The British are Coming Box Set

by Nancy Warren

  Her breath jerked in once. “Fine. I’ll need to see some ID.”

  “I don’t need ID when I use the banking machine.”

  “That’s right. Because you have a PIN number. If you want to take cash out from a teller, we need photo ID.”

  He seemed reluctant, and for a moment she thought he was going to turn away and quit harassing her, but then he dug into his pocket and pulled out a black leather folder. He flipped it open and a wave of heat flashed over her, quickly followed by its icy opposite.

  “You’re a cop?” she said, her voice breathless and reedy.

  “Yes, ma’am. I am.”

  She thought of how he’d watched her the other day at the department store, how he’d taunted her as his eyes followed her everywhere she went, knowing she’d slipped that watch into her bag. She’d been so smug, felt so sure of herself. What if she’d walked out of that store? She’d have ruined everything. Everything.

  She gave him a withdrawal slip to sign and found her hands were shaking. “What are you doing here?” she whispered urgently.

  “Taking out some cash.”

  “No. I mean at this branch.” She licked dry lips. “I mean… I’ve never seen you in here before.”

  “Let’s just say I’m keeping an eye on the place. The way robbery is on the rise, you can’t be too careful.”

  Her lips were rubber. No, too rigid for rubber. Molded plastic, as she tried to smile so it felt false and stuck and awful.

  She counted out the money and then was so stressed that she lost track, something she never did, and had to start over.

  When she passed him his cash, he pushed the wad into a worn-looking brown leather wallet. “Thanks. I’ll see you around.” The way he glanced at her felt menacing, as though he were planning to watch her like a hawk until she committed a crime.

  By the time her lunch break arrived, she was ready to grab her bag, run for the nearest Greyhound, and head out of town. She wouldn’t even care where. She’d get on the first bus and ride it as far as it could take her. The burning itch in her stomach was acute, her skin felt hot and too tight for her body.

  What if he reported her to the bank’s brass? What if he told them what he’d seen her do? Oh, God. He was a cop. Rafael Escobar. She’d read his name on his badge, knew his badge number since it was emblazoned on the backs of her eyelids when she closed her eyes.

  Sure, he hadn’t seen her shoplift, because he’d stopped her in time. But one whiff of thievery in the bank—one hint of trouble—and she’d lose her job. All he had to do was snoop into her juvie record. It was supposed to be sealed but she had a feeling that this guy would know how to get whatever information he wanted. Derek knew nothing about her past troubles or her secrets. She’d let him believe she was exactly the person she tried to pretend she was.

  She was meeting Derek for lunch today. Since he’d decided they needed to save for the wedding, he’d decreed they couldn’t waste money on things like lunch out, which she supposed was how they’d come to get re-engaged at a shopping mall food court. That was as close as she was going to get to four-star restaurants for a while.

  They were meeting on the corner and walking down by the river to eat their lunch. It was all very romantic, she supposed, unless you were the one making the sandwiches at six thirty in the morning.

  She walked quickly, her heels tap-tap-tapping as she walked mindlessly up Congress. Around her the lunch hour crowds milled, spilling out of big bank buildings, telecom towers, insurance offices. She ought to blend in, but she felt as though she stuck out, as though she were wearing a neon sign around her neck that read Thief.

  He knew where she worked. Was going to keep an eye on her. Her hand rose to her chest and she realized she was walking so fast she was getting winded. Or maybe she was having a panic attack. Slow down, she told herself. Breathe.

  Even if he didn’t tell the management at the bank, he’d know. He’d always suspect. What if there was a robbery? He’d arrest her first, ask questions later.

  The irony had her close to laughing in a nonfunny, mostly hysterical way. She’d pegged him as a lawbreaker himself, not a cop.

  Derek was waiting on the corner, as they’d arranged. He kissed her and took her arm, then launched into a story about a customer and a big diamond purchase. She was glad he hadn’t noticed that she was upset, but it would have been nice if he’d asked if she was okay. Her heart was still banging away and her breathing was far from normal.

  They walked past a homeless guy with no legs sitting on an old sleeping bag. He had a harmonica beside him, but he wasn’t playing it. An old black Lab curled at his side. When Derek took a coin out of his pocket and tossed it into the guy’s hat, she was astonished. “I’ve never seen you give money to street people before.”

  “It was an old golf token from the driving range. I found it in my pocket and needed to get rid of it.”

  “So you gave it to a homeless guy? Doesn’t he have enough problems?”

  “Hey, I work hard for my money. He should get off his ass and get a job.”

  “He has no legs,” she whispered in a furious undertone.

  “Cry me a river.”

  She slipped a hand down the strap of her purse. She wanted to grab some money and run back and drop it in the guy’s hat. She wished she had the courage to defy Derek, but then he’d be angry and she really needed him in a good mood today.

  They found a nice spot on the riverfront. It was hot, but there was shade under the trees. She laid out the blanket she’d packed, and pulled out sandwiches, cookies, juice, and apples.

  “What kind of cookies?”

  “Oatmeal raisin.”

  “I like chocolate chip better.” She bit her lip and didn’t blurt out that she’d got up extra early to bake them. And a thank-you would have been nice.

  She let him get most of his ham sandwich eaten and listened to another work story. This one was about his ambitions, how he was planning to be store manager by Christmas. Which might mean moving.

  It was the opening she was looking for.

  “I’m thinking of making a change, myself.”

  He glanced at her. “What kind of change?”

  “I’m not very challenged in my job. I was thinking of looking for something else. Maybe in another field.”

  He glanced at her, his eyes hardening. “We’ve been through this,” he said, speaking slowly as though she were too stupid to keep up with normally paced speech. “I showed you the calculations on my home accounting program. You can’t screw around anymore, Stephanie. We’re getting married. We need your money and your benefits. As soon as we’re hitched, we’ll get your checks deposited into my account.”

  “What?” This was unexpected and unwelcome news.

  “I’ll give you an allowance.” He pulled her ponytail as though they were kids on a school ground. “That way you won’t blow your money like you do now.”

  “An allowance?” Her throat was so dry she couldn’t swallow her sandwich.

  “I’ll have one too. We both get a small cash allowance and everything that’s left over after the bills are paid goes toward a down payment on a house.”

  “But I need—”

  “You’re going to stop giving money to your mom. You’ve got other responsibilities now.”

  He had it all planned out. If she lost her job, she’d muss up his careful plan. What if he found out about her problem? He couldn’t see the bills for her therapy, of course, but how was she to pay them if she had no money of her own?

  “I don’t want my checks going into your account,” she mumbled.

  “That’s how my parents always handled things. Now they live in Florida. They retired early. We both know I’m better with money than you are—it only makes sense that I should manage it.” He leaned over and nudged her shoulder. “Do you know your mother thanked me after I gave you that ring?”

  Deborah had explained that shoplifting was an addiction. That’s what this felt like, this
desperate urge that was on her again, sharp and itching as it took her over. Except that, oddly, she didn’t have the urge to steal jewelry. Right now she had the urge to give some back.

  For the second time.

  She glanced around at the other couples, the group of teens horsing around, the tourists. “You never asked me.”

  “Asked you what?”

  “To marry you. I went over both times in my head and you never even asked me.”

  “You’ve got my ring on your finger, haven’t you? What the hell’s your problem?”

  “I can’t do this.” It was all so clear to her, clearer than the pro and con list. “I’m sorry, Derek. I want to be the kind of woman you want, but I’m not. I don’t want a house right away. I don’t want to give you my paycheck and make you lunch every day. I don’t want to retire to Florida.”

  She tugged off the sparkling ring. Dropped it in his lap and scrambled to her feet. She didn’t give him a chance to say anything. She needed to get out of there. She left the blanket, left her mostly uneaten lunch. She didn’t like the look she saw on his face—it was too much like the one her old boyfriend Bruce used to wear right before he hit her.

  Walking rapidly back to work, she passed the same homeless guy and defiantly dropped five bucks into his hat. And screw you, Derek, she thought, seeing the token glinting in the sun.

  She was almost at the bank when she saw a cop car drive by. It was stupid of her to jump into a doorway. Cop cars drove around the downtown streets all the time. It might seem as though it slowed when it drove past the bank, but that had to be her imagination.

  Still, she dug out her cell phone and called the number she’d memorized yesterday.

  The phone was picked up on the third ring. “Good afternoon. This is The Breakup Artist. Chloe speaking.”

  “Hi. Um. This is Stephanie Baxter.”

  “Yes?” The crisp voice left the question mark hanging. Obviously the woman didn’t remember Stephanie.

  She drew in a breath. “We met at the food court yesterday. You, um, offered me a job.”

  “Oh, my goodness. Yes, of course. That Stephanie.”

  Which immediately made Steph wonder how many other Stephanies the English woman could possibly know. “Right. That Stephanie.”

  There was a short pause. “Beastly hot today, isn’t it?”

  Steph glanced up at the sky, which was clear and blue. The weather was a balmy 78 degrees, according to the forecast she’d read in today’s paper. If Chloe Flynt thought this was beastly, just wait a month. “Yes. It is.”

  “May I ask why you’re calling?”

  “Oh, yeah. I mean, yes. It’s about the job.”

  “The receptionist job?”

  “That’s right. Is it still available?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I was just writing out an advert for the paper. It would be lovely to scratch one thing off my to-do list.”

  Stephanie found herself smiling for the first time all day. “Great. Do you want me to come in for an interview?”

  “No. I wouldn’t have a clue what to ask you. Why don’t you come on Monday and start work. We’ll sort it out together.”

  “Monday. Oh. I have to give notice.”

  “Oh, of course,” said the crisp voice on the other end of the phone, sounding disappointed. “Notice. I was so hoping you could start soon.”

  “Let me see what I can do. I’ll explain that you really need me. It’s not that busy at the bank, so I could probably get away early.”

  As though the sunshine had come out to dry up the rain, the disappointment vanished from Chloe’s voice. “Oh, that would be fantastic.”

  “We didn’t discuss salary.”

  “No. Tedious business, isn’t it, money?”

  Not as tedious as not having any, but Steph didn’t say that, either. She simply made an mmm-hmmm sound.

  “What are you being paid at the bank?”

  Stephanie told her.

  “Gosh, that’s not much, considering you handle money all day long, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t,” Stephanie said, heartily agreeing with her new boss for the first time.

  “Well, since you’re leaving a perfectly good job to come and work for me, how about I add ten percent to what you’re earning, with a bonus if you bring in any new clients.”

  “That would be great.”

  “Good. Monday, then?”

  “Awesome.”

  “The address is on my card. Do you still have it or do you need it again?”

  “No. I have it.” Locked in her memory, along with a lot of other useless and not so useless trivia.

  “Shall we say nine a.m.?”

  “Okay.”

  She disconnected, then pulled out the neatly folded sheet of pros and cons regarding marrying Derek. It felt like the paper was made out of cement. She crumpled it in her hand. Briefly, Stephanie toyed with the idea of phoning Deborah before she irrevocably messed up everything by quitting her job.

  Then she decided, screw it. Maybe she was meant to be irrevocably messed up. As she passed a trashcan, she dropped the pro and con list into it. There were dozens of reasons why she should marry Derek, but the single con canceled out everything else.

  She didn’t love him. And he was never going to make her happy.

  During the last few minutes of her lunch hour, she composed her resignation letter. She felt lighter than she had in months.

  Wrecking her life had never felt so good.

  Chapter 9

  Chloe was so pleased with her excellent morning’s work, and her first confirmed employee, that she headed to a day spa to celebrate.

  Where else could a woman spend the afternoon and come away with a series of business leads as well as rejuvenated skin from a facial and a spectacular pedicure? She looked down at her Tequila Sunrise polished toes as she returned home. Perhaps she’d been too conservative with that French manicure. She wasn’t a lawyer or a banker, so why shouldn’t she be as colorful as her business?

  She walked up the path in her sandals and stopped in midstep to admire her newly pedicured feet, smooth of skin and shiny of nail.

  “Practicing counting to ten?” that deep and most annoying voice called to her from next door. She glanced up to see Matthew heading up his front path. He was holding a bundle of twigs, as though he’d been gardening.

  “No,” she said, glad to have the opportunity to tackle him. “I’m looking at the exceptionally long grass in the front garden. It’s getting quite ragged, don’t you agree?”

  Matthew dumped the twigs in a neat pile and strode across his own neat and well-tended lawn to wade into her overgrown and rather brown grass. He peered around. “Yep. It does.”

  “And do you think you could manage to mow it?” she inquired at her most imperious.

  “Nope.”

  “I beg your pardon?” There was a look about him that said he could do pretty much anything he put his mind to. Capable was a word that aptly described him.

  “Read your lease agreement. Housework and gardening are the tenant’s responsibility.” He looked altogether too pleased to be giving her such ghastly news.

  She glanced around at the scrubby grass and the weedy things in the flowerbed. In London, she lived in a flat in town and when she was at home with Mummy and Daddy, old Mo came around every Saturday to do the gardening. She wished old Mo wasn’t so far away. Of all the things she was homesick for, she’d never imagined feeling such a keen wish to see the garden and odd-job man’s homely visage.

  “Is there a gardener one could hire?”

  He was doing that thing again, laughing at her with his eyes, which was at one and the same time wildly intriguing and truly annoying. “Probably, somewhere, but I don’t personally know any gardeners. Around here, folks mostly cut their own grass.”

  “I am not from around here,” she said loftily.

  “That’s obvious.” He stared down at her from his delicious height. “Are you telling me you d
on’t know how to run a lawnmower?”

  “Of course I don’t.”

  He didn’t seem satisfied with the answer. If she wasn’t careful, he was going to suggest she might like to learn. She sighed. “My mother was a lady,” she explained.

  He blinked at her. “Aren’t most people’s?”

  She laughed. “No, a real lady. Lady Hester Thorpe.”

  “I don’t recall you putting Lady Chloe on your lease agreement. Are you here incognito?”

  “Certainly not.”

  He seemed quite interested in her all of a sudden, even though she noted the crinkles around his eyes had deepened. “What did you do to lose the title?”

  “I didn’t do anything. It’s not a hereditary title.”

  He looked at her through eyes narrowed against the sun, still twinkling. “So, you’re saying you’re not a lady?”

  The heat encircling her didn’t seem to be coming entirely from the endless sun streaming down from the sky. She shaded her eyes and looked up at him. “Under what circumstances might I persuade you to mow this lawn?”

  His teeth were white and even as he flashed her his Matthew McConaughey everything is bigger in Texas grin. She had the distinct impression she now understood what a crocodile’s prey’s last moments must be like. “Can you cook?”

  “I studied at Cordon Bleu in Paris,” she said. “They teach gourmet cooking,” she added in case he didn’t know.

  Fortunately, like most people, he didn’t ask her exactly how long she’d remained in the course. “Impressive.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I wouldn’t have pictured you as the chef type.”

  “It was Sabrina that convinced me.”

  “Who is Sabrina?”

  “The movie. Audrey Hepburn? She’s the chauffeur’s daughter and she goes off to Paris to learn how to cook. Of course, she ends up with both William Holden and Humphrey Bogart wanting her in the end.”