night. So far, all she’d done was disappear during the daytime, only to return a few hours later with this stupid smile on her face and vague answers when we asked where she’d been and with whom.
Even Lloyd the Dog was left out of the loop. Considering the fact that, until very recently, Aunt Lucy had considered my Australian shepherd to be her deceased husband, Benny, reincarnated, I found her reluctance to confide in him troubling. True, Lloyd the Dog had found love himself in the form of an overwhelmingly large part-wolf named Fang, but that was no reason for Aunt Lucy’s sudden secrecy.
I watched as Jake eased out the back door of the garage and into the alley before I considered my stealth opportunities. Aunt Lucy had been anxious to get us out of the house for the day. She’d found a very necessary and quite convoluted errand for my scattered cousin, Nina, and her girlfriend, Spike, to run in downtown Philadelphia. She’d asked me and Jake to run out to Lancaster to take a set of architectural plans to her Amish carpenter friend, Max. She’d been so insistent we leave that I’d known for certain this was the big day; the day Aunt Lucy had invited the mysterious man to her home.
So we called Max and blew him off. We made a big show of driving away from Aunt Lucy’s ancient, brick row house and returned in a borrowed conversion van with tinted windows to park and hide. A mere twenty minutes later our efforts were rewarded by the arrival of a long, black, chauffer-driven sedan.
I was expecting someone as huge as the limousine, someone large, ostentatious, maybe a Donald Trump type. What we got was a short, elderly, white-haired man in a charcoal-gray overcoat carrying a small bouquet of purple violets.
“What the hell?” Jake murmured. As we watched, the little man ascended the steps to the brownstone and rang the doorbell.
Aunt Lucy answered the door moments later, looked down the street in both directions and hastily pulled her visitor inside. This forced us out of the van and around the back of the house to the garage where we hoped to watch my aunt entertaining her visitor in the kitchen. Aunt Lucy always brought company back to her kitchen. Except for this visitor. What was up? I had to get closer to the house. I had to know what was happening inside.
I slipped out the back door of the garage, edged around the far side of the wooden building and began creeping past the thick lilac bushes that lined the edge of my aunt’s yard. I glanced up nervously at the kitchen window and saw no movement inside.
I began working my way up the side of the house, passing the back porch and stopping beneath my aunt’s bedroom window. I am not proud of what I did next, but you need to understand, I thought Aunt Lucy was in danger…maybe. I slipped the miniature sound amplifier out of my pocket, fitted the tiny earpiece into my right ear and reached up stealthily to attach the little bug to the glass windowpane.
My aunt’s voice reverberated inside my head. “Oh, right there!” she cried. “You’ve almost got it! Come on, you can get it! Please!” There was a pause and then a soft, excited cry. “Oh, yes! That’s it! Oh, you got it!”
Oh. My. God! I ripped the earpiece out, snatched the listening device off the window and ran, full tilt, the length of the house and out onto the front sidewalk. Where was Jake? Oh. My. God! They were…they were…having…sex! My aunt, my uncle Benny’s widow, was having S.E.X.! I didn’t know people that old even had sex!
I sprinted for the street, darted through parked cars and banged on the passenger-side door of the van.
Jake greeted me with a knowing smile. “Well, well…just when I was wondering how to pass the time.”
“Shut up!”
“Hey, a little edgy, aren’t we?”
I glared at him. “They are in her bedroom. They are…she’s…he was…”
Comprehension dawned slowly in Jake’s eyes. “No, they weren’t!”
I nodded.
“You sure about that?”
I just looked at him.
“No way. Damn! Well, who knew? I guess getting old won’t be so bad after all.”
“Jake, shut up!”
I peered out into the street, looking for the limousine. With the exception of Aunt Lucy’s neighbor Mrs. Talluchi’s ancient black Plymouth, there were no black sedans in sight.
“He must have told the driver to leave,” Jake said, anticipating my next question. “We wait him out.”
The way he said it, the way he moved up behind me left no doubt as to how Jake Carpenter thought we’d pass the time. His breath, hot on my neck, tingled, sending shivers of anticipation surging to every raw, hungry nerve ending in my body. When his hands slid around my waist and pulled me back against his body, I fought the urge to give in and turned on him.
“Jake, not now! Honestly! Is that all you think about?”
Jake’s grin was infectious, and any other time I might have given in, but I’d just heard Aunt Lucy in the throes of passion and it didn’t exactly do a whole lot for my libido.
“Come on, Stel, lighten up!”
Lighten up. Wasn’t that just like a man. I pushed the sleeve up on my parka and stared at my watch. It was only 11:30. I tugged the plaid curtains apart on the back side window and looked out through the darkly tinted glass at my aunt’s tiny row house. It looked so normal, so peaceful, so…Jake’s thumb stroked the spot he knew all too well behind my ear, breaking my concentration and sending shivers down the side of my neck. A tiny flame caught and held deep inside my body. I was in trouble.
When his tongue followed his thumb, knowingly tracing the fire line along my neck, I couldn’t help myself. A sigh escaped my lips and I turned, letting my body mold into his as we kissed. When would I ever learn? I am putty in Jake’s hands, willing, soft, mushy putty. Oh, well, if you can’t beat ’em, you might as well join ’em.
“I love conversion vans, don’t you, Jake?” I breathed the words in a whisper as he slowly moved me to the thickly padded day bed that hugged the back of the cavernous vehicle.
“Mmm-hmm,” he said, and unzipped my parka.
A moment later, before I could feel the cold, I discovered the pile of quilts and blankets conveniently placed at one end of the well-stocked van.
“Hey, who’d you borrow this from, anyway?”
Jake opened up a thick, multi-colored quilt and smiled. “Buddy of mine.”
“You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” Suspicion dawned in my gullible brain. He was not nearly as interested in tracking down Aunt Lucy’s mysterious visitor as I was.
“Now, Stella, you know that wasn’t it. I just like to be prepared, that’s all.”
I felt my spine stiffen. “Prepared, my ass!” Wasn’t that just like a man? I’d left Florida and a promising career in law enforcement to get away from a no-good, cheating scoundrel only to wind up back in my old home town with the very first con artist to break my heart. What was it with me, anyway? When was I going to learn?
Jake leaned down and kissed me so thoroughly I began to appreciate the beauty of thoughtful preparation. So
