by Tawna Fenske
“What am I going to do with you?”
Bartholomew regards me with a look of exaggerated patience, or maybe that’s hunger. What did Lexi tell me he eats?
“Blueberries,” I say aloud. “And seeds and mushrooms. You’re double lucky my sister shows up all the time expecting smoothies.”
I tuck the lunch bag under one arm, not wanting him to get away. I wonder if I should focus on finding a cage instead of food, but I remember that whole “hierarchy of needs” thing from college classes—food, then shelter, then clothing. Since Bartholomew seems happy naked, I focus on the first two needs.
I find a bag of flaxseed in the pantry and a bag of frozen berries in the freezer. I pluck out a handful of blueberries and run them under warm water to thaw, then arrange the whole thing on a saucer. Is this what a packrat dinner looks like?
Still clutching Bartholomew in his lunch sack, I hustle to the bedroom and locate my empty laundry basket. I carry the rat, the saucer, and the laundry basket into the bathroom and set the whole thing up in a makeshift prison cell in the tub. I toss in an old hand towel so he has a comfy place to sleep, then focus on the most pressing task of all.
“I have to find Lexi.”
Locating Lexi is tougher than I expected.
It turns out that with 2.5 million residents in the Portland Metro area, Googling Lexi + Mixologist doesn’t actually get you very far. Neither does any combination of similar words like bartender or Alexa (I’m guessing on that one) or beautiful brunette with freckled shoulders (not guessing there, but it wasn’t a very fruitful search). I even try veterinarian + packrat, remembering what Lexi told me about Bartholomew’s owner.
None of it leads me anywhere.
Which is how I find myself at the Portland Police Bureau’s downtown office the next afternoon. It’s later than I’d hoped for, but it took me a while to set up a safe habitat for Bartholomew in the terrarium I borrowed from a neighbor whose pet tortoise died a month ago.
What? I don’t want him escaping again.
It’s after lunch when I stroll into the police station and look around the dimly lit space. There’s a battered oak counter at the front of the room with a Plexiglas window in front of it. The window is half-open, and a woman with cinnamon-colored hair pulled back in a massive bun looks up and greets me.
“Can I help you?” she asks as I approach the desk.
“Yeah, I have kind of an odd situation.”
Cinnamon Bun stares at me for a moment, probably waiting for me to spell out the details of a threesome gone awry or neighbors making meth in the basement.
“Yesterday I got stuck in an elevator at the Burlington Tower for over an hour,” I begin.
“And you want to report it?” She sounds bored, and I shake my head and wonder where exactly I fall on the spectrum between a dull police report and “Holy shit, you guys have gotta hear this.”
“No, that’s not it at all,” I continue. “There was a woman trapped in the elevator with me. She had a rat with her—a packrat. I think she said it’s also called a bushy-tailed wood rat.”
Cinnamon Bun continues staring, probably wondering when I’m going to get to the point. This can’t be the oddest thing she’s heard all week, but it can’t be the sanest either.
“Anyway, the packrat stowed away in my lunch bag, and now I don’t know how to reach her to return Bartholomew.”
“Bartholomew?”
“That’s the packrat. He’s at my house right now eating mushrooms. Just regular white mushrooms. Not death caps or Galerinas or anything. I looked it up. White mushrooms aren’t poisonous for rodents.”
I stop talking when I realize I’m talking way too much and probably sound like a stalker. It’s a realization that probably should have hit three minutes ago.
The woman stares at me. “You’re wanting help tracking down a woman who was stuck in an elevator with you for over an hour, but didn’t see fit to give you her last name, her phone number, or any way to reach her?”
Okay, so it sounds suspicious when she puts it that way.
I clear my throat. “She told me her husband is a cop,” I add. “So that’s why I’m here. In case you have any officers or detectives or whatever who have a wife named Lexi. A wife who’s missing a packrat.”
She looks at me like I have lime Jell-O dribbling out my ears, and I replay my words in my head. All right, it sounds weird. I can admit that.
“Sir,” she says at last, and there’s a note of sympathy in her voice, “even if I could give out information on the spouses of police bureau staff—which I assure you I can’t—”
“I don’t need her home address or anything,” I say. “Or even her phone number. Really, you could just get a message to her.”
I consider mentioning Bartholomew’s veterinarian owner but stop myself. I don’t want to get Lexi in trouble for losing a rodent entrusted to her care.
“Sir,” Cinnamon Bun says again, and the sternness in her voice makes my nuts shrivel, “are you aware that it’s actually fairly common for a woman who feels threatened to tell the man who’s threatening her that she has a husband who’s a police officer?”
I swallow hard, trying not to feel stung. I wasn’t aware, actually. I mean, I could have guessed, and it’s not like it didn’t occur to me that Lexi might have invented the husband.
Still, it bothers me a bit that I didn’t earn her trust.
You can’t earn a woman’s trust in an hour, idiot.
Or in five minutes, judging from the look Cinnamon Bun is giving me.
“For the record,” I say slowly, “I’m an upstanding guy who’s never even had a parking ticket. And if there is an officer here whose wife, Lexi, is missing a packrat, you can let them know he’s safe with Noah Donovan of Donovan Stoneworks. I’m in the phone book.”
As I turn to go, it occurs to me there’s probably no such thing as a phone book anymore. Did those go away with the advent of cell phones? No matter, I’m not that hard to find. There aren’t that many six-foot-five stonemasons in the Portland Metro area. I’m sure the cops could find my full name, home address, and blood type in about thirty seconds.
Not that I still believe Lexi’s married to a cop.
I sigh and return to my truck. I suppose I could do some more online searches. I didn’t try Facebook, since I don’t have an account and don’t know Lexi’s last name. I could also put up one of those “missed connections” posts on Craigslist, though the words take an absurd form in my mind.
You: Smart and beautiful with freckled shoulders and a dream of climbing Kilimanjaro. Me: Big lug in the elevator who did not play college football but does have your packrat.
I’m smiling a little as I pull away from the curb and merge into traffic.
And then I slam on the brakes.
Because up ahead on the front of a brick building is a bold, oval business sign the color of midnight with white script. The words spell Star Lounge, but that’s not what catches my eye.
It’s the logo composed of a familiar smattering of dots.
Dots the precise shape of Cassiopeia.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lexi
So I was dating Pamela Anderson for a few years when I decided it was time to move on, but she didn’t take it well, and just kept calling . . .”
The bucktoothed guy on the stool in front of me drones on while I wipe the hammered-copper bar with a towel and try to look interested. We’re an hour past the lunch rush and way too early for the evening crowd, so things are slow at the Star Lounge for a Saturday afternoon.
Which means there’s no escaping the few customers teetering on their bar stools at this hour. The guy regaling me with tales of his supermodel exes is a regular, and harmless enough. He’s n
ot the one I’m watching from the corner of my eye. It’s the guy at the other end of the bar who makes the back of my neck prickle. He’s been staring at me for an hour, giving me the urge to hug my arms in close to my chest in case he can see through my tank top.
Do not turn your back on him, Watson warns. You know how quickly guys like that can flip the switch.
Don’t be paranoid, Harlow murmurs, sounding nervous. But do be careful.
“Another round!” The creepy guy bangs his rocks glass down on the bar. I jump, though I don’t know if it’s the sound or the harshness of his voice that has me on edge.
“Coming right up,” I say with as much cheer as I can muster. I measure cognac and Cointreau into a shaker, keeping my focus on the precision of making the city’s best sidecar so I’m not forced to make eye contact or—God forbid—conversation with the guy.
Something about him gives me the creeps.
Every guy gives you the creeps, Watson says. That’s the way it should be for a woman looking out for herself.
Not true, Harlow argues. Noah didn’t give you the creeps.
Oh yeah? Watson scoffs. Then why didn’t you tell him you’re single?
I whack my arm on the edge of the bar as I shake the drink, cracking my elbow so hard I see stars. I yelp and drop the glass, feeling like a dumbass. Just one more reason this week sucks.
The worst thing, of course, was losing Bartholomew. I discovered that last night after I got home, and I stayed up all night tearing apart my apartment and even retracing my steps to the Burlington Tower.
No luck.
I squeeze lemon juice into the shaker and glance at my watch. Just twenty-five minutes until the evening crew shows up to relieve me and I can run back to the print shop to grab my “missing packrat” flyers. I’m sick just thinking about Bartholomew wandering out there alone. Or worse—
“Hey!”
I look up with a start to see that Creepy Guy has moved around to the other side of the bar. How did that happen?
I take a step back and remind myself not to show fear. “Your drink is just about ready,” I assure him. “You can go back and take your seat now.”
He doesn’t move. He grins instead, but it’s nothing at all like Noah’s grin. Not a friendly, dimpled smile, but a grin that says he knows there are just three of us in this bar, and one is too busy reminiscing about imagined affairs with eighties supermodels to be of any use to me.
I grab a bottle of Cointreau and wonder if I’d have the guts to whack the guy over the head with it if I needed to.
“Take your seat,” I repeat.
Creepy Guy looks at me, then seems to decide something. He returns to his seat, but his calculating expression tells me he’s not done. I glance toward the other end of the bar. There’s a panic button that goes straight to the police station, which is only a few blocks away. I soothe myself by calculating the steps required to reach it before turning back to finish making the cocktail.
Creepy Guy spins his empty glass on the bar while I finish shaking the cocktail and try not to notice his eyes on my chest. I set a fresh, frosted glass on the bar in front of him and lean over to strain the shaker into it.
He leans forward and strokes a finger down my forearm.
I jerk back, spilling liquid on the bar, but he just laughs. “C’mon now. You were giving me such a pretty view down the front of that top.”
“I—”
“Lexi!”
I jump as the door slams. I know that voice.
I’d know it anywhere, even though I heard it for the first time yesterday.
I look up to see him charging toward me through the bar. “Noah,” I say in disbelief.
I’m too stunned to form a coherent thought. Too delighted to do anything but grin stupidly as he strides toward me.
“I have him,” he says, glancing once at Creepy Guy and then dismissing him. “I have Bartholomew. He’s safe.”
Heat floods my body, and tears prick my eyes. “Oh my God, you’re kidding!”
I hurry around the bar and throw my arms around him, hugging him with all the gratitude and joy and relief in my body. His arms go around my back, and hugging him feels so good that it takes a moment for me to register the disgruntled growl behind me.
“Still need the rest of my fuckin’ drink,” Creepy Guy mutters.
Noah and I break apart, and I reach across the bar for the cocktail shaker. My hands aren’t trembling anymore, though I can feel both men watching me. I tip the rest of the mixture into Creepy Guy’s sweaty glass and catch the look he shoots at Noah.
“Who the hell are you?” the guy growls as he wraps a fist around the glass. “And who’s Bartholomew?”
I glance at Noah, praying he’ll play along. Praying he’ll indulge me just one more fib about my marital status. “This is my husband, Noah,” I announce. “Our son, Bartholomew, was missing for a little while.”
Noah blinks, then nods. He slides an arm around my waist, and it feels so right that I melt into him just a little. “That’s right,” Noah says. “He wandered off from his day care. We’ve been worried sick.”
“Where did you find him?” I look up at Noah, urging him with my eyes to keep going along with me. I’m probably taking a big risk expecting a virtual stranger to ad-lib like this, but Noah doesn’t miss a beat.
“Down at the park again,” he says. “You know how he is with shiny objects.”
Creepy Guy doesn’t have anything to say to that, so he knocks back his drink in three big gulps and slams the glass on the bar. He slaps a twenty in the damp ring of moisture, glances at me once, then ambles out the door.
It’s then that I realize the other guy is gone, too. The one with the parade of supermodel girlfriends. It’s just Noah and me alone in the bar. His arm is still around my waist, and something in me wants to stay like this for another hour or twelve.
But I step back and wipe my damp palms down my thighs. I take him in, all of him. He’s clad in jeans and a gray T-shirt that reads Donovan Stoneworks. He’s huge, even bigger than I remember, but this time I’m filled with relief instead of trepidation.
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” I tell him.
He grins down at me. “I’m glad to help.”
“I don’t just mean Bartholomew. That guy—” I glance in the direction of the door, but Creepy Guy hasn’t reappeared.
“You must get that a lot.”
I nod and look back at Noah. His expression is earnest and open, and those brown eyes are even warmer than I remember in the elevator. I’m saying the words out loud before I’ve made up my mind to do it. “Look, I have a confession.”
He raises one eyebrow but doesn’t say anything. Just waits for me to spit out the words.
So I do. “I’m not really married. It’s just something I say when I want guys to leave me alone.”
“That’s pretty lousy.”
I wince, surprised by the judgment. He must realize that’s what I’m thinking, because he hurries to elaborate. “I don’t mean your fib,” he says. “I mean it’s lousy that you need to do that at all. That it requires seeing you as someone else’s property for a guy to back off.”
Wow. “I never thought of it that way.” I swallow hard. “You’re right.”
He smiles, and it’s the gentlest, sweetest smile I’ve ever seen. “Look, you’re not the first woman to take one look at me and start assessing her need for a bodyguard. I’m just happy I got to be the bodyguard this time.”
“You are a little intimidating,” I admit. “But I’m realizing you’re a good guy, so I wanted to come clean about the husband thing.”
He’s still smiling, and there’s something in his eyes that tells me he
’s processing this information. That it means something to him. “Look, I guess I might as well tell you—”
“You don’t really have a girlfriend?” My hopeful words tumble out before I have a chance to think them through. I should have just let him finish the sentence, but some silly part of me wants badly for that to be true.
He looks at me oddly for a moment, then nods. “True. I definitely do not have a girlfriend.”
Is it my imagination, or is that a bemused look on his face? I can’t tell if he’s laughing at me inside, but his face is open and friendly. Does he think I’m crazy? Does he want to see me again?
There’s only one way to find out.
“Look, I’m off in less than ten minutes,” I say.
“Right. I imagine you’re eager to get Bartholomew.”
“Very,” I agree. “But you said he’s safe for now?”
Noah nods. “I’ve got him in a terrarium I borrowed from a neighbor.”
“Then let me buy you lunch.” I glance at my watch and realize that 3:00 p.m. is hardly a normal mealtime. “Or early dinner. I’m all screwed up with bar hours, but just let me feed you. It’s the least I can do to say thanks for finding Bartholomew.”
He hesitates only a second before nodding. “I’d like that.” He breaks into a dimpled grin. “I’d like that a lot.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Noah
I can’t believe I’m walking down the street with the gorgeous girl from the elevator—
“What’s your last name?” I blurt, startled to realize I still don’t know it.
She smiles up at me and brushes hair off her forehead. “Allison. Alexa Ray Allison.”
“That would have been handy to know last night,” I tell her. “I might have been able to track you down online or something.”
“Doubtful,” she admits. “I go out of my way to make it tough to find me.”