She's No Angel

The one-sided conversations and stories the woman told had fascinated Jen. She’d often sat unnoticed, listening, until Ivy snapped out of one of her trances long enough to shoo her away. Sometimes with a threat to sell her to the child catcher who, in Jen’s dreams, looked just like Ivy. Rail-thin, bony and menacing.

She supposed she ought to thank the aunts for one thing: they’d made finding out she was adopted a bit more bearable. She’d taken the news from her parents shortly after her twentieth birthday with surprising good grace. Surprising to them, she supposed. Considering she’d long wished she didn’t share the blood of the aunts, the news hadn’t been all that unwelcome.

Over the years, though she and her parents had lived in Connecticut—not too far away—the visits to Trouble had been few. Until a little over a year ago when her father, after having a massive heart attack, had elicited a promise from her to take over the care of his elderly sisters. She’d promised, of course. She would have promised him anything at that point.

Her father had, thankfully, survived and he and her mother had retired to North Carolina last fall. But because he’d been so weakened by the experience, Jen had insisted on keeping her promise. She loved him too much to allow him to deal with the old witches on a regular basis. That was exactly the kind of stress his doctor said could end up killing him.

Taking over the aunts’ mangled finances, she’d made sure their electricity remained on and their account at the grocery store was paid. Ida Mae and Ivy supposedly had money, each having been widowed by wealthy men—Ivy under suspicious circumstances.

But they were miserly and kept whatever they had well hidden. So it was a good thing Jen’s first two satirical advice books had exploded in popularity: she was supporting the pair.

She sensed her father wouldn’t be happy about that, but she didn’t want to bother him with it. Besides, what else did she have to spend her money on? It wasn’t as if she had a husband and kids. And though she liked nice clothes, she couldn’t see paying a fortune for them. She hadn’t wanted to give up the same rent-controlled apartment she’d been living in since she’d gotten her start as the “Single in the City” advice columnist at Her Life magazine fresh out of grad school. So her living expenses hadn’t gone up after her unexpected success.

And, the aunts lived in Trouble, Pennsylvania, which wasn’t exactly on the top-ten list of towns with a high cost of living. She wasn’t sure it would even hit the bottom ten, since it was a town only by the loosest definition of the word.

Still, she was paying the bills, which was why she’d come on this most recent trip. The aunts were both in their seventies, Ivy so frail she looked as if a falling leaf could knock her down. Jen wanted them to move out of their dangerous, death-trap old houses and into an assisted-living facility where they could torment professionals, rather than each other.

Preferably one far away from New York City.

The minute she’d mentioned the possibility, however, they’d made their position clear. They’d tricked her out of her shoes, out of her car, and stranded her in the middle of nowhere.

“Guess they didn’t like the idea,” she mumbled as she followed the dark, sexy stranger who’d come to her rescue.

“What?” asked the dark, sexy stranger in question as he came to an abrupt halt in front of her.

She almost walked right into him. Except she somehow didn’t, mainly by sticking her hand out so it landed hard on his back, sending him stumbling a step forward. “Sorry.”

“At least you didn’t knock into me with the hand holding the deadly weapon,” he said as he turned around to face her.

Though from some men the comment would have sounded teasing, he sounded very serious. As if he’d wondered if he’d been exposing himself to danger by walking in front of her…As if she might have cracked him over the head and stolen his car.

“I’m really not dangerous, you don’t have to be nervous about giving me a ride,” she said, trying to ease his worries.

Finally, a twinkle appeared in those dark, dreamy brown eyes of his, which indicated the man might actually know how to express good humor beyond that half cough, half laugh he’d let out earlier. “I’m so relieved.”

“I was mumbling about my aunts,” she said, wondering why she suddenly felt flustered.

“Talking to yourself, then?”

Again that twinkle appeared, and she wondered if he was laughing at her. But before she could decide, he swung around and started walking again, leaving her flustered. It was an unaccustomed feeling. And an unwelcome one.

Then she gave herself a break…. How could she not be feeling a little flustered when, for the first time in months, she’d met a very hot guy who didn’t want to throw her in front of a train because of the books she’d written?

A hot guy. Oh, yes, indeed.

Her aunts had consumed her thoughts, but nothing could stop the genuine, feminine response to a man like this one for long. Walking behind him, she couldn’t help noticing the way the man filled out his jeans. Perfectly.

A great male tush was probably the only thing that could distract her from the dark emotions she’d been having about her aunts, and she enjoyed the view during the last few steps to his Jeep. He was, quite simply, magnificent, from the tips of his jet-black hair to the bottoms of his feet.

She didn’t see a lot of sexy, rugged males these days, not since she’d left her columnist job at Her Life to focus on her books. The last two new men she’d met had moved into her apartment building in recent weeks. One, old Mr. Jones, looked like Frankenstein’s sidekick, Igor, and had already been over to borrow everything from the phone book to toilet paper.

Fortunately for anyone he might call, he hadn’t seemed to need them both at the same time.

But at least he wasn’t downright slimy. Unlike Frank, the new super hired by her landlord. At their first meeting, he’d made some pretty revolting come-on suggestions involving his tool belt, some chocolate syrup and a tube of lubricating jelly.

When he’d found out she was a published writer, Frank had started scheming. Claiming his grandfather had been somebody famous once, he swore he had tons of stories he could tell her. She, he proposed, could write the stories and they’d split the money fifty-fifty, getting rich together.

Uh…like she hadn’t heard that before.

But things hadn’t gotten really bad with Frank until he’d recognized her from the picture on the back of her latest book. All pickup attempts had ceased as he’d proceeded to blast her for making his last girlfriend dump him. It seemed the woman had grown a spine. Or some good taste. Or just a distaste for chocolate syrup and lubricating jelly.

Despite having a romantic track record that made Bridget Jones’s look stellar, Jen didn’t long to be standard bearer for hard-ass women. But if her books helped one woman decide to ditch a pot-bellied, greasy-haired guy with onion breath and jeans that hugged the crack of his butt, she figured her job had been well done.

Of course, she’d had to live with leaky pipes, stuck windows and a broken ice maker for the past few months. Not to mention hate mail and, recently, some disturbing phone calls that had forced her to have her phone number changed. Twice.

Despite what some men thought, Jen’s sarcastic books were meant more as black-comedy satires than advice-for-women pieces. Erma Bombeck with snark. Dave Barry with cattiness. That was what the reviewers said, anyway. Even with a master’s in psychology, she’d never set herself up as some kind of marriage counselor. The books were the result of letters she’d received from readers of Her Life, battle stories from friends and coworkers.

And her own experiences with men she’d dated, including four straight Manhattan losers interested only in money until 6:00 p.m. and only in sex until 6:00 a.m.

Women’s romantic misery was, after all, a universal, timeless theme. She’d even included some of her crazy old relatives’ tales. Aunt Ivy was a font of information regarding the battle of the sexes…and if some of the stories were true, she’d been a lethal weapon during that battle for many years.

But some men just had no sense of humor and didn’t get the joke. Probably, despite that tiny twinkle, like this one. The one whose jeans rode his hard body perfectly, hugging lean hips and enfolding some strong male thighs in their faded blue fabric. Those flinty brownish-black eyes might have shown a tiny hint of humor, but his short, barked laugh really hadn’t. It had sounded creaky, as if it didn’t get much use.

Nope, not much of a sense of humor here. Just as well. A jolly disposition wouldn’t go with that rock-hard jaw, wide, tightly controlled mouth and his thick, dark hair cut short and spiky. He looked like the type who should be dressed in army fatigues, holding an AK-47, blowing up buildings on a big screen at a movie theater. Tough enough to be dangerous…Sexy enough to be the next box-office action hero.

With about as much personality as a two-dimensional character. He was so sure of her he didn’t even wait to see if she was coming. Nor was he courteous enough to offer her any help. Her feet could be bloody stumps for all he knew.

This guy obviously hadn’t learned charm from his very eccentric grandfather, who’d been so gentlemanly he’d make a young Cary Grant seem like a bum. And to hear her aunts talk, he was just about as sexy, too.

Don’t go there, a voice in her head screamed as she remembered some of the innuendo the women had dropped after their meeting with Mr. Potts. She did not want to know what went on in the Feeney sisters’ bedrooms, especially since seeing the Kama Sutra sheets in Ida Mae’s washing machine.

Jen didn’t know which bothered her more—the idea of Ida Mae and Ivy sharing a man. Or the thought that her seventy-something-year-old relatives were getting it—wildly—while she hadn’t had even the most basic, boring, twist-push-thrust missionary sex in so long her diaphragm probably no longer fit.

“Buckle up,” her reluctant rescuer said as she got in the Jeep, casting a quick glance at the mixed-breed dog sprawled on the back seat. The animal barely lifted his head in greeting.

Man’s best friend was just as polite as the man in this case.

“Don’t worry, he’s friendly.”

Right. Just like his owner.

“The worst he might do is drool on you.”

Her pretty new Saks sundress was already windblown, grass-stained, and dinged with the gravel and road dirt her car’s tires had flung at her as she’d tried to chase down her aunts. A little dog drool probably wouldn’t hurt much.

“What’s his name?” she asked, mainly to fill the vehicle with conversation as they started to drive toward town.

“Mutt.”