LITMIR.BIZ

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and dogs.

      And red nail polish on her toes.

      He snorted and went to pour himself a scant two fingers of Scotch. He tossed the drink back in one neat swallow, and umm-hmmed to his mother as he used the edge of his thumb to rub away an errant drop he felt trickling down his bottom lip. All right, he’d admit that perhaps that last thing was a little picky. Lots of women wore red nail polish. Not the woman he was eventually going to settle down with, though. He was close to achieving part one of the Plan—his dream of being the Security and Surveillance honcho who sent others to take care of problems rather than being the man who was constantly sent. And when he accomplished that, it would be in a real town, not fantasyland Las Vegas. Once he kicked the dust of this place from his heels he’d hit the road to his future without a backward glance.

      When the career aspect was settled, he’d start to work on fulfilling part two of his agenda, finding the right woman with whom to share his success. Maybe a nice kindergarten teacher or something. You could bet the bank that a woman like that—stable, reliable, refined—would wear pale pink polish on her toes.

      Then something his mother said jerked him back to the conversation. “What? Dad’s retiring again?”

      “For heaven’s sake, Wolfgang,” his mother said with brisk gruffness. “Haven’t you listened to a thing I’ve said?” Sweetheart that she was, however, she spared him from having to admit he had not. “We’ll be moving to Rothenburg, Germany, in a month’s time—perhaps two—if the offer we made on a lovely little biergarten is accepted.”

      When she put his father on to enthusiastically impart the details of the establishment they expected to buy in the quaint medieval walled town, Wolf’s attention drifted again. Dammit, Carly Jacobsen was breaking the covenant rules with her apartment full of pets, and he’d be well within his rights to turn her in.

      It was a shame that, for all the healthy respect he had for the rules, he’d never been and didn’t intend to turn into a whistle-blower. He’d simply have to do his best to stay out of her orbit and hope that one of these days she’d actually bestir herself to give her out-of-control dog some proper training.

      So it was settled. He’d made a decision and was prepared to implement it. That should take care of this unusual restlessness.

      It pissed him off when it didn’t.

      Who needed this irritation? Wasn’t it enough that he dealt with problems every single moment he was at the Avventurato? He shouldn’t have to cope with this shit when he came home, as well. He had decided his course of action; it was therefore time to move on.

      His father put his mother back on, and with a start he suddenly realized they were calling from his sister’s place in Indiana. Instead of demanding to know if Katarina was once again unloading responsibility for her son, Niklaus, onto his mother, however, he envisioned the showgirl next door. With her you-can-just-kiss-my-ass blue-eyed glare and that fuck-me body.

      Then he snapped upright. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” he said, finally giving the telephone conversation his full attention. “You want me to do what?”

      When he hung up a short while later, he thrust both hands through his hair, stared blankly at the wall across the room and swore. If he were a superstitious man he would be invoking that ancient mantra of being careful what you wished for.

      Because suddenly he had a much bigger problem on his hands than a space-cadet neighbor with dangerously compelling sex appeal.

      His parents were coming to visit him. And they weren’t coming alone.

      CARLY KNOCKED ON HER second-floor neighbors’ door the following morning.

      Ellen answered. “Well, hello, darling,” she said warmly, and stepped back, opening her door wide in welcome. “Come in.”

      But when she did as the petite older woman directed, Ellen’s brow furrowed in concern and she reached out to cup a protective hand around Carly’s elbow. “You’re limping!”

      “Yeah, I got knocked on my keister at the casino last night by a little old lady with a big purse.”

      “Is that Carly I hear?” came a gruff male voice, and Mack, Ellen’s soon-to-be-husband, came into the foyer, folding the sports section of the Review Journal and tucking it beneath his arm. “I thought I recognized that voice. How are you, sweetheart? You’ve been hurt?”

      Her heart warmed at the older couple’s concern. Her own mother would have treated her daughter’s injury as a nuisance whose sole purpose was to wreck her day. Or she’d have gotten her maid to take care of Carly. “I twisted my ankle. The swelling’s already a lot better this morning and I’m hoping I’ll be good to go by the time my weekend’s over.”

      “That’s right, they moved your days off to Tuesday and Wednesday, didn’t they?” Mack said. “I guess if you had to get hurt, you at least had good timing.”

      “That was my thought, too.”

      “Meanwhile, I’m sure it hurts like the devil,” Ellen said, and waved her into the living room. “Go in and sit down. Do you want some ice for it?”

      “No, thanks. Maybe I could put it up for a few minutes, though. It feels better when it’s elevated.”

      “Of course. Mack, help her get settled and see that she’s comfortable. I’ll go pour us some coffee.”

      The stocky, gray-haired man ushered her into a chair in the beautifully appointed living room and cleaned a stack of papers off a hassock, then dragged it over for her foot. “Do you need me to walk the dogs?” he inquired as he slid a throw pillow beneath her heel.

      Delight flooded her at his thoughtfulness. “Aw, Mack. Have I told you recently how much I adore you?” she asked. “But, no, thank you. I managed to hobble out with Buster and Rufus earlier, and I’m hoping my ankle will be up for a longer walk around the grounds this evening.”

      “Let me get this straight.” Mack gave her a speaking look over his reading glasses. “You took the dogs out with a bum foot and Rufus didn’t bolt on you?”

      “Here we go.” Ellen entered the room with a tray that held not only three cups of coffee, but her home-baked cookies as well, beautifully arranged upon a paper doily that graced a delicate china plate.

      “Carly took the dogs out for their constitutional this morning,” Mack informed her.

      The older woman turned to look at Carly, her eyebrows arching toward her stylish salt-and-pepper bangs. “And Rufus didn’t take advantage of your bad foot and take off?”

      Carly laughed. “I know—isn’t it miraculous? That’s really the reason I’m here.” She accepted a mug of coffee and picked a sugar-dusted chocolate cookie off the plate. “He started to. He was making his usual Great Escape beeline for the parking lot, but I said Zits! and he came back.”

      “Zits?” Mack snorted. “What kind of word is that to make a dog who’s never listened to a thing anyone’s ever said suddenly pay attention?”

      “Not zits like a pimple,” Ellen said with a look of enlightenment. She turned to Carly. “Sitz, am I right? It’s German for sit, I believe.”

      “Is that what it means? How cool is that? Rufus knows German.” Another rolling laugh escaped her. “Not only knows it—Rufus loves German. He responds to it as if it’s his native language and actually pays attention. Well, he didn’t actually sit, but he came back, which is more than he would have done yesterday. So I wondered, Ellen—” she looked at her retired head-librarian neighbor “—do you think you could look up a couple of other German commands for me on your computer?”

      “Oh, darling, I’d love nothing more. Unfortunately, my cable provider is in the middle of merging with another company and my computer hasn’t let me connect to the Internet since last night. When I called the cable company about it this morning they admitted it was a problem at their end but couldn’t give

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