LITMIR.BIZ

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the exact same color as her fingernails and her lips.

      Or…

      “Three,” finished Arden—but the weapons didn’t move. She put her hands on her hips, as if she meant business. “Oh, for mercy’s sake!”

      Smith almost hoped to see her lose her temper—he’d loved catching sight of the real Arden behind the composure since long before they’d started dating.

      He wasn’t ready for her to step right into the line of fire.

      Where the slip of a finger could kill her!

      “Hey!” Immediately he turned his weapon to the ceiling and thumbed on the safety. His voice cracked. “Arden!”

      “Are you insane?” demanded the other woman, doing the same thing.

      “Did I teach you nothing about personal safety?” demanded Smith, struggling to catch his breath. “Never, never—”

      “NEVER!” insisted her friend.

      “I,” noted Arden icily to Smith, dismissing the deadly weapons with a roll of her eyes, “am not the one breaking into houses—”

      “The door was unlocked, no breaking required.”

      “—and pointing guns at people. Shame on you!”

      The strange thing was, instead of laughing at her, he did feel a touch shamed…which made him petulant. “I was just making sure you weren’t into something over your head.” Justified, he jabbed a finger in her direction. “Which apparently you are. Secret societies and all that…that crazy talk….”

      The old lady was staring through him again and smirking. Somehow she knew he knew better. He didn’t like her seeming omniscience one bit.

      Rejecting Comitatus leadership, as he and his friends had done, meant exile. Breaking one’s vow of secrecy, on top of the whole dishonor thing, could be one of those nasty, dying-by-blade offenses, depending on the circumstances.

      Yet another reason Smith carried a gun today.

      All the old lady said was, “Is nobody going to introduce us?”

      “How ill-mannered of me.” Only Arden could fit so much sarcasm into such proper words or so bright a smile. “Miz Greta, Val, please let me introduce the wholly untrustworthy Smith Donnell. Smith and I have known each other’s families since childhood. Once, during a period of temporary insanity on my part, we dated. Smith, these are Miss Greta Kaiser and Ms. Valeria Diaz. Greta teaches piano at my teen recreation center, and Valeria could kill you for fun where you stand.”

      “Gladly,” clarified Val.

      “How do you do?” Smith tried his most charming smile. He even bowed a little before seating his revolver back into its SOB holster.

      Generally, that was meant as a rhetorical question, but Valeria Diaz said, “Personally, I’m pissed that nobody’s dialing nine-one-one yet. And you?”

      Torn about what I heard from that Comitatus meeting. Too happy to be in Arden’s presence again. Worried about the dark sedan that followed you here from the rail station. “I’m feeling more than a little silly that I chose to hide in a pantry instead of taking a stairway to the whole of upstairs,” he admitted, and offered his hand in truce.

      Val deliberately ignored it.

      “Much as I’m sure you would have enjoyed rifling through Miz Greta’s private things.” Arden pushed his hand back down to his side, her own hands soft, her scent sweetly familiar. Thanks for the brush-off, Val. “I’d rather know why it’s your business whether I’m over my head, off my game or out of my mind. There’s a great deal I wouldn’t put past you, Smith. A great deal…” She widened her eyes to think of the enormity of things that included.

      “Nice vote of confidence,” Smith muttered, to drag her back on track.

      It worked. “But stalking? Why shouldn’t we call the authorities?”

      None of them expected Greta to step in. “Because if we call the police, Mr. Donnell will miss the story he risked so much to hear. Let’s all return to the parlor to deal with the larger issue at hand. Mr. Donnell, would you like some iced tea?”

      Val’s mouth dropped open in blatant amazement. Arden, being Arden, revealed her surprise with the barest of blinks—but Smith was pretty adept at reading the annoyance of those blinks, and he grinned in pure triumph. Maybe the old lady was crazy, maybe not. But he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth…especially when he’d seen so few gift horses lately.

      “Why, thank you, Miz Greta. I would love some tea…and maybe a slice of that delicious strudel?” As he accompanied his new favorite person and her gamboling, happy dog toward the front of the house, making the most of his status as a welcome guest, Smith caught Arden’s soothing murmur to Val.

      “Just take deep breaths, and it will pass. He inspires almost everyone to kill him, sooner or later.”

      She had no idea how right she was.

      The question was, how could someone as perfect as Arden have inspired similar—and all-too-real—threats?

      And why was someone with tinted windows parked just down the street, keeping watch on her?

      Greta Kaiser was not crazy. Nor was she completely blind, physically or emotionally. The macular degeneration gave her central blindness. That meant if she looked directly at Smith Donnell, she saw no face at all, barely a head. But she could glimpse, with her remaining peripheral vision, how Arden Leigh snuck peeks at him when she thought nobody was looking. When Greta turned her old eyes on Arden, the beautiful socialite all but vanished—but Greta got a clearer impression of Smith Donnell beside her, a hint of strong profile and brown hair and blatant interest in—almost longing for—someone he had supposedly dumped. He’d managed to sink onto the love seat next to Arden before Val could.

      Arden made an amusing show of ignoring his nearness completely.

      Greta also noted Smith’s worn jeans and T-shirt, his cheap shoes. Put that together with the unlikelihood of Arden having dated someone from a significantly lower social caste—have known each other’s families since childhood—and Greta found far more truth on the couple’s periphery than anyone might by looking at their relationship straight on.

      This man may have lost his chance to be Arden Leigh’s hero…but he might yet prove to be Greta’s.

      “My family name,” she said, when everyone had finished their bickering and settled back in the parlor, Dido flopped happily between them, “is Kaiser. Does anyone know what that name implies?”

      “It’s German,” offered Arden.

      Greta turned expectantly to Smith, even if that meant losing sight of his expression.

      “It means ‘emperor,’ right?” he asked. When Arden and Val stared at him, he seemed to square his shoulders. “What, you think I bought my way through college?”

      “Yes, ‘emperor’.” Greta settled back in her favorite chair, comforted by Dido’s chin on her foot. “The name derives from the word ‘Caesar,’ because the Hapsburg dynasty professed direct lineage to the Roman emperors, themselves descendents of the epic hero Aeneas. Hence our claim to the Holy Roman Empire.”

      “And you’re a Hapsburg?” Arden sat up. “Of the Austrian Hapsburgs?”

      In periphery, Greta caught the suspicion that began to darken Smith Donnell’s strong profile. He was starting to figure this out already.

      Clever. Arden had exceptionally good taste.

      “Let us say we are a significant branch off that family tree. As you might guess, my father was a powerful man, descended from a seemingly unending line of powerful men. I was born in this house, back when Oak Cliff was the garden spot of Dallas society. I fully expected a life of private schools, debutante

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