Just Between Us...

Not even coffee.

Instead, her neighbor Candy Cane stood in the doorway looking well turned out—as usual—in full makeup, teased blond hair, and pink-and-red kimono robe, likely just having returned home from a busy night walking the strip.

“Oh, it’s you,” Mallory said.

Candy flashed her a smile. Somewhere around forty, Candy was a prostitute who never made any apologies about who she was or what she did for a living. Mallory liked that about her.

Unfortunately she was also an early riser; something Mallory didn’t like.

“Sugar?” Candy asked, dangling an empty porcelain coffee cup from one perfectly manicured finger.

“Filters?” Mallory returned.

“Who’s there?” Layla asked over the phone.

“Candy. Just a second,” Mallory answered then dropped the receiver to her side. “I’ll trade you sugar for a coffee filter.”

Candy scrunched up her nose, making her look cuter if that were at all possible. “I don’t touch the stuff. Do you know what it does to your skin?”

“I don’t care what it does to my skin. I just care that it wakes me up.”

Candy shook her head, walked through to the kitchen, got her sugar, then was standing in the doorway again in no time. “Thanks, hon,” she said with a large smile. “And maybe you should think about some of that instant flavored stuff. I like that.”

Mallory shook her own head then slammed the door after her. What kind of person didn’t drink coffee?

Then again, what kind of hooker took in every kind of stray imaginable, both of the animal and human variety?

“Mallory? Mallory? Are you still there?”

Oops. Layla.

She lifted the receiver back to her ear. What had she been saying? Oh, yeah, they’d been discussing meeting up at Reilly’s to help Layla make it through the day of her cancelled wedding. “I’m still here. And what you just said about everyone finding out on their own steam? Well, you sound like the Layla I know and love again already.”

Mallory’s gaze traveled around her apartment. Newspapers, her plastic-wrapped bridesmaid dress, the panty hose to go with it.

Panty hose…

She picked up the square package, a nagging voice at the back of her mind telling her that maybe she shouldn’t. What? she answered. There was no wedding, so she didn’t need them anyway.

She tore open the plastic, yanked out the silky stockings then headed back for the kitchen.

“You always make sense,” Layla said. “I knew there was a reason I called you.”

Mallory grimaced. Whatever that meant. She got a pair of scissors out of a drawer and cut the foot out of one of the stockings. With help from a rubber band, she fastened the makeshift filter to the holder then dumped the coffee grounds in.

“So I’ll see you at Reilly’s in a few, then?” Mallory asked.

“Got it,” Layla confirmed.

Mallory clicked the disconnect button then put the cell down on the counter and stared as the coffeemaker gurgled then spat out her one precious cup of caffeine. Her gaze drifted back to the cell phone. She picked it up and pressed a speed dial number.

ACROSS THE WAY IN Culver City, Jack sat at his narrow kitchen table in a pair of jeans and leisurely drank a cup of coffee, his ten-year-old bloodhound at his feet, the morning newspaper in his hand. As far as apartments went, his wasn’t much bigger than Mallory’s. But it was much better organized. And a great deal neater. If there was one thing he hated about Mallory, it was her housekeeping skills. Or lack thereof.

No good. The negative reflection wasn’t enough to chase from his mind the memory of her face as she reached orgasm in the linen closet last night.

Damn.

He glanced over the paper at the calendar on the wall with the number 26 circled in red indicating the deadline for his January column, then rustled the paper back to block it again.

What was Mallory doing right now?

He frowned. Probably sleeping. Probably thinking everything was still right as rain between them. Probably choosing to forget the entire conversation they’d had the night before.

He rustled the paper again, trying to make himself focus on the words, but he couldn’t seem to link more than two of them together, and two words didn’t make a sentence. Or a whole lot of sense for that matter.

Boomer lifted his head to stare at him with his droopy eyes and then whined.

“What is it, B?” Jack glanced over at the dog’s full food and water bowls, then looked at the newspaper again. Boomer sighed heavily then laid his head back down.

At ten years of age—which was ancient for a bloodhound—the dog was becoming increasingly lazier. If that was even possible. One morning Jack had actually timed him and the dog hadn’t moved in five straight hours. Not to eat. Not to use the dog door to go into the patch of dead grass that served as his backyard to go to the bathroom. Nothing.

He should call the vet and find out if the behavior was normal. Then again, he’d just taken Boomer to the vet for his annual two months ago and everything had checked out fine.

The only time the old hound seemed animated was when Mallory was around.

Jack gave up on the paper altogether and blew a long breath out of his inflated cheeks. If he was going to stick to his threat not to have sex with Mallory again, he’d have to stop thinking every other minute about having it with her.

The phone on the wall rang. He glanced over his shoulder where it was two feet away, then leaned back on the rear two legs of the chair to snatch up the cordless receiver.

“Yeah,” he said, settling the legs of his chair back onto the floor.

“Reilly’s. Quick. Pick me up.”

Jack’s throat tightened. It was Mallory. And she’d just said those five words.

“And bring emergency rations.”

She hung up.

Jack stared at the receiver. True to form, Mallory was acting like last night had never happened.

He shut off the phone then laid it on the table.

He picked the paper back up and shook it out, this time intent on getting something out of it.

He was well into his tenth story when the phone rang again twelve minutes later.

“Are you on the road?” was Mallory’s hello.