LITMIR.BIZ

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seemed to spill out of her and bathe him in her good humor. “No, no boyfriend.”

      Hallelujah. He’d already noticed there was no wedding ring.

      “But there really is a Butch…”

      “Oh, yeah?”

      Instead of meeting his eye, she glanced down at her feet, kicking a small branch away with one sneaker-clad foot. “He’s my dog. A toy poodle.”

      “Is his name really Butch?”

      She tugged one corner of her lip between her teeth before slowly shaking her head. “It’s Giorgio.”

      Max snorted. “Who named him?”

      “Me.”

      Shaking his head, he mourned for poor old Giorgio. “That should be against the law. Saddling a completely hideous name on another living creature.”

      “I like Giorgio. It’s very…Mediterranean.”

      “Bet he gets the snot beat out of him by the other pups at the doggie park.”

      “He’s got a bit of a Napoleon complex,” she admitted. “So he does tend to get in trouble with some of the bigger dogs. That’s why my younger sister decided to start calling him Butch once she moved in with me.”

      A sister who lived with her. He filed the information away for future use. Not that he knew for sure that he’d ever be invited in for coffee and an all-night sex-fest after one of their inevitable dates. But he was hoping. And a live-in sister could make things a little…crowded.

      Now, however, wasn’t the time to be thinking that way. Not until he was out of this whole book jam. Best behavior, he reminded himself. You’re Mr. Boy Next Door. Because, though he wanted to believe this woman was in Trouble for exactly the reasons she claimed, he wasn’t ready to completely discount the possibility that he was being played.

      A player was always on the lookout for anyone who wanted to play him. And once upon a time, Max had been one of the best players around.

      “So whose speed-dial number did you have your finger on?”

      “The Trouble Police Department. They are programmed into my cell phone.” She shuddered lightly, though the day was warm and comfortable. “I put them in there when I arrived and found out my landlord likes to get naked and prune the rosebushes in his backyard on the weekend. Which, to me, seems like a dangerous combination—thorns, hedge clippers and nudity.”

      “Ah. You’re staying at the Dewdrop.”

      “Yes.”

      “Could be worse. You could be staying at Seaton House, which used to be open as a hotel just north of Trouble.”

      Cringing, she admitted, “I saw pictures on the Internet of that place, hulking over the town like a gargoyle hovering over its still-bleeding prey.”

      Good visual.

      “I had this image of a nightmarish version of Satan’s Hotel where demons turn down your bed and you realize it’s full of snakes. You check in and you never check out. It looked as if Norman Bates and his mother lived there.”

      “They might. Or so says the Trouble gossip mill. The hotel closed down a month ago, leaving the Dewdrop as the only lodging option within twenty miles of here.” He grinned. “Nicely worded description by the way.”

      “Thanks. I guess I’ve got a lot of practice trying to paint pictures with words.”

      “Ah. You’re a writer?”

      She didn’t answer right away, staring at the ground in front of them as if afraid she’d trip and fall over a jumbled mound of brush. Finally, though, she said, “I’ve wanted to be a novelist since I was a kid.”

      Though he had no fondness for writers lately, he admitted, “Well, you’re good. As long as you stick to fiction and none of that tell-all crap.”

      Like Grace. But this blonde was nothing like Grace, who wasn’t really a writer at all. She was merely a spoiled brat who was never happy if she wasn’t messing with someone’s life.

      His companion stumbled a little and Max grabbed her arm to steady her. “Careful.”

      “Thanks,” she said, her voice low.

      They walked in silence for a few yards, then Max said, “Just so you know, I’d read your books. You’ve got me convinced to never set foot in Seaton House, much less sleep in it.”

      He wondered if she’d believe him if he told her there was somewhere she could be staying that was even more frightening—the house where they were heading. The one where he currently resided.

      Because hearing a few dozen screaming cuckoos every hour had to be worse than sleeping one thin wall away from the owner of the Seaton House, a man most of Trouble apparently considered a murderer. Or from Al Fitzweather, whose goods, one would hope, would at least be hidden by his beer gut whenever he was walking around the house in the buff.

      “Remind me to do a narrative passage on Al Fitzweather and the Dewdrop Inn, just to keep you safe from that place, too,” she said.

      “If there’s a law against bad pet names, there should also be one against unattractive people getting naked in public,” he said, inwardly cringing at the mental picture of the inn owner, and then of the old lady in his cockpit a few weeks ago.

      “I think there already is.”

      “In Trouble? One can never be sure…”

      “Good point.”

      Thinking about her comments regarding her cell phone, he added, “You know, even with your speed dial, I don’t think any of the three officers on the Trouble P.D. could get here fast enough to save you if I turned into Jason or Pinhead.”

      “You have a thing about horror movies?”

      “You obviously do, too, since you know exactly who I’m talking about, including Norman Bates.”

      They were passing beneath an enormous elm and a bit of sunlight peeked between its leaves to bathe her hair in a warm, soft glow. He wondered if the color was natural and thought it might be—a cascading jumble of golds, blondes and light browns, it probably couldn’t have come from a bottle.

      His body chose that moment to remind him of that lack of breakfast again, because Max felt something roll over, deep inside. Definitely food related. Not female related. Uh-uh.

      “I think I’ve seen every horror movie ever made, even though we weren’t allowed to watch them in our house growing up,” she explained. “My friends would have terror marathons whenever I slept over. I was a bad influence.”

      Oh, right. This soft, curvy-looking woman was probably about as bad as Mr. Peanut.

      “A couple of times I’d go to the movies to see something PG rated but sneak into Child’s Play or another bloody flick.”

      She had a naughty side. He wouldn’t have predicted that—though he should have, given the sarcastic, earthy wit that she exhibited at unexpected moments. “How very shocking,” he said, sarcasm heavy in his tone.

      “Anyway, I learned enough to know that the girl who fights back is the only one who makes it out of the dark and scary house alive, so when I moved to the city I took a self-defense course from an ex-cop. I could hurt you…just so you know.”

      That he wouldn’t have predicted. “You telling me another Butch story?”

      Shaking her head, she lifted a golden brow, as if daring him to find out. That gleam in her blue eyes told him he’d better not. So maybe the pretty blonde wasn’t naive at all—just confident of her ability to defend herself.

      Not that she needed to. Max had never so much as yelled at a woman, much less lifted a hand to one. Seductive whispers or sweet, playful words were so much more

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