TEAGUE STRETCHED HIS arms over his head and sucked in a lungful of summer air as he peered at Frankie’s doll-sized cottage, which was situated at the end of a long driveway that ran alongside a squat redbrick apartment building.
It was so small he’d probably have to duck to fit under the lintel.
If she invited him in.
If she even heard him knock, given it was barely eight o’clock on a Sunday morning.
His memory of Frankie’s Saturday nights was that they were big and wild, so unless she’d changed drastically in the ten years since he’d last seen her, chances were that at this precise moment she’d be either comatose or contemplating the walk of shame from wherever she’d ended up after work last night.
And it was too bad he chose now to remember that instead of thirty minutes ago, when he’d gotten into the taxi at Sydney Airport. At that point, he could have done as his best friend Matt had suggested during those chaotic last moments at Heathrow: gone to his hotel, gotten some sleep, and called Frankie at a civilized hour to arrange a time to meet for the handover.
Handover! Like he was doing some illicit drug deal.
Not that dealers dragged their supplies around with them in wheeled suitcases. Or maybe they did. What did he know? He was a corporate lawyer, not a criminal one.
Whatever. It was too late to change his mind because he’d let the taxi go and stranded himself.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, get it over with,” he ordered himself, and trudged up the path, stopping at a ratty-looking welcome mat that announced, You Have Arrived at Your Destination.
“I don’t think so, Frankie Lee,” he scoffed, stepping up to the door.
He tugged at the collar of his shirt to make sure it was sitting straight, ran a hand over his hair, dragged in another lungful of air and knocked.
Unsurprisingly, there was no answer.
He knocked again, just so he could say he’d really tried.
Waited for proof of life.
Nothing.
Okay, three strikes and you’re out a-a-and knock.
Silence.
He looked back down the driveway, picturing Frankie in one of her vintage dresses, black hair disheveled, makeup smeared, humming a satisfied tune and swinging her shoes from one hand as she meandered up the path as though she owned the world and all its contents.
Ha! Walk of shame? Not likely. Swagger of pride was more her style.
But, of course, there’d be no sign of her yet. At eight o’clock she’d still be in bed with...well, whomever she’d gone to bed with.
Teague tried to picture a likely “whomever” but that wasn’t so easy to visualize. For all Frankie’s brazen sex appeal, Teague could only recall one identifiable boyfriend from that year she’d spent in Washington, DC. Kyle. Big, burly, covered in tattoos. Kyle hadn’t been around long enough for Teague to get more of a handle on him than that; Frankie had dumped him within a month of their arrival together in DC, after he’d pitched a fit over her taking a second
