up until Clara’s almost-wedding to Ryan.” That was nearly two years ago now. Clara hadn’t married her best friend, Ryan McKellan, but she had somehow succeeded in healing the lifelong breach between Elise and Nell—and Nell and Tracy.
Elise defended her absent bestie. “Don’t be too hard on Tracy. She always just followed my lead.” But not anymore. Tracy was forging her own way now.
Nell laughed again. “You’re right. It was all your fault. But I did get my licks in, too. Remember that time I put bubblegum on your breakfast-nook chair?”
Elise started laughing, too. “I loved those yellow shorts. They were never the same.”
“It’s what you get for messing with me.”
“I know. You’re so scary.”
“Oh, yes, I am. And don’t you forget it.”
“Never. And I guess what I’m asking is, do you forgive me for all the mean things I did?”
Nell gave a soft sigh. “You know I do.”
“I’m so glad.”
“Leesie? You’re not getting sappy on me, are you?”
Elise swiped at her damp eyes. “No way. Gotta go.”
They said goodbye and Elise made quick calls to Clara and Jody, to tell them she had a job typing Jed Walsh’s newest book and wouldn’t be in at the café or Bloom the next day.
Then she finished packing and dragged her suitcases down to her car, followed by all the cat gear and, last but not least, Mr. Wiggles. He rode in the front seat, sitting up tall beside her, watching the world go by and making those cute little chirping sounds, his own personal brand of kitty conversation. He loved the car and he never got in the way of her driving, so she’d given up on making him ride in his carrier.
She took the space in the garage that Jed had assigned to her and carried Mr. Wiggles in first, pausing in the utility room to check the alarm. As it turned out, Jed hadn’t armed it when she left, so she didn’t have to mess with it right then. She went on down a hallway and then through the kitchen and great room and down that other hall to her bedroom suite, finding no sign of her employer along the way.
Which was just fine. She had a lot to do and she didn’t need the distraction of dealing with her big, crabby boss.
In her room, she put Wigs down in front of the window, promised him she would be right back and went out to start hauling everything in, taking care to shut the door as she left so he wouldn’t get out. Jed had said he hated cats. No reason to test his patience right off the bat.
By seven, she had everything put away and her stomach was growling. Wigs, meanwhile, alternately circled his empty food bowl, chased the cleaning robot she’d started up a few minutes before and made a big show of scratching at his three-level activity center.
“Okay, okay. I’m on it.” She’d stored his food in the utility room, which had seemed the most logical place for it. She scooped up his food bowls—for wet and for dry—and went out the door again.
The hallways and great room and kitchen were empty. Very odd. Her first night in his house and Jed had vanished into thin air.
She considered peeking into his office, or even looking for him upstairs.
But the thought of wandering through the unfamiliar house trying to track him down made her even more uncomfortable than not having a clue as to where he’d gone. So she went ahead to the utility room to dish up Wigs’s dinner. She was pulling the top off a can when she heard music.
She shouldn’t snoop.
But really. Where was he? And, no, wait... A better question was why did she care?
Well, she cared because...
Okay, fine. She had no idea why she cared.
She set the opened can on the counter and stuck her head out into the hall. Yep. Music.
She followed the faint sound back out into the great room, to the wide central staircase that switched up and back from the lower level to the top floor. It was coming from downstairs, the basement level. She leaned over the railing, listening. It was something with a hard beat, but the sound remained muffled, indistinct. Maybe there was a TV room down there. Her curiosity increased. She left the railing and started down the stairs, catching herself on the second step.
No, she told herself sternly. Bad idea. Mind your own business.
So she turned and retraced her steps back to the utility room, where she dished up the food and took it to her hungry cat.
“Mrow?” Wigs left off stalking the cleaning robot to get to work on his dinner.
Now what?
Her stomach growled again. Jed had said that she should make herself at home in the kitchen. She’d grab something to eat and then get up close and intimate with that glorious tub.
It was weird, raiding the refrigerator of the stranger she now worked for—and lived with, essentially. But the food looked good. She heated up a plate of roast chicken, mashed potatoes and mixed veggies and set herself a place at the table that would have looked just right in the castle of a medieval king. She even poured a glass of the pinot grigio she found in the door of the fridge—hey, the bottle was open. Why not? Pulling back one of the big, studded leather chairs, she sat down and smoothed her napkin in her lap.
Definitely weird. Just her, all alone at the massive slab of a table in the giant great room.
She’d just lifted her glass and taken a nice, big gulp of wine when Jed asked from behind her, “You all set up, then?”
Startled, she choked. Wine sprayed out her nose. Coughing and gagging, she shoved back her chair and pressed her napkin to her face. It wasn’t pretty. Ragged, hacking sounds alternated with desperate wheezing as she tried to catch her breath.
“Breathe,” he commanded. He was at her back by then, pounding on it with his enormous hand, instructing, “Slow, easy. That’s the way.”
After a terrifying minute or two wherein she wondered if she would ever breathe again, her throat loosened up. She sucked in a decent breath of air at last.
“Okay?” he asked warily.
After wiping the last of the wine from her cheeks, she turned to faced him—and almost choked all over again at the sight of him. Shirtless, he had on a pair of low-riding training shorts that displayed the sculpted tops of sharply cut V lines. His big, chiseled chest was dusted with manly hair and dripping sweat. He had a towel slung around his neck, one end of which he was using to wipe more sweat from his forehead.
Mystery solved: there was a gym in the basement. She’d heard his workout music.
Somehow, she managed to croak out accusingly, “Don’t you ever sneak up on me like that again.”
For that she got a lifted eyebrow and a disdainful “I never sneak.” And then he asked again, “You okay?”
“Splendid. Thank you.”
And
