk. The one time he’d brought someone home after the incident with Tricia, she’d been treated to a tirade similar to the one Nathan and Lily had witnessed the other day.
It had been a startling lesson for Brady. A visitation from God, Keenan had said, in the form of an insane woman. Clean up your act, was what He was saying.
Brady figured He could have said it in a more subtle way, but that was just him.
“You have a stalker?” Nathan asked, and Brady’d be damned if it didn’t look like the guy was happy about it.
“I guess you could call her that.” He pushed his hands in his pockets and plowed on. “The thing is, when she gets like that—actually she can get worse—I need to call her doctor or her parents. I’d have done that the other day if she hadn’t left so quickly. The reason I need to tell you all this, though, is because she can be very persuasive, so you have to watch out. She talked her way into my condo up in Arlington once, got my emergency key from the front desk, and went in and trashed the place. Looking for evidence I’d been cheating on her, she said. But, and this I swear, we’ve never had a relationship. Never even been on a date, really.”
At this point, Nathan did chuckle. “Oh man.”
Brady forced himself to smile. The wind blew hard against his back but was unable to penetrate his leather jacket. “Yeah, it’s funny. But not really. So listen, if she comes back again and talks to you, just tell her you don’t know me, don’t know where I am, I’m just the new neighbor. You know, t
hat kind of thing.”
“No problem. I don’t know you,” Nathan said, looking happy about the fact. The wind rippled his black tee shirt like a sail in a nor’easter. The guy was impossibly skinny.
Brady paused. “Right. Okay. Well, thanks. Just wanted to let you know.”
“Yeah, thanks. Good to know.” Nathan smiled cheerily.
“All right, then. Guess I’ll see you later.” Brady turned and walked back toward Lily’s door, thinking if there was one person on the street he wasn’t going to give his emergency key to it was Nathan. Something told him the guy’d have Tricia in there in no time.
He should have called him “buddy.”
“Oh, and, uh, Brady?” Nathan called.
Brady turned back. “Yeah?”
Nathan jutted his chin out toward Lily’s house again, and his grin was positively confident. “Beware of Doug!” He turned and headed in the opposite direction down the sidewalk, his jaunty gait looking altogether too perky for his rock star outfit.
Who the hell was Doug? Brady thought. That was the second time someone had warned him about the guy.
“Hey, Nate!” he called. “Who’s Doug?”
But Nathan didn’t hear him. Or pretended not to. Those black sneakers just kept plugging away up the street.
Maybe Doug was Lily’s boyfriend. Some jealous type. Maybe he shouldn’t knock on her door right now, in case Doug was there. He scowled. Was he going to have to deal with an insane Tricia and a jealous Doug next door? Maybe he could get Tricia and Doug together. Get rid of all the problems at once.
Oh the hell with it, he thought. He wasn’t going to tiptoe around Tricia, and he wasn’t going to tiptoe around some guy named Doug, who obviously had problems unrelated to Brady, since everyone was warning him about the guy when they hadn’t even met yet.
He walked resolutely to Lily’s door.
As it turned out, Lily wasn’t home that morning. But the bell had rung and someone had knocked and Doug had pressed his dense doggy body to the front door and done all he could to sniff through the crack to figure out who it was. He pressed his pug nose against the threshold, stood on his sturdy back legs to go as far toward the doorknob as he could, but it was through the mail slot that he caught the scent.
It was the new guy. When Doug discovered that, he barked a few times and pawed at the door, claws out so it would make a lot of noise. He wasn’t a fool, he knew he couldn’t open it. But the new guy needed to know there was someone here protecting Lily’s territory even if she wasn’t.
It took a while for the new guy to leave, which bothered Doug. Surely he’d heard Doug on the other side of the door. Still, he’d stood there. As if he could take Doug on. As if he didn’t take Doug seriously. Easy to think from the other side of the door.
Doug grinned, panting, and stared at his side of the entry.
Then, with an idea in his head, he trotted to the back of the house.
Lily usually locked the dog door when she went out, but the weather had been so nice, and she’d left rather on the spur of the moment, she had forgotten.
Doug pushed his head out, then his two front feet, and looked around the yard. He took a good long sniff at the air—delicious swirling wet, muddy scents!—and popped out the door. Leaves and blossoms and twigs and all sorts of glorious playthings skipped around the grass, tempting him away from his duty. But Doug knew what he had to do first. He knew about the order of things. He and Lily had taken an agility course once. First the A frame, then the tunnel, then the seesaw…yes, there was an order to things.
The backyard was fenced, but Doug knew the way out. He didn’t use it often—why leave Lily?—but today he headed straight for the dip in the ground. The one at the back of the shed by the picket fence where, with some effort, he could wriggle under and out the other side. This he did in more time than he might have a few months ago. Winter was tough on a pup, less exercise and the same amount of kibble made for a figure that needed toning before the hot summer season of dog park days.
He trotted through the grassy alley between his house and the one next door—where that other irritating guy lived—then confidently up the steps of the porch next to his.
It smelled of New Guy, that much was certain. It was, however, better than Last Guy. A dog could only lap up so much stale beer before getting sick of it, though he did miss the occasional barbecued rib or piece of chicken that ended up in the grass when Last Guy cooked out with his pack.
Doug could feel the urge coming just as he made it to the front door. This had been a brilliant idea.
As he reached the front mat—which did not say “Welcome,” though he did not know that—he turned his back on the door and squatted.
Lily picked up the big makeup brush for the finishing touch, swirled it in powder, and ran the soft bristles swiftly around her face. She opened her eyes, examined her face, rearranged a dark curl, then went back in the bedroom to dress.
Doug lay on the bed, grinning at her with that mischievous look she loved so much, big ears up, eyes twinkling.
“What are you thinking, devil dog?” she asked him, cupping his face in her hands for a second and scratching his neck with her fingers. She straightened and moved to the mirror.
Doug gave a happy snort and resumed grinning.
The doorbell rang. Doug sprang up on all fours, looking from Lily to the hall and back again.
Lily swung toward the clock.
“He’s early!” she said, and grabbed up her dress. “Must have been good traffic on 95.” She smiled at Doug as she unzipped the dress from the hanger. “Do you think he brought flowers again? I love a man who brings flowers.”
She also loved a man who knew how to make her feel desirable, and so far Gerald had done anything but. She studied herself in the mirror as she wiggled into the dress.
Doug glanced from the hallway to her again, waiting for the word to go downstairs.
Lily stepped into her shoes and wondered if she would freeze tonight. Though the wind had died down some, it was still chilly. She just couldn’t resist wearing the new garment—a short, pink sundress that hugged her curves and flattered her legs with a swingy flared skirt. She was going to save it for Megan’s party, but since it was Gerald she’d had in mind when she bought it, she knew she couldn’t save it. Fortunately she had a medium-weight shawl that would go perfectly with it. And the restaurant was always hot anyway.
“Now Doug, you’ve been very nice to Gerald so far,” she said, turning as far as she could to see in the mirror how she looked from the back. “Keep it up. He’s driven a long way to see us. All the way from DC. That’s over fifty miles. And we want him to like you.”
She sighed, a smile on her lips. It had to be a sign that Doug had been nice to Gerald so far. It was the first time ever he hadn’t tormented a man who was Lily’s date. Or any man, for that matter. The last date she’d invited in—unfortunately quite some time ago—had left with laceless shoes, thanks to Doug’s ministrations. Another time Doug had actually peed on her date’s jacket, which had fallen off the arm of a chair and onto the floor. (She’d gotten a coatrack after that.) And the last time a guy had actually stayed the night, Doug had drunk all the water from a glass in which he’d put his contacts, swallowing lenses and all.
She snapped up the shawl and headed for the hallway. Behind her she heard Doug’s twenty-five pounds of muscular body hit the floor before he scooted out in front of her and down the stairs, his jaunty posture, oversized ears, and giant-sized air of confidence making her laugh, as they always did.
She opened the door, unable to repress the smile on her face.
Gerald stood before her, resplendent in a light spring suit with—how perfect was this?—a pink tie, holding an enormous bouquet of lilies. His nearly black hair was combed back in the precise, gelled style he favored, and his chiseled face looked freshly shaved. He smelled subtly of cologne.
“Darling,” he said, showing pearly white teeth and looking her over with e
vident delight. “You look lovely.”
“As do you,” she agreed, thinking Georgia had been right when, after seeing a picture, she’d said he looked like Rupert Everett. Without the gayness, of course. “We even match!” She indicated his tie and her dress and smiled up at him.
“We are a perfect match,” he said smoothly, stepping over the threshold.
His words sent her heart skittering. He bent to give her a kiss on the cheek, light but firm, and long enough for her to be momentarily enveloped in his cologne. It was a light floral scent that Lily loved.
At their feet, Doug snuffled around Gerald’s ankles but did little more; he didn’t even issue his trademark frustrated growl. Lily pushed him away from the door with one foot. He sat at the base of the stairs, giving Gerald an inquisitive look.
“Shit!”
The curse came from outside. Gerald and Lily looked at each other a minute, then Gerald stepped back out, and Lily peered around the door frame.
Brady Cole stood on his front porch, looking down at his shoes.
“Oh, Brady,” Lily said, dismayed that he’d chosen that moment to come outside and be vulgar. She looked at Gerald. “Brady is Daddy’s new tenant. Brady Cole, this is Gerald Lawson. Gerald, Brady.”
“Hey,” Brady said, with barely a glance. He wore a sour expression on his face and was scraping something off his shoe onto the edge of the first step. “Good to meet you, Gerald.”
That was rude, Lily thought. He could at least have looked at them.
“Brady. How do you do?” Gerald said in the cultured tones she loved so much.
So much different than Brady Cole’s husky voice and brazen grins.
“Well, have a nice evening,” she called to Brady, stepping back inside. For once, Doug was simply sitting in the hallway, wearing his doggy grin, not barking at the new tenant or trying to get out.
Behind her, Gerald lingered on the porch, studying Brady across the rail. Then he turned to ward her.
Before entering the house, however, he glanced across the porches again. “Brady?”