things than the actual design of airplanes.
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. Her new neighbor might actually be a struggling mechanic, but he had some ritzy friends—if that car was anything to go by. She went to feed Bagwell, visions of trench coats and spy cameras running rampant in her bored mind. That was the trouble with living such a dull life, she told herself. It would get her into trouble one day.
The next week went by quickly, with only glimpses of her neighbor. Very cautiously, she kept an eye on him. She found subtle ways to question people, and she found out that his name was Jake Edwards and that he was from Arkansas. He had excellent credentials, but he kept very much to himself and nobody knew anything about him.
She felt guilty because of her snooping, even though she felt a sense of accomplishment that she’d found out so much. But her conscience and the mechanic’s evident dislike of her made her keep out of his way as much as possible. After all, he’d already accused her once of chasing him. God forbid that she should display any interest.
She’d started eating lunch in her office to make sure she didn’t run into him in the canteen. And the next weekend was a repeat of the one before. She darted out to do her gardening when he wasn’t home, otherwise never venturing outside. She had a post-office box, so she didn’t have to go out to a mailbox, and she only subscribed to the weekly paper, which came in the mail.
The only unpleasantless was when she tiptoed outside to the trash can very early Sunday morning, with her long hair tumbled to her waist, wearing the men’s pajama top that came to her knees. It was a shock to find her neighbor at his trash can, staring blatantly at her. She’d been too embarrassed even to speak. She’d darted back into her apartment and closed the door. After she got back from church, she hadn’t ventured out in the yard even once. She and Bagwell had spent the day in front of the television, watching old war movies together.
She seemed to spend her life avoiding her new neighbor, she thought ruefully. But it never occurred to her that he’d notice, or that it would matter to him. So she got the shock of her life the following Monday when he came into her office at lunchtime to find her eating a bowl of canteen chili with some crackers she’d brought from home along with a thermos of coffee. She paused with the spoon halfway to her mouth and stared at him.
He stared back. He looked even bigger at close range. He had the kind of physique that must have required some careful eating. He was enormous, but most of him seemed to be muscle. He had a broad face, almost leonine in look, with large dark eyes under a jutting brow. His eyebrows were bushy, but they suited him, like his imposing nose and square chin. He was even good-looking in a rough sort of way. He had hands like hams, and Maureen thought that she wouldn’t have liked to run afoul of him if she’d been another man instead of a woman.
“Have you gone into hibernation?” he asked. He folded his arms across his massive chest and leaned back against the door with the nonchalance of a man who never doubted his instincts for an instant.
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’ve been studiously avoiding me for two weeks,” he replied. “Not an easy task when you’re living next door to me.”
“I didn’t think you’d noticed,” she murmured.
“That yellow car is hard to miss,” he replied. “Prepared flower beds seem to appear by magic in your backyard. Clothes go up and come down under invisible hands. I never see you, or hear you except accidentally.”
She put the chili down. “God forbid,” she said. “I’d hate to be accused of moving next door to chase you, even if I was there first.”
“You’re blushing,” he observed, noting her heightened color with an odd expression.
“You make me nervous,” she said. She didn’t look at him. “The last tenant was hardly ever home, and when he was, he was playing hard rock so loud that he didn’t know what was going on around him.” She sighed heavily. “I’ve been afraid that you’d mind Bagwell.”
“Your live-in lover.” He nodded. “I never see him, but I hear him,” he said with a contemptuous smile.
She hated that smile. The blush got worse. “He’s not my lover. He’s a bird. An Amazon parrot,” she said uncomfortably. “He gets noisy at dawn and dusk, but he’s…he’s sort of all I’ve got.” She looked up then, her eyes wide and soft and eloquent. “I can’t afford to move, and if you complain, the authorities might cause me some trouble. I can’t give Bagwell up. I’ve had him since I graduated from high school.”
He was scowling. “A parrot?”
“A yellow-naped Amazon,” she confirmed. “He’s seven years old and very vocal. He can even sing a little opera.”
His dark eyes went over her face very slowly, as if he hadn’t really looked at her before. “You’re very young.”
She shifted in her chair. “I am not. I’m twenty-four,” she protested.
“I’m thirty-seven,” he said.
He didn’t look it, but she didn’t dare tell him that. “Much too old for me,” she said quietly, not believing a word of it. “So that ought to prove that I’m not chasing you,” she added with quiet satisfaction.
He frowned. Her attitude irritated him. It had flattered him a little at first to think that she’d been interested enough to make a play for him, even though he was frankly suspicious of her. She wasn’t much to look at, but she had a figure that was disturbing. Odd, that, since women had lost their attraction for him in the past few years.
“I know that you’re not chasing me,” he replied, much more curtly than he meant to. He wasn’t that much older than she was, and she didn’t have to rub it in. “You’ve made it obvious that you’d run a mile to avoid me.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she murmured demurely. “I just thought…Well, if I started hanging around the canteen and spent a lot of time working in my flower beds at home—” she shrugged “—I didn’t want you to think I was trying to catch your eye. You’d already accused me of chasing you when I wasn’t. I don’t want any trouble.”
“You don’t have to garden after midnight to accomplish that,” he replied with faint humor. “It’s obviously something you enjoy. You don’t have to give it up on my account.”
“Thanks,” she said, her voice soft, her eyes even softer. “I’ve missed digging around and planting things.”
He felt guilty. Not that he had any reason to. There was every chance that she was still mixed up in this somehow. But perhaps she didn’t know what was going on. She might be an innocent pawn.
He shouldered away from the door. “Don’t mind me. I won’t be spending weekends at the apartment very often. And the parrot won’t bother me.”
“Thank you,” she said, and managed a nervous smile. He intimidated her.
He glanced back at her from the door, and he wasn’t smiling. “Where do you go on Sunday mornings?” he asked unexpectedly.
She lifted a shoulder. “Church.”
“It figures.” He went out without another word, closing the door firmly behind him.
The
