She's No Angel

She simply had to explain—had to make them see.

Once she’d picked up all her things, she carried them to Ida Mae’s porch and reached for the doorknob. It was, for the first time she could ever recall, locked.

Pounding on the door, she cupped her hands around her eyes and tried to peer through the dirty inset glass. About all she could make out were the tiny dead bugs stuck between the window and the door frame. “Aunt Ida Mae? Come on, open up, we need to talk about this,” she yelled before pounding again.

A full minute went past. No Ida Mae. No Ivy. But from somewhere above, she heard the squeak of a window. Quickly backing off the porch, down the front steps, she looked up just in time to see a toothbrush come sailing through the air.

It was hers. And it landed in the dirt.

Jen gritted her teeth as the window slammed shut. “I’m not leaving,” she shouted, glaring at the second story of the house.

The window slowly groaned open again.

“Aunt Ida Mae?”

This time, her hairbrush was sent flying. It landed in a patch of mud a few feet away from the toothbrush.

“This is war,” she muttered, marching back up to the porch and trying the windows to the parlor. Though they didn’t budge, she wasn’t about to give up, and made her way around the entire perimeter of the house. Knowing the old woman wasn’t too concerned about security in this small, quiet town, she tried every single window, certain Ida Mae wouldn’t have locked them all since she’d ditched Jen in the middle of nowhere.

“Damn,” she muttered, trying the last one, to no avail.

Still not giving up, she went next door to Ivy’s monstrosity, only to discover the same thing. “They’re pretty serious,” she whispered, still not sure whether to scream and pound on the door or laugh at how darned determined they were.

The warped back porches of both houses nearly touched each other, and the two sisters went back and forth constantly, never trying to keep each other out. If Ida Mae had locked her door against Ivy, her sister would likely have taken offense and burned her house down.

Some would speculate that it wasn’t the first time.

Despite being a Feeney, Jen was not an arsonist. “But I am capable of a little breaking and entering,” she murmured. Especially because she paid the bills on these two houses.

Eyeing a small window into Ida Mae’s laundry room, she gave it some serious thought. It was already dingy and cracked, and would be just big enough for her to squeeze through.

Well, maybe. Given her recent love affair with two guys named Ben and Jerry, who’d substituted for any real man in Jen’s life, she had some serious hip action going on and she suspected some in the hood would say she had back. But she still suspected she could push herself through and pop out the other side like a cork emerging from a bottle.

Only to land on her head on the washing machine and bleed to death because, given her mood, Aunt Ida Mae wouldn’t lift a hand to call 9-1-1, if they even had such a thing in this town.

Okay. No breaking and entering.

She couldn’t force her way in, and she knew the best thing to do when dealing with the Feeney sisters was to outwit them. Or outwait them. So, deciding to make them think they’d succeeded, and, hopefully, let down their guard, she went around front, got her stuff and threw it into the trunk of her car.

“Put away your weapons, start celebrating,” she whispered as she started the car. “Just unlock a door.”

As she drove off, watching the houses in her rearview mirror, she waited for one of the women to come out on her porch and do an end-zone happy dance. Jen couldn’t watch for long, however, because she hadn’t gone a single mile when the car’s engine started to sputter. Quickly glancing at the gas gauge and seeing it firmly below the E, she groaned. “Oh, no, you did not!”

But they had. The two maniacal old women had gone on a joy ride and emptied her tank. And for the second time that day, Jen found herself stranded, thanks to the wicked Feeney sisters.

CHAPTER FOUR

When Napoleon dumped Josephine, don’t you think she was dying to run around saying, “That thing about a man’s height and his length…it’s true, it’s true!”

—I Want You, I Love You, Get Out by Jennifer Feeney

AFTER MIKE HAD DROPPED JEN OFF at her aunts’ houses, he’d made the short drive to his grandfather’s place. With every second, he’d tried to force all thoughts of the strange interlude he’d just shared with her out of his head. In the future, he’d probably look back and grin, thinking about the sexy, crazy woman with the tire iron. But for now, he was still too focused on the sexy part of the equation. Which wasn’t good. He didn’t need to be thinking that way about anyone right now, especially not a woman who had a violent streak. A woman he’d never see again.

He got as far as his grandfather’s driveway before he remembered the one thing he had neglected to pack. The dog snuffling against the back of his neck reminded him of the dog food still sitting on his kitchen counter at home. He had nothing for Mutt.

“Sorry, boy,” he said as he drove up toward the house.

He knew better than to just get out and leave a trip to the store until later. Mortimer would insist on giving Mutt an entire grilled sirloin, which would make Roderick sniff and mumble stuff about cooking for dogs. They’d snipe at each other like an old married couple—Roderick would get his feelings hurt, Mortimer would be completely oblivious and Mike would sit in silence all evening.

Uh-uh. No thanks.

The crotchety and affectionate, love-hate relationship between the two men might make people who didn’t know them wonder how close they were. Looking at them under today’s standards, their relationship might be questionable. But Mike knew better. In their day, Mortimer and Roderick had forged a completely unbreakable brotherhood, fired in battle, cemented during years of adventure and treasure-hunting. They’d been the modern-day equivalent of pirates, with women on every continent. Even stuffy Roderick had, per Mortimer, “cut a dashing figure” in his day.

Which made it strange that they were both now alone, and had been for many years. He didn’t doubt his grandfather would have liked to fall in love one more time, and he suspected Roderick would have, as well. They’d spent so long raising Mike and his brothers, though, they seemed to have let those dreams slip away. Now that the two old bachelors had taken up residence in Trouble, Pennsylvania, the odds of them meeting the kind of women they’d met in the capitals of Europe were slim to none. So they were apparently stuck with each other for life.

“I know Grandpa would welcome you right up at the table, pal, but old Roddy’s pretty particular.” Reaching over his shoulder, he scratched the animal’s scruffy head. “He won’t like cooking for a dog, not even one as superior as you.”

Besides, even if he did, Mutt didn’t handle table food well and Mike would spend the night cleaning up after a sick pet.

That cinched it.

So, doing a quick turnaround, he headed back to Trouble, hoping the small grocery store carried the right brand. For a mutt, Mutt was pretty finicky.

For some reason, his foot lifted off the gas pedal and he slowed down when he passed the old house where he’d dropped Jennifer off a few minutes before. He’d seen no sign of her.

That was good. Great. Perfect. So why, he wondered, had he been holding his breath, half hoping to see her yelling curses up at the window? Alone. Stranded.

In need of rescue again?

The idea was stupid and he kicked himself over it as he ran his errand. Why one hour in the company of a woman would have him wishing he’d have to come to her aid again, he honestly didn’t know. Talk about selfish.

Hell, maybe his brothers were right and he did have some kind of protector fixation. One more reason to stay away from women right now. All women. Especially the brunette who’d been filling his head since the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

Arriving at the store, he parked out front, then tied Mutt up to a pole by the door. Fortunately, the store was tiny and he could see him from inside. Even more fortunately, they carried the right brand, if not the same flavor of food.

He was heading back to Mortimer’s Folly, as his brother Morgan liked to call the ugly old white elephant their grandfather lived in, when he saw something that made him wonder if he was some kind of jinx. Or just the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet. Because ahead of him, parked on the opposite shoulder of the two-lane road, was a car. And standing beside it was a very frustrated-looking woman.

It was all he could do not to let Jennifer see his amusement when he did a quick U-turn and pulled in behind her. Getting out, he called, “Problem?”

She glared at him through her bangs, which had fallen into her eyes. “I ran out of gas.”

“Good. I was afraid the old ladies had ditched you again.”

Shifting her gaze away as he reached her side, she admitted, “They used up all my gas and I didn’t even notice it.”

“You know, I have to admit, someday I’d like to see those two aunts of yours for myself.”

“You can come to their funerals. They’ll be next week. Ivy would definitely want an open casket.”