Just Fooling Around: Darcy's Dark Day/Reg's RescueCam's Catastrophe/Devon's Dilemma

by Julie Kenner; Kathleen O'Reilly

  But Devon was more determined than most of her family. She’d finally wised up and had pimped out her tidy two-room cottage into a modified nuclear bunker, outfitted with a state-of-the-art monitor and surveillance system, all nooks and crannies visible from every room, and best of all, fashionably accentuated in a cheery yellow.

  Each room contained a row of screens that displayed a live feed of all the other rooms in the house, including the exterior perimeter. If disaster was going to strike, Devon wanted to know in advance.

  The ordinary citizen would consider the elaborate setup overkill. However, the ordinary citizen would have suffered a psychotic breakdown from the streak of April firsts that she’d had.

  Devon, never a dummy, had learned.

  The doorbell rang, and this time the shadow was fully visible on the monitor. Not Morpheus, no, this was a man. Human, living, breathing, and looking almost…sane.

  His dark T-shirt clung to a brawny chest, and flexing arm muscles were artfully displayed as he leaned on her doorframe.

  Thanks to the rain, his dark hair was plastered like a skullcap to a nicely formed head, and in spite of the weather, he seem calm and fairly controlled. The overhang of her porch wasn’t doing much to keep him out of the storm. A wave of drops washed over his face, and he dragged a hand through his slicked hair, pushing it away from his face.

  A magnificent face. Chiseled and thin, with a dimpled chin and a mouth that looked as tasty as ice cream, maybe tastier. His eyes were the best feature. Pale underneath black brows and spiked black lashes, they gleamed as if he were actually enjoying himself.

  Although it was 3:00 a.m. on April Fools’ Day, Devon’s lady parts were especially wide awake.

  For a few dazzling seconds she stared as the rain sluiced over his face, along the broad shelf of his shoulders. It was like watching a guy in one of those soap commercials, those devious marketing ploys where the product was for a male, but the target audience were women who would be goggle-eyed over a bare-chested young man relishing his sensual time alone in the shower.

  Her legs twitched and she realized the inherent dangers of this situation.

  Aroused or not, she wasn’t stupid enough to actually answer the door.

  As if sensing her momentary weakness, the doorbell rang again, the monitor showing a determined bent to the man’s jaw, as if he knew someone was home, and through evil, sexy-man, mind-control powers could lure her to respond to his call.

  Not in this lifetime, buddy. Pick another sap.

  Devon pulled the duvet over her head because she could be more stubborn than anybody, anytime.

  The doorbell rang again.

  And again.

  And again.

  This time, he left his finger on the bell, one long, very annoying ring that echoed behind her eyes like a hang-over, or tinnitus, or an annoying stranger who thought foolish people should open their doors at 3:00 a.m.

  Whatever.

  The doorbell rang again, and that was it. Devon threw back the covers, and flipped on the light switch next to her bed. Without missing a beat, she grabbed the flashlight that was strapped to her bedpost, stuffed her feet into her slippers (after first checking for spiders) and then trudged to the front door. Not that she was going to open the door. Yet.

  From the bank of monitors in the living room, she could see more. The Air Force squadron insignia on the T-shirt, complete with wings. The base wasn’t that far. The man was a pilot?

  Damn it. Did he have to be in the Air Force? Devon could ignore pushy Girl Scouts and their cookies, she could ignore Facebook friend requests for weeks and she shooed away stray animals that might possibly mistake her home for something other than the small pit of hell that it became on April first every year. There’d been one small cat, but that was a tragic story best left alone. After suffering through an endless saga of disasters and hoaxes, Devon was immune to everything.

  The man peered into her camera. Correction: Devon was immune to almost everything.

  In spite of the familiar feelings of foreboding, ignoring a 3:00 a.m. doorbell-wakeup call by a member of the U.S. Armed Services, well, it seemed…un-American.

  Or at least that was what her lady parts were telling her.

  Cautiously she unlocked the three dead bolts, although the security chain stayed firmly in place. After the door creaked open a scant three inches, Devon warned, “You should know that my boyfriend is a black-belt instructor, and also a cop, and he’s got a loaded shotgun aimed right at your privates. So make it good and make it fast, because he’s not happy and someday you might want to reproduce, in which case you’ll need your jewels intact.”

  “Howdy, ma’am. Sorry to bother you and your boyfriend. I know it’s late, but I need to borrow a phone. You see, there was this bachelor party. I’m ashamed to admit it’s sort of blurry, but I need to call and get a ride back to the base, and I can’t find my cell.”

  His drawling voice was rumbly and slurred, an odd combination that spoke of both sexiness and irresponsible drunken stupor, neither of which Devon approved of, but both of which stirred irresponsible sexy shivers inside her.

  Knowing the road to high insurance premiums was paved with shivers exactly like this, she managed a mocking laugh.

  “Oh, come on. Do you think I’m stupid enough to open my door to a drunken stranger at 3:00 a.m.?”

  “Well, of course, if you were alone, I wouldn’t expect you to let me inside. I can hear that clipped no-nonsense tone in your voice. Very sensible and smart, ’cause God knows there’s a lot of kooks in the world. I had a grandmother that sounded a lot like you, and she hailed from West Texas, and could shoot down a coyote and then serve it up in a stew. I have yet to meet anybody more practical than that. Until now. But it seems to me that as long as your boyfriend isn’t itchy on the trigger, I’ll make a quick call, and be home before I drown. Seems to me we’d all come out alive, and you and your man could content yourself with the knowledge that you helped a forlorn human being in his dark time of trouble.”

  Realizing she’d been outfoxed by a tipsy man, Devon rested her forehead against the door. She didn’t want to do this. It just reeked of…Devon ending up with the short end of some pointed and painful stick. Knowing she was doing the smart thing, her hand pushed the door shut.

  Right before the door was securely latched once again, the miserable man sighed, a melodramatic exaggeration of both starving orphans and homeless kittens that might have melted a softer heart.

  Devon’s fingers hesitated, keeping the door open only a hairbreadth.

  “Look, I’m sorry about this,” he explained in that raw voice that stroked down her increasingly wobbly spine. “If it wasn’t raining, I’d wait it out, but I’m soaked and my leg hurts—”

  “What did you do to your leg?” Devon asked, flipping on the porch light and then opening the door before stepping back in shock.

  No way did the tiny three-inch image on the monitor compare to the sucker punch of the full in-person effect. His hair wasn’t merely black, it was the startling blue-black of stealth bombers, gun barrels and every other doomsday device known to man. Long thick lashes framed silvery gray eyes, which were currently wearing that ah-shit look that she knew well from having two older brothers, who, not being nearly as accepting of their fate as Devon, experienced ah-shit moments on what was a nearly daily basis.

  Her mouth went dry from looking at him, and in her mind, she was already calculating the estimated maximum loss if she just did something small, like touch him, like kiss him, like seduce him.

  Oh, for Pete’s sake, what was she thinking? Instantly she made a note to get a bigger vibrator.

  Devon locked her arms across her chest, determined to remain unmoved, uninvolved, unaroused and alive.

  “The leg’s not injured. It’s uh…encumbered,” he answered, those silver eyes widening innocently, which should have been impossible, considering the slightly tipsy tilt to his mouth…and the ball and chain around his leg.
/>   Ball and chain?

  Devon slammed the door shut.

  2

  “OWWWW!”

  That wasn’t a good sign.

  Devon cracked the door open again. “Did I hurt you?”

  “Just the nose,” he muttered.

  “Sorry,” she apologized, then added in the spirit of total deniability: “Please take a step back before it gets beat up again.” All legal waivers of liability completed, she slammed the door shut. If his nose got out of joint this time, it wasn’t her fault. He’d been warned.

  Seemingly incapable of showing good sense, he knocked quietly.

  “Ma’am?”

  Her eyes closed, as if a lack of vision could block out the insidious persistence of that voice. This man wasn’t used to women who slammed doors on his nose. He wasn’t used to horrible miseries for one day of the year. No, he was that clueless individual who believed that all mountains should be climbed and all plumbing leaks could be fixed with a wrench and a roll of duct tape.

  In other words, he was a man.

  If only he wasn’t so…tempting.

  After suffering from previous April Fools’ day hoaxes that required FBI interrogations (no she wasn’t a terrorist, and she didn’t know any Nigerian princes, nor had she ever claimed to be one) and accidents that required interior fumigation, it was somehow freeing to know that she wouldn’t mind spending twenty-four hours in bed, if Mr. Ball-and-Chain were there to keep her company.

  Sensing her defenses starting to falter, Devon moved to the offensive. “Do not attempt to guilt me into opening the door against my better judgment, knowing that you’re an escaped criminal with a sordid past, recently on the run from a chain gang.”

  “No chain gangs in North Dakota, ma’am. The penal system is a lot more humane than it used to be. No, this is just my buds pulling an April Fools’ joke on me.”

  An April Fools’ joke? Seriously? For the first time on this godforsaken day, she found herself actually smiling. “You have very sick friends.”

  “I know, I tell them that every day. You don’t know how many times I wanted to ditch the bastards, but then I tell myself, Self, you’ll get shot down behind enemy lines and captured, and if I went and kicked their ass—exactly like they deserved, mind you—then they’d have no reason to pull off one of those death-defying rescues you see in Hollywood and I’d never get famous. So you can see, I don’t have any choice in the matter. And that’s why I’m here at your doorstep with a ball and chain wrapped around my leg. It’s pitiful. It’s pathetic. But you’re my last hope. And I know you’re a very smart lady, and shouldn’t open the door, but goddamn it, it’s cold and wet out here, and the base is sixty-five kilometers away and I think if I was one hundred percent sober, I could probably make it, even with this monstrosity attached to me. But currently I’m sitting at about seventy-eight percent sobriety, and I think I’m coming down with a cold.” He sneezed, a genuine sound that breached the nuclear-bunkered walls of her heart.

  All biological dictates aside, Devon knew there were a thousand reasons she shouldn’t open the door. More importantly, no self-respecting female would let a slightly drunken voice curl her toes and cause her spine to collapse upon itself.

  But something about that low, hot summer drawl made her warm in places that had forgotten they could get warm. Her skin was starting to feel tight and itchy, and she had a strange desire to dig through her lingerie drawer to find something more attractive than a red-rose flannel gown. All further arguments against the door opening died a short and violent death.

  Maybe it was April Fools’. Maybe it was a mistake. But so what? As a female, more than eighty percent of her decisions that involved the male sex would be a mistake. As an actuary who calculated life and death expectancies on a daily basis, Devon believed in always playing the odds.

  After she opened the door, the first thing she noticed was the blood that trailed down from the bridge of his nose, and meandered along his cheek. It was a nice cheek, innocent and undeserving of blood caused by her. Automatically she reached for the first-aid kit on the wooden cabinet nearby, and then handed him an antiseptic wipe and a piece of gauze.

  She hoped he’d had all his shots. Yes, her front door was made of steel, and tetanus shouldn’t be a problem, but Devon wouldn’t be surprised if a rusty nail hadn’t winged its way to her home sometime in the last few hours.

  The man wiped away the blood and then waved a casual hand. “No problem. No boyfriend?” he asked, and she noticed the steady watchfulness in his gaze. Not as tipsy as she had thought.

  “I have an alarm system,” she answered, pointing to the big red button. “It’s very good. One wrong move, and you will be eviscerated.”

  “I assure you, there are no evisceration plans in my future. I’m fingerprinted and on file with the U.S. Air Force, and they’ll mostly vouch for my sterling character, although don’t ask about last Halloween and the colonel. He’s still a little touchy. Right now, I just need to use the phone, and then I’ll be…” Gazing down at his leg, he winced, and then pulled at the chain with one powerful hand, creating that fingernails-on-the-chalkboard dragging noise that she’d heard earlier.

  The noise was almost worth the visual. While she watched his strong movements, thigh muscles bulking underneath faded jeans, biceps enlarging and then elongating with each tug of the chain, tension featured on his face much like a man in the throes of…

  of…

  of…

  …orgasm. Yes, orgasm was what they called it.

  A momentary twinge of nostalgia started in her brain and then settled happily between her thighs.

  The heavy black ball left tread marks on the linoleum. Permanent tread marks that would be impossible to clean up. Still, linoleum could be replaced, and frankly, Devon was currently enjoying these twinges. Later, there would be some sort of penance, but her insurance (home, life, car, flood, travel) was paid.

  “Are you getting married?” she asked, the cultural implications of a ball and chain just sinking in.

  He looked at her, horror in his eyes, and then seemed to pick up on her thoughts. “Not me. I’m not that stupid. The ball and chain was for the groom. It was my idea, but I got double-crossed. Damned tequila.”

  Her mouth twitched, nearly curved into a smile. What a dilemma, and here was a man who defied gravity in million-dollar flying machines designed to protect his country and the lives of innocent citizens the world over.

  In Devon’s opinion, hero was merely another word for fool.

  And yet he was also a man who took his pranks seriously, but when outpranked, took it in stride. Refreshing.

  She schooled her features into something not quite so admiring. “And you got chained up instead?”

  “Bastards,” he answered with a grin. “Retribution will be sweet, swift, using methods unsanctioned by the CIA. Phone?” His deliberate gaze took in her small, tidy, kitchen, took in her small, tidy house, but she noticed how carefully his eyes did not take in the small, tidiness of her.

  She was accustomed to it and had settled into a peaceful acceptance of her solitary existence. Was she pretty? Yes. Was she worthy of a flirty wink or a cat-call? Yes. Was she worthy of risking a car off the cliff or a seemingly demonic attack dog? Not a chance in hell.

  Calamities such as what she termed the Cujo incident—sometimes in the presence of the opposite sex—were why her evening attire was a thigh-length flannel nightgown (flame-retardant), why her brown hair was tied back in a very practical long braid (she was too vain to cut it off), why wool socks had a hole in the right toe (currently hidden by the skid-proof slippers), why he wasn’t hitting on her…

  “The phone’s over there,” she muttered, pointing toward the old princess-style phone with a frankly cranky finger.

  Up until this moment, she’d considered herself above the superficiality of the eternal quest for male companionship. It worried her that now, in the presence of a lust-worthy serviceman tied to a ball and chain,
she might be devolving—condemning herself to a life of women’s magazines, drawers full of mascara, cottage cheese and, worst of all, exercise. Seventy-eight percent of all weight lost came back on. Exercise was futile, it was painful. In the end, Cujo was preferable.

  “I won’t be long,” he said apologetically, most likely noticing the sour expression on her face, which she should erase. But if she did, then wasn’t she falling into the very trap that she wanted to avoid?

  He picked up her pink receiver and then promptly frowned.

  “I’m not getting a dial tone,” he said, as if surprised.

  Devon shrugged, perhaps a bit cocky. “Sometimes that happens with storms,” she replied vaguely.

  “Damned phone companies. Never there when you need them most. Do you have a cell?”

  Seeing the easy confidence in his expression, Devon’s smile became more sure. “Absolutely. Do you want to try it?” Not that it was going to matter. She’d bet the last dollar in her emergency savings account (well-funded) that there was no cell reception. No, Mr. Who-Needs-Insurance was going to be stuck.

  Alone with her.

  At that lusty thought, she almost grinned. Instead, she handed him the sturdy mobile phone that she kept for emergencies.

  Efficiently he punched in numbers, holding it up to his ear, and then nodding, as if there was an actual chance in hell of communication with the outside world.

  Devon waited.

  Disaster in three…two…one…

  Still confident in a rational world order, he started to talk. “Scott, it’s Chance. Yes, Chance Cooper, your squadron commander, the one currently toting an extra fifty pounds, you son of a bitch. Your ass is mine, Airman.”

  He kept grinning, talking successfully, actually arranging car pickups, meeting places, time synchronization without any thought to contingency plans. And most remarkable of all, the phone connection was still working. The overhead lights still were shining brightly, there were no strange animals or people jumping through her windows.