"I gave over three years of my life to our government," I say in a low voice bristling with anger. "I want it back, and I want it ASAP. Don't let them continue it."
"It's out of my hands and you damn well know it," Joe retorts back, losing patience as well since I'm being a dick. "Besides... you're in a good place, Kyle. Think of this as a much-needed vacation. It's beautiful there, right? How about trying to enjoy it?"
Yeah, it's fucking beautiful all right. Beautiful ocean, beautiful spring weather, and a goddamn beautiful neighbor who never misses an opportunity to give me a cheery wave and a breathtaking smile if we happen to be outside at the same time. I never smile or wave back as that would encourage her, and I don't need any complications in my life.
I certainly don't need any more of her muffins, which were awful and had to be tossed. I should have kept them as weapons, but I figured they'd attract ants.
"I'll check back with you in a few weeks," Joe says, jarring me out of my thoughts. "Sooner if anything else happens."
"Yeah, man. Talk to you later."
After I pocket my phone, I head back around to the front of my house. My truck is in the gravel driveway, loaded with flats of flowers that I need. When I turn the corner, I stop dead in my tracks. Crossing the dirt road that separates our properties is my neighbor, and she's walking straight toward my cottage.
My motherfucking gorgeous neighbor, who, as she gets closer and closer, is even more beautiful than I was able to discern from a distance. She's got golden-yellow hair that hangs in loose curls past her shoulders. While she's dressed sort of primly in a flowered dress of pinks and yellows along with a white cardigan, it's offset by the fact she's wearing a pair of beaten-up gray Chucks without any laces.
I get all of that in a cursory glance, because I'm trained to absorb details quickly, and then I turn my back on her as I go to my truck. Maybe she'll get the hint and veer off her current path.
Determined to ignore her, I stalk to my truck and grab the first flat of flowers. My shoulders lock tight when I hear her say right behind me, "Hey."
I grit my teeth for a brief moment before unclenching them to mutter a return, "Hey" without even looking at her.
When I turn toward the back of my house, I hear a scraping sound behind me and immediately look over my shoulder to see her grabbing a second tray of flowers from my truck.
I curse under my breath and practically stomp around the house to the flower bed I'd just turned over, dropping the tray in frustration. When I turn around, she's right there, giving me a big smile that does nothing to diminish the fullness of her lips. "Need some help?"
"I'm good," I mutter as I pull the tray out of her hands and drop it beside the other one.
I start to brush past her, but she steps into my path and I come up short.
"I'm Jane Cresson," she says as she sticks out her hand. "Thought I'd introduce myself since we're neighbors."
My eyes flick down to her hand before coming back up again, but the only thing I give her is my name. "Kyle."
"Well, pleased to finally meet you, Kyle," she says cheerfully, and fuck... she almost emanates goddamn sunshine she's so perky and radiant. "And actually... I came over to get my basket back from you."
"Basket?" I ask dumbly.
"Basket," she affirms with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "The one I left on your doorstep eons ago with homemade muffins. I'm sure you remember."
Yeah, I remember them. The miniature assault weapons.
"So I'd like to get it back if you don't mind," she prods me gently. "And then, I don't know... maybe you could ask me out to dinner or something?"
My entire body jerks. I blink at her several times, trying to figure out if I just heard what I thought I did. "I'm sorry... what?"
"Well, you know," she says as she clasps her hands in front of her and looks at me sweetly. "I made you homemade treats to welcome you, and I thought you could thank me by taking me out to dinner. Or just coffee would be fine, too."
"I'm not following," I say, my mind actually reeling with the thought that she's essentially asking me out by goading me into asking her out.
Jane grins at me. "What we've got here is a failure to communicate."
I just blink at her.
"Cool Hand Luke, 1967," she says as she waits for me to recognize the movie line.
I ignore her attempt to win me over with her personality and cute-as-fuck quote of a very appropriate movie line by moving past her to head back to my truck. "Sorry. Not going to take you out to dinner. Or coffee."
If I thought that would put her off, I was sorely mistaken. She falls into step beside me as I walk, and Christ... I can smell her perfume. The scent totally fits her. It smells like coastal sunshine... salt air and sweet coconut oil.
"Well, I thought you might say that," she says slyly, and I don't dare look at her. Instead, I reach into my truck and pull out another flat of flowers. She does the same, and we both turn back to the cottage. "So I'm inviting you to dinner at my place tonight. I'm making a pot roast."
"No thanks," I mutter even as my stomach gives a slight grumble. I haven't had a decent meal since I've come here because I can't cook worth a fuck and I've not really ventured out much.
"Dinner's at seven," she says firmly.
I turn to her and glare. "I said... no thanks."
She beams that smile at me, and I note her teeth are white and her lips a delicate shade of pink.
Fuck... when did I start noticing or even caring about those things?
Jane steps into me, her smile still wide and dazzling. She leans up on her tiptoes and whispers, "This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Casablanca, 1942."
Goddamn it, she's cute. That makes her seriously dangerous to a man like me.
Taking a step back--for her preservation or mine, I'm not sure--I ask, "What's up with the movie quotes?"
She shrugs. "Just a hobby. I love movies. Some I love so much that I watch them over and over again, so I tend to memorize lines."
"Well, Houston," I drawl as I narrow my eyes and give her my fiercest glare. "We have a problem. I'm not coming to dinner. Now, if you don't mind, I've got a fuck of a lot to do today and I'd like to get back to work."
"Sure," she says sweetly with a nod of her head. "But dinner's at seven. Hope to see you then."
I growl low in my throat but don't respond to her. Instead, I toss the flat of flowers down and stalk to the side door of my cottage that leads into the small laundry room. It's just easier to leave the battlefield than continue to engage with her. I'll finish planting when I'm assured she's gone.
A soft knock at my door has me tensing up, and I close the book I'm reading. The prior caretaker had a pretty good collection of classics that he left here, and I've been reading them in the evenings. Tonight, I'm doing a re-read of Call of the Wild because it was my favorite in high school.
Setting the book down on the cushion beside me, I glance at the clock on the wall that sits adjacent to the fireplace.
Eight-thirty.
Leaning forward, I reach under the couch and grab my Ruger 9mm pistol, but I don't make a move from my seat. I listen and wait.
After a few minutes, with not another knock sounding, I push off the couch and go to my front door. I always leave the porch light on. As I pull the curtain away, I don't see anyone.
I unlock the deadbolt and pull the door open, leaning out slightly to look left and right.
No one.
As I start to shut the door, I notice something on the stoop.
A basket, covered with a red-and-white checked linen cloth.
Bending over, I pick it up and flip the cloth back. Inside is a plastic-wrap covered plate filled with what looks like pot roast, potatoes, and carrots, with another smaller plate beside it with what looks like chocolate cake.
I turn my head to look at Jane's house and can just make out her form moving across her darkened front yard.
With a sigh, I back into my house. Takin
g the basket with me, of course. I'm not about to pass up a home-cooked meal, though I can only hope she cooks better than she bakes.
CHAPTER 4
Jane
My alarm clock goes off, and I come out of a dead sleep. Reaching out, I slap at the "off" button, managing to silence the alarm on my first try. I'm not one who makes repetitive use of the "snooze" button, and that's mainly because I've always been a morning person. I've also got a very structured routine during the school year that lets me wake up, have a cup of coffee, shower, dry my hair and put on makeup, and get dressed--all in under an hour. The middle, junior high, and high school all sit on the same piece of property on the outskirts of town, so it's a fifteen-minute drive. I eat my breakfast--usually a toaster pastry--along the way.
I roll to my side and sit up on the side of the bed, arching my back and letting out a huge yawn. The sun looks bright outside my blinds, and I can almost taste the summer that's just around the bend. This is the last week of school, and I'm actually giddy over having the next few months off.
I'm in mid-stretch/yawn when I hear a weird clanking sound from somewhere in the house. This doesn't necessarily alarm me because this little house was built in the forties. There are usually clanks and groans from some pipe or vent that occur periodically. I'm renting the house for now because it has an amazing view of the lighthouse and the Atlantic Ocean, and I don't want to buy unless I can find something equally as charming. And there's always the possibility my landlord would sell to me at some point, but, for now, I'm content to just rent.
I pop up off the bed and ignore my robe, which is laid across the end of the bed. Even though it's the first week of June, the temperatures still dip low. I always turn the furnace on so I'm comfortable at night. After my shower, I'll shut it off, preferring to open my windows to the nice ocean breeze that will keep the place sufficiently cooled during the day. An air conditioner just isn't needed in these parts.
As I exit my bedroom, I hear the clanking sound again and turn left out of the hallway as it's clearly coming from the front of the house. With my head tilted to the side, I listen as I step into the kitchen, and there it is... I hear it again. A clanking sound that lasts for just a few seconds before it goes silent again.
I look toward the kitchen sink and wait.
And there it is again.
Except this time, the clanking doesn't stop. I watch in dazed amazement as the kitchen faucet actually starts to shake. The clanking gets louder, and I take a tentative step toward the sound. The faucet rattles in place, almost to the same beat of the clanking, and I hear a hissing noise. I take two more steps that put me right in front of the sink, and I reach out a hand to touch the spout. Before I can even make contact, the hissing noise stops, the clanking falls silent, and everything goes still. I let out a sigh of relief followed by a nervous little laugh, but it's cut short when a loud noise that sounds like metal being sheared pierces the quiet. A geyser of water shoots upward from where the faucet sits, blowing the damn thing clear off its mounting.
I let out a shriek of surprise as the faucet falls into the sink with a clatter. My hands go out automatically to try to stem the fountain of water that's spraying up so high that it's hitting the ceiling. I'm so discombobulated that my sink just exploded I can't think what to do, so I push my hands down onto the geyser of water like I'll miraculously manage to put it all back where it belongs. This only serves to shoot the water out at various angles, including straight at my face and chest. Within moments, I'm completely soaked.
Perhaps it's the icy water hitting my face, or maybe it's even the fact that I'm a naturally bright person with good reflexes, but it hits me all of a sudden that I've got a burst pipe and I need to shut off the water.
I immediately drop to my knees as water continues to shoot upward before raining down on my back as I pull open the cupboard doors below the sink and start pulling out the barrage of cleaning supplies I've got under there, frantically trying to clear a path to the shut-off valve. As I pull away a half-empty bottle of Lysol that I throw over my shoulder, my eyes go to the pipes and the shut-off valve that... is fucking missing the actual knob to turn it. All I can see is the end of a bolt-looking thing. I quickly process I'm not turning off the water this way.
But again, I'm a quick thinker. With a muttered curse, I surge upward, only to slip and slide my way across the wet linoleum as water continues to spew out of my sink. I turn into the hallway, using my hand on the casing around the kitchen door to keep my balance, and sprint to the back door. I burst through it, turning to my immediate left to a door that leads into an outside utility room. I open the door and immediately look to the red handle of the shut-off valve for the entire house. It's up high, but I also have an eight-foot ladder leaned against the far wall. I grab it, pull the legs open, and scramble up it. Grabbing onto the red handle, I pull downward with an expectant surge of relief that I've found a way to solve this problem in what was really only a few seconds. Less than a minute definitely.
Unfortunately, the handle doesn't budge. I try pushing it upward, but I know that's not right. It has to come down, and I dubiously eye the rust around the bolt that holds it in place.
"Fuck," I mutter, which is uncharacteristic language from me, but it's warranted in this case.
I grab the handle again, lay my other hand on top for extra leverage, and literally start to pull with my entire body weight as I let my knees bend so I start to sink downward from my perch on the ladder.
I hear a creak, and this bolsters me.
I pull harder, giving an unladylike grunt with my effort.
With a scream of rust and metal, the handle moves so swiftly I almost fall off the ladder, but I manage to gain my balance. It takes me several dumb blinks of my eyes as I stare at the handle that broke off and is now sitting in my hands to register what happened. I lift my head slowly and gaze up at the valve, still wide open and now with no clear way on how to shut it off. I can still vaguely hear the hiss of water spraying from the kitchen that's filtering through the open doors, and I feel my mind completely shut down.
In an instant, I become a totally helpless female, and there's only one man close enough who could potentially salvage my house.
Without a thought to the fact I'm barefoot, soaked through to the bone, and looking like a drowned rat, I scramble off the ladder and jet out of the utility room. I run gingerly along the side of the house, the lawn starting to soften with new grass but also still having prickly winter blades beneath, and slow a bit further as I cross over the dirt lane that, while mostly dirt, also has rocks and some gravel mixed within. It's back to a cautious run across his yard and up his three porch steps.
I'm not surprised to see Kyle's old truck sitting outside his cottage because where else would he be at 6:45 in the morning? Neither am I reluctant in the slightest to start banging on his front door, frantic with the thought that every passing minute probably means another inch of water in my kitchen.
It's probably after only about seven bangs on the door, which are hard enough to rattle the small square panes of glass within, that I hear a very grumpy voice yell out, "I'm coming, for fuck's sake."
My hand falls away from the door. I bounce from foot to foot with anxiety as I wait for him to open it. I'm practically hopping with eagerness to get help at last when I hear the lock turning.
Kyle pulls the door open. His eyebrows shoot high when he sees me there. He holds my gaze impassively for a second before he looks slowly down my body, taking in my wet hair, soaked nightgown and dirty feet.
"Pipe," I gasp out, realizing how out of breath I am not only from the adrenaline coursing through me, but also from the mad dash over here. "Burst. Water everywhere."
His eyes snap back up to mine. "What?"
And then, complete lunacy bursts forth from my lips as I hold out the red valve for him to see. "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope. Star Wars, 1977."
He doesn't laugh.
He doesn't smirk. br />
He doesn't roll his eyes.
But he does offer me aid. "Let me get my tools."
Kyle turns away from me and walks back into his house, leaving the front door open. I stay on the porch, continuing to rock from side to side on my feet while shooting cautious glances back at my house, afraid I'll see a geyser burst through the roof at any moment.
"Let's go," Kyle says as he reappears holding a tool bag. For the first time, I notice he doesn't have a shirt on. Just a pair of jeans--faded and well fit--along with a pair of unlaced work boots. I'm thinking I might have woken him up. While this would be prime opportunity for me to check out his tattoos, I can't even think about that now.
I don't wait for Kyle. I turn around, practically fly off his porch, and start running back to my house. I can hear Kyle's heavy boots hitting the earth right behind me, clearly impressed with the urgency of the matter. The minute my feet hit the dirt and gravel lane, I slow considerably and curse to myself when the rocks dig into my feet as I start to hobble across.
I'm surprised when an arm wraps around my waist and I'm lifted off my feet, which dangle just above the rocky dirt road as Kyle carries me across.
How gallant.
How very sweet.
He practically dumps me to the grass when we reach the other side.
How barbaric.
But still, he's coming to help, so I can't take him too much to task.
We jog along my house. Just when we near my back door, Kyle asks, "Did you try to shut off the water anywhere else?"
He clearly recognized that the main valve was broken off when I held it up for him to observe just a few minutes ago.
"Yes," I huff out at him as I point my finger toward the open back door. "It's the kitchen sink. The valve underneath doesn't have a knob on it."
"Let's start there," he mutters and heads into my house. I follow behind, but he doesn't need my directions. He just follows the sound of Old Faithful blowing steadily in my kitchen.
I cringe as we enter, particularly because there's a good two inches of water on the floor that's started running into the living room and partially down the hallway. Kyle doesn't hesitate. He just walks straight into the waterfall that's raining down, dropping to his knees in front of the cupboard. He peers in as he sets the bag on the ground. After only a moment's perusal, he's pulling out an adjustable wrench.