6. August
6
AUGUST
Five days later…
I was breathless as my fingers flew over the keys of my laptop, and not only because I was excited to be writing again. The story unfolding on my screen was affecting me physically. It was actually making me blush, and I was the one writing it.
This was not my usual fantasy saga. Not even close.
A lusty short-term lodger. A sexually repressed landlady. An ice storm that forced them into comic but sizzling-hot proximity. And foreshadowing about a secret that would eventually, but hopefully only temporarily, force them apart.
I bit my lip and pressed my thighs together, flushed with arousal as I read over the scene where my hero backed the heroine into a corner she really didn’t want to get out of, seducing her with his talented hands and hungry lips. It wasn’t porn, exactly—it had a compelling external plot and there were no tentacles in sight—but the heat level was beyond anything I’d written in any of my previous books.
This hero wasn’t simply like Wade, the way all my other heroes had been. Cade was Wade. Since there was no denying it, I’d barely bothered changing his name. And the heroine was me. A more confident, capable and sexually open-minded me, who could apparently get her freak on at the drop of a hat without worrying things to death or getting anxiety sweats.
Wade’s rental application had landed in my in-box five minutes after he left my house last week, and since then my imagination had been racing full, horny steam ahead, my fingers itching to get to the nearest keyboard. He was to blame for this onslaught of fevered creativity, so why not give credit where it was due? It wasn’t like he—or anyone else besides Chick—was ever going to read it.
You said he irritated you.
There was a slight possibility that Wade Hudson didn’t irritate me anymore.
I sat back and flexed my fingers, shaking out my wrists while I looked over my latest efforts with a rush of satisfaction. I was writing words again. And not grocery lists or sad poems about my feelings. This was a story .
A filthy, smutty story.
The inspiration for it was currently outside, preparing to host an afternoon Lemons meeting. He’d texted this morning for permission and asked if it would bother me if he mowed my lawn and cleaned the pool of debris.
I had no idea a renter would be so handy.
Getting to my feet, I stretched hugely, rolling my head back and forth to work the kinks out of my neck and shoulders. Then I raised my arms over my head and wiggled my hips in a mini happy dance. “I’m back, baby!”
I’d thought my muse was gone for good. That the black hole left by my mother’s death, exhaustion from my illness and the new and wonderful world of hormonal issues had stripped away my ability to write forever .
I’d never been so happy to be wrong.
I went to the window overlooking the courtyard to see if Wade was still out there and the air left my lungs in a rush. He’d taken off his shirt and hooked it to the back of his jeans, his ball cap pulled low over his eyes. His broad, tanned chest gleamed with sweat as he swept the skimmer back and forth, scraping the leaves off the pool’s surface. The way his thick biceps bunched and flexed rhythmically had me fanning my hot face.
Who could blame me for being inspired by that ?
Careful. He might look up and see you drooling.
I should probably walk away, since I was staring at him like I was the lovesick adolescent he used to know. Or a woman outright objectifying the man to whom she’d promised privacy on a legal document, which might be problematic, unless she was using the experience like I was—for research purposes only.
Maybe it was time to break out the new toy that had arrived yesterday in a discreetly labeled cardboard box before I crossed a line.
Don’t judge me for the purchase. I still had needs, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this turned on, because it had been never .
I hadn’t been on a date or had sex in a while either—four and a half years and the early onset of perimenopause ago. It had been so long that I’d had to make peace with the almost-closed sign hanging dejectedly in the window of my lady bits store.
But business was starting to boom again, my muse was here for it, and all I could think about was Wade. Wade and all the kinky things I never got around to trying and a few of the old classics I wanted to test out on him.
Since that was only ever going to happen in my imagination, it was no wonder I’d started writing down each fantasy as it came into my head. Thankfully, and completely unintentionally, there was also an actual storyline in there as well. It might even be funny, though I didn’t want to jinx myself by looking at it too closely.
When I sent some of it to Chick during a weak moment a few days ago, he’d gushed over the pages, telling me Mrs. Roper parties were a thing now and all the rage on Insta, so I was following the popular trend.
I wasn’t sure what most of that meant, but the gist was, he wanted more. Badly.
“So do I,” I murmured, letting out a whimper as Wade set down the skimmer, pulled off his hat and used his dangling shirt to wipe the sweat off his brow.
He glanced up and I scrambled back from the window, my heart racing. If I wasn’t careful, my revitalized sex drive could throw a wrench into this new synergistic setup, and we both had other things to focus on. He had his meeting, and I had mine.
In fact, it was time to go refill my coffee before Morgan called. She FaceTimed me every day around now, right before they went out for their fashionably late continental dinners.
Stretching again, I looked around the open loft. There was a bed-less guest room up here that I referred to as my oubliette—not that it was a dungeon, but everything I couldn’t find space for got tossed in there and was promptly forgotten about forever. But for the most part, the upstairs served as my office.
I’d sold a few knickknacks over the last few months, and gotten rid of even more during my “life sucks, toss it all” period, but the pared-down room still felt like mine. My old chair still conformed perfectly to my back. The bookshelf was still full of books I loved. And the framed images on the wall—a quote about stories from Doctor Who and a Hamilton poster—were still there, along with a few readers’ choice awards and a printout of my days on the bestseller lists.
Though I always kept my laptop handy for streaming and lurking on social networks, I’d been avoiding coming up here since the advent of the Great Block. It was too frustrating to sit at my desk, staring at a blank page while surrounded by the stark reminders of everything I’d once accomplished.
I hadn’t been able to avoid them completely. At least once a month, my agent emailed to ask how I was doing and where I was with the book. The one I actually owed to my publisher. The last in the series. The final culmination of years of research and world-building, where all the hidden puzzle pieces and prophecies would finally come together in a crescendo of brilliant storytelling and…
Yeah, I had nothing. I’d stopped in the middle and hadn’t moved on it for two years now. My agent had negotiated her ass off with the publisher, getting me not one, but three deadline extensions because of my mother’s death and my long-term illness. This third extension ended in three months, and it was my last before I lost said agent and owed my advance back to the publisher. Before I was lowkey blackballed from the entire industry and everyone but readers on fan forums who couldn’t let go of an unfinished series forgot I ever existed.
No pressure.
The fact that I was writing complete sentences, producing decent word count and dialogue that didn’t completely suck, didn’t mean that my deadline anxiety had magically disappeared. But it did give me hope that by the time my agent’s next email rolled around, I might have something to tell her.
Wouldn’t you rather be drooling over the renter than thinking about that?
He might not be out there for too much longer. After doing all that work, he was probably dirty enough that he was going to need to rinse off before company came. Had I put him in a shower scene yet?
Mmm, naked, soapy Wade.
That heavenly vision exploded into mist when a knock sounded at the back door.
It had to be him, but I raced to the window anyway. Yep. He was standing right outside the door. Waiting.
Shit.
I touched my hair and looked down to make sure I was decent. Blue-and-white checked pajama bottoms, a Twilight Zone T-shirt and a ponytail. No stains, thankfully. The fact that I was moderately presentable wasn’t that startling anymore. Since he moved in, I’d been showering and wearing a bra on a daily basis in case I “accidentally” ran into him.
That is the saddest, most pathetic thought anyone has ever had.
I’d had worse, I thought as I headed down the stairs toward the man who, as promised, had been a perfect renter so far.
Too perfect. He must really be happy to be off his sister’s couch.
He’d brought home a power washer the day after he signed the lease, showing me how to make the courtyard white and gleaming like new again. When I’d forgotten it was garbage day and overslept, he’d already rolled the bin to the street. Today he’d mowed the lawn, and I couldn’t ignore the fact that Myrtle was running better than she had in years, all thanks to him.
He hadn’t even complained about the bed, though I’d seen him grimace and rub his back once or twice on his way to work. A small part of me marveled that my Retta ancestors weren’t haunting me from beyond the veil, invoking the rules and demanding I offer to switch beds so my renter could sleep in king-sized memory-foam comfort while I suffered on a queen innerspring.
I took a minute to collect myself before answering the door. I didn’t want him to think I’d been watching him through the window or something.
But you were, Mrs. Roper .
He didn’t need to know that.
When I opened the door, it was all I could do not to swoon a little at the sight of all that bare, sweaty skin. So much acreage. “Hey Wade, what’s up?”
“Am I interrupting anything?”
That voice . “I was writing, but I took a break.” Writing about you , taking a break to stare at you . “It’s fine. What do you need?”
He gazed down at me with his mesmerizing, multicolored eyes. “I wanted to double-check that this was still okay with you before Rick and Lucy got here. They won’t stay long. I thought a face-to-face might cool them both down, but I can tell them to wait until I’m at work.”
“I already told you it was fine. And we included pool and backyard usage with prior approval in the lease. You’re totally in compliance.”
“That’s good. We wouldn’t want to break any of the rules.”
When he said it like that, it sounded like he was actually thinking of breaking a few.
You’re imagining things.
I was still getting used to this new dynamic. I’d lived in apartments for decades and only had contact with my landlords when I was moving in or out. But in one week, I’d seen more of Wade than I had of all of them put together. And when I wasn’t seeing him, I was putting him in all sorts of compromising positions he was never going to know about.
Should I feel guilty about that? Because I didn’t.
“They’re coming here to talk about the car, right? Did you find one yet?”
He lifted an arm over his head and leaned against the doorjamb. “Not yet. Why? Do you know someone looking to sell their car for cheap, Gus?”
The opportunity to respond was right there , but all rational thought vanished in the wake of his clean-sweat scent. Seriously, was it his soap? Pheromones? Why did he always smell so freaking fantastic?
“Just wondering,” I finally croaked. Damn it.
“Okay. Well, I won’t keep you if you’re writing, but I appreciate this, Gus. I promise, I won’t make it a habit. And if you need help with anything else around here, and I mean anything, you let me know.”
I needed help in my bedroom with my new toy. Right now.
Stop.
That wasn’t what he was implying, no matter how suggestive everything he said was sounding lately. He was playing nice to ensure a few more months in the apartment, being handy because he was grateful. Why else would he have tossed aside years of ignoring me like I was the bug he couldn’t scrape off his windshield and transformed into a hot snack of conversationally available neighbor overnight?
I cleared my throat and took a step back. “You’ve done too much already, but I appreciate all of it. Let the guys know they’re free to ‘cool off’ in the pool. I never use it, but somebody should. And don’t worry. Other than letting Merlin out once or twice, I’ll be too busy writing to disturb you.”
Too busy writing. I did love saying that. Especially when it wasn’t a lie.
Making myself close the door on his handsome, frowning face wasn’t easy, but I needed the space to kick myself for setting up a golden opportunity and then blowing it.
Why hadn’t I mentioned Jiminy? Why hadn’t I told him the plan?
Because he might react like Chick had when I’d told him about it. His knee-jerk reaction had been “Are you insane?” Followed by a long rant on the dangers of the evil automobile that lasted until I managed to calm him down and clarify my reasons, as well as the basics of the race. Chick had eventually gotten over it and was now on my side, but if Wade disagreed, something told me he wouldn’t be so easily persuaded. We didn’t have the same kind of relationship.
Why would he disagree?
I couldn’t think of a single reason. Still, I didn’t want to ruin things. We were getting along now. We said hello at least once a day. We’d texted a few times—he’d asked if I needed anything from the store when he was grocery shopping, and I’d told him our internet was back on after it had been off for two hours.
It wasn’t a budding forever friendship or a whirlwind romance or anything, but it was good, and I didn’t want to do anything to spoil it.
On the other hand, if I wanted in the race, I was going to have to chance it soon. Maybe even today. Although I had promised Wade two minutes ago that I wouldn’t bother them.
I headed for the coffee maker, still weighing the pros and cons, but hadn’t taken two steps when a loud ringing sounded from upstairs. From my computer.
“Crap. Morgan.”
Racing upstairs was a lot harder than walking down them, but I managed before the ringing stopped, accepting the call as I plopped heavily back down in my chair. Man, I was really out of shape.
“August?”
“Hi, Morgan,” I wheezed. “Sorry. In the kitchen. You look great today.”
She was rocking the natural look with no makeup and big sunglasses holding back the tight curls she’d stopped dyeing over five years ago—much to our mother’s chagrin, since she’d fought aging with a ferocity that was always funny and occasionally off-putting.
Morgan had welcomed it with zero classy fucks. Partly out of obstinance, and partly because the liberal silver actually made her look younger and enhanced her light brown skin and green eyes to perfection.
Currently she was at an outdoor bistro, a colorful scarf around her neck and a light breeze softly caressing her curls. There were sailboats moored behind her and misty hilltops looming in the distance as the sun set. She was a living, breathing advertisement for the joys of international travel.
“I was about to say the same thing.” The surprise in her voice only put a tiny dent in my pleasure at the compliment. “You’ve got color in your cheeks and you look like you’ve been working out. Did you start working out again?”
“I’ve been showering on the regular and I ran up the stairs, that’s all.”
That was not remotely all, but these daily calls weren’t the right place to tell her that Wade had moved into the apartment and resuscitated my dying libido along with my writing.
This was about where she was and what she was doing.
Without me.
“So, what was on the schedule today?” I asked, settling in for the detailed description she was always careful to give me.
She shook her head. “I’m more interested in what’s on the schedule tomorrow. I’m watching the weather because there’s a hurricane coming. It looks like it could hit by late afternoon.”
“It’s going to be a big one,” Gene warned off camera.
The sky behind her looked clear and beautiful, but a ball of sticky anxiety instantly coagulated in my stomach at her words. She was in a country shaped like a boot and surrounded by water. It might as well have been the Florida of Europe, and Florida never fared well during hurricane season.
“Tomorrow?” I parroted. “Have you talked to the airlines? Did they cancel the cruise yet?”
“Not here, August.” The look she gave me said I might be forced to write an essay on paying attention. “It’s coming toward you .”
Toward me?
I didn’t panic or open a window on my computer to look for The Weather Channel’s website.
Instead, I stared at my sister. “Let me get this straight. You’re calling from Italy to tell me about the weather here? You’re in Italy , Morgan. That’s all you should be thinking right now. You should wake up every morning and think, ‘Holy bananas, I’m in Italy.’”
“Holy bananas,” she repeated obediently, her lips twitching. “I was hoping you’d check on Ann and make sure she has everything she needs for the kids.”
“Sure, no problem. I’ll text her today.” And she’d text me back, very Ann-gressively, a thousand times. I’d verbified the dog sitter’s name because she wasn’t only aggressive on dates anymore. Her random texts to me about the dogs’ emotions and activities at any given moment were so numerous it bordered on harassment. Yesterday I’d learned that Tilly missed her human parents so much she was constipated, and Angus was humping the couch enough to wear a hole in it. Oh, and Ann thought it might be because of something the government put in the water.
“I don’t mean to put you out,” Morgan said, her tone entirely too apologetic.
“I said it’s no problem. I can handle it.”
“Bernie’s closer, but she didn’t pick up her phone.”
Did she even hear me? Did we have a faulty connection? Did she remember that the Retta rules didn’t apply to immediate family?
“I’d ask Wade,” she went on, “but he doesn’t text, hates Facebook messenger and refuses to get WhatsApp, so it’s hard to get ahold of him. Anyway, he’s so busy, I wouldn’t want to bother him. ”
I could end this conversation right now by walking downstairs and handing him the laptop so Morgan would feel better about the fate of her dogs, timing be damned. But I really needed her to know I could handle this very simple task without any help or handholding.
“Thank you for the update, weather girl,” I said firmly. “I’ve got it under control. Now tell me what you saw today. In Italy.”
An expression I didn’t see that often stole across her face. It was soft and vulnerable, and it made me long to reach through the computer and wrap my arms around her.
“Morning fog on the lake. We visited the coffee shop again. Then we went to the church where they held her service, and the light through the stained glass was beautiful. I took pictures.”
“Can’t wait to see them.” My voice cracked.
Mom didn’t like funeral services. No one did, but she was particularly anti-cemetery and everything that came with it. The idea of people crying over her coffin in a church gave her the ick.
In her opinion, the body was only a vehicle. One that you took care of so you could get around comfortably as long as possible, then traded in or left at the junkyard while you went on to newer and better things.
“You wouldn’t bury your car and let people cry over it every year, would you?”
None of us had expected hers to give out suddenly while on vacation in another country. Who the hell expected something like that?
If I had, I might have put more thought into what we’d said to each other as I hurriedly drove her to the airport, paying more attention to the traffic and the time than to the last conversation we’d ever have face to face.
But I hadn’t, so in between the “Did you remember to packs” and the “I love yous” we’d had a familiar argument instead. I’d wanted her to be more careful, and she’d wanted me to take more chances.
That conversation still haunted me. Along with the voice message I hadn’t deleted on my phone from the day before she died.
“I had the greatest idea, sweetheart. Don’t say no until you hear me out.”
That was all I had left. That and her death certificate, the one they’d mailed to us along with the copy of the police report describing a woman collapsing in the road with a crumpled ferry schedule in her purse.
Morgan and I were now experts on the unique logistics involved in an overseas death in the family. For example, if you wanted your cremated mother back so you could honor her last wishes—which involved the ocean and possible fines for setting things on fire—it required an enormous amount of paperwork and middle-of-the-night phone calls over several weeks, as well as an in with either the consulate or a resident who happened to be a friend of the deceased. If you didn’t want the urn traveling by mail, you needed a passport so you could pick it up yourself. Which was what Morgan was doing in Lesa. What I should be doing with her.
“Are you okay?”
Shit, I was crying. I wiped my eyes and forced a smile to let her know everything was as fine as it was going to get. “Sure. Cruising tomorrow?”
“In the morning.” Her gaze flickered with worry, but she let it go. “We’re driving to Rome tonight and Natasha’s seeing us off. She’s been great. She and her husband took us to dinner at a hillside restaurant with a view of the lake that was absolutely breathtaking.”
“I ate donkey,” Gene called out, making me chuckle wetly while earning some reproachful side-eye from his wife.
“We can never repay her,” she told me, looking close to tears herself. “All the trouble she went through so we could make this happen, taking time off work to show us around...”
Natasha was the daughter of one of our mother’s oldest friends. She’d fallen in love with a man named Flavio and never returned stateside. She’d also stayed in contact with Mom after her parents passed, and when one of her rental condos was unexpectedly available, she’d asked if Mom wanted to come and help go through some of her mother’s old things and help her husband get his family tree started. Of course, Mom had taken her up on it.
The condo wasn’t a “favor” because Mom was helping her. Natasha knew how to get around the Retta rules, too.
“Nat loved her, Morgan,” I reminded her. “She doesn’t need to be paid back for that.”
“I know, but—” She glanced away for a moment. “We have to go. Don’t forget to check on the dogs. And stock up on water, batteries and canned food in case the power goes out. It might get bad for a few days.”
“I’ll fill the tub with hurricane hooch and buy some pizza in your honor. Now go relax. You’ve done the hard part and what comes next is the best tribute I can think of. You know how she loved a good cruise. But don’t leave her in the casino with a cup full of coins or we’ll never find her again.”
Mom had been a sucker for the slots.
Morgan laughed softly and we shared wobbly smiles. “I won’t,” she promised. “I also won’t be able to talk to you like this once we’re onboard. But I’ll call when we hit port to make sure you’re okay. Take care of my sister for me.”
“You do the same. I love you.”
I disconnected the call and closed my laptop, wiping the remnants of my tears with the back of my hand. My throat hurt. My heart hurt. And there was no way I was going to be able to write anything else today .
Pushing myself shakily to my feet, I headed back downstairs to the kitchen, needing to move. Merlin lifted his head from the couch and sighed deeply, as if sensing my mood, then started to follow.
“I think I’ll skip coffee and make some cool drinks to bring on my backyard mission,” I informed him, determined to invite myself to the party I could already hear underway. If Morgan could face what she had today, I could face this.
“I don’t have their beloved Mountain Dew, but I’ve got lemonade and tea, and I know they like Arnold Palmers.”
Merlin brushed by my leg, pausing to lean on me. Was he…trying to comfort me?
I managed not to react in case I made him self-conscious and ruined the moment.
“We’re getting in that race today, old man.”
Renting the apartment wasn’t enough. Ordering the gear wasn’t enough. The race was scheduled near the end of October, which wasn’t that far away. If I was going to get on that team, and if that team was going to have the right car, I needed to get things rolling as soon as possible.
I’d been wandering the halls, dreading my inevitable slide into neurotic squalor for well over a year. Now I had a renter, I was writing, and I was bringing refreshments to the guests in my backyard while planning to take control of their man-meeting.
“Are you okay?”
No, but I would be. I was about to honor my mother by invading a good old boys’ club in her memory.
She’d be so proud.