Kill the Competition

by Stephanie Bond

  They were pushing croutons around on their plates and coming down from their respective buzzes when Libby pointed to a television showing an aerial view of I-85. She sighed. “Darn, looks like traffic is breaking.”

  “It still won’t be a picnic getting home,” Rosemary said. “It’ll be dark soon.” She flagged the waitress for the check. “Belinda, are you okay to drive?”

  Belinda nodded. “I’m a cheap date, but the effects seem to pass rather quickly.”

  They settled the bill and gingerly climbed down from their chairs, gathering purses and jackets. None of them, she realized, were anxious to hit the road, and all of them had different reasons for not wanting to go home. They moved through the noisy crowd toward the door, Belinda bringing up the rear.

  But as she walked past the bar, Belinda did a double take—Lieutenant Alexander? In civilian clothes and from the side, she couldn’t be sure. Dressed in jeans and a pale blue Atlanta Falcons T-shirt, he stood within arm’s reach, talking to a small group of men, two of them in uniform. What was so unfamiliar about him was his smile—no, his grin—that transformed him from a solemn-faced cop into the mouthwatering neighbor boy that made a girl want to ride her bike up and down the street just to catch a glimpse. He lifted a bottle of beer to his mouth, but stopped when he caught sight of her. His dark eyebrows rose in recognition, and his friends turned to see what had captured his attention. She flushed, wishing she’d kept moving. But he stepped toward her, and for some foolish reason, her heart started pounding.

  Association, she decided, wondering if she’d done anything she could be cited for.

  “Hello,” he said and offered a diluted version of that stomach-flipping grin.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m beginning to think that Atlanta is a small city.”

  “It can be. Waiting out the traffic?”

  She nodded. “You?”

  He opened his mouth but was interrupted when a buddy of his, who’d apparently had much more to drink, stepped over and clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Buy this man a drink, pretty lady. We’re celebrating Wade’s return to single life.”

  She looked back to Wade, who was fidgeting with the label on his beer bottle. Compared to his friend, he seemed less jolly about the occasion. Her heart moved for the big man. “I was just leaving,” she said. “But it was good to see you again, Lieutenant.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said, shoving his beer against his buddy’s stomach with a glare.

  “That’s all right, it’s parked at my office building.”

  “All the more reason.”

  “I’m with my friends,” she said, pointing to the door where the women stood, craning for a look.

  He looked at the women, then back to her. “Still.”

  Well, it was hard to argue with that. She conceded with a nod, then caught up with her friends. “Girls, you remember Lt. Wade Alexander.”

  “Wade,” he said, nodding a greeting.

  They chorused hello, but shot her quizzical looks.

  “Um, Wade offered to walk us to our car.”

  More looks, which she ignored. Finally, Rosemary walked out, forcing Libby and Carole to follow and maintain a discreet lead.

  He held open the door, and she walked out into the dusk. After the smoky interior of the bar, the fresh air felt good expanding her lungs, and the temperature had dropped with the sun. She lifted her jacket from her arm and responded with surprise when he took it from her and held it while she slid her arms inside. “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry about my moron buddy back there. Believe it or not, he thought he was being a friend.”

  She resumed walking, ultra aware of his proximity. “No need to apologize. Friends don’t always know what to do when…things like this happen. I’m sure he meant well.”

  They walked in silence. She longed for breezy conversation, but every encounter with this man so far had been fraught with awkwardness. “How long were you—”

  “Six years,” he cut in.

  “Ah.” So much for breezy conversation.

  “The only good thing about my marriage was that we didn’t have children.”

  Justification? She decided not to judge. “Divorce is hard on children.”

  “Do you—”

  “No.” She smiled. “I have a cat, and she’s enough of a handful.”

  “I have a cat, too.”

  She laughed. “No offense, but you don’t seem like a cat person.”

  “I’m not. The cat was…hers. But when she left, she didn’t want it, and I didn’t have the heart to take the poor thing to a shelter.”

  “Same for me,” Belinda said with a sad smile. “Does your cat miss her—I mean, is it sulking?”

  “He’s shredding my furniture, if that’s what you mean.”

  She winced. “At least Downey’s not destructive. She just snubs me.”

  His laugh was a pleasing rumble. “They’ll get over it.”

  “Think so?”

  He looked at her directly for the first time, and she was struck by the full impact of his expressive gray eyes. “I’m counting on it.”

  She looked away first, and, alarmed by how far they’d fallen behind the women, increased her stride. When pedestrians approached, they were forced to walk closer together, and a couple of times, his hand hovered above her waist. An impulse of Southern manners, she was sure, like the ma’aming and the door-holding.

  “Do you live around here?” she asked.

  “Not too far from here. I have a small house in Ansley Park.”

  “I hear that’s a nice area.”

  “It is. My place is a fixer-upper, but in the final stages, thank goodness.”

  “So you can do more with your hands than change a tire?” She wanted the words back as soon as they left her mouth.

  He grinned. “Try me.”

  Belinda suddenly found it imperative to count the number of cracks in the sidewalk, and she hoped to find one large enough to fall into and disappear.

  “So how do you like working at Archer?” he asked, probably to fill in the space.

  “I’m getting acclimated.”

  “Did you make that important meeting Monday morning?”

  She lifted her eyebrows in surprise.

  He shrugged. “I remember your friend saying something about it at the time.”

  “No, unfortunately, I didn’t make the meeting, and my boss was rather…perturbed with me.”

  “One of those, huh?”

  She smiled. “Well, I try not to complain about her, but she can be a tyrant.”

  “So why stick around?”

  “Greed. She brought me on to help take the company public.”

  “Works for me.”

  “At least you made your meeting. Not too late, I hope.”

  “Actually, it was a court date.”

  “Someone you ticketed?”

  “Uh, no. Divorce settlement.”

  She winced. “And I almost made you miss it.”

  “I shouldn’t have cut it so close.”

  “You looked as if you were just going off duty.”

  “A case I was working on ran late.”

  “All night?”

  He nodded. “In hindsight, I don’t think I was very nice to you.”

  “Under the circumstances, I thought you were incredibly nice. And now that I know everything, I can’t imagine why you didn’t shoot me.”

  He grinned, and she forgot to breathe.

  “Listen,” he said, his voice and expression changing. “How would you like to go to a Braves game sometime…with me?”

  Thank goodness they were at the entrance to the parking garage, because she suddenly wanted to be away from him. Something about this man spooked her, reminded her of places she didn’t want to go. Not yet, not so soon after her heart had been amputated, and his trampled as well. For now, she needed Julian’s carefree smile and feel-good touches.

  “Thank you for walking us back. This is
far enough.” She hadn’t meant for the words to come out sounding so defensive, but there it was. Belinda stopped and signaled the girls, who were still ahead of them, to wait. “And I think I’ll pass on the game.”

  He hesitated, then pursed his mouth. “Okay. You have my cell phone number in case anything…comes up.”

  “Yes.” Her smile felt stiff. “Good luck with your cat.”

  “And you.”

  As Belinda turned to go, a sense of déjà vu settled over her. She was always hurrying away from this man. Later she realized she’d been so distracted by Wade Alexander’s presence that she hadn’t thought to tell him about the flying plant incident.

  Chapter 13

  Belinda opened her front door and contemplated her Saturday newspaper lying in the middle of her yard patch. She shot a glance toward Perry’s driveway. The man himself wasn’t in sight, but the lid to the coffin-sized stainless steel toolbox in the bed of his truck was ajar, so he was somewhere in the vicinity.

  She slipped out the door as silently as possible and picked her way across the grass. Dew seeped through her thin house shoes, and the morning chill reminded her she wasn’t wearing a bra. She leaned over to get the plastic-covered paper—almost there.

  “Hey, Belinda!”

  She winced, crossed her arms over her chest, and straightened. Perry walked toward her wearing a cutoff T-shirt and torn jeans that rode morbidly low. In one hand he held a coil of thick wire, in the other a wrench big enough to make her think about that road-safe weapon the girls had been hounding her to buy. “Hi, Perry.”

  He eyed the thin denim shirt she’d donned to do housework. “I saw you drive in last night—still don’t have your car fixed?”

  “Um, no. I’m supposed to get the estimate Monday.”

  “Want to go get a waffle?”

  “Sorry—a friend is coming over.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  She frowned. “No.”

  “Just askin’. Hey, I’ll be down in your neck of the woods next week.”

  “Oh?”

  “I got a work order for an elevator that’s out of commission in your building.”

  That had taken long enough—Jeanie Lawford had been dead for six months. Of course, an investigation by the insurance company would have stalled the repairs.

  He assumed as casual a pose as possible while holding a giant wrench. “So…what floor do you work on? Maybe I’ll stop by.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I’ll buy you lunch.”

  She took a deep breath. “Look, Perry, I’m not interested in us being more than neighbors and…friends.”

  He thought for a few seconds. “How good a friend?”

  “Platonic.”

  He frowned. “Does that have anything to do with sex?”

  “Yes. It means having none. Good-bye, Perry.” She turned and started walking.

  “A lot of women think I’m hot, you know!”

  She closed the door behind her, heaved a sigh of relief, and carried the paper to the kitchen, where she poured a second cup of coffee. “Downey,” she called. “Do you want to eat?”

  Nothing.

  She poured a scoop of dry cat food in the double-sided bowl for when the cat’s stomach got the best of her pride. A yawn overtook Belinda. She covered her mouth with her hand and stretched high on her toes to send energy to her extremities. Last night she’d tossed and turned on her one pillow, plagued alternately by thoughts of her titillating encounter with Julian Hardeman and her unsettling encounter with Wade Alexander. The men evoked such opposite responses in her—just picturing Julian’s face made her smile, and Wade’s face…didn’t.

  His pain was too fresh, too familiar. She owed it to herself to spend time with a man who made her feel carefree. Sexy. Desirable.

  On the kitchen table, Vince’s envelope sat benignly, still propped against the yellow fruit bowl. She ignored it in favor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Some local names and places were starting to become familiar. A good sign, but she still didn’t feel connected to this big, sprawling city.

  The best news came in the weather forecast: rain all weekend meant she might be able to pick up reception on her temperamental television and watch The Single Files tomorrow night. It was a petty thought, but she released it into the universe anyway.

  She closed the paper and sipped her coffee. Vince’s envelope taunted her, his precise cursive written, no doubt, with his favorite Mont Blanc pen. Return address: 137 Monarch Circle. It was to have been their address, their redbrick ranch with a sloping driveway, their front door with stained-glass inset. Instead, he lived there, and she lived—she glanced from corner to corner of her generic, rented town house—here.

  Unbidden, tears pricked her eyes. She had wanted stainless steel appliances in the kitchen but had relented to his preference for white. She had coveted built-in bookshelves in the living room but had surrendered the space to a mammoth entertainment system. Had Vince been having reservations about their relationship even then? Had he planned all along to move into the house alone?

  The phone rang, and Downey appeared from thin air.

  “I think you’re a shape-shifter,” she accused the cat. “If you are, be a chocolate cake, would you?” She picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hi, dear, it’s Mother.”

  She winced—she’d been so preoccupied when she’d gotten home last night, she’d forgotten to call. “Hi, Mom, how are you?”

  Long sigh. “Worried about you. Were you asleep?”

  “No, I’ve been up for a while.”

  “You’re not sleeping well?”

  “I got up early to clean. A friend is coming over.”

  “Oh?”

  “A girlfriend.”

  “Oh.”

  “Guess what? I found my address book.”

  “Oh, good. The package is sitting right here in front of me.”

  She didn’t doubt it. Belinda pulled up Suzanne’s address and read it from the small screen of her organizer.

  Her mother clucked. “I hope it isn’t too late for Suzanne to return the candlesticks.”

  “If it is, she’ll probably use them herself.”

  “Yes, her mother told me she and her husband have the most lovely home in Lexington.” The envy in her mother’s voice was palpable.

  “Um, I bought a couch.”

  “You did? Oh, that’s wonderful! What kind?”

  “It’s a sofa bed. Red.”

  “Did you say red?”

  “Leather.”

  “Red leather?”

  “It was on sale.”

  “Oh. Well, maybe you can cover it with a throw.”

  Sigh. “Are you and Dad ready for your trip?”

  “Yes. Your father is out checking the tire pressure on the car. We’re planning to leave first thing in the morning—your dad says the traffic will be light on Sunday.”

  “You’ll have the best time.”

  “Of course we will. I’ll call you often to check in.” Then her mother cleared her throat. “Speaking of checking in, Belinda, have you heard from Vince?”

  Her gaze bounced to the envelope on the table. “No. Why?”

  “No reason. No reason at all, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Well, I’d better go, dear. Mr. Finn will be here any minute to pick up this package.”

  “Okay, Mom. Give Dad my love.” She hung up the phone and pursed her mouth. Her poor mother. Subjected to all the stress of a wedding, but cheated out of the aftermath of boasting to her friends how well her daughter and her new husband were getting along in their new home. Instead, Barbara Hennessey had been left with her penciled-in eyebrows raised in disbelief and no satisfactory explanation for the revoked wedding to pass on to shocked members of her Garden Club.

  But she couldn’t very well have told her mother that Vince might have changed his mind because she’d slept with him the night befo
re the wedding and it had fallen short of earth shattering. (Okay, it had been a disaster.) Besides, he hadn’t actually said that was the reason. Or said there was a reason at all.

  She walked back to the table and sipped her coffee—now lukewarm—and squinted at the envelope. She could steam it open, and if the contents were innocuous, seal the flap and return to sender or toss the thing in the trash. And if the contents were completely objectionable, she could contaminate it with some hideous bacteria from the cheese in her refrigerator before sealing the flap and returning to sender.

  Or she could rip it open and regardless of the contents, stomp on them, cut them up, and set them on fire. Or use the clippings to fashion a papier-mâché voodoo doll. Or to line Downey’s litter box. Perhaps Martha Stewart should consider an episode on creative revenge. Retribution—it’s a good thing.

  On the counter sat the crumpled brown bag containing the embroidered pillow. Overcome by the urge to undo something, she pulled the pillow out of the bag and retrieved a pair of scissors. “Sorry, Aunt Edie,” she murmured, then used the sharp end of the scissors to cut through the little stitches that formed the loving message. When she finished, frayed ends covered the pale blue surface, making her resent Vince all over again for the little injustices his behavior had foisted onto her family.

  Downey had been studying her intently, and she realized the cat was captivated by the shiny sateen fabric. Belinda tossed the dainty pillow on the floor, and Downey pounced, then dragged it toward her food bowl.

  “Go for it,” Belinda muttered.

  She sighed, thinking she should probably channel her anger toward straightening the town house before Libby arrived. She drained her cup and put it in the dishwasher, along with the few items that had accumulated over the week. She wiped counters and dusted, then ran the vacuum cleaner, which sent Downey into hiding. In the living room, Belinda maneuvered around the moving boxes that she had yet to confront.

  But they weren’t going anywhere.

  She barely had time to finish, take a quick shower and dress before her doorbell rang. When she opened the door, a blue Volvo sedan was backing out of the driveway, and Libby stood on the stoop, her mouth tight and quivery.

  “Everything okay?” Belinda asked, stepping aside to allow her entry.