Chapter 1 #2
And she had her freedom. Gary would probably keep circling the drain, but he wouldn’t be taking her any further down with him.
“It could be worse,” Gracie finished. “It can always be worse.”
“Don’t even say that,” said Zona.
“Nothing more is going to happen,” Gracie assured her.
And then the building began to shake.
LOUISE WAS CHATTING online with one of the men who would be going on her singles cruise when she felt the movement under her. At first, she thought she felt unbalanced because of an oncoming migraine. Or was she having a stroke?
But then she knew, it was the earth under her that was unbalanced. This was why her fur baby, Darling, had been whining all morning. And here she’d thought he just wanted more attention. Darling’s doggy senses had picked up on the quake long before Louise had become aware of it.
With a squeak, she pushed her chair away from her kitchen table.
“Run, Darling,” she cried, and raced into the hallway with her dog by her side.
The unsteady floor beneath her shifted and jiggled like a county fair fun house, making it a challenge to keep her balance. It was a good thing she did yoga.
She slid to her bottom, pressed herself against a wall, and hugged Darling, who whimpered and licked her face. People were always saying you should hide under a desk or table, but the idea of her kitchen table collapsing on top of her freaked her out.
She heard a crash coming from the living room, a sure sign that her fancy glass lamp had fallen over. “Oh, Lord, don’t let me die,” she prayed as Darling whined. “I’m wearing my old underwear.”
Another moment and the shaking settled down and she let out her breath. Darling gave another doggy whimper.
“It’s okay,” she assured him. “We’re fine.” Just another day in paradise.
Louise hadn’t always been a California girl.
She’d gotten married and become an import from Central Florida’s Lake County.
That was years ago, but she’d never gotten used to earthquakes.
They were so . . . unsettling. Things had never gotten too unsettled in Glendora, but reading about the damage those quakes did to other parts of the state, the lives they claimed, had embedded fear at the back of her brain.
Harold, when he was alive, used to remind her often that there was no such thing as a safe place to live. Something or someone would get you anywhere. She supposed he was right.
She waited for the aftershock. It came a few minutes later as only a slight jiggle, like a giant somewhere was simply turning over in bed. It looked like it hadn’t been a big enough quake for anything more, for which she was thankful.
“We’re okay now,” she assured her dog and herself, and Darling barked his agreement and licked her face again.
She texted both her daughter and her granddaughter to make sure nothing had fallen on them.
OK no worries, Bree texted.
I’m fine, texted Zona a minute later. You okay?
Yes but bring home wine, Louise texted back.
They would need more Gewürztraminer by dinner because Louise intended to drink what was left in that bottle in the fridge ASAP.
She had just finished vacuuming up the last tiny shards of her broken lamp when her doorbell rang.
She wasn’t surprised to find Martin Zuckerman on her doorstep.
“I came over to see if you were okay,” he said, attempting to pet Darling, who was excited to see him, jumping on him and trying to lick him.
Darling had a lot of poodle in him and he could almost jump high enough to reach Martin’s face.
Martin had moved in two houses down four years earlier.
They’d met at a neighborhood garage sale and, both bookworms, had bonded over a selection of books, on sale for fifty cents each.
He’d been single for years and was sixty-nine now, one year older than Louise.
But, unlike Louise, who considered herself still in her prime—no aches, no pains, only a little overweight but in almost all the right places, and no gray hair (visible, anyway)—Martin looked his age.
He was tall and had a nice smile, but he had a belly that refused to be corralled by a belt.
He was getting jowly, and his hair was quickly sneaking off his head.
Not exactly the stuff dreams were made of.
Not that Louise was a snob when it came to a man’s looks, but she did have dreams. She was going to find herself a stud muffin to skip into her golden years with. Maybe she’d find him on her upcoming Hawaii cruise. She had prospects.
Still, even though Martin wasn’t the most handsome man in town, he had to be one of the kindest, and she enjoyed his friendship. He was always happy to share his latest mystery novel find or help her with her tax returns. Martin was a retired accountant, and he knew his stuff.
“Come on in, I’m about to finish off the wine. Would you care to join me?”
“It’s a little early for me,” he said as he stepped inside.
“Well, it’s not for me, not after that shaking. It’s five o’clock somewhere and it’s earthquake o’clock right here. I’ve been here over forty years, but I swear, I’ll never get used to them,” Louise said as she led the way into the kitchen, her dog beside her.
“I’ve lived in California all my life and I’m still here. I bet we’ll both survive another forty years,” Martin assured her.
Considering Martin’s current physical condition, she wasn’t sure he’d make it another twenty. If they were in a serious relationship, she’d be whipping him into shape in a hurry.
He picked her laptop off the floor where it had fallen, then settled at the table.
“I hope my laptop didn’t get broken,” she said, and opened it to check. She was relieved to see that it was still working.
“Were you starting your mystery novel?”
“No.” She closed the laptop.
He frowned. “Oh, you’re getting ready for your singles cruise?”
The scorn in his voice irritated her. She’d mentioned the cruise when she first signed up and suggested he come along, too, and he’d pooh-poohed it. He was still pooh-poohing.
“I’m already meeting some nice people,” she said. She dumped some shelled pistachios in a bowl and set them in front of him and he dug in without hesitation. Then she gave Darling a doggy treat so he wouldn’t feel left out. After surviving that unnerving shakeup, everyone deserved a treat.
“I’m sure you have, but you have to be careful, Louise,” Martin cautioned. “You’re too trusting. Remember that con artist Bree saved you from at Christmas?”
“Anyone could have been taken in by him,” Louise insisted. She poured the last of the wine into a glass and took a healthy slug. First the earthquake and now Martin the doomsayer. And her day had been going so well.
He shook his head. “An American working in Turkey, all ready to come home and meet you until someone broke into his truck and stole all his tools, and he just needed a little loan until he could sort things out?”
In hindsight, Louise could clearly see how the creep had slowly wooed her, feeding her lies like a little piggy being fattened for a trip to the slaughterhouse.
“I’d already come to the conclusion that it was a scam,” she said. Or at least had been getting suspicious. So there. “And I didn’t send him anything,” she added.
“I remember you were considering it.”
“I was not,” she insisted. “And a singles cruise isn’t the same as an online scam.”
“It could be,” he insisted right back. “There could be all kinds of fakers on that ship. People lie.”
She thought of her daughter’s ex-husband. “Yes, they do.”
Had Gary been a liar when Zona first met him? Or had his gambling addiction hatched the behavior?
Poor Zona. She was so pretty, with her father’s green eyes and that perfect figure and a bottom that still had plenty of curve (unlike Louise, whose caboose was starting to slide off the track).
She was kind and hardworking and she deserved much better real estate in Love Land than she’d been allotted.
She needed a good man, one like Harold had been.
Louise was keeping her eyes peeled for one, and she thought she may have found one in her new neighbor to the left.
Thank God, Louise’s earlier premonition about the new owner of the house next door had proved wrong.
Alec James was tall and sandy-haired with deep-set hazel eyes.
He was muscly, with a strong jaw and a neck like a bull.
She’d seen the Better Builders logo on the side of his truck.
Obviously a nice, solid man with a nice, solid job.
Hopefully a nice, solid bank account. Zona didn’t need any more insecurity in the finance department.
Louise had stopped to say hello when she was walking Darling only a couple of days earlier.
He hadn’t been very talkative, but then it was hard to carry on a conversation when you were holding one end of a leather sofa.
And the man helping him had sported a jovial smile.
That had been a good sign, because everyone knew that happy people hung out with other happy people.
They’d only gotten as far as a quick name exchange and a “Welcome to the neighborhood,” as he and his friend walked the couch from the moving van up the walkway to his front door, and that had been it.
But she’d had a good feeling about him. He was going to bring good vibes to the house and their street.
Sadly, the man had moved in on a Friday, and Zona had missed meeting him. But Louise was sure it wouldn’t be long before they had their own meet-cute.
Maybe it was serendipity that Zona would be living with Louise while she got her feet back under her. The man next door could prove to be the perfect man for her. The third try, as the saying went, was the charm. It was about time Zona started living a charmed life.
Yes, Louise had a good feeling about this. And she had a good feeling about her cruise, too.
Unless . . . was that earthquake some sort of harbinger of things to come?
No, of course not.