Читать книгу A Perfect Stranger - Terry McLaughlin - Страница 8

HARLEY MAXWELL arrived home from her day job dealing blackjack along Lake Tahoe’s north shore to find trouble in her usual parking spot and more of it across the street, sprawled on Norma and Syd’s front porch. Much more of it. Six feet, three inches of it, to be exact. Trouble in a three-piece navy-blue suit, striped navy-blue tie and serious navy-blue eyes.

She yanked the steering wheel of her tin-can car hard left and tickled the clutch through the familiar cough-and-shudder routine. Her car tried to roll over and play dead, but she stomped on the brakes before it could shimmy off the steep edge of the road. Big mistake. The little engine that usually could up and died.

She climbed out and slammed the compact’s door, hard, so it would stick. Had to stay on top of things, show that car who was boss. It might not last long enough to get her to Vegas, once she’d saved enough to make her move, but she was counting on it to get her to her second job that night. Tomorrow she’d have a heart-to-heart with the carburetor. Maybe threaten it with a tune-up from Dusty, the oversize mechanic with the sledgehammer hands and the scary-looking tools. It wasn’t much of a threat, really. Dusty was a pushover for down-on-their-luck autos and Harley’s apple tarts.

She took a deep breath and prepared to deal with the man lounging near the stairway leading to Syd’s attic apartment: Henry Barlow, the oversize attorney with the manicured nails and the nifty leather briefcase. It wasn’t going to be easy; Henry wasn’t a pushover for anything she could think of. It would take a hell of a lot more than an apple tart to ease her way around him.

She stilled a moment and waited for her heart to do that odd flippy thing it did whenever she saw him. She had no idea why the sight of the terminally repressed businessman with an undertaker’s fashion sense and a constipated outlook on life could make her heart stutter. Maybe her heart needed a tune-up, too.

Henry sure looked like he could use one. Someone had mussed his hair and loosened his tie. Not too much, or she might not have recognized him, though the sedate silver sedan parked in front of her house was a pretty big clue. The mussing couldn’t be Henry’s doing. He never mussed—er, messed up. Especially not his appearance. Razor-sharp, that was his personal style. Every tie knotted, every crease pressed, every hair perfectly—and predictably—in place.

She ambled across the narrow, rutted mountain road. “Hey, Hank, what’s up?”

“How many times do I have to tell you my name’s not Hank?” He struggled upright. “It’s Henry.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She dropped her canvas tote on the step below his feet. “Several hundred more, at least. It’s not that I forget your name, you know. It’s just that ‘Henry’ doesn’t go down as smooth as ‘Hank.’”

“That’s ridiculous.” He belched, and a whiff of whiskey-soaked misery floated her way. “Henry is meluf…meliful…it’s poetic. Hank is a truck driver in North Dakota.”

Hank Barlow drunk? In the middle of the afternoon? What was the world coming to? “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Checking to see if Norma needs any…” He waved a long-fingered hand in the air. “Anything. While Sydney’s gone.”

Anyone who knew Norma, Syd’s retired landlady who lived in the ground level of the Victorian-era house, knew she could take care of herself. Hank’s reason for being here was as flimsy as his hold on his dignity.

He dribbled an expensive single malt into the faceted crystal glass in his hand and took a loud, slurping sip.

“For cryin’ out loud.” Harley shook her head. “Ditch the Waterford and put the booze in the bag. You’re embarrassing me here.”

He stared at the glass. “I rang Norma’s doorbell to ask about Sydney’s plants, but she didn’t answer.”

“Today’s Wednesday. Norma’s bridge group meets on Wednesdays.” She settled beside him on the sun-warmed porch. “Why don’t you come over to my place? I can fix you some coffee while you wait for her. We can have a nice talk. About what’s bothering you, for instance.”

A jay swooped past with an annoyed squawk to fill the empty spot where Hank’s response belonged.

“Syd playing hard to get again?” asked Harley.

“It’s only a temporary setback. I’ll talk to her and straighten this out when she gets back.” He stared into his glass. “I have to marry her. It’s an investment in the future.”

Harley frowned. “That’s one way of putting it, I guess.”

“There are a number of important factors to consider. And I’ve considered them all, very carefully. It’s the logical thing to do.”

Harley noticed he hadn’t mentioned love. But she’d try to be supportive. He was a nice guy, even if he was a little stiff. “Being logical is important in a relationship, I suppose.”

“It’s good to have someone understand. You’re a nice woman, Harley.” He tossed back the last drops of whiskey in his glass and set it on the step. “Except when you call me Hank.”

“And you’re a nice man, Hank.” She patted him on the knee. There were some nice, lean muscles under those sharply pleated slacks. Who’d have guessed?

There was a nice, steady heart beating beneath that neatly pressed jacket, too. Hank Barlow was one of the nicest men she’d ever met. That wasn’t saying much, because most of the men she’d met were jerks. Even so, Hank wasn’t the kind of guy who deserved to get dumped just when he was closing the deal on getting Syd to the altar.

But Syd was a nice woman, too, and she didn’t deserve to be shackled to a guy she didn’t really love.

Why couldn’t life just work out sometimes? And why did Harley have to get stuck in the middle of this mess?

“Come on, big guy.” She reached out a hand, waited for Hank to take it, and then struggled to get him to his feet. “Let’s go.”

Hank belched again and mumbled an apology. “I don’t usually do things like this.”

“I kind of figured.”

“I’m usually more shir—more circumzz—”

“Circumspect?” Harley shook her head. It was a pretty sad state of affairs when a man’s drinking vocabulary sounded like something from a public affairs network.

“Circumspect,” he said. “It means—”

“I know what it means, Hank.”

He wobbled a bit and glanced down at her. “You don’t look like the kind of woman who would know what that means.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What kind of woman do I look like?”

“I can’t say.” He frowned. “I wouldn’t want to insult you.”

“Any more than you already have, you mean.”

“I do?” He swayed a bit, and she shoved him upright. “I did?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You don’t like me very much, do you?”

She took him by the arm and led him down the porch steps. “I like you fine.”

“Meredith likes me,” he mumbled to himself, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Sydney’s mother. That’s the kind of woman who finds me attractive. Middle-aged battle-axes.”

He stumbled over some loose gravel, and Harley slipped an arm around his waist. He leaned against her, big and solid and warm. “I’ve been hitting on the wrong demographic,” he said. “Young women in singles bars or on the slopes. From now on, I’m looking for my dates at bingo parlors.”

“It’s not as bad as all that, is it?”

“Just about.” He stopped and lifted his hands to her shoulders. “Do you find me attractive?”

Oh, God, yes. She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t think I should answer that question.”

“See? That proves my point.” He closed his eyes, wobbled a bit and leaned his forehead against hers. “You’re not an elderly battle-ax.”

Her heart was flipping and flopping so fast she thought she’d pass out, right there on the street. “No, I’m not,” she whispered.

“You smell good.”

“Thank you,” she said. “You don’t.”

“It’s the whiskey.”

She closed her eyes. “I know.”

“Harley?”

“Hmm?”

“This is probably the whiskey, too,” he said, and then his mouth pressed against hers.

She froze for a moment, while his lips skimmed a teasing line along hers and his hands drifted down to settle at her waist. She tried—she really tried—to remember that Hank was feeling a little unsteady, that technically he was still Syd’s boyfriend and that they were standing in the middle of the street where the neighbors could watch the show. But then his tongue swept inside her mouth, and he pulled her tight against him, and a moan rumbled up from his chest, and she was lost in the delicious, delightful surprise of his kiss.

The surprise had nothing to do with the fact that she’d never imagined this kiss could happen. A girl was entitled to her fantasies, after all. No, the surprise was that there was nothing repressed, or sedate, or stiff, or predictable, or nice about this kiss. This kiss was the opposite of nice. It was a take-no-prisoners assault, a seductive and sensual plummet into something dark and deep.

Her heart flipped and flopped one last time, and then it fell into Hank’s oversize hands with a thud.

NICK’S FINGERS danced over his laptop’s keyboard the morning after the play as he roughed out a scene for his mystery novel. The clack of the keys was faint competition for the whoosh and whir of the traffic noise rising like vapor from the rain-moistened pavement below. He closed his eyes for a moment and inhaled the aroma of early-morning London wafting through his open hotel window. Cooking oil and diesel fuel blended in a cheap scent: Big City.

He clicked the save command and slumped in the chair to read through his draft. Jack Brogan, the star of most of his stories, was moving up in the world, and London would make a classy background for his latest exploits. This could be the start of an entire European series, a project that would require plenty of research. Writing books set in exotic locales could be an exhausting business, but if someone had to do it, it might as well be Nick Martelli.

His thoughts drifted again to the uptight teacher from California. A major mystery there, and his own sleuthing hadn’t yet revealed what it was about her—other than her looks and her attitude—that was striking sparks.

Story sparks, among other kinds. He was starting to believe his own theory about her being some kind of muse. And thinking about her the way he usually did—with his cranial blood supply taking a trip south—wasn’t the proper way to think about a muse.

Not that he was aware of proper behavior when it came to muses. But he’d bet seducing them wasn’t on the program.

Behind him, Joe groaned again, struggling toward complete consciousness. Nick stalked across the room and yanked the pillow out from under his brother’s head. “Rise and shine, Mr. Martelli. Breakfast in thirty minutes.”

Joe rolled with a yawn and swiped a hand over his morning stubble. “Maybe I’ll grow a beard this week.”

Joe’s wife would kill him if he came home scraggly, and she’d probably have Nick tortured as an accomplice. Connie Martelli was one scary lady.

He chucked the pillow at Joe’s head. “Over our dead bodies, and I mean that literally. Shave. Shower. Dress.”

Joe closed his eyes and groaned. “God, what a nag.”

“Just making sure you don’t get homesick,” Nick drawled. “And pick up your stuff before we leave. You’ll lose something if you don’t keep things picked up.”

“Yes, hon.”

Joe staggered into the bathroom, and a moment later Nick heard one of the sounds of his youth: his brother whistling tunelessly over the tap water.

He reached across the table to snag the tour itinerary. Today’s highlights: Stonehenge and Salisbury, followed by another free afternoon. Nick wondered what Joe had planned for his students after lunch. Most likely a pit stop to keep them going until tea time, with a few educational tidbits tucked haphazardly between the snacks.

Joe walked back into the room, rubbing a towel over his thinning hair. “How’s the research going? Is Jack Brogan going to tie up the loose ends in London, or is he going to chase the bad guys all over Europe?”

“Haven’t decided that yet.”

Joe upended his suitcase over his bed, dumping his clothes in a heap. “I’ll bet the girl this time has long orangey hair, big green eyes and legs like a ballerina’s.”

“Her eyes are blue.” Nick closed the laptop. “And what are you getting at?”

“Nothing. I’m just afraid I’m going to trip over your tongue every time Syd walks by.”

“Take it back.”

Joe pulled a wrinkled shirt over his head. “Or what?”

“Or I won’t stick your wallet back in your knapsack the next time it falls out.”

“Speaking of which…” Joe pawed through the clothing heap. “Have you seen my khaki shorts?”

Nick twisted in the chair, tugged Joe’s shorts from under a Tower of London souvenir bag and tossed them in his direction. “Are your students ready for Mr. Hairy Legs?”

“I’m not even a blip on the radar.” Joe stumbled into his shorts. “There are other students here, Nick. Fascinating others, of both sexes. From high schools in exotic places like Albuquerque and Tahoe. I’m surprised you’re still sitting next to me on the bus, what with all those pheromones in the air. Especially the California ones.”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” Nick sighed. “I get it. Connie’s on your back again. ‘Poor Nicky, all alone with his broken heart. Find him a woman or sleep on the sofa.’”

“It’s nothing like that.”

Nick stared at him.

“Okay, maybe a little.” Joe knelt and reached under his bed for his shoes. “You like her, don’t you?”

“Connie? I’m nuts about her. I’ll be sorry until the day I die that you saw her first.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “Syd. Sydney Gordon. One of the best-looking single women I’ve seen in a long time. And not just your basic beautiful, but fresh, in that gotta-take-a-second-look kind of way.” He waved a shoe for emphasis. “Am I right?”

“So dogs don’t howl when she walks by,” Nick said. “So what?”

“She’s intelligent and creative, too.”

“Is there a point to this?” Nick glanced at his watch. “And are we going to get to it before they stop serving breakfast?”

“The point is, you’re thirty-six, and you haven’t been in a serious relationship for years.” Joe sat to pull on his shoes. “It’s time to think about your future, Nick. Being everyone’s favorite uncle is a dead-end job. You won’t be happy if you end up alone. It’s time to find someone you can take home to meet Mom.”

“And you think Sydney would meet Mom’s approval?”

“Definitely.” Joe smiled over his shoulder. “Which spells trouble for you.”

“No trouble. ’Cause I’m not looking.”

“Don’t lie to me, Nick. I’ll have to hurt you.”

“So I peeked a couple of times.” He shrugged. “Big deal.”

“I’m just looking out for you, little brother.” Joe finished dressing and stood. “And looking for a little entertainment while I’m at it. Thing is, even if you put your biggest moves on Syd, she wouldn’t give you the time of day.”

Nick snorted. “She already knows the time of day in every zone corresponding to the major world capitals. But I suppose this is your subtle way of saying I’ve lost my touch?”

“Which brings me to point number two,” said Joe. “You’ve lost your touch. You’ve forgotten how to court a woman. I’m not talking about tossing out some line—I’m talking about making an effort to—” He grunted as he pulled on the second shoe. “You know, do the whole romance thing.”

“There’s not a woman alive who could give me any kind of trouble for any length of time.” Nick winced. “Except Connie. She could make my life hell for all eternity.”

“I thought you were nuts about her.”

“That’s the official line. Off the record, she drives me crazy.”

“Connie might drive you crazy,” said Joe, “but a woman like Syd could bring you to your knees.”

Nick grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder.

“Begging for mercy.” Joe stood and clasped his hands to his chest. “‘Marry me, please, and put me out of my misery.’”

“It’ll never happen.”

“Okay, then.” Joe sucked in his gut and put on his serious face. “I dare you. I dare you to romance Sydney Gordon.”

“A dare?” Nick rolled his eyes. “Last time I looked, I had a driver’s license, selective service registration—you know, all that grown up stuff. I don’t do dares anymore.”

“I double dare you.”

Nick wasn’t sure he wanted to mess with the muse mojo. “I hear she has a boyfriend. Which would make taking that dare double dumb.”

“I heard it’s iffy,” said Joe.

“But long-term.”

“Which means the guy’s a little slow on the uptake.”

Nick shook his head. “I’m not making a move on someone else’s woman.”

“Admirable,” said Joe, “but stupid.”

“Why her?”

Joe didn’t answer. He just gave Nick The Look. The older brother look. The wiser, more wordly, I-want-what’s-best-for-you look.

“I’ve already asked for a date,” said Nick. “Twice. Been turned down. Twice.”

Joe sighed. “Like I said, you’ve lost your touch.”

Nick wasn’t sure he wanted to risk the muse for the woman. But there was a chance—a small, risk-filled, tempting challenge of a chance—that he could have his muse and the woman, too. For the next few days, anyway. Which meant that the boyfriend wasn’t an issue. Anything that happened here in Europe would be short-term and G-rated. Fling lite.

And he wouldn’t have to put up with any more of Joe’s nagging looks.

He cocked his head to one side. “Romance, huh?”

Joe nodded. “Candy and flowers.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little obvious? A little overdone?”

“And you’ve been having so much success with…?”

“I’ve been busy,” said Nick. “And don’t give me that look.”

“Hmm.” Joe rubbed his chin with a thoughtful look, which wasn’t much of an improvement. “There should probably be a kiss. A good one. Women go for that kind of stuff.”

“Tongue?”

“Didn’t I say a good one?”

Joe opened the door, and they headed into the hall. “One last thing,” he said as he hit the button for the elevator. “I like her, Nick. Hurt her, and I’ll sic Connie on you.”

“You can’t bring Connie in on a dare,” said Nick. “That’s not playing fair. Besides, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it for the right reasons.”

“And those would be…?”

Nick shifted his pack with a shrug. “I’m working on it.”