by Niecey Roy
He turned around at the sound of rapidly rolling wheels to see Rach pushing a cart at him full speed. He backed up a step, afraid she might run him over. She stopped just in time, an inch from the toes of his shoes. Inside the cart were two boxes of multi-colored Christmas lights.
“Lights, too?”
“They’ll accentuate the gnomes,” she shrugged and loaded four into the cart, plucking the ones out of his arms to join the others.
“That’s a little overkill, isn’t it?” He fingered the price tag hanging from a gnome neck. “You’re going to pay twenty-five for these?”
“It’s not that much and it’s a good investment.” Her eyes swept around the aisle.
He tapped her on the arm before she could load up any more overpriced yard ornaments. “They are twenty-five dollars apiece, Red.”
She stared down in wonder at the contents inside the cart and choked out, “How the hell can these be twenty-five apiece? They’re ugly as sin and they look cheap.”
He did a quick calculation. “It’s going to cost you about a hundred and eighty dollars to annoy your neighbor. Not including tax, Sweetheart.”
She sighed and the crestfallen look on her face tugged at his heart. She was cute when she pouted.
After a few moments of consideration she picked up two of the gnomes and said, “Fine. I’ll put…all of them back but two. I need at least two. Mrs. Jacobs only had one and Mrs. Petska threw a fit. So if I have two gnomes and hang up out-of-season Christmas lights, she’ll be pissed.”
Her smile was breathtaking and he forced himself to look away. She’s crazy, remember that.
He’d never met anyone like her. No woman he knew would ever have forced him into being an accessory to a yard war, nor would have been so upset about having to put back ugly yard décor. Her eyes brightened and she reached up to take down a garden stake with a bright plastic butterfly tacked to the top. The purple, green, and orange wings and long green antennas had been crafted to wave in the wind. After a moment’s hesitation she took down three more and threw them in the cart.
“She’s going to hate you.” He grinned and shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels.
“Yup,” she chirped. She gripped the handle of the cart and pushed it down the aisle. “She should have thought about that before putting crap on my porch.”
He fell into step beside her with a chuckle. “To be fair, your dog put it on her lawn first.”
“Whose side are you on, mine or the mean woman next door?” she demanded. “Besides, Tally had to go and she doesn’t really understand the difference between my lawn and the neighbor’s. It’s not her fault.”
No, it was hers, but he knew it would be suicide to say so.
The yard war cost her eighty bucks. She grimaced at the total and swiped her debit card. Then as an afterthought she asked the cashier the strangest thing: “Does Spetzer-Mart hire people without cash register experience?”
The checker gave her a smile with a shake of graying brown hair. “Oh no, they hire just about anyone with customer service experience and a smile.”
Rach grinned and took the receipt from her hand. “Good to know, thanks.”
Craig took charge of the cart, pushing it toward the doors. He waved his hand at the veteran greeter in a wheelchair and followed Rach into the cool night breeze. A cart full of crap—he wouldn’t be going home any time soon.
Chapter Sixteen
“You really know how to work a man,” Craig grumped and collapsed, exhausted, onto her couch. They’d hung the lights, set out the gnomes and stuck the garden stakes in the ground to line the sidewalk. Had he known what a night with her would entail, he would’ve worn jeans and tennis shoes. Or he wouldn’t have come at all.
His plan had been to eat a couple of slices of pizza and head home. Kick his feet up and watch the tube for a few hours, something he didn’t do often. After a long day of phone conferences and meetings, he’d been looking forward to some down time.
Instead, he was eating cold pizza with a possible crazy woman and in no hurry to leave.
“Boo-hoo,” she teased, slapping his hand away from the last slice. She picked it up and took a big bite, then sighed and held the piece out for him. He took it without a word and bit in. When had they fallen into such cozy complacency? She accepted the pizza back, and said, “Well, I’m glad you stayed and helped, it would have taken me all night to get those lights up by myself. I suppose for all your hard work I can offer you a drink.”
He laughed and wiped his hands on a paper towel. “Thanks, I suppose I could take one after all the hard work you forced me to do.”
Rach disappeared into the kitchen, leaving him and the golden retriever to stare each other down. She returned a few minutes later with a glass of soda and ice—he could smell the liquor without raising the glass to his nose. Craig gave her a questioning look before taking a hesitant sip. He winced as he swallowed. “Pretty strong.”
“Sorry, I’m not that great at mixing drinks and all I have is rum. I don’t drink the bubbly girl stuff.”
He chuckled. “Are you talking about champagne?”
“Yeah.” She sat beside him and turned on the TV. “You look like a champagne kind of guy.”
“Wedding, maybe. Are you looking for a job?” he asked, watching her flip through the channels. She stopped on an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
“Why, you offering me one?” she asked.
“Uh, no,” he answered, thrown off by the question. He blinked and shook his head. “I, uh, just thought—well you asked that woman at Spetzer-Mart about a job.” The idea of seeing Rach every day in his office had him torn between excitement and dread. An image of her long legs and tight ass in slacks, bending over his desk, made his muscles tense with desire. He clenched the glass in his hand. “Besides, I don’t think you and I would be very productive under the same roof.”
“Just keeping my options open with the Spetzer-Mart thing,” she shared. A small smile enveloped her lips and he looked to the TV to see what had made her face soften. A family was thanking ABC for changing their lives. “It’s amazing to see people who’ve struggled for so long get an opportunity like this. If I had the money or the chance to be part of something like this, I would.”
A woman who waged yard wars didn’t seemed the philanthropic type. She’d been a constant surprise since he’d met her.
“You could. There are a ton of organizations that help families. You should look into it,” he suggested.
She looked at him, thoughtful. “I did once. I went to school to be a social worker.” She stood up and grabbed Craig’s empty cup off the coffee table, her long fingers wrapping around the glass. She had pianist’s hands and he wondered if she played. “Would you like a refill?”
He stood, wanting to stay, but instead answered, “No, I’d better get home. Early day tomorrow and all…”
Her expression said she didn’t buy it for a minute. “On a Saturday?”
He owned a dealership, working weekends was part of the job. Craig almost explained it to her, but changed his mind when she shrugged and turned her back on him. Her opinion of him didn’t matter, they were practically strangers.
Sounding foolish, he announced, “I’m leaving.”
Rach stopped in the doorway to the kitchen and turned to lean her tall frame against the wall. Her look of amusement annoyed the hell out of him.
“Oh yeah? I thought you’d be gone already—big day and all tomorrow.”
Craig found himself doing exactly what he’d told himself not to: “I do have to work tomorrow. I sell cars, I don’t get days off.”
“I understand completely,” she replied, not sounding as if she did or cared to.
He stormed forward, halting a few feet from her. “I don’t give a damn if you believe me or not.”
She raised her chin in a stubborn gesture, the small nose upturned and haughty. “And I don’t give a damn if you think I believe you or not.�
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“You’re the snob,” he threw back and her eyes flashed like green gems in the sun.
“You’re the one with the stick up your ass,” she countered, jabbing him in the chest with a glass, the ice cubes tinkling with the movement. “You’re the one who walks around with your head inflated the size of a watermelon.”
“If by stick up my ass and a big head you mean responsible and career driven, then yeah, you’re right. You should try it sometime.”
She gasped and he winced, disgusted with himself for punching so far below the belt. With a heated glare, she hissed, “You’re a jerk. Go find one of your bimbos to railroad—I don’t need to hear this crap from you.”
He grasped her wrist to stop her from jabbing him again, but the feel of her skin beneath his fingers unnerved him. He released her wrist. “Whatever you say, ice princess.”
“Ice princess, my ass,” she huffed, and stepped closer to look up into his face. “I think you’re so used to having women fall at your feet, it annoys the hell out of you that I’m not the least bit interested in someone like you.”
He bristled. “Someone like me? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re a snob,” she tossed at him. “I’m not interested in snobs.”
The insane urge to prove her wrong had him yanking her into his arms and slanting a rough kiss against her lips. He slowed the pace to move his lips over hers in a deep, sensual kiss and her body relaxed. He fisted his hands through her hair, as he’d imagined doing since the last time, and groaned against her lips when she pressed up against him. He nibbled at her lower lip, sucked at it softly, and then slipped his tongue inside.
He reveled in the feel of her against him and pulled her closer to tuck her inside his embrace. No escape. But the longer he kissed her, her soft mouth moist and inviting, the harder it was to remember why he’d kissed her in the first place. He released her quickly, satisfied he’d proven his point, and stepped away. His hands were shaking and he stuffed them inside his pockets.
The sudden movement had left her dazed. He tried for a cocky grin he wasn’t sure he pulled off. “You look pretty interested now.”
She donned a glower and rolled her eyes. “Not really.”
But her lips trembled. He couldn’t take his eyes off those lips.
Then she turned on her heel and strolled into the kitchen. She called out, “Don’t let the door hit you on your ass on the way out.”
Craig turned around and marched out the door. After his nightmare relationship with Maggie, which he was still suffering from, his next relationship would not be with a woman who enjoyed busting his balls every chance she got. He had no time to get caught up in Red’s crazy schemes. If Leah and Rick were worried about her stomach they could play the pizza delivery game themselves.
Chapter Seventeen
Rach was jerked awake by a loud, piercing shriek below her bedroom window. The alarm clock read five a.m. She stretched, yawned, and rolled over with a sleepy smile before snuggling back under the covers to fall into a light slumber.
Fifteen minutes later a loud bang on the front door brought her to terms with the fact there would be no sleeping in. With a grumble she rolled to her feet and made a blind reach for the cotton robe she’d left at the foot of the bed. She stumbled with blurry eyes down to the kitchen.
There were three more loud bang, bang, bangs, but no way was she answering that door. Only one person would be out there at the butt-crack of dawn. She sat down with a steaming cup of coffee loaded with sugar and the last drop of two percent milk. Tally nestled in beside her and she covered a yawn. She leaned her head back against the couch and closed her eyes.
She was still parked on the couch an hour later when another knock on the front door woke her from her snooze. She glanced furtively at the door and ducked low into the couch even though whoever was out there wouldn’t see her through the blinds and curtains on the living room windows.
“Rachel dear, it’s Mrs. Jacobs!” a voice sing-songed from the other side of the door.
She stepped to the door cautiously and peered through the peephole. Sure enough, there was her neighbor from across the street standing on her porch with a wide grin on her face. An oversized, yellow straw hat sat on her head, a blue ribbon wrapped around the brim and a matching fake carnation the size of a softball sat on the side of the hat, laying against the bill and fluttering in the light morning spring breeze. Rach breathed a sigh of relief and opened the door to let the short, chubby older woman in.
She smoothed her pants and said breathlessly, “Oh my, Rachel, I was just admiring your gnomes outside. And all those pretty lights!”
“Would you like some coffee? I just made a fresh pot,” Rach offered.
Mrs. Jacobs nodded and the straw hat bobbed on her head. “That’d be wonderful, Dear. I should have brought my donuts. I could go and get them if you want?”
Rach did want, but shook her head. “No, that’s okay. I’m not hungry.” She was starving. “All I have is sugar.”
“I drink my coffee black, Dear.”
Rach poured the cup and set it on the table where Mrs. Jacobs had settled into one of the tall-backed brown chairs. She leaned forward as she wrapped wrinkled, age spotted hands around the warm coffee mug, and asked, “Has Evelyn seen those yard ornaments?”
“I’m pretty sure I heard her screaming this morning,” Rach answered, amused at the satisfied look that crossed the woman’s wrinkled face. Mrs. Jacobs was cute and bubbly and mischievous, always stirring up trouble on the street just for the heck of it. Since Rach had moved onto the block she’d come to realize Mrs. Petska and Mrs. Jacobs often disagreed, as if they thrived on the controversy and all the other neighbors chose to stay out of the crossfire.
Last year when Mrs. Petska told her she wasn’t taking proper care of her tulips, Mrs. Jacobs bought an oversized, ugly gnome to decorate her front lawn. Not because Mrs. Jacobs had a great fondness for gnomes, but because Mrs. Petska hated them. When Mrs. Petska spotted the atrocity, she stormed across the street to demand it be removed. When Mrs. Jacobs’ refused, Mrs. Petska took a vote at the monthly neighborhood meeting where she moved to make a rule to keep tacky ornaments off the block.
The motion hadn’t received enough votes, emboldening Mrs. Jacobs to add an even uglier statue—a bear with a straw hat very similar to what was on her head, minus the flower. As a result, Mrs. Petska “accidentally” misplaced Mrs. Jacobs’ seating card at a benefit dinner for the Alzheimer’s Foundation, making Mrs. Jacobs endure the company of Pete McAllister, a very smelly old man who made sucking noises when he ate and told dirty Polish jokes. The day after, Mrs. Jacobs flagged Rach down during an afternoon walk with Tally, giving her the low-down on the entire feud. Rach had had a hard time maintaining a straight face.
Rach supposed at their age, with children grown and gone and most of their friends moving on to retirement homes, the bickering gave them something to fill the void and keep them young. She didn’t mind, it made her time on the block interesting enough.
“Good. That sanctimonious grouch deserves this. You know, she called me last week and told me she thinks my trees need trimmed. The nerve! She said they’re hanging over the street and it looks trashy,” Mrs. Jacobs huffed and sipped at the coffee. “I told her to put a sock in it and do something about the peeling paint on her porch.”
Rach patted the woman’s thick hand. “That was very brave of you.”
She nodded with wide, serious eyes. “Someone has got to stick up to that bully.” She leaned in and asked in an unnecessary whisper, “So tell me, why did you put those pretty decorations out?”
Rach shared the story without sugar coating any part of it to save face. After hearing it out loud, it sounded much more ridiculous than in her head.
“Serves her right! Putting dog poop on your porch—that’s just horrible! Although you really should have picked up Tally’s poop, young lady,” she tsk-tsked with a smile then snickered, “I can’t
wait to call Mary and tell her all about this. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all, have fun with it.” Rach stood to help Mrs. Jacobs to her feet, steering her toward the front door. The older woman would talk all day if given the chance. “I’ll probably take them down in a few days and then ask for a truce. I’m thinking of finding a new place anyway, something with a bigger backyard.”
Mrs. Jacobs stopped in the middle of Rach’s living room and no amount of nudging would get her to the door. Her expression was a mixture of horror and upset. “You can’t go anywhere, young lady. You have no idea how exciting things have been since you moved in. We old biddies won’t have anything to gossip about and no one to live vicariously through!”
“Surely you’ll find something else to talk about,” she smiled, unsure whether to be pleased or upset that she was the neighborhood entertainment.
“I highly doubt it. We’ll just get another old lady in this townhome and life will be boring once again.” She took the last few steps to the front door and turned to say, “I was meaning to ask you who that handsome man was you had over here. The one with the fancy black car?”
“No one special. Just a friend.” She could tell the answer hadn’t been what Mrs. Jacobs wanted to hear.
Rach managed to get the woman across the threshold with only a little force, but she turned to look back at Rach to say, “You think about staying a bit longer, this is a good neighborhood. There’s lots of hood rats around these days and it’s not safe for a young woman to live on her own. We watch out for our neighbors here.”
Rach nodded, nervously peering at Mrs. Petska’s front door. Mrs. Jacobs was about to leave when she turned to give Rach a sober look.
“Ever since her son ran off with that tramp in Vegas and left his wife and kids, Evelyn’s been a real bear. She won’t even talk to me anymore and we used to be such good friends. Now she just nags me every time I turn around. But she wasn’t always such an old harpy.”