Stella, Get Your Man. Nancy Bartholomew
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like a jet engine roaring in their ears all night. Spike and Nina were virtually newlyweds, so that left their room out as an option. I was not sleeping in a bedroom with Jake Carpenter. No way.
Of course, the second I told myself I wouldn’t, all I could think about was, what if? My imagination went wild. I thought about it, pictured us starting out in two separate beds, then somehow, overcome with either revenge or lust, ending up in one bed, and then, well, I didn’t let myself go there, at least, not for long. Okay, so I thought about the two of us, horizontal and naked. Thought about it so hard and long that when I heard the front door open, I jumped up, grabbed the Glock, and might’ve shot somebody from sheer frustration.
“It’s freezing in here!” I heard Nina complain. “She didn’t turn on the heat yet?”
“Where are you?” Jake called.
I darted out of the bedroom.
“You guys made good time,” I called, sticking the gun back in my waistband.
Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. Jake materialized on the landing and gave me a lopsided grin. “You said time was of the essence, didn’t you?” He looked at me, maybe noting the flush on my cheeks, and said, “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I just got here myself. I was just checking out the bedrooms—I mean, looking around, you know.”
Oh, he knew all right. I had the feeling he could look right past my face and into the most hidden recesses of my mind. What in the hell was wrong with me?
I started down the steps, intending to brush past him, but he stopped me, his hand firm on the crook of my arm.
“We need to talk,” he whispered. “Without the others. Later.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is it about the—”
“What are you two doing?” Nina stood at the bottom of the steps watching, a knowing smirk playing across her features.
“Nothing!” I said. “I was just telling Jake about the house. It’s a relic.”
“Uh-huh,” Nina said. “I bet.”
I moved away from Jake, trotted down the steps and joined the others. Aunt Lucy was inspecting the kitchen cabinets, pulling each door open, studying the contents and sighing, clearly not pleased.
Lloyd followed her, sniffing at her heels, now and then looking up and around. If I didn’t miss my guess, he was feeling as wary as I had. Something about the small house just didn’t sit right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and apparently Lloyd couldn’t either, but we both had that feeling.
Spike wandered out into the family room, coming from the direction of the downstairs bedroom, and stood staring up the stairway to the second floor.
“Couldn’t you just see this place as the setting for a slasher movie?” she asked quietly.
“Oh, my God!” Nina gasped. “That is totally not good for my serenity. I am so not going to sleep with that on my mind!” She stopped, dropped into a lotus position in the middle of the room, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Cleansing breaths,” she whispered to herself.
This fascinated Lloyd. He watched for a moment, and then wandered over to stand right in front of her.
“Umm…” Nina intoned solemnly.
Lloyd cocked his head to the side, his tongue lolling out as he began to smile. Obviously Nina was inviting him to play some new game.
“Umm…” she moaned again.
Without hesitation, Lloyd leaned forward and licked her face ardently.
“Eww! Dog breath! Spike, do something! Oh, God! You dog!”
Nina’s eyes popped wide open and she reached out to push Lloyd away, but he ducked down and under her arms, bounding into her chest with a leap that sent Nina sprawling backward onto the floor.
“Help!” she sputtered.
“Oh, Nina, now honestly. Your uncle was only trying to reassure you,” Aunt Lucy said. “Benito!” she called. “Enough! She is a grown girl. If she wants to sit on the floor and moan, so be it!”
Lloyd, who had answered to my uncle’s name ever since he learned that it usually resulted in people food, stopped licking Nina immediately and trotted to my aunt’s side. She smiled and bent down to pat his head softly. “I brought pepperoni,” she murmured.
Jake crossed the room to stand beside me. “You see why I wanted to fish?” he whispered. “Your family is nuts.”
I rocked back with one heel and planted it squarely on the toes of his left foot. With steady pressure I transferred all my weight onto his defenseless foot.
“All right, all right!” he cried softly. “But you got to admit—” He broke off as I ground my heel in harder.
Spike offered Nina her hand and pulled the distraught girl to her feet. “Come on, honey,” she said. “Let’s go look upstairs. Maybe there’s a more appropriate place for you to meditate.”
Nina smiled up at her. “You wanna meditate, too?” she asked slyly.
Spike tilted her head, looked around the room at the rest of us, and shrugged her shoulders. “You never know,” she murmured.
Damn those two! They made it look so easy, not to mention special and intimate. Oh, well, some days you get the bear and some days, your love life just sucks. I wouldn’t let myself look at Jake. I knew he was watching me. The damn man was always watching me! Too bad he didn’t have a romantic bone in his muscle-bound body.
Aunt Lucy was unpacking groceries, setting bottles and boxes on empty shelves and muttering to herself.
“I know it’s a bit rustic,” I said, “but it’s only for a few days, just until I get a handle on Joey Smack.”
Aunt Lucy looked up, giving me one of her cut-the-crap glares. “I need to be in the lab,” she said. “The Household Shopping Show booked me back next week and I need product.”
So that was the problem. It wasn’t that she missed her kitchen and cooking homemade Italian specialties for us. My aunt had discovered a new forum for her inventions and she just couldn’t wait to go on the air again.
“Hey,” Jake said. “My grandmother saw you on there last week. She said you’re a natural. She said you had them eating out of your hand with that little-old-grandma act of yours.”
Aunt Lucy feigned shock. “Jake Carpenter, I never act. All I did was show the people how my homemade cleaner works on all surfaces.” Without even realizing it, Aunt Lucy had swung into gear, staring out at us as if we were the audience, smiling sweetly and gesturing to a bottle she brought out from one of her many bags.
“I thought I told you not to let her pack,” I muttered.
“It was that or face her digging in her heels and refusing to come,” he answered.
“I can’t disappoint my people,” she snapped. “I’m wasting valuable time here.”
I tried changing the subject. “So the guy on the float today, who was that?”
That stopped her in her tracks. “What guy?” she asked.
“She didn’t see him,” Jake reminded me. “We went out the back.”
I didn’t care. I was just happy for the working distraction. I told her all about the groundhog, about his float, the song and the way he’d danced across the platform. I was rewarded with the most unexpected reaction. Aunt Lucy’s eyes widened, and for a moment I thought I saw all-out panic.
“Huh!” she said, and turned her back to us. She started fumbling with the empty grocery bags next, carefully folding them, but having difficulty with the creases. Her hands shook ever so slightly. Aunt Lucy’s hands never